A popular legend giving the origin of the jack-o'-lantern in Wales

deals with the idea of a stupid devil: A long time ago there lived on

the hills of Arfon an old man of the name of Sion Dafydd, who used to

converse much with one of the children of the bottomless pit. One

morning Sion was on his way to Llanfair-Fechan, carrying a flail on

his shoulder, for he had corn there, when whom should he meet but his

old friend from the pit, with a bag on his back, and in it two little

devils like himself. After conversing for some time they began to

quarrel, and presently were in the midst of a terrible fight. Sion

fell to basting the devils with his flail, until the bag containing

the two little ones went all to pieces, and the two tumbling out, fled

for their lives to Rhiwgyfylchi, which village is considered to this

day a very wicked place from this fact. Sion then went his way

rejoicing, and did not for a long time encounter his adversary.

Eventually, however, they met, and this time Sion had his gun on his

shoulder. 'What's that long thing you're carrying?' inquired the

devil. 'That's my pipe,' said Sion. Then the devil asked, 'Shall I

have a whiff out of it?' 'You shall,' was Sion's reply, and he placed

the mouth of his gun in the devil's throat and drew the trigger. Well;

that was the loudest report from a gun that was ever heard on this

earth. 'Ach!--tw!--tw!' exclaimed the smoker, 'your pipe is very

foul,' and he disappeared in a flame. After a lapse of time, Sion met

him again in the guise of a gentleman, but the Welshman knew it was

the tempter. This time he made a bargain for which he was ever

afterwards sorry, i.e., he sold himself to the devil for a sum down,

but with the understanding that whenever he could cling to something

the devil should not then control him. One day when Sion was busily

gardening, the evil one snatched him away into the air without

warning, and Sion was about giving up all hopes of again returning to

earth, when he thought to himself, 'I'll ask the devil one last

favour.' The stupid devil listened. 'All I want is an apple,' said

Sion, 'to moisten my lips a bit down below; let me go to the top of my

apple-tree, and I'll pick one.' 'Is that all?' quoth the diawl, and

consented. Of course Sion laid hold of the apple-tree, and hung on.

The devil had to leave him there. But the old reprobate was too wicked

for heaven, and the devil having failed to take him to the other

place, he was turned into a fairy, and is now the jack-o'-lantern.[86]

FOOTNOTE:

[86] 'Cymru Fu,' 355 et seq.

IV.

Best known among the natural objects in various parts of Wales which

are connected with the devil in popular lore, is the Devil's Bridge,

in Cardiganshire. Associated with this bridge are several legends,

which derive their greatest interest from their intrinsic evidences of

an antiquity in common with the same legends in other lands. The

guide-books of the region, like guide-books everywhere, in their

effort to avoid being led into unwarranted statement, usually indulge

in playfully sarcastic references to these ancient tales. They are

much older, however, than the bridge itself can possibly be. The

devil's activity in bridge-building is a myth more ancient than the

medieval devil of our acquaintance. The building story of the Devil's

Bridge in Cardiganshire runs briefly thus: An old woman who had lost

her cow spied it on the other side of the ravine, and was in great

trouble about it, not knowing how to get over where the animal was.

The devil, taking advantage of her distress, offered to throw a bridge

over the ravine, so that she might cross and get her cow; but he

stipulated that the first living creature to cross the bridge should

be his. The old woman agreed; the bridge was built; and the devil

waited to see her cross. She drew a crust of bread from her pocket,

threw it over, and her little black dog flew after it. 'The dog's

yours, sir,' said the dame; and Satan was discomfited. In the story

told of the old bridge over the Main at Frankfort, a bridge-contractor

and his troubles are substituted for the old woman and her cow;

instead of a black dog a live rooster appears, driven in front of him

by the contractor. The Welsh Satan seems to have received his

discomfiture good-naturedly enough; in the German tale he tears the

fowl to pieces in his rage. In Switzerland, every reader knows the

story told of the devil's bridge in the St. Gothard pass. A new bridge

has taken the place, for public use, of the old bridge on the road to

Andermatt, and to the dangers of the crumbling masonry are added

superstitious terrors concerning the devil's power to catch any one

crossing after dark. The old Welsh bridge has been in like manner

superseded by a modern structure; but I think no superstition like the

last noted is found at Hafod.

V.

The English have a saying that the devil lives in the middle of Wales.

There is in every part of Wales that I have seen a custom of whitening

the doorsteps with chalk, and it is said to have originated in the

belief that his Satanic majesty could not enter a door thus protected.

The devil of slovenliness certainly would find difficulty in entering

a Welsh cottage if the tidiness of its doorstep is borne out in the

interior. But out-of-doors everywhere there are signs of the devil's

active habits. His flowers grow on the river-banks; his toes are

imprinted on the rocks. Near Tintern Abbey there is a jutting crag

overhung by gloomy branches of the yew, called the Devil's Pulpit. His

eminence used in other and wickeder days to preach atrocious morals,

or immorals, to the white-robed Cistercian monks of the abbey, from

this rocky pulpit. One day the devil grew bold, and taking his tail

under his arm in an easy and _degagee_ manner, hobnobbed familiarly

with the monks, and finally proposed, just for a lark, that he should

preach them a nice red-hot sermon from the rood-loft of the abbey. To

this the monks agreed, and the devil came to church in high glee. But

fancy his profane perturbation (I had nearly written holy horror) when

the treacherous Cistercians proceeded to shower him with holy water.

The devil clapped his tail between his legs and scampered off howling,

and never stopped till he got to Llandogo, where he leaped across the

river into England, leaving the prints of his talons on a stone.

VI.

Where accounts of the devil's appearance are so numerous, it is

perhaps somewhat surprising so little is heard of apparitions of

angels. There are reasons for this, however, which might be enlarged

upon. Tradition says that 'in former times' there were frequent visits

of angels to Wales; and their rare appearance in our days is ascribed

to the completion of revelation. One or two modern instances of

angelic visitation are given by the Prophet Jones. There was David

Thomas, who lived at a place called the Pantau, between the towns of

Carmarthen and Laugharne; he was 'a gifted brother, who sometimes

preached,' in the dissenting way. One night, when he was at prayer

alone in a room which stood apart from his house, there was suddenly a

great light present, which made the light of the candle no longer

visible. And in that light appeared a band of angels, like children,

very beautiful in bright clothing, singing in Welsh these words:

Pa hyd? Pa hyd? Dychwelwch feibion Adda!

Pa hyd? Pa hyd yr erlidiwch y Cristnogion duwiol?

How long? How long? Return ye sons of Adam!

How long? How long will ye persecute the godly Christians?

After a time they departed; reappeared; departed again; the great

light faded; and the light of Mr. Thomas's candle was once more

visible on his table. There was also Rees David, a man of more than

common piety, who lived in Carmarthenshire, near Whitlands. At the

time of his death, it was testified by 'several religious persons who

were in the room,' that there was heard, by them and by the dying man,

the singing of angels. It drew nearer and nearer as his death-struggle

grew imminent, and after his death they 'heard the pleasant

incomparable singing gradually depart, until it was out of hearing.'

That the dying do see something more, in the last moment of expiring

nature, than it is given to living eyes to see, is a cherished belief

by numberless Christian men and women, whom to suspect of

superstitious credulity were to grossly offend. This belief is based

on exclamations uttered by the dying, while with fixed and staring

eyes they appeared to gaze intently at some object not visible to the

bystanders. But that the bystanders also saw, or heard, voice or

vision from the Unknown, is not often pretended.

VII.

Reference has been made to the euphemisms in use among all peoples to

avoid pronouncing the name of the devil. That many good folk still

consider the word devil, lightly spoken, a profane utterance only

second to a similar utterance of God's name, is a curious survival of

old superstitions. No prohibition of this sort attaches to the words

demon, fiend, etc., nor to such euphemisms, common in both Welsh and

English, as the adversary, the evil one, etc. It is an old custom in

North Wales to spit at the name of the devil, even when so innocently

used as in pronouncing the name of the Devil's Bridge. The peasantry

prefer to call the bridge 'Pont y Gwr Drwg,' the Bridge of the Wicked

One; and spitting and wiping off the tongue are deemed a necessary

precaution after saying devil, diafol, or diawl. The phrase 'I hope to

goodness,' so common in Wales and elsewhere, is clearly but another

euphemism for God; the goodness meant is the Divine beneficence.

'Goodness' sake' is but a contraction of 'For God's sake!' The Hebrew

tetragrammaton which was invested with such terror, as representing

the great 'I am,' finds an explanation, according to the ideas of

Welsh scholars, in the Bardic traditions. These relate that, by the

utterance of His Name, God created this world; the Name being

represented by the symbol /|\, three lines which typify the focusing

of the rising sun's rays at the equinoxes and solstices. The first ray

is the Creator, the second the Preserver, and the third the Destroyer;

the whole are God's Name. This name cannot be uttered by a mortal; he

has not the power; therefore it remains for ever unuttered on earth.

At the creation the universe uttered it in joy at the new-born world;

'the morning stars sang together.' At the last day it will be uttered

again. Till then it is kept a secret, lest it be degraded, as it has

been by the Hindus, who, from the three rays created their three false

gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Tradition relates that Einigan Gawr

saw the Divine Name appear, and inscribed it on three rods of mountain

ash. The people mistook the three rods thus inscribed for God himself,

and Einigan died from grief at their error.[87]

FOOTNOTE:

[87] 'Dosparth Edeyrn Dafod Aur,' 3.

VIII.

