Alluring Stone

The following description of the Alluring Stone appeared in ‘British Goblins’ (1881) by Wirt Sykes. ‘In Carmarthen are still to be found traces of a belief in the Alluring Stone, whose virtue is that it will cure hydrophobia. It is represented as a soft white stone, about the size of a man s head, originally found on a farm called Dysgwylfa, about twelve miles from Carmarthen town. Grains were scraped from the stone with a knife, and administered to the person who had been bitten by a rabid dog; and a peculiarity of the stone was that though generation after generation had scraped it, nevertheless it did not diminish in size. A woman who ate of this miraculous stone, after having been bitten by a suspicious cur, testified that it caused ‘a boiling in her blood.’ The stone was said to have fallen from the sky in the first instance.’

I don’t know yet where the farm called Dysgwylfa was, so the map below is centred on Camarthen and I will amend it once the true location is identified.