Some local myths and legends and an interesting excerpt from

 "Kelly's of Monmouthshire 1901" that might be of interest to you

Please also check out the following link for lots of information on the Blaenau Gwent area.

http://www.blaenau-gwent.gov.uk

Excerpts from "Folklore of Blaenau Gwent" Old Bakehouse Publications

Local Legends

The Tasseled Cushion

Rees John Rosser of Hendy Farm  near Llanhilleth was feeding the oxen early one morning when he decided to lie down in the hay and rest. All of a sudden, he heard the sound of music approaching, and saw a large company dressed in striped clothes enter the barn. The fairies (for that is who they were) began to dance, and Rees watched as silently as he could until a woman, better dressed than the others, brought him a striped cushion with four tassles to rest his head. Suddenly a cockerel crowed at Blaen-y-Cwm Farm across the mountain above Hafodyrynys, and the fairies promptly fled - taking their cushion with them!

 Fairy funerals:

"Isaac William Thomas . . . being at one time at Havodavel and seeing, as it appeared to him, a Funeral coming down the Mountain; as it were to go towards Aberbeeg, or Lanithel Church. He stood in a Field by a wall which was between him and the high-way leading to Aberbeeg. When the Funeral, which came close to the side of the wall, was just over against him, he reached his hand and took off the black veil which was over the Bier, and carried it home it him. It was made of some exceeding fine Stuff, so that when folded it was a very little substance, and very light. He told this to several. I knew the Man myself, and in my youthful days conversed with him several times." Others saw them at sunset flying from hill to hill across Cwm Beeg - a sure portent of disharmony:

 The fairies had definite preferences regarding where they appeared:

 "The Fairies seem not to delight in open plain grounds of any kind, far from stones and wood, nor in watery, but in dry grounds, not far from Trees and Hedges, and the shade of grown Trees, the female Oak especially . . . Of all the places in the Parish of Aberystruth, they most frequently appeared at Havodavel, and Keven Bach, which are dry lightsome pleasant places." In "tempestuous bad weather", they often came into people's houses for shelter and "into some particular Houses more than others":" And the poor ignorant people, for fear of them, made them welcome by providing clean Water in the House; taking care that no Knife was near the Fire, or other Iron instruments, such as they knew were offensive to them, were left in the corner near the Fire; for want of which care many were hurt by them: and for cutting down the female Oaks, . . . Some were afraid . . . to enter their Gardens by night;"  The fairies were also capable of carrying grown men long distances across country:" They sometimes took Men in the night and carried them insensibly into other places. Sometimes very far; of which the following instance. Henry Edmund of Havodavel having been with the before mentioned Charles Hugh, of Coed y Pame, the said Charles Hugh, came with him as far as Lanhithel, and persuaded him to stay with him, at Lanhithel that night, which Henry Edmund would not agree to; but chose to go home; upon which Charles Hugh told him he had better stay with him, and not go farther. He went, but was taken up on the way, and carried so far as to the town of Landovery in Carmarthen-shire, which he well knew, and called at a Publick-house where he had been before, and the people earnestly persuaded him to stay with them; to which he would not comply, and going out into the street he was taken up again, and carried back to Lanhithel next morning, where he met with Charles Hugh, who saluted him saying "Did not I tell you, you had better stay with me?"  

