“An alternative initiation rite into the witch cult was known at Llandwei Brefi in Carmarthenshire in the 19th century. Prospective witches would attend Mass on a Sunday at their local church The would secret the consecrated host in their mouths instead of su lowing it. Once safely outside the church, they walked widdershine (anti-clockwise) around the graveyard nine times. Nine is an important number in magical belief, and associated with the occult power of the moon. The would-be witch then fed the host to a large toad or a black dog waiting at the boundary of the churchyard at the lych-gate. This animal was said to be the Old Lad or the Devil himself in animal guise. Sometimes the witch kissed the toad and this may be a cryptic reference to the use of the so-called ‘sacred mushroom’, usually the red-topped and white spotted Fly Agaric toadstool (Amanita muscaria), or the Liberty Cap (Psilocybe semilanceolata), which grows on hillsides and moorland in Wales. These fungi were likely used to attain a trance state and contact with the spirit world. One south Pembrokeshire witch who was supposed to have per- formed this initiation rite was Moll of Redberth who lived at Carew in the 19th century. There were many rumours that she was a practitioner of the Black Arts and on her deathbed she finally confessed to the vicar. Moll told him that when she had attended her first communion as a young girl she had not eaten the wafer, but had hidden it in her hand. On the way home she met a black dog on the road and had fed him the host saying:
‘I thus give the Devil the body of the Lord that I may become a witch.’”
