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Folklore says villagers in Llangernyw, midway between Abergele and Llanrwst, learn their grim fate from a supernatural being under the boughs of a 3,000-year-old yew tree.

Each year on Hallowe'en and 31 July the Angelystor is said to appear in the medieval church of Llangernyw in Conwy. On those dates it solemnly announces, in Welsh, the names of those parish members who will die shortly after.

According to folklore, one Hallowe'en a tailor called Shôn ap Robert scorned the idea of Angelystor while drinking in a local pub. His fellow drinkers challenged him to visit the church to prove the story groundless.

Taking up the challenge, ap Robert made his way to the church. But when he arrived at the door he heard a deep voice from within reciting names. And the first name he heard was his own.

"Hold, hold!" he cried. "I am not ready yet!" But, ready or not, he died later that year.

The church at Llangernyw is itself centuries old, but the site it stands on was sacred thousands of years before it was built.

The churchyard contains the oldest living thing in Wales - a yew tree which botanists believe to be over 3,000 years old - dating it's origins to sometime in the prehistoric Bronze Age. Elsewhere in the churchyard are two standing stones, which would have been raised up by pagans at about the same time.