Gwen ferch Ellis

Gwen ferch Ellis (c.1542-1594) was a spinner and linen-maker from Llandyrnog in the Vale of Clwyd, well known locally as a healer who made salves and remedies for animals and used rhyming charms to protect and heal the sick, including children, in exchange for small gifts of food or wool.

Her downfall began when a charm, written backwards, was discovered at Gloddaeth, the home of the powerful landowner and justice of the peace Sir Thomas Mostyn. Written backwards, the charm was assumed to carry a curse rather than a blessing, and gossip linked it to a recent quarrel between Mostyn and Jane Conwy, a gentry woman who counted Gwen as a friend — implying Gwen had been hired to curse Mostyn's household. Further accusations piled on: that she had bewitched Robert Evans, breaking his arm; that she had bewitched Lowri ferch John ap Ieuan, who lost the use of her limbs; and that she had murdered Lewis ap John by witchcraft.

In October 1594, Gwen ferch Ellis was hanged in Denbigh town square under the 1563 Witchcraft Act, aged about forty-two. Her case is the earliest documented witchcraft execution in Wales — one of only around five executions out of roughly forty recorded Welsh witch trials, in a country where the witch panics that swept much of Europe were comparatively rare. Her story has recently drawn renewed attention, including interest from filmmakers in dramatising her life.