The devil with which we are acquainted is a character unknown to Greek

or Roman mythology; this devil was a later invention; but his identity

with the genii, or jinns of the 'Arabian Nights,' the Divs of Persian

history, is clear enough. Ahriman, the evil spirit, king of the realms

of darkness and of fire, was apparently the progenitor of Satan, as

Vritra was of Ahriman. Both these ancient arch-fiends appeared as

serpents in form, and were myths representing the darkness, slain by

the light, or the sun-god, in the one case called Indra, in the other

Ormuzd. The medieval devil with horns and hoofs does not appear in the

records of Judaism. He is an outgrowth of the moral principle of the

Christian era; and traced to his origins he is simply a

personification of the adversary in the never-ending struggle on earth

between light and darkness. That struggle is not, in nature, a moral

one; but it remains to-day, as it was in the beginning, the best type

we have of the battle between right and wrong, and between truth and

error. When God said, 'Let there be light,' the utterance became the

symbol and guide of virtue, of brave endeavour, and of scientific

research, until the end.

CHAPTER VII.

Cambrian Death-Portents--The Corpse-Bird--The

Tan-Wedd--Listening at the Church-Door--The Lledrith--The

Gwrach y Rhibyn--The Llandaff Gwrach--Ugliness of this

Female Apparition--The Black Maiden--The Cyhyraeth, or

Crying Spirit--Its Moans on Land and Sea--The St. Mellons

Cyhyraeth--The Groaning Spirit of Bedwellty.

I.

There are death portents in every country, and in endless variety; in

Wales these portents assume distinct and striking individualities, in

great number and with clearly defined attributes. The banshee,

according to Mr. Baring-Gould, has no corresponding feature in

Scandinavian, Teutonic, or classic mythology, and belongs entirely to

the Celts. The Welsh have the banshee in its most blood-curdling form

under the name of the Gwrach y Rhibyn; they have also the Cyhyraeth,

which is never seen, but is heard, moaning dolefully and dreadfully in

the night; the Tolaeth, also only heard, not groaning but imitating

some earthly sound, such as sawing, singing, or the tramping of feet;

the Cwn Annwn and Cwn y Wybr, Dogs of Hell and Dogs of the Sky; the

Canwyll Corph, or Corpse Candle; the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral, and

many others--all of them death-portents. These, as the more important

and striking, I will describe further; but there are several others

which must first be mentioned.

The Aderyn y Corph is a bird which chirps at the door of the person

who is about to die, and makes a noise that sounds like the Welsh word

for 'Come! come!' the summons to death.[88] In ancient tradition, it

had no feathers nor wings, soaring without support high in the

heavens, and, when not engaged upon some earthly message, dwelling in

the land of illusion and phantasy.[89] This corpse-bird may properly

be associated with the superstition regarding the screech-owl, whose

cry near a sick-bed inevitably portends death. The untimely crowing of

a cock also foretells the sudden demise of some member of the family.

In North Wales the cry of the golden plover is a death-omen; these

birds are called, in this connection, the whistlers.[90] The same

superstition prevails in Warwickshire, and the sound is called the

seven whistlers.

Thunder and lightning in mid-winter announce the death of the great

man of the parish. This superstition is thought to be peculiar to

Wales, or to the wilder and more secluded parts of North Wales.[91]

Also deemed peculiar to Wales is the Tan-wedd, a fiery apparition

which falls on the lands of a freeholder who is about to die. It is

described as appearing somewhat similar to falling stars, but slower

of motion. 'It lighteneth all the air and ground where it passeth,'

says 'the honest Welshman, Mr. Davis, in a letter to Mr. Baxter,'

adding, 'lasteth three or four miles or more, for aught is known,

because no man seeth the rising or beginning of it; and when it falls

to the ground it sparkleth and lighteth all about.'[92] It also comes

as a duty-performing goblin, after a death, haunting the graveyard,

and calling attention to some special grave by its conduct, as in the

following account: Walter Watkins, of the Neuadd, in a parish of

Brecknockshire, was going one dark night towards Taf Fechan Chapel,

not far from his house, when he saw a light near the chapel. It

increased till it was as big as a church tower, and decreased again

till it was as small as a star; then enlarged again and decreased as

before; and this it did several times. He went to his house and

fetched his father and mother to see it, and they all saw it plainly,

much to their astonishment and wonder. Some time after, as a neighbour

was ploughing in a field near the chapel, about where the mysterious

light had been seen, the plough struck against a large flat stone.

This the ploughman raised up, after a deal of difficulty, and under it

he found a stone chest, in which was the jawbone of a man, and nought

else except an earthen jug. The bone was supposed to be the remains of

a man who had disappeared long before, and whose wife had since

married; and on her being told of it, she fell ill and died. The

light, which had often been seen before by various persons, was after

this seen no more. It was believed to be the spirit of the murdered

man, appearing as a light.

Listening at the church-door in the dark, to hear shouted by a ghostly

voice in the deserted edifice the names of those who are shortly to be

buried in the adjoining churchyard, is a Hallow E'en custom in some

parts of Wales. In other parts, the window serves the same purpose.

There are said to be still extant, outside some village churches,

steps which were constructed in order to enable the superstitious

peasantry to climb to the window to listen. The principle of

'expectant attention,' so well known to physiological science, would

be likely in this case to act with special force as a ghost-raiser. In

an ancient MS. by Llywelyn Sion, of Llangewydd, there is mention of a

frightful monster called the Fad Felen, which was seen through the

key-hole of Rhos church by Maelgwn Gwynedd, who 'died in consequence.'

This monster was predicted in a poem by Taliesin, as a 'strange

creature' which should come from the sea marsh, with hair and teeth

and eyes like gold. The yellow fever plague, which raged in Wales

during some five years in the sixth century, is the monster referred

to in this legend.

The Scotch wraith and Irish fetch have their parallel in Wales in the

Lledrith, or spectre of a person seen before his death; it never

speaks, and vanishes if spoken to. It has been seen by miners previous

to a fatal accident in the mine. The story is told of a miner who saw

himself lying dead and horribly maimed in a phantom tram-car, led by a

phantom horse, and surrounded by phantom miners. As he watched this

dreadful group of spectres they passed on, looking neither to the

right nor the left, and faded away. The miner's dog was as frightened

as its master at the sight, and ran howling into the darkness. Though

deeming himself doomed, the miner continued to work in the pit; and as

the days passed on, and no harm came to him, he grew more cheerful,

and was so bold as to laugh at the superstition. The day he did this,

a stone fell from the roof and broke his arm. As soon as he recovered

he resumed work in the pit; his death followed instantly. A stone

crushed him, and he was borne maimed and dead in the tram along the

road where his lledrith had appeared, 'a mile below the play of

sunshine and wave of trees.'[93]

The Mallt y Nos, or night-fiend, is a death-omen mentioned by Rev.

D. R. Thomas in the 'Archaeologia Cambrensis'; and Croker[94] gives as

the Welsh parallel of the Irish death-coach a spectre called ceffyl

heb un pen, or the headless horse. The marw coel, or 'yellow spot

before death,' is another death-omen which I have been able to trace

no further than the pages where I find it.[95]

FOOTNOTES:

[88] 'Dewch! dewch!'

[89] 'Cymru Fu,' 299.

[90] 'Camb. Quarterly,' iv., 487.

[91] 'Arch. Camb.' 4th Se., iii., 333.

[92] Brand, 'Pop. Ant.' iii., 127.

[93] 'Tales and Sketches of Wales,' in 'Weekly Mail.'

[94] 'Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland,' 341.

[95] 'The Vale of Glamorgan.'

II.

A frightful figure among Welsh apparitions is the Gwrach y Rhibyn,

whose crowning distinction is its prodigious ugliness. The feminine

pronoun is generally used in speaking of this goblin, which unlike the

majority of its kind, is supposed to be a female. A Welsh saying,

regarding one of her sex who is the reverse of lovely, is, 'Y mae mor

salw a Gwrach y Rhibyn,' (She is as ugly as the Gwrach y Rhibyn.) The

spectre is a hideous being with dishevelled hair, long black teeth,

long, lank, withered arms, leathern wings, and a cadaverous

appearance. In the stillness of night it comes and flaps its wings

against the window, uttering at the same time a blood-curdling howl,

and calling by name on the person who is to die, in a lengthened dying

tone, as thus: 'Da-a-a-vy!' 'De-i-i-o-o-o ba-a-a-ch!' The effect of

its shriek or howl is indescribably terrific, and its sight blasting

to the eyes of the beholder. It is always an omen of death, though its

warning cry is heard under varying circumstances; sometimes it appears

in the mist on the mountain side, or at cross-roads, or by a piece of

water which it splashes with its hands. The gender of apparitions is

no doubt as a rule the neuter, but the Gwrach y Rhibyn defies all

rules by being a female which at times sees fit to be a male. In its

female character it has a trick of crying at intervals, in a most

doleful tone, 'Oh! oh! fy ngwr, fy ngwr!' (my husband! my husband!)

But when it chooses to be a male, this cry is changed to 'Fy ngwraig!

fy ngwraig!' (my wife! my wife!) or 'Fy mlentyn, fy mlentyn bach!' (my

child, my little child!) There is a frightful story of a dissipated

peasant who met this goblin on the road one night, and thought it was

a living woman; he therefore made wicked and improper overtures to it,

with the result of having his soul nearly frightened out of his body

in the horror of discovering his mistake. As he emphatically

exclaimed, 'Och, Dduw! it was the Gwrach y Rhibyn, and not a woman at

all.'

III.

