The devil who joins a game of cards and is given away by his feet is one of the most widely told warning tales in Wales. Trevelyan found versions in Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire, and one at Llanmaes.
Near the village, at a place known as the Gallows Way, a party of young men had settled down to play cards on a Sunday. A stranger came along and offered to teach them a "new trick". They were delighted and invited him to sit in, and for a good half hour the play went fast and cheerful.
Then one of them happened to glance down. "How well your boots are polished!" he said. The others looked. Where the stranger's boots should have been there were hooves. The cards were flung over the stile into the field and in the confusion the stranger vanished. The place where he had been sitting was "as black as a coal" and smelt of brimstone.
That was not the end of him in the neighbourhood. In a field not far from the spot, Trevelyan says, the devil could be seen at midnight tossing burning hay about, while his great black dog, with eyes "like balls of fire", rattled its chains and terrified anyone walking home late.
The name Gallows Way suggests an old execution site, though Trevelyan says nothing more about it and its exact location is not known.
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