Gloddaeth Wood lies on the ridge behind Llandudno, around the old Mostyn house of Gloddaeth Hall, now a school. In the 19th century it was thick, undisturbed woodland, a remnant, Elias Owen thought, of the forest Sir John Wynn described covering the district. It was also full of foxes, and the parishes around paid a bounty of half a crown for each one killed, so men with time on their hands went trapping there.
Thomas Davies of Tycoch, Rhyl, was one of them. Walking through the wood one day he found an earth with signs of cubs, and opposite it a big oak with forked branches where a man could sit hidden. He came back at dusk with his gun and settled in the fork to wait for the vixen to go out foraging.
It was quiet until he heard a scream from the direction of the sea, which was not far away. It sounded like a man in distress, and the sound was "Oh, oh". Davies thought it was a long way off and none of his business, and stayed where he was. But it came again, and again, and each time it was nearer. As it approached the night grew darker until he could see nothing at all. The cry stopped a few yards from the tree.
Then he saw it: a naked figure with eyes burning like fire, fixed on him, about a dozen yards away. It crouched, then stood, then crouched again, but never took its eyes off him. He thought of shooting and could not bring himself to. He shut his eyes for relief and felt forced to open them again. It went on for hours. At about four in the morning a cock crowed at Penbryn farm, and when he looked again the eyes and the thing they belonged to had gone.
Owen, who heard the tale second hand from a clergyman, pointed out that small boats often came to grief on that coast, the implication being that the figure was a drowned sailor.
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