The Gwrach y Rhibyn recently appeared, according to an account given

me by a person who claimed to have seen it, at Llandaff. Surely, no

more probable site for the appearance of a spectre so ancient of

lineage could be found, than that ancient cathedral city where some

say was the earliest Christian fane in Great Britain, and which was

certainly the seat of the earliest Christian bishopric. My narrator

was a respectable-looking man of the peasant-farmer class, whom I met

in one of my walks near Cardiff, in the summer of 1878. 'It was at

Llandaff,' he said to me, 'on the fourteenth of last November, when I

was on a visit to an old friend, that I saw and heard the Gwrach y

Rhibyn. I was sleeping in my bed, and was woke at midnight by a

frightful screeching and a shaking of my window. It was a loud and

clear screech, and the shaking of the window was very plain, but it

seemed to go by like the wind. I was not so much frightened, sir, as

you may think; excited I was--that's the word--excited; and I jumped

out of bed and rushed to the window and flung it open. Then I saw the

Gwrach y Rhibyn, saw her plainly, sir, a horrible old woman with long

red hair and a face like chalk, and great teeth like tusks, looking

back over her shoulder at me as she went through the air with a long

black gown trailing along the ground below her arms, for body I could

make out none. She gave another unearthly screech while I looked at

her; then I heard her flapping her wings against the window of a house

just below the one I was in, and she vanished from my sight. But I

kept on staring into the darkness, and as I am a living man, sir, I

saw her go in at the door of the Cow and Snuffers Inn, and return no

more. I watched the door of the inn a long time, but she did not come

out. The next day, it's the honest truth I'm telling you, they told me

the man who kept the Cow and Snuffers Inn was dead--had died in the

night. His name was Llewellyn, sir--you can ask any one about him, at

Llandaff--he had kept the inn there for seventy years, and his family

before him for three hundred years, just at that very spot. It's not

these new families that the Gwrach y Rhibyn ever troubles, sir, it's

the old stock.'

IV.

The close resemblance of this goblin to the Irish banshee (or benshi)

will be at once perceived. The same superstition is found among other

peoples of Celtic origin. Sir Walter Scott mentions it among the

highlands of Scotland.[96] It is not traced among other than Celtic

peoples distinctly, but its association with the primeval mythology

is doubtless to be found in the same direction with many other

death-omens, to wit, the path of the wind-god Hermes.

The frightful ugliness of the Gwrach y Rhibyn is a consistent feature

of the superstition, in both its forms; it recalls the Black Maiden

who came to Caerleon and liberated Peredur:[97] 'Blacker were her face

and her two hands than the blackest iron covered with pitch; and her

hue was not more frightful than her form. High cheeks had she, and a

face lengthened downwards, and a short nose with distended nostrils.

And one eye was of a piercing mottled gray, and the other was as black

as jet, deep-sunk in her head. And her teeth were long and yellow,

more yellow were they than the flower of the broom. And her stomach

rose from the breast-bone, higher than her chin. And her back was in

the shape of a crook, and her legs were large and bony. And her figure

was very thin and spare, except her feet and legs, which were of huge

size.' The Welsh word 'gwrach' means a hag or witch, and it has been

fancied that there is a connection between this word and the mythical

Avagddu,[98] whose wife the gwrach was.

The Gwrach y Rhibyn appears also as a river-spectre, in

Glamorganshire.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] 'Demonology and Witchcraft,' 351.

[97] 'Mabinogion,' 114.

[98] Avagddu means both hell and the devil, as our word Heaven means

both the Deity and his abode.

V.

A death-portent which is often confused with the Gwrach y Rhibyn, yet

which is rendered quite distinct by its special attributes, is the

Cyhyraeth. This is a groaning spirit. It is never seen, but the noise

it makes is no less terrible to the ear than the appearance of its

visible sister is to the eye. Among groaning spirits it is considered

to be the chief. The Prophet Jones succinctly characterises it as 'a

doleful, dreadful noise in the night, before a burying.' David

Prosser, of Llanybyther parish, 'a sober, sensible man and careful to

tell the truth,' once heard the Cyhyraeth in the early part of the

night, his wife and maid-servant being together in the house, and also

hearing it; and when it came opposite the window, it 'pronounced these

strange words, of no signification that we know of,' viz. '_Woolach!

Woolach!_' Some time afterward a funeral passed that way. The

judicious Joshua Coslet, who lived by the river Towy in

Carmarthenshire, testified that the Cyhyraeth is often heard there,

and that it is 'a doleful, disagreeable sound heard before the deaths

of many, and most apt to be heard before foul weather. The voice

resembles the groaning of sick persons who are to die; heard at first

at a distance, then comes nearer, and the last near at hand; so that

it is a threefold warning of death. It begins strong, and louder than

a sick man can make; the second cry is lower, but not less doleful,

but rather more so; the third yet lower, and soft, like the groaning

of a sick man almost spent and dying.' A person 'well remembering the

voice' and coming to the sick man's bed, 'shall hear his groans

exactly like' those which he had before heard from the Cyhyraeth. This

crying spirit especially affected the twelve parishes in the hundred

of Inis Cenin, which lie on the south-east side of the river Towy,

'where some time past it groaned before the death of every person who

lived that side of the country.' It also sounded before the death of

persons 'who were born in these parishes, but died elsewhere.'

Sometimes the voice is heard long before death, but not longer than

three quarters of a year. So common was it in the district named, that

among the people there a familiar form of reproach to any one making a

disagreeable noise, or 'children crying or groaning unreasonable,' was

to ejaculate, 'Oh 'r Cyhyraeth!' A reason why the Cyhyraeth was more

often heard in the hundred of Inis Cenin was thought to be that Non,

the mother of St. David, lived in those parts, where a village is

called after her name, Llan-non, the church of Non.

On the southern sea-coast, in Glamorganshire, the Cyhyraeth is

sometimes heard by the people in the villages on shore passing down

the channel with loud moans, while those dismal lights which forebode

a wreck are seen playing along the waves. Watchers by the sea-shore

have also heard its moan far out on the ocean, gradually drawing

nearer and nearer, and then dying away; and when they thought it gone

it has suddenly shrieked close to their startled ears, chilling their

very marrows. Then, long after, they would hear it, now faint, now

loud, going along the sands into the distant darkness. One or more

corpses were usually washed ashore soon after. In the villages the

Cyhyraeth is heard passing through the empty streets and lanes by

night, groaning dismally, sometimes rattling the window-shutters, or

flinging open the door as it flits by. When going along the country

lanes it will thus horrify the inmates of every house it passes. Some

old people say it is only heard before the death of such as are of

strayed mind, or who have long been ill; but it always comes when an

epidemic is about to visit the neighbourhood.

A tradition of the Cyhyraeth is connected with the parish churchyard

at St. Mellons, a quaint old-fashioned village within easy tramping

distance of Cardiff, but in Monmouthshire. It is of a boy who was sent

on an errand, and who heard the Cyhyraeth crying in the churchyard,

first in one place, then in another, and finally in a third place,

where it rested. Some time after, a corpse was brought to that

churchyard to be buried, but some person came and claimed the grave.

They went to another place, but that also was claimed. Then they went

to a third place, and there they were allowed to bury their dead in

peace. And this going about with the corpse was 'just the same as the

boy declared it.' Of course the boy could not know what was to come to

pass, 'but this crying spirit knew exactly what would come to pass.' I

was also told by a person at St. Mellons that a ghost had been seen

sitting upon the old stone cross which stands on the hillside near the

church.

VI.

Other groaning spirits are sometimes heard. A girl named Mary Morgan,

living near Crumlyn Bridge, while standing on the bridge one evening

was seized with mortal terror on hearing a groaning voice going up the

river, uttering the words, 'O Dduw, beth a wnaf fi?' (O God, what

shall I do?) many times repeated, amid direful groans. The conclusion

of this narration is a hopeless mystery, as Mary fainted away with her

fright.

Much more satisfactory, as a ghost-story with a moral, is the tale of

the groaning spirit of Bedwellty.[99] There was one night a wake at

the house of Meredith Thomas, over the body of his four-year-old

child, at which two profane men (named Thomas Edward Morgan and

Anthony Aaron) began playing at cards, and swearing most horribly. In

the parish of Bedwellty, the wakes--or watch-nights, as they are more

commonly called in Wales--were at that time very profanely kept. 'Few

besides the dissenters,' says Jones (who was himself a dissenter, it

must be remembered), 'had the sense and courage to forbid' this

wickedness, but 'suffered it as a custom, because the pretence was to

divert the relations of the dead, and lessen their sorrows.' While the

aforementioned profane men were playing cards and swearing, suddenly a

dismal groaning noise was heard at the window. At this the company was

much frightened, excepting the card-players, who said 'Pw!' and went

on playing. But to pacify the rest of the company they finally

desisted, and at once the groaning ceased. Soon after they began

playing again, when at once the groaning set up in most lamentable

tones, so that people shuddered; but the profane men again said, 'Pw!

it is some fellow playing tricks to frighten us.' 'No,' said William

Harry Rees, a good man of the Baptist persuasion, 'it is no human

being there groaning, but a spirit,' and again he desired them to give

over. But though they were so bold with their card-playing, these

wicked men had not the hardihood to venture out and see who it was

'playing tricks,' as they called it. However, one of the company said,

'I will go, and take the dogs with me, and see if there be any human

being there.' The groaning still continued. This bold person then

'took the prime staff, and began to call the dogs to go with him;' but

the dogs could not be induced to go out, being in great terror at the

groaning noise, and sought to hide themselves under the stools, and

about the people's feet. In vain they beat the dogs, and kicked and

scolded them, out-door they would not go. This at last convinced the

profane men, and they left off playing, for fear the devil should come

among them. For it was told in other places that people had played

cards till his sulphurous majesty appeared in person.