The Hounds of Hell

The stretch of road from Cwm to Aberbeeg has many ghostly sightings to its credit. In the 18th century, one Llanhilleth man had a very unnerving experience: “Thomas Andrew, living at a place called the Farm, in this Parish, coming home by night, saw, by the side of a wall, the similitude of a dark man, creeping on all fours, scraping the ground, and looking aside one way and another, also making a dreadful noise; at which he was terribly frightened; for it was, to every one that will consider it, a dreadful appearance.” The same Thomas Andrew was also unfortunate enough to meet the Cŵn Wybr (“Sky Hounds”), also known as Cŵn Annwn (the Hounds of Hell). These were a pack of spectral hounds lead out at night by the King of the Otherworld to hunt the souls of the damned:  “As Thomas Andrew was coming home one night, with some persons with him, he heard, as he thought, the sound of hunting: he was afraid it was some person hunting the sheep, so he hastened on to meet and hinder them: he heard them coming towards him, though he saw them not: when they came near him, their voices were small, but increasing as they went from him: they went down the steep towards the River Ebwy, dividing between this parish and Mynydduslwyn, wherby he knew that they were what are called Cwn wybir, - (Sky dogs) but in the inwards parts of wales, Cwn-annwn, - (Dogs of Hell). I have heard say that these Spiritual Hunting Dogs have been heard to pass by the eaves of several houses before the death of someone in the family. Thomas Andrew was an honest religious man, who would not have told an untruth either for fear or for favour.”

 The Old Hag of the Mountains

Beware of the spirit of Juan White, a local witch! The apparition has the resemblance of a poor old woman, with an oblong four cornered hat, ash-coloured clothes ....with a pot or wooden can in her hand ...' When not terrifying local people with her hideous screams or cries of 'Wow Up!' her chief delight is leading travellers astray across the hills in misty weather. In the 18th Century, John ap John from Cwmcelyn was so terrified by her (and the sound of her phantom carriage) that he hid his face in the heather until she had passed by! She was seen regularly right up until the 1850s. 

The Ghost of P.C. Pope

Since the 1950s, a tall cloaked figure has been seen walking along this stretch of the road before disappearing without trace. Is this the ghost of P.C. Hosea Pope killed in a brawl at Aberbeeg in 1911? Does his spirit still patrol his old beat? In 1980, a local man met a figure in a top hat near the Hanbury Hotel. The figure stared him square in the face before pulling out his pocket watch. Suddenly, a woman’s screams rang out from the woods near the Brondeg Filling Station at Cwm Beeg. The figure walked up the road glancing in the direction from which the screams came. Overcoming his understandable fear, the local man followed on behind until, near a place called the Rhiw, the figure in the top hat vanished into thin

Ithel the Giant

At Llanhilleth, Many myths surround the 12th century church of St. Illtyd, and the immediate landscape. One story claims that at Llanhilleth, there lived a giant called Ithel,  who decided to build himself a house and began collecting boulders from Cefn Crib above Hafodyrynys. As he was carrying them back to Llanhilleth in his apron, the string broke and he dropped the boulders. And that, so local legend has it, was how the castle mound next to St. Illtyd’s church was first built!

 The Golden Calf

The altar at St. Illtyd’s chruch was once adorned with a golden statue of a calf which was stolen by two thieves. The enraged parishioners gave chase and caught the culprits in the woods beneath Pen y Fan Uchaf Farm on the other side of the valley; they confessed to burying the calf under a whitethorn tree. In vain the parishioners dug up every whitethorn on the hill and, to this day, no whitethorns grow in those woods!

Excerpt from Kelly's of Monmouthshire 1901

LLANHILLETH including ABERBEEG

 LLANHILLETH, or Llanhiddel, is a parish with a station 1 mile south from the church on the Western Valleys section of the Great Western railway, 173 miles from London and 5 miles west from Pontypool, in the Northern division of the county, hundred of Abergavenny, petty sessional division, union and county court district of Pontypool, and in the rural deanery of Blaenau Gwent, archdeaconry of Monmouth and diocese of Llandaff, and is within the area of the Abertillery urban district.

The Monmouthshire canal runs through the parish; the river Ebbw forms the western boundary of the parish. Aberbeeg, Six Bells and Crumlin are villages of Llanhilleth; the latter will be found under a separate head.

 The church of St. Illtyd, standing on rising ground, is an ancient building of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, west porch and a tower with spire containing 2 bells: in the church are various monuments, an ancient font and an antique church chest: the church was restored and decorated in 1891, when the old windows were reglazed, at a cost of £600: there are 150 sittings: in the churchyard are several old yew trees. The register dates from the year 1733.