Wonderful News from WALES: OR, A TRUE NARRATIVE OF AN Old WOMAN Living near LANSELIN in DENBYSHIRE; Whose Memory serves her Truly and Perfectly to relate what she hath seen and done One Hundred and Thirty Years ago. Having now the full number of her Teeth; the most of them were lost when she was Three score Years and Ten. She is also remembered by some of Ninety Years Old, to be Taller than she is by 17 or 18 Inches; With several other Circumstances of her Life, which shows Her to be the WONDER of our AGE.  
Licenced August 9 1677.  
LONDON, Printed for C. L. Anno Dom. 1677.   

Strange News from WALES, Or, a true Narrative of an Old Woman living near to Lancelin in Denbyshire, etc.  
NOthing appears so contradictory and idle, but some Philosopher or other has so earnestly espoused, that his life might have been easily taken, as a Mortgage for the security of the truth; Were the forfeiture thought considerable: And as of this sort there are many extravagant Precedents that would make Nature very ridiculous; so there are to be found amongst the graver sort of assertors all the world over, whimsies, more foolish and barbarous then with the Savages, who enjoyed scarce, or not at all, the light of Nature: Amongst other Bussling and trials of Pens, It hath been a great dispute about the age of Adam, Methuselah, etc. Some would have monthly years, deducing Arguments from Eve; Others from the Moon: Some more Persian-like, will give the Sun the Glory of completing the Year; holding also, Nature to be in a continual decay through her own weakness, or our wantonness; And though they ' did live so many Years heretofore, we have so changed our Bodies, that no one can be expected to live the quarter, nay scarce the Tithe of our Forefathers time. But 'twill be sound Nature cannot decay, nor has her Luxury so circumscribed our age, but that we do find Persons, whose extent of Years serve to confute such indigested Fancies.  
Not far from the seat of Old PARR, at this time lives, (near Lanselyn in Denbyshire,) a Woman, named Jane Morgan, whose Memory yet serves her to give an exact account of several things she hath seen and known One Hundred and Thirty Years ago: She walks uprightly, without the use of the least Stick; Her Teeth are almost all now perfect in her head, although about Threescore Years ago she had lost most of them; She can see as well without Spectacles, if not better then with them; Her Hearing is quick and apprehensive, and her Organs of Smelling are so corroborated by Age, that no Stench can invade them to the least prejudice. She was the first that learned that Famous and Memorable Tune called Sidanen, in all those parts. When Queen Elizabeth was Crowned, she led all the Dances, and continued the Head of all that Country sports, until the death of King JAMES; and was so sensible of the Glory she had achieved by such continual Custom, that she would not part with it, until she had bred her Daughter up to have it conferred on her; which she did in a public Assembly when the Coronation of King CHARLES the First was solemnised: But before her Daughter, as her Deputy had practised, and in her absence taught the Country Measures for the space of One and Twenty Years, having several Tunes Dedicated to her; Old Simon the King, was called her Delight, Jo Bent, her Fancy; Bobin Joy her Conceit; Sleeping and waking she sung the Sidanen; wherefore the Neighbours called her by that Name.  
Her Mother Jane Lloyd was married at Twenty years of age to one Evan Morgan an able Farmer's Son, who was the activ'st and strongest in his Country at Wrestling: But at a certain Trial of Skill, when he had foiled all the Neighbours, and Strangers too; She put on Man's apparel, entered the round, and gave him three Falls; Upon which she bore away the little Silver Bell that was the Conquerors due; But upon enquiry, who this Valiant stranger was, the young man fell so deeply in love with her, that maugre all his Friends he married her, and lived with her Forty five years, before her Womb was mature for Conception; About the sixty sixth year of her age she brought forth her first Born, a Daughter, who did not conceive till the Fifty Fifth year of her age.  
Many Masculine, and Heroic acts did this Virago Mother do, and though sometimes the Justices were severe, yet their Warrants were always void; and like Curses of Malefactors, returned upon themselves, for what ever ground she trod on, was to Catchpoles and Petty Constables, as fatal, as Irish Earth to Venomous Creatures.  