FOOTNOTE:

[99] Jones, 'Apparitions,' 24.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Tolaeth Death Portent--Its various Forms--The Tolaeth

before Death--Ewythr Jenkin's Tolaeth--A modern

Instance--The Railway Victim's Warning--The Goblin

Voice--The Voice from the Cloud--Legend of the Lord and the

Beggar--The Goblin Funeral--The Horse's Skull--The Goblin

Veil--The Wraith of Llanllwch--Dogs of Hell--The Tale of

Pwyll--Spiritual Hunting Dogs--Origin of the Cwn Annwn.

I.

The Tolaeth is an ominous sound, imitating some earthly sound of one

sort or another, and always heard before either a funeral or some

dreadful catastrophe. Carpenters of a superstitious turn of mind will

tell you that they invariably hear the Tolaeth when they are going to

receive an order to make a coffin; in this case the sound is that of

the sawing of wood, the hammering of nails, and the turning of screws,

such as are heard in the usual process of making a coffin. This is

called the 'Tolaeth before the Coffin.' The 'Tolaeth before Death' is

a supernatural noise heard about the house, such as a knocking, or the

sound of footsteps in the dead of night. Sometimes it is the sound of

a tolling bell, where no bell is; and the direction in which the ear

is held at the time points out the place of the coming death. Formerly

the veritable church-bell in its steeple would foretell death, by

tolling thrice at the hour of midnight, unrung by human hands. The

bell of Blaenporth, Cardiganshire, was noted for thus warning the

neighbours. The 'Tolaeth before the Burying' is the sound of the

funeral procession passing by, unseen, but heard. The voices are

heard singing the 'Old Hundredth,' which is the psalm tune usually

sung by funeral bands; the slow regular tramp of the feet is heard,

and the sobbing and groaning of the mourners. The Tolaeth touches but

one sense at a time. When this funeral procession is heard it cannot

be seen. But it is a peculiarity of the Tolaeth that after it has been

heard by the ear, it sometimes makes itself known to the eye also--but

in silence. The funeral procession will at first be heard, and then if

the hearer stoop forward and look along the ground, it may perhaps be

seen; the psalm-singers, two abreast, with their hats off and their

mouths open, as in the act of singing; the coffin, borne on the

shoulders of four men who hold their hats by the side of their heads;

the mourners, the men with long black hatbands streaming behind, the

women pale and sorrowful, with upheld handkerchiefs; and the rest of

the procession stretching away dimly into shadow. Not a sound is

heard, either of foot or voice, although the singers' mouths are open.

After the procession has passed, and the observer has risen from his

stooping posture, the Tolaeth again breaks on the ear, the music, the

tread of feet, and the sobbing, as before. A real funeral is sure to

pass that way not long afterwards.

This form of the Tolaeth should not be confused with the Teulu, or

Goblin Funeral proper, which is a death-warning occupying its own

place.

II.

John Clode, an honest labouring man living on the coast of

Glamorganshire, near the Sker Rocks, had just gone to bed one night,

when he and his wife heard the door open, the tread of shuffling feet,

the moving about of chairs, and the grunting of men as if setting

down a load. This was all in the room where they lay, it being the

only room their cottage afforded, except the one upstairs. 'John,

John!' cried his wife in alarm, 'what is this?' In vain John rubbed

his eyes and stared into the darkness. Nothing could he see. Two days

afterward their only son was brought home drowned; and his corpse

being borne into the house upon a ladder, there were the same noises

of opening the door, the shuffling of feet, the moving of chairs, the

setting down of the burden, that the Tolaeth had touched their ears

with. 'John, John!' murmured poor Mrs. Clode; 'this is exactly what I

heard in the night.' 'Yes, wife,' quoth John, 'it was the Tolaeth

before Death.'

Before Ewythr Jenkin of Nash died, his daughter Gwenllian heard the

Tolaeth. She had taken her old father's breeches from under his pillow

to mend them (for he was very careful always to fold and put his

breeches under his pillow, especially if there was a sixpence in the

pocket), and just as she was about sitting down at the table on which

she had thrown them, there came a loud rap on the table, which

startled her very much. 'Oh, Jenny, what was that?' she asked of the

servant girl; but Jenny could only stare at her mistress, more

frightened than herself. Again did Gwenllian essay to sit and take the

breeches in hand, when there came upon the table a double rap, much

louder than the first, a rap, in fact, that made all the chairs and

kettles ring. So then Gwenllian fainted away.

At a place called by its owner Llynwent, in Radnorshire, at a certain

time the man of the house and his wife were gone from home. The rest

of the family were sitting at supper, when three of the servants heard

the sound of horses coming toward the house, and cried out, 'There,

they are coming!' thinking it was their master and mistress returning

home. But on going out to meet them, there was nobody near. They

re-entered the house, somewhat uneasy in their minds at this strange

thing, and clustered about the fire, with many expressions of

wonderment. While they were so seated, 'Hark!' said one, and all

listening intently, heard footsteps passing by them and going up

stairs, and voices of people talking among themselves. Not long

afterward three of the family fell sick and died.

III.

An instance of recent occurrence is given by a local newspaper

correspondent writing from the scene of a Welsh railway accident in

October, 1878. It was at Pontypridd, famous the world over for its

graceful bridge, (now old and superannuated,) and renowned in Druidic

story as a seat of learning. A victim of the railway accident was, a

few days before the collision, 'sitting with his wife at the fireside,

when he had an omen. The house was still, and they were alone, only a

little servant girl being with them. Then, while so sitting and

talking, they both heard a heavy footstep ascending the stairs, step

by step, step by step, as that of one carrying a burden. They looked

at one another, and the husband called, "Run, Mary, upstairs; some one

has gone up." Mary did run, but there was no one. She was told to look

in every room, and she did so, and it was put down as fancy. When the

news was borne to the poor wife on Saturday night, she started up and

said, "There now, that was the omen!"'[100] That his readers may not

by any perversity fail to understand him as alluding to the Tolaeth

before Death, our newspaper correspondent states his creed: 'I believe

in omens. I knew a lady who heard distinctly three raps at her door.

Another lady was sitting with her near it too. The door was an inner

door. No servant was in the house. The two ladies heard it, and yet no

human hand touched that door, and at the time when the knock was heard

a dear brother was dying. I know of strange things of this sort. Of

voices crying the names of half-sleeping relatives when the waves were

washing some one dear away to the mighty deep; but then the world

laughs at all this and the world goes on.' The correspondent is

severe; there is nothing here to laugh at.

FOOTNOTE:

[100] 'Western Mail,' Oct. 23, 1878.

IV.

The Tolaeth has one other form--that of a Voice which speaks, in a

simple and natural manner, but very significant words. Thus Edward

Lloyd, in the parish of Llangurig, was lying very ill, when the people

that were with him in his chamber heard a voice near them, but could

see no one; nor could they find any one anywhere about the house, to

whom the voice might belong. Soon afterwards they heard it utter, so

distinctly that it seemed to be in the room where they were, these

words, 'Y mae nenbren y t[^y] yn craccio,' (the upper beam of the

house cracketh.) Soon the Voice spoke again, saying, 'Fe dor yn y

man,' (it will presently break.) And once more it spoke: 'Dyna fe yn

tori,' (there it breaks.) That moment the sick man gave up the ghost.

John, the son of Watkin Elias Jones, of the parish of Mynyddyslwyn,

was one day ploughing in the field, when the oxen rested, and he sent

the lad who drove the oxen, to fetch something which he wanted; and

while thus alone in the field, he saw a cloud coming across the field

to him. When the cloud had come to that part of the field where he

was, it stopped, and shadowed the sun from him; and out of the cloud

came a Voice, which asked him which of these three diseases he would

choose to die of--fever, dropsy, or consumption. Being a man who could

give a plain answer to a plain question, he replied that he would

rather die of consumption. The lad now returning, he sent him home

with the oxen, and then, feeling inclined to sleep, lay down and

slept. When he awoke he was ill, and fell by degrees into a

consumption, of which he died one year from the day of this warning.

He did not tell of this apparition, however, until within six weeks of

his death.

V.

One of the most beautiful legends in the Iolo MSS. gives an ancient

tale of the Tolaeth which may be thus condensed: A great and wealthy

lord, rich in land, houses and gold, enjoying all the luxuries of

life, heard a voice proclaim thrice distinctly: 'The greatest and

richest man of this parish shall die to-night.' At this he was sadly

troubled, for he knew that the greatest and richest man of that parish

could be no other than he; so he sent for the physician, but made

ready for death. Great, however, was his joy when the night passed,

the day broke, and he was yet alive. At sunrise the church bell was

heard tolling, and the lord sent in haste to know who was dead. Answer

came that it was an old blind beggar man, who had asked, and been

refused, alms at the great man's gate. Then the lord knew the meaning

of the warning voice he had heard: that very great and very rich man

had been the poor beggar--his treasures and wealth in the kingdom of

heaven. He took the warning wisely to heart, endowed religious houses,

relieved all who were in poverty, and when at last he was dying, the

voices of angels were heard to sing a hymn of welcome; and he was

buried, according to his desire, in the old beggar's grave.[101]

FOOTNOTE:

[101] Iolo MSS., 592.

VI.

Of the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral, a death-portent of wide prevalence in

Wales, numberless stories are told. This omen is sometimes a form of

the Tolaeth, but in itself constitutes an omen which is simple and

explicit. A funeral procession is seen passing down the road, and at

the same time it is heard. It has no shadowy goblin aspect, but

appears to be a real funeral. Examination shows its shadowy nature.

