During the 19th Century, people in Wales could ill afford to pay a doctor to tend the desperately ill. Instead, they turned to a dyn hysbys, a wise man, or a conjuror as they were more widely recognized in remote areas. These men held a knowledge few understood: with charms they could cure illnesses; protect animals from witchcraft, remove curses, and investigate the future. One such conjuror lies dying in his remote farmhouse in the Rhondda whilst he appears at the magistrates' court on the charge of taking renumeration under false pretenses, promising to save a man's life.

Watkins was dying and the old man knew there was little he could do as his wife pleaded with him to write a charm. As the Victorian age supersedes the past, the old man remembers what once was and how he became part of an intrinsic ancient past that had all but been forgotten.