Sir David Llwyd was in Llanidloes late one night, and as he set off home he saw a boy from his own neighbourhood. He asked the lad if he would like a ride home behind him. The boy said yes and was lifted up onto the horse's back behind the magician. They went so fast that they were home in no time, and on the way the boy lost one of his garters.
Next day the boy noticed something hanging in the ash tree near the church. He climbed up to see what it was, and found it was his garter. Which shows, said the Rev. Edmund Jones, who wrote the story down, that they rode home through the air.
Llwyd kept a familiar spirit locked up in a book. Once, when he was in Radnorshire, he left the book behind at a house he had been visiting and sent his boy back for it, with strict orders not to open it. The boy opened it. At once the spirit demanded to be set to work. The boy, badly frightened but quick-witted, told it to throw stones out of the river. It did, and for a while the air was full of stones flying up out of the Wye, and the boy had to skip about lively to dodge them. When it had thrown up a great heap and came back demanding more work, he had to think of something else, and the story, like most familiar-spirit stories, is really about how hard it is to keep such a servant busy.
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