Subsequently a real funeral passes the same way, and is recognised as

the fulfilment of the omen. The goblin funeral precedes the other

sometimes by days, sometimes by weeks. Rees Thomas, a carpenter of

Carmarthenshire, passing by night through Rhiw Edwst, near Capel Ywen,

heard a stir as of a procession of people coming towards him, walking

and speaking; and when they were close to him he felt the touch of an

unseen hand upon his shoulder, and a voice saying to him, 'Rhys bach,

pa fodd yr y'ch chwi?' (my dear Rees, how are you?) A month after,

passing that way again, he met a funeral in that very place, and a

woman of the company put her hand upon his shoulder and spoke exactly

the same Welsh words to him that the invisible spirit had spoken. Rev.

Howel Prosser, many years ago curate of Aberystruth, late one evening

saw a funeral procession going down the church lane. Supposing it to

be the funeral of a man who had recently died in the upper part of his

parish, yet wondering he had not been notified of the burial, he put

on his band in order to perform his office over the dead, and hastened

to meet the procession. But when he came to it he saw that it was

composed of strangers, whom he had never seen before. Nevertheless, he

laid his hand on the bier, to help carry the corpse, when instantly

the whole vanished, and he was alone; but in his hand he found the

skull of a dead horse. 'Mr. Prosser was my schoolmaster, and a right

honest man,' says Edmund Jones,[102] who is responsible for this

story, as well as for the ensuing: Isaac William Thomas, who lived not

far from Hafodafel, once met a Goblin Funeral coming down the mountain

toward Llanhiddel church. He stood in a field adjoining the highway,

and leaned against the stone wall. The funeral came close to the other

side of the wall, and as the bier passed him he reached forth his hand

and took off the black veil which was over the bier. This he carried

to his home, where many people saw it. 'It was made of some exceeding

fine stuff, so that when folded it was a very little substance, and

very light.' That he escaped being hurt for this bold act was long the

marvel of the parish; but it was believed, by their going aside to

come so near him, that the goblins were willing he should do as he

did.

An old man who resided near Llanllwch church, in Carmarthenshire, used

to assert in the most solemn manner that he had seen the Teulu going

to church again and again. On a certain evening hearing one

approaching, he peeped over a wall to look at it. The persons

composing the procession were all acquaintances of his, with the

exception of one who stood apart from the rest, gazing mournfully at

them, and who appeared to be a stranger. Soon afterwards there was a

real burying, and the old man, determined to see if there would be in

the scene any resemblance to his last Teulu, went to the churchyard

and waited. When the procession arrived, all were there as he had seen

them, except the stranger. Looking about him curiously, the old man

was startled by the discovery that he was himself the stranger! He was

standing on the identical spot where had stood the man he did not

recognise when he saw the Teulu. It was his own ghost.

FOOTNOTE:

[102] 'Account of the Parish of Aberystruth,' 17.

VII.

The death portent called Cwn Annwn, or Dogs of Hell, is a pack of

hounds which howl through the air with a voice frightfully

disproportionate to their size, full of a wild sort of lamentation.

There is a tradition that one of them once fell on a tombstone, but no

one was able to secure it. A peculiarity of these creatures is that

the nearer they are to a man the less loud their voice sounds,

resembling then the voice of small beagles, and the farther off they

are the louder is their cry. Sometimes a voice like that of a great

hound is heard sounding among them--a deep hollow voice, as if it were

the voice of a monstrous bloodhound. Although terrible to hear, and

certain portents of death, they are in themselves harmless. 'They have

never been known,' says a most respectable authority,[103] 'to commit

any mischief on the persons of either man or woman, goat, sheep, or

cow.' Sometimes they are called Cwn y Wybr, or Dogs of the Sky, but

the more sulphurous name is the favourite one. They are also

sometimes called Dogs of the Fairies. Their origin in fairyland is

traced to the famous mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed; but in that

fascinating tale of enchantment their right to be called Cwn Annwn is

clearly set forth, for they are there the hounds of a King of Annwn.

There are several translations of this mabinogi in existence, and its

popularity in South Wales is great, for the villages, vales, and

streams mentioned in it are familiar to residents in Pembroke,

Carmarthen, and Cardigan shires. Pwyll, the Prince, was at Narberth,

where was his chief palace, when he went one day to a wood in Glyn

Cych. Here 'he sounded his horn and began to enter upon the chase,

following his dogs and separating from his companions. And as he was

listening to the cry of his pack, he could distinctly hear the cry of

another pack, different from that of his own, and which was coming in

an opposite direction. He could also discern an opening in the woods

towards a level plain; and as his pack was entering the skirt of the

opening he perceived a stag before the other pack, and about the

middle of the glade the pack in the rear coming up and throwing the

stag on the ground. Upon this he fixed his attention on the colour of

the pack, without recollecting to look at the stag: and of all the

hounds in the world he had ever seen he never saw any like them in

colour. Their colour was a shining clear white, with red ears; and the

whiteness of the dogs and the redness of their ears were equally

conspicuous.'[104] They were the hounds of Arawn, a crowned king in

the land of Annwn, the shadow-land of Hades.

The Cwn Annwn are sometimes held to be the hell-hounds which hunt

through the air the soul of the wicked man, the instant it quits the

body--a truly terrific idea to the vulgar mind. The Prophet Jones has

several accounts of them: Thomas Phillips, of Trelech parish, heard

them with the voice of the great dog sounding among them, and noticed

that they followed a course that was never followed by funerals, which

surprised him very much, as he had always heard that the Dogs of the

Sky invariably went the same way that the corpse was to follow. Not

long after a woman from an adjoining parish died at Trelech, and being

carried to her own parish church to be buried, her corpse did actually

pass the same way in which the spirit dogs had been heard to hunt.

Thomas Andrew, of the parish of Llanhiddel, heard them one night as he

was coming home. 'He heard them coming towards him, though he saw them

not.' Their cry grew fainter as they drew near him, passed him, and

louder again as they went from him. They went down the steeps towards

the river Ebwy. And Thomas Andrew was 'a religious man, who would not

have told an untruth for fear or for favour.'

FOOTNOTES:

[103] 'Cambro-Briton,' i., 350.

[104] Dr. W. Owen Pughe's Trans., 'Camb.-Briton,' ii., 271.

VIII.

No form of superstition has had a wider popularity than this of

spiritual hunting dogs, with which was usually connected in olden time

the wild huntsman, a personage who has dropped quite out of modern

belief, at least in Wales. In France this goblin was called Le Grand

Veneur, and hunted with his dogs in the forests of Fontainebleau; in

Germany it was Hackelberg, who sold himself to the devil for

permission to hunt till doomsday. In Britain it was King Arthur who

served as the goblin huntsman. Peasants would hear the cry of the

hounds and the sounding of the horns, but the huntsman was invisible.

When they called out after him, however, the answer came back: 'We are

King Arthur and his kindred.' Mr. Baring-Gould,[105] in giving an

account of the myth of Odin, the Wild Huntsman, who rides over the

forests by night on a white horse, with his legion of hell-hounds,

seems to ascribe the superstition to the imagination of a belated

woodcutter frightened by the wind in the tree-tops. William

Henderson[106] presumes the belief in the Wild Huntsman's pack, which

prevails in the North of England, to come from the strange unearthly

cries uttered by wild fowl on their passage southward, and which sound

like the yelping of dogs. These natural phenomena have not served,

however, to keep the old belief alive in Wales.

That the Cwn Annwn are descendants of the wish-hound of Hermes, hardly

admits of doubt. The same superstition prevails among all Aryan

peoples, with details differing but little. The souls of the dying are

carried away by the howling winds, the dogs of Hermes, in the ancient

mythology as in surviving beliefs; on this follows the custom of

opening the windows at death, so that the released soul may escape. In

Devonshire they say no soul can escape from the house in which its

body dies, unless all the locks and bolts are opened. In China a hole

is made in the roof for a like purpose. The early Aryan conception of

the wind as a howling dog or wolf speeding over the house-tops caused

the inmates to tremble with fear, lest their souls should be called to

follow them. It must be constantly borne in mind that all these

creatures of fancy were more or less interchangeable, and the god

Hermes was at times his own dog, which escorted the soul to the river

Styx. The winds were now the maruts, or spirits of the breeze, serving

Indra, the sky-god; again they were the great psychopomp himself. The

peasant who to-day tells you that dogs can see death enter the house

where a person is about to die, merely repeats the idea of a primeval

man whose ignorance of physical science was complete.

FOOTNOTES:

[105] 'Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas,' 199-203.

[106] 'Notes on Folk-Lore,' 97.

CHAPTER IX.

The Corpse Candle--Its Peculiarities--The Woman of

Caerau--Grasping a Corpse Candle--The Crwys Candle--Lights

issuing from the Mouth--Jesting with the Canwyll Corph--The

Candle at Pontfaen--The Three Candles at Golden

Grove--Origin of Death-Portents in Wales--Degree of Belief

prevalent at the Present Day--Origin of Spirits in

General--The Supernatural--The Question of a Future Life.

I.

Perhaps the most picturesque of the several death-omens popular in

Wales is the Canwyll Corph, or Corpse Candle. It is also, according to

my observation, the most extensively believed in at the present day.

Its details are varied and extremely interesting. The idea of a goblin

in the form of a lighted tallow candle is ludicrous enough, at first

sight; and indeed I know several learned Welsh gentlemen who venture

to laugh at it; but the superstition grows more and more grim and less

risible the better one becomes acquainted with it. It is worth noting

here that the canwyll, or candle, is a more poetic thing among the

Welsh--has a higher literary place, so to speak--than among

English-speaking peoples. In the works of their ancient poets the

candle is mentioned in passages where we should use the word light or

lamp--as in this verse, which is attributed to Aneurin (sixth

century):

The best candle for man is prudence.

