Elis Gruffudd – The Calais Welshman

"In circa 1552 Elis Gruffudd completed his massive chronicle of the history of the world from the Creation to his era. The chronicle (which is in Welsh) was divided in two, and in the second part, NLW Manuscript 3054D (Volumes i & ii), which is now on the Library’s website, we are told the history of England and Wales from the time of William the Conqueror to 1552.

Elis Gruffudd (‘The soldier of Calais’) was born circa 1490 in Upper Gronant in the parish of Llanasa, Flintshire. He joined the English army in about 1510 and fought in Holland and Spain. By 1518 he was working for Sir Robert Wingfield, a gentleman from Suffolk, and in 1520 he moved to Calais where Wingfield was an ambassador (and which was a part of England at the time)."

The announcement: Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru - The National Library of Wales
Elis Gruffudd webpage

The Cursing Stone

"I curse them going and I curse them riding; I curse them standing and I curse them sitting; I curse them eating and I curse them drinking; I curse them rising, and I curse them lying; I curse them at home, I curse them away from home; I curse them within the house, I curse them outside of the house; I curse their wives, their children, and their servants who participate in their deeds."


"May all the malevolent wishes and curses ever known, since the beginning of the world, to this hour, light on them. May the malediction of God, that fell upon Lucifer and all his fellows, that cast them from the high Heaven to the deep hell, light upon them."


The Cursing Stone of Carlisle.

Since it was put in a Carlisle museum in 2001, certain bad luck appears to have afflicted the good people of Carlisle. Do not fuck with 500 year old words of ill will. Here endeth the lesson.