It began in the barn. The servant man on Edward Roberts's farm in the parish of Llangunllo was threshing when the flail was pulled out of his hands and thrown up onto the hayloft. He did not make much of it the first time. When it had happened three or four times he went into the house to say so.
The master was away. The mistress and the maid laughed at him, and said they would come out to the barn and protect him. So they sat in the barn, one knitting and one winding yarn. Before long the knitting and the yarn were snatched out of their hands and tossed about the barn.
When they went back to the house they saw the dishes on the shelves sliding to and fro, and some were thrown onto the stone floor and smashed. That night there was a terrible clattering in the kitchen, and in the morning they could hardly walk for broken crockery. This went on, night after night.
Neighbours came to look, and then people from further off, some from as far away as Knighton. A man came from Knighton to read prayers and drive the spirit out; the book was taken out of his hands and thrown up the stairs. Stones were thrown at people, and once pieces of iron were shot at them out of the chimney. In the end the spirit set the house on fire, and nothing would put it out. The house burned to the shell. For a long time afterwards the walls and two chimneys still stood by the roadside, and people going to and from Knighton market would point them out.
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