The candle is the favourite figure for mental guidance among the

Welsh;[107] there is no book in the Welsh language so popular as a

certain work of religious counsel by a former Vicar of Llandovery,

called 'The Candle of the Cymry.' The Corpse Candle is always and

invariably a death-warning. It sometimes appears as a stately

flambeau, stalking along unsupported, burning with a ghastly blue

flame. Sometimes it is a plain tallow 'dip' in the hand of a ghost,

and when the ghost is seen distinctly it is recognised as the ghost of

some person yet living, who will now soon die. This, it will be

noticed, is a variation upon the wraith, or Lledrith. Sometimes the

goblin is a light which issues from a person's mouth or nostrils.

According to the belief of some sections, the size of the candle

indicates the age of the person who is about to die, being large when

it is a full-grown person whose death is foretold, small when it is a

child, still smaller when an infant. Where two candles together are

seen, one of which is large and the other small, it is a mother and

child who are to die. When the flame is white, the doomed person is a

woman; when red, a man.

FOOTNOTE:

[107] Stephens, 'Lit. of the Kymry,' 287. (New Ed., 1876.)

II.

Among the accounts of the Corpse Candle which have come under my

notice none are more interesting than those given me by a good dame

whom I encountered at Caerau, near Cardiff. Caerau is a little village

of perhaps one hundred souls, crouched at the foot of a steep hill on

whose summit are the ancient earthworks of a Roman camp. On this

summit also stands the parish church, distinctly visible from Cardiff

streets, so ponderous is its square tower against the sky. To walk

there is a pleasant stroll from the late Marquis of Bute's statue in

the centre of the seaport town. I am thus particular merely for

emphasis of the fact that this superstition is not confined to remote

and out-of-the-way districts. Caerau is rural, and its people are all

poor people, perhaps; but its church is barely three miles from the

heart of a busy seaport. In this church I met the voluble Welshwoman

who gave me the accounts referred to. One was to this effect: One

night her sister was lying very ill at the narrator's house, and she

was alone with her children, her husband being in the lunatic asylum

at Cardiff. She had just put the children to bed, and had set her

candle on the floor preparatory to going to bed herself, when there

came a 'swish' along the floor, like the rustling of grave-clothes,

and the candle was blown out. The room, however, to her surprise,

remained glowing with a feeble light as from a very small taper, and

looking behind her she beheld 'old John Richards,' who had been dead

ten years. He held a Corpse Candle in his hand, and he looked at her

in a chill and steadfast manner which caused the blood to run cold in

her veins. She turned and woke her eldest boy, and said to him, 'Don't

you see old John Richards?' The boy asked 'Where?' rubbing his eyes.

She pointed out the ghost, and the boy was so frightened at sight of

it that he cried out 'O wi! O Dduw! I wish I may die!' The ghost then

disappeared, the Corpse Candle in its hand; the candle on the floor

burned again with a clear light, and the next day the sick sister

died.

Another account ran somewhat thus: The narrator's mother-in-law was

ill with a cancer of the breast. 'Jenny fach,' she said to the

narrator one night, 'sleep by me--I feel afraid.' 'Hach!' said Jenny,

thinking the old woman was foolishly nervous; but she stayed. As she

was lying in bed by the side of her mother-in-law, she saw at the foot

of the bed the faint flame of a Corpse Candle, which shed no light at

all about the room; the place remained as dark as it was before. She

looked at it in a sort of stupor for a short time, and then raised

herself slowly up in bed and reached out to see if she could grasp the

candle. Her fingers touched it, but it immediately went out in a

little shower of pale sparkles that fell downward. At that moment her

mother-in-law uttered a groan, and expired.

'Do you know Thomas Mathews, sir?' she asked me; 'he lives at Crwys

now, but he used to live here at Caerau.' 'Crwys?' I repeated, not at

once comprehending. 'Oh, you must know Crwys, sir; it's just the other

side of Cardiff, towards Newport.' 'Can you spell it for me?'[108] The

woman blushed. ''Deed, sir,' said she, 'I ought to be a scholar, but

I've had so much trouble with my old man that I've quite forgot my

spellin'.' However, the story of Thomas Mathews was to the effect that

he saw a Corpse Candle come out of his father's mouth and go to his

feet, and away a bit, then back again to the mouth, which it did not

exactly enter, but blended as it were with the sick man's body. I

asked if the candle was tallow at any point in its excursion, to which

I was gravely answered that it was the spirit of tallow. The man died

not long after, in the presence of my informant, who described the

incident with a dramatic force and fervour peculiarly Celtic,

concluding with the remark: 'Well, well, there's only one way to come

into the world, but there's a many ways to go out of it.'

The light issuing from the mouth is a fancy frequently encountered. In

the 'Liber Landavensis' it is mentioned that one day as St. Samson was

celebrating the holy mysteries, St. Dubricius with two monks saw a

stream of fire to proceed glittering from his mouth.[109] In old

woodcuts, the souls of the dying are represented as issuing from the

mouth in the form of small human figures; and the Tyrolese peasants

still fancy the soul is seen coming out of the mouth of a dying man

like a little white cloud.[110] From the mouth of a patient in a London

hospital some time since the nurses observed issuing a pale bluish

flame, and soon after the man died. The frightened nurses--not being

acquainted with the corpse-candle theory of such things--imagined the

torments of hell had already begun in the still living body. A

scientific explanation of the phenomenon ascribed it to phosphuretted

hydrogen, a result of incipient decomposition.[111]

FOOTNOTES:

[108] It is pronounced Croo-iss.

[109] 'Liber Landavensis,' 299.

[110] Tylor, 'Primitive Culture,' 391.

[111] 'Transactions Cardiff Nat. Soc.,' iv. 5.

III.

It is ill jesting with the Corpse Candle. Persons who have endeavoured

to stop it on its way have come severely to grief thereby. Many have

been struck down where they stood, in punishment of their audacity, as

in the case of William John, a blacksmith of Lanboydi. He was one

night going home on horseback, when he saw a Corpse Candle, and his

natural caution being at the moment somewhat overcome by potables, he

resolved to go out of his way to obstruct its passage. As the candle

drew near he saw a corpse upon a bier, the corpse of a woman he knew,

and she held the candle between her forefingers, and dreadfully

grinned at him. Then he was struck from his horse, and lay in the road

a long time insensible, and was ill for weeks thereafter. Meantime,

the woman whose spectral corpse he had seen, died and was buried, her

funeral passing by that road.

A clergyman's son in Carmarthenshire, (subsequently himself a

preacher,) who in his younger days was somewhat vicious, came home one

night late from a debauch, and found the doors locked. Fearing to

disturb the folk, and fearing also their reproaches and chidings for

his staying out so late, (as many a young fellow has felt before and

since,) he went to the man-servant, who slept in an out-room, as is

sometimes the custom in Welsh rural districts. He could not awake the

man-servant, but while standing over him, he saw a small light issue

from the servant's nostrils, which soon became a Corpse Candle. He

followed it out. It came to a foot-bridge which crossed a rivulet.

Here the young man became inspired with the idea of trying an

experiment with the Corpse Candle. He raised the end of the

foot-bridge off the bank, and watched to see what the ghostly light

would do. When it came to the rivulet it seemed to offer to go over,

but hesitated, as if loth to cross except upon the bridge. So the

young man put the bridge back in its place, and stayed to see how the

candle would act. It came on the bridge, and as it passed the young

man it struck him, as with a handkerchief. But though the blow was

thus light and phantom-like, it doubled the young man up and left him

a senseless heap on the ground, where he lay till morning, when he

recovered and went home. It is needless to add that the servant died.

IV.

Morris Griffith was once schoolmaster in the parish of Pontfaen, in

Pembrokeshire, but subsequently became a Baptist preacher of the

Gospel. He tells this story: 'As I was coming from a place called

Tre-Davydd, and was come to the top of the hill, I saw a great light

down in the valley, which I wondered at; for I could not imagine what

it meant. But it came to my mind that it was a light before a burying,

though I never could believe before that there was such a thing. The

light which I saw then was a very red light, and it stood still for

about a quarter of an hour in the way which went towards

Llanferch-Llawddog church. I made haste to the other side of the hill,

that I might see it farther; and from thence I saw it go along to the

churchyard, where it stood still for a little time and entered into

the church. I remained waiting to see it come out, and it was not long

before it came out, and went to a certain part of the churchyard,

where it stood a little time, and then vanished out of my sight. A few

days afterwards, being in school with the children about noon, I heard

a great noise overhead, as if the top of the house was coming down. I

ran out to see the garret, and there was nothing amiss. A few days

afterwards, Mr. Higgon of Pontfaen's son died. When the carpenter came

to fetch the boards to make the coffin, (which were in the garret,) he

made exactly such a stir, in handling the boards in the garret, as was

made before by some spirit, who foreknew the death that was soon to

come to pass. In carrying the body to the grave, the burying stood

where the light had stood for about a quarter of an hour, because

there was some water crossing the way, and the people could not go

over it without wetting their feet, therefore they were obliged to

wait till those that had boots helped them over. The child was buried

in that very spot of ground in the churchyard, where I saw the light

stop after it came out of the church. This is what I can boldly

testify, having seen and heard what I relate--a thing which before I

could not believe.'

Joshua Coslet, before mentioned in these pages, suddenly met a Corpse

Candle as he was going through Heol Bwlch y Gwynt, (Windgap Lane) in

Llandilo Fawr parish. It was a small light when near him, but

increased as it went farther from him. He could easily see that there

was some dark shadow passing along with the candle, and the shadow of

a man carried it, holding it 'between his three forefingers over

against his face.' He might perhaps have seen more, but he was afraid

to look too earnestly upon it. Not long after, a burying passed

through Heol Bwlch y Gwynt. Another time he saw the likeness of a

candle carried in a skull. 'There is nothing unlikely or unreasonable

in either of these representations,' says the Prophet Jones, their

historian.

