As we approach the end of October, sentimental minds turn to mush at the thought of witches, goblins and other leathery Devil's playthings. Not mine. We Welsh have learned the hard way not to give any quarter to these broom-brandishing banshees.
Feminism, cat-fanciers and the Millennium have earned witchery an unthinking eclat, aided by the Emo phenomenon and the popularity of the Melanie Phillips look among our yoghurt-fed pubescents.
I'm happy to report that all of these fancies have passed Wales by, and any witch who dares clutter up our Cambrian mountain-tops with cauldrons and the like will be dowsed with willow, kettle and llymru ladle by the Snowdownia National Park Power Rangers, then packed off back to her creative writing class before you can say dream-catcher.
In the long centuries between the Tudor sacking of the monasteries and the rise of Calvinist Methodism, which met local demand for something livelier than bland old Swiss Calvinism, Wales was a predominantly pagan country.
Men wandered around oak groves clad in grubby dressing-gowns and monged on fly agaric, while our rosy womenfolk pleasured themselves on menhirs. Goats had the vote, hallucinating craftsmen decided that triple harps and round boats were an advance for two-armed people who wanted to go somewhere, and the rabbi of Llanelli Hebrew Congregation filled the village of Gorseinon with his estuarine golems.
In short, oedd 'na le yn ty ni.
The Godly advent of literacy, four-part harmony and public humiliation spared us this hippy nonsense for the last two hundred years, but now it's trying to creep back. No bloody road!
You seen one of these, you burn her. Simple as that. It's good for the environment, it brings communities together, the kids love it, and - who knows - you might save some old biddy's immortal soul.
And you can't say that every day, unless you're the Pope or something.