But as the Longest Day will have a Night, spiteful Age wrought a tendency towards a decay, upon her Vigorous Nerves, yet in all this while Time could not make her subject to the least Disease, though it has submitted Her to the most unheard of shifts for Food as ever were or can be, and by the Calculation of her Stomach, She may be thought now to be in the Meridian of her Age: Hundreds of her Neighbours can justify, that what Disease soever, Cattle, Horses, Swine, Sheep, or the like, die, her stomach (so far is Fantastic Prejudice unable to make the least Impress on her) has a Menstruum to digest gratefully such faetid Flesh, that others would not only abhor, but it would put such stress and violence upon them, that  Death would infallibly follow.  
'Tis a certain Truth, that Carron buried two or three Days in the Wintertime, she will take up, which without any other preparation, she will slice, and fling as Collops upon the Coals, which she will eat as savourly, as he that thinks he eats the best in Town, when he hath the rarest Cutlets dressed for him: And if her Prize cannot at once be eaten, she'll gently and carelessly salt the Remainder, and expose it to the greatest Fury of her smoking Cell, and prudently reserves it as a future happiness.  
If against a good Time her Neighbour's bounty will bestow any Corn upon her, she will yet upon her head make shift to carry Two Bushels to the Mill; Which though it be very remarkable in one of her Age, it is very inconsiderate to what she hath done formerly.  
When she was near an Hundred Years old, her Occasions inviting her about that time to Oswaldstrey Market, which is Three Miles; but because of its ruggedness and length, she had better have gone from London to Barnet: After she had there filled her Apron with cumbersome necessaries to that bulk, that the Burden seemed at some distance to walk before her; she was told by a slander by, that it was impossible for her to carry such a troublesome burden home: This man's Horse was then loaden with Two Pieces of course Welsh Cotton; She then scornfully answered; If you put those Two Pieces which your Horse seems almost to shrink under, upon my Shoulders, I will for a Wager undertake to carry them as far as my House, before You and your Horse can come thither: The Man being her Neighbour, fearful to lose, and unwilling to displease her; replied, he was more willing to ease then trouble her. But One of the incredulous Corporation, ignorant of her prodigious strength, waged with her, and suspecting her Neighbour would be partial; He, with 3 or 4 of his most curious Neighbours, got Horses, and followed her presently; and at the end of Two Miles and a half they overtook the Man, belabouring his weary Horse: They asked him for the Woman? he answered them, cursing, saying he had had 2 or 3 scurvy falls; and that he had no sight of her in a quarter of a Mile: They going forward, found her returned, sitting in her Chimney corner smoking Tobacco in a comfortable short Pipe; at which they were astonished.  
A Thousand more considerable Stories, must here (for brevity sake) be omitted: It will therefore be convenient to add a Relation her Neighbours give, in respect of her Age; some of Fourscore and Ten, remember they heard their Fathers say, she was a very proper tall Woman.  
In a House out of which she had seen buried Eleven Heirs, Her proportion as to her height, was taken above 100 years ago; And the last year coming to the same place, she was found to want of that measure betwixt seventeen and eighteen Inches; and now she is Four Foot and four Inches high, not at all stooping, at which the bystanders much admired; which she perceiving, told them, that her Mother was completely Two Yards high; And that before she died, she shrunk to Three Foot and Six Inches: So that she concluded by the graduation of their decays, before she had shrunk to her utmost, she must yet live above Threescore years; and who knows but she may? For she is as merry as a Girl of Fifteen, and will sing from Morning till Night; Her Memory is so lively, that she'll tell Stories of Queen Elizabeth and King James, as fresh, and more pleasantly than the sufferers in the late Wars can.  
I was the more willing to publish this, because I hoped some Virtuoso's would be so kind, as curiously to satisfy themselves of the Truth, and then the world after; with Reasons how this comes to pass; and why others live not to the same Age?  
What sort of Menstruum her Stomach has?  
How are her Organs ordered, since no Stench offends her?  
And since it is a Contradiction to say she grows less, how comes the whole Contexture of her Body with such consent of Parts to be diminished?  
And since the Bones must consequently be contracted, how come we to find Bones long buried, of the same length as when first Interred  
If any Person question the Truth of this Narrative, or desire to satisfy their Curiosity, let them repair to West-Smithfield, where she is daily expected, to convince the World of the Truth thereof.  
FINIS.