A Carmarthenshire tradition relates that one day, when the coach which

runs between Llandilo and Carmarthen was passing by Golden Grove, the

property of the Earl of Cawdor, three Corpse Candles were observed on

the surface of the water gliding down the stream which runs near the

road. All the passengers saw them. A few days after, some men were

about crossing the river near there in a coracle, when one of them

expressed his fear at venturing, as the river was flooded, and he

remained behind. Thus the fatal number crossed the river--three--three

Corpse Candles having foretold their fate; and all were drowned.

V.

Tradition ascribes the origin of all these death-portents to the

efforts of St. David. This saint appears to have been a great and

good man, and a zealous Catholic, who, as a contemporary of the

historical Arthur, is far enough back in the dim past to meet the

views of romantic minds. And a prelate who by his prayers and presence

could enable King Arthur to overthrow the Saxons in battle, or who by

his pious learning could single-handed put down the Pelagian heresy in

the Cardiganshire synod, was surely strong enough to invoke the Gwrach

y Rhibyn, the Cyhyraeth, the Corpse Candle, and all the dreadful

brood. This the legend relates he did by a special appeal to Heaven.

Observing that the people in general were careless of the life to

come, and could not be brought to mind it, and make preparation for

it, St. David prayed that Heaven would give a sign of the immortality

of the soul, and of a life to come, by a presage of death. Since that

day, Wales, and particularly that part of Wales included in the

bishopric of St. David, has had these phantoms. More materialistic

minds consider these portents to be a remainder of those practices by

which the persecuted Druids performed their rites and long kept up

their religion in the land which Christianity had claimed: a similar

origin, in fact, is here found for goblin omens as for fairies.

That these various portents are extensively believed in at the present

day there cannot be a doubt; with regard to the most important of

them, I am able to testify with the fullest freedom; I have heard

regarding them story after story, from the lips of narrators whose

sincerity was expressed vividly in face, tones, and behaviour. The

excited eye, the paling cheek, the bated breath, the sinking voice,

the intense and absorbed manner--familiar phenomena in every circle

where ghost stories are told--evidenced the perfect sincerity, at

least, of the speakers.

It is unnecessary here to repeat, what I for my own part never forget,

nor, I trust, does the reader, that Wales is no exception to the rest

of the world in its credulity. That it is more picturesque is true,

and it is also true that there is here an unusual amount of legend

which has not hitherto found its way into books. Death-omens are

common to all lands; even in America, there are tales of the banshee,

imported from Ireland along with the sons of that soil. In one recent

case which came under my notice the banshee belonged to a

Cambridgeshire Englishman. This was at Evansville, Indiana, and the

banshee had appeared before the deaths of five members of a family,

the last of whom was the father. His name was Feast, and the

circumstances attending the banshee's visits were gravely described in

a local journal as a matter of news. Less distinguished death-portents

are common enough in the United States. That the Cambrian portents are

so picturesque and clearly defined must be considered strong testimony

to the vivid imagination of the Welsh. Figures born of the fancy, as

distinguished from creatures born of the flesh, prove their parentage

by the vagueness of their outlines. The outlines of the Cyhyraeth and

the Gwrach y Rhibyn sometimes run into and mingle with each other, and

so do those of the Tolaeth and the Goblin Funeral; but the wonder is

they are such distinct entities as they are.

VI.

To say that all the visible inhabitants of the mundane spirit-world

are creatures of the disordered human liver, is perhaps a needless

harshness of statement. The question of a future life is not involved

in this subject, nor raised by the best writers who are studying it;

but, religious belief quite apart, it remains to be proved that

spirits of a supernatural world have any share in the affairs of a

world governed by natural law. A goblin which manifests itself to the

human eye, it seems to me, becomes natural, by bowing before the

natural laws which rule in optics. Yet believers in ghosts find no

difficulty in this direction; the word 'supernatural' covers a

multitude of sins. 'What is the supernatural?' asks Disraeli, in

'Lothair.' 'Can there be anything more miraculous than the existence

of man and the world? anything more literally supernatural than the

origin of things?'

Surely, in this life, nothing! The student who endeavours to govern

his faith by the methods of science asks no more of any ghost that

ever walked the earth, than that it will prove itself a reality. Man

loves the marvellous. The marvels of science, however, do not melt

away into thin air on close examination. They thrive under the

severest tests, and grow more and more extraordinary the more they are

tried. The spectroscope and the radiometer are more wonderful than any

'supernatural' thing yet heard of. Transportation through the air in

the arms of a spirit is a clear impossibility; but it is less

wonderful than the every-day feats of electricity in our time, the

bare conception of which would have filled Plato and Aristotle with

awe.

The actual origin of the phantoms of the spirit-world is to be found

in the lawless and luxuriant fancy of primeval man. The creatures of

this fancy have been perpetuated throughout all time, unto our own

day, by that passionate yearning in men for continued life and love,

which is ineradicable in our nature. Men will not, they can not,

accept the doubt which plunges an eternal future into eternal

darkness, and separates them for ever from the creatures of their

love. Hence, when the remorseless fact of Death removes those

creatures, they look, with a longing which is indescribably pathetic,

into the Unknown where their beloved have gone, and strive to see them

in their spirit-life.

On this verge the finite mind must pause; to question that life is to

add a terrible burden to all human woe; it need not be questioned. But

to question the power of anything in that life to manifest itself to

man through natural law, is to do what science has a right to do. 'The

living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing ...

neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is

done under the sun.'[112]

FOOTNOTE:

[112] 'Eccles.' ix., 5, 6.

[Illustration: {SPRIG OF LILY OF THE VALLEY.}]

BOOK III.

QUAINT OLD CUSTOMS.

Where in an agede cell with moss and iveye growne,

In which nor to this daye the sunn had ever showne,

Their reverend British saint, in zealous ages paste,

To contemplation lived, and did so truly faste,

As he did onlie drink what chrystal [rivers] yields,

And fed upon the leakes he gather'd in the fields:

In memory of whom, in the revolving year,

The Welchman on that daye that sacred herb doth wear.

_MS. in Bodleian Library._

CHAPTER I.

Serious Significance of seemingly Trivial Customs--Their

Origins--Common Superstitions--The Age we Live in--Days and

Seasons--New Year's Day--The Apple Gift--Lucky Acts on New

Year's Morning--The First Foot--Showmen's

Superstitions--Levy Dew Song--Happy New Year Carol--Twelfth

Night--The Mari Lwyd--The Penglog--The Cutty Wren--Tooling

and Sowling--St. Valentine's Day--St. Dewi's Day--The

Wearing of the Leek--The Traditional St. David--St.

Patrick's Day--St. Patrick a Welshman--Shrove Tuesday.

I.

Numberless customs in Wales which appear to be meaningless, to people

of average culture, are in truth replete with meaning. However trivial

they may seem, they are very seldom the offspring of mere fooling. The

student of comparative folk-lore is often able to trace their origin

with surprising distinctness, and to evolve from them a significance

before unsuspected. In many cases these quaint old customs are traced

to the primeval mythology. Others are clearly seen to be of Druidical

origin. Many spring from the rites and observances of the Roman

Catholic Church in the early days of Christianity on Welsh

soil--where, as is now generally conceded, the Gospel was first

preached in Great Britain. Some embody historical traditions; and some

are the outgrowth of peculiar states of society in medieval times.

Directly or indirectly, they are all associated with superstition,

though in many instances they have quite lost any superstitious

character in our day.

Modern society is agreed, with respect to many curious old customs, to

view them as the peculiar possession of ignorance. It is very

instructive to note, in this connection, how blandly we accept some of

the most superstitious of these usages, with tacit approval, and

permit them to govern our conduct. In every civilised community, in

every enlightened land on earth, there are many men and women to whom

this remark applies, who would deem themselves shamefully insulted

should you doubt their intelligence and culture. Men and women who

'smile superior' at the idea of Luther hurling inkstands at the devil,

or at the Welsh peasant who thinks a pig can see the wind, will

themselves avoid beginning a journey on a Friday, view as ominous a

rainy wedding-day, throw an old slipper after a bride for luck,

observe with interest the portents of their nightly dreams, shun

seeing the new moon over the left shoulder, throw a pinch of salt over

the same member when the salt-cellar is upset, tie a red string about

the neck to cure nose-bleed, and believe in the antics of the modern

spiritualistic 'control.' Superstition, however, they leave to the

ignorant! The examples of every-day fetichism here cited are familiar

to us, not specially among the Welsh, but among the English also, and

the people of the United States--who, I may again observe, are no

doubt as a people uncommonly free from superstition, in comparison

with the older nations of the earth; but modesty is a very becoming

wear for us all, in examining into other people's superstitions.

Aside from their scientific interest, there is a charm about many of

the quaint customs of the Welsh, which speaks eloquently to most

hearts. They are the offspring of ignorance, true, but they touch the

'good old times' of the poet and the romancer, when the conditions of

life were less harsh than now. So we love to think. As a matter of

scientific truth, this idea is itself, alas! but a superstition. This

world has probably never been so fair a place to live in, life never

so free from harsh conditions, as now; and as time goes on, there can

be no doubt the improving process will continue. The true halcyon days

of man are to be looked for in the future--not in the past; but with

that future we shall have no mortal part.

II.

In treating of customs, no other classification is needful than their

arrangement in orderly sequence in two divisions: first, those which

pertain to certain days and seasons; second, those relating to the

most conspicuous events in common human life, courtship, marriage, and

death.

