The Miser of Llancaiach Fawr

In the days when misers took their calling seriously, an old skinflint farmer lived at Llancaiach Fawr, Nelson.

The Llancaiach mansion was built when Good Queen Bess ruled the land and many a time its walls echoed with the sound of silver-toned harping or White-Haired Dafydd reciting his odes of praise. Words of Llancaiach generosity were parabled throughout the realm and history records that Charles the Cavalier King suppered there one evening.

Things changed when the miser took possession of Llancaiach Fawr. No longer were harpists and bards drenched with golden sunshowers of gifts No royal guests graced the mansion; no-one knocked on the great oak door.

The miser locked himself inside with the only company he desired – his wealth, all sun and moon long he padded his house on velvet steps, searching every nook and cranny for hideouts to couch his moneybags. Like a little mouse, he gnawed hidey-holes everywhere – high in the attic, deep in the cellar, behind oak panelled walls …

The old skinflint closeted himself in his secret dens to build lofty towers of silver groats and gold sovereigns. He stroked each coin from head to tail as fondly as a witch smoothes her black cat.

One day the miser disappeared and it wasn’t until many a day later, when misers began to deposit their money in banks, that his skeleton was discovered in one of his cubby holes. Like an Egyptian Pharaoh of old, he was enshrined in death with his treasure.

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