Beginning with the year: there is in Glamorganshire a New Year's Day

custom of great antiquity and large present observance, called the

apple gift, or New Year's gift. In every town and village you will

encounter children, on and about New Year's Day, going from door to

door of shops and houses, bearing an apple or an orange curiously

tricked out. Three sticks in the form of a tripod are thrust into it

to serve as a rest; its sides are smeared with flour or meal, and

stuck over with oats or wheat, or bits of broken lucifer matches to

represent oats; its top is covered with thyme or other sweet

evergreen, and a skewer is inserted in one side as a handle to hold it

by. In its perfection, this piece of work is elaborate; but it is now

often a decrepit affair, in the larger towns, where the New Year is

welcomed (as at Cardiff) by a midnight chorus of steam-whistles.

[Illustration: THE NEW YEAR'S APPLE.]

The Christian symbolism of this custom is supposed to relate to the

offering, by the Wise Men, of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the

infant Jesus. The older interpretation, however, takes the custom back

to the Druidic days, and makes it a form of the solar myth. In the

three supporting sticks of the apple are seen the three rays of the

sun, /|\, the mystic Name of the Creator; the apple is the round sun

itself; the evergreens represent its perennial life; and the grains of

wheat, or oats, Avagddu's spears. Avagddu is the evil principle of

darkness--hell, or the devil--with which the sun fights throughout the

winter for the world's life.

Thousands of children in Wales seek to win from their elders a New

Year's copper by exhibiting the apple gift, or by singing in chorus

their good wishes. A popular verse on this occasion hopes the hearer

will be blessed with an abundance of money in his pocket and of beer

in his cellar, and draws attention to the singers' thin shoes and the

bad character of the walking. In many cases the juvenile population

parades the street all night, sometimes with noisy fife bands, which

follow the death knell, as it sounds from the old church tower, with

shrill peals of a merrier if not more musical sort.

In Pembrokeshire, to rise early on New Year's morning is considered

luck-bringing. On that morning also it is deemed wise to bring a fresh

loaf into the house, with the superstition that the succession of

loaves throughout the year will be influenced by that incident. A

rigid quarantine is also set up, to see that no female visitor cross

the threshold first on New Year's morning; that a male visitor shall

be the first to do so is a lucky thing, and the reverse unlucky. A

superstition resembling this prevails to this day in America among

showmen. 'There's no showman on the road,' said an American manager of

my acquaintance, 'who would think of letting a lady be first to pass

through the doors when opening them for a performance. There's a sort

of feeling that it brings ill-luck. Then there are cross-eyed people;

many a veteran ticket-seller loses all heart when one presents himself

at the ticket-window. A cross-eyed patron and a bad house generally go

together. A cross-eyed performer would be a regular Jonah. With

circuses there is a superstition that a man with a yellow clarionet

brings bad luck.' Another well-known New York manager in a recent

conversation assured me that to open an umbrella in a new play is

deemed certain failure for the piece. An umbrella may be carried

closed with impunity, but it must not be opened unless the author

desire to court failure. The Chinese have the Pembrokeshire

superstition exactly, as regards the first foot on New Year's Day.

They consider a woman peculiarly unlucky as a first foot after the New

Year has begun, but a Buddhist priest is even more unlucky than a

woman, in this light.[113]

Another Pembrokeshire custom on New Year's morning is quaint and

interesting. As soon as it is light, children of the peasantry hasten

to provide a small cup of pure spring water, just from the well, and

go about sprinkling the faces of those they meet, with the aid of a

sprig of evergreen. At the same time they sing the following verses:

Here we bring new water from the well so clear,

For to worship God with, this happy new year;

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine,

With seven bright gold wires, and bugles that do shine;

Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her toe;

Open you the west door and turn the old year go;

Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her chin;

Open you the east door and let the new year in!

This custom also is still observed extensively. The words 'levy dew'

are deemed an English version of Llef i Dduw, (a cry to God).

A Welsh song sung on New Year's Day, in Glamorganshire, by boys in

chorus, somewhat after the Christmas carol fashion, is this:

Blwyddyn newydd dda i chwi,

Gwyliau llawen i chwi,

Meistr a meistres bob un trwy'r ty,

Gwyliau llawen i chwi,

Codwch yn foreu, a rheswch y tan,

A cherddwch i'r ffynon i ymofyn dwr glan.

A happy new year to you,

Merry be your holidays,

Master and mistress--every one in the house;

Arise in the morning; bestir the fire,

And go to the well to fetch fresh water.

FOOTNOTE:

[113] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 31.

III.

Among Twelfth Night customs, none is more celebrated than that called

Mary Lwyd. It prevails in various parts of Wales, notably in lower

Glamorganshire. The skeleton of a horse's head is procured by the

young men or boys of a village, and adorned with 'favours' of pink,

blue, yellow, etc. These are generally borrowed from the girls, as it

is not considered necessary the silken fillets and rosettes should be

new, and such finery costs money. The bottoms of two black bottles are

inserted in the sockets of the skeleton head to serve as eyes, and a

substitute for ears is also contrived. On Twelfth Night they carry

this object about from house to house, with shouts and songs, and a

general cultivation of noise and racket. Sometimes a duet is sung in

Welsh, outside a door, the singers begging to be invited in; if the

door be not opened they tap on it, and there is frequently quite a

series of _awen_ sung, the parties within denying the outsiders

admission, and the outsiders urging the same. At last the door is

opened, when in bounces the merry crowd, among them the Mary Lwyd,

borne by one personating a horse, who is led by another personating

the groom. The horse chases the girls around the room, capering and

neighing, while the groom cries, 'So ho, my boy--gently, poor fellow!'

and the girls, of course, scream with merriment. A dance follows--a

reel, performed by three young men, tricked out with ribbons. The

company is then regaled with cakes and ale, and the revellers depart,

pausing outside the door to sing a parting song of thanks and good

wishes to their entertainers.

The penglog (a skull, a noddle) is a similar custom peculiar to

Aberconwy (Conway) in Carnarvonshire. In this case the horse's skull

is an attention particularly bestowed upon prudes.

Mary Lwyd may mean Pale Mary, or Wan Mary, or Hoary Mary, but the

presumption is that it means in this case Blessed Mary, and that the

custom is of papal origin. There is, however, a tradition which links

the custom with enchantment, in connection with a warlike princess,

reputed to have flourished in Gwent and Morganwg in the early ages,

and who is to be seen to this day, mounted on her steed, on a rock in

Rhymney Dingle.[114]

The cutty wren is a Pembrokeshire Twelfth Night custom prevailing

commonly during the last century, but now nearly extinct. A wren was

placed in a little house of paper, with glass windows, and this was

hoisted on four poles, one at each corner. Four men bore it about,

singing a very long ballad, of which one stanza will be enough:

[Music:

O! where are you go-ing? says Mil-der to

Mel-der, O! where are you go-ing? says the youn-ger to the

el-der; O! I can-not tell, says Fes-tel to Fose; We're

go-ing to the woods, said John the Red Nose, We're

go-ing to the woods, said John the Red Nose!]

The immediate purpose of this rite was to levy contributions. Another

such custom was called 'tooling,' and its purpose was beer. It

consisted in calling at the farm-houses and pretending to look for

one's tools behind the beer cask. 'I've left my saw behind your beer

cask,' a carpenter would say; 'my whip,' a carter; and received the

tool by proxy, in the shape of a cup of ale. The female portion of the

poorer sort, on the other hand, practised what was called sowling,

viz., asking for 'sowl,' and receiving, accordingly, any food eaten

with bread, such as cheese, fish, or meat. This custom is still

maintained, and 'sowling day' fills many a poor woman's bag. The

phrase is supposed to be from the French _soul_, signifying one's

fill.

FOOTNOTE:

[114] Vide W. Roberts's 'Crefydd yr Oesoedd Tywyll,' 1.

IV.

Connected with St. Valentine's Day, there is no Welsh custom which

demands notice here; but it is perhaps worthy of mention that nowhere

in the world is the day more abundantly productive of its orthodox

crop--love-letters. The post-offices in the Principality are simply

deluged with these missives on the eve and morning of St. Valentine's.

In Cardiff the postmaster thinks himself lucky if he gets off with

fifteen thousand letters in excess of the ordinary mail. Nineteen

extra sorters and carriers were employed for this work on February

14th, 1878, and the regular force also was heavily worked beyond its

usual hours. The custom is more Norman than Cambrian, I suppose; the

word Valentine comes from the Norman word for a lover, and the saint

is a mere accident in this connection.

V.

St. Dewi is to the Welsh what St. George is to the English, St. Andrew

to the Scotch, and St. Patrick to the Irish. His day is celebrated on

the 1st of March throughout Wales, and indeed throughout the world

where Welshmen are. In some American ports (perhaps all) the British

consulate displays its flag in honour of the day. In Wales there are

processions, grand dinners; places of business are closed; the poor

are banqueted; speeches are made and songs are sung. The most

characteristic feature of the day is the wearing of the leek. This

feature is least conspicuous, it may be noted, in those parts of Wales

where the English residents are fewest, and least of all in the

ultra-Welsh shires of Cardigan and Carmarthen, where St. David is

peculiarly honoured. The significance of this fact no doubt lies in

the absence of any necessity for asserting a Cambrianism which there

are none to dispute. In the border towns, every Welshman who desires

to assert his national right wears the leek in his hat or elsewhere on

his person; but in the shadow of St. David's College at Lampeter, not

a leek is seen on St. Dewi's Day. In Glamorganshire may be found the

order of Knights of the Leek, who hold high festival on the 1st of

every March, gathering in the Welsh bards and men of letters.

Why is the leek worn? Practically, because the wearer is a Welshman

who honours tradition. But the precise origin of the custom is

involved in an obscurity from which emerge several curious and

interesting traditions. The verses cited at the opening of this Part

refer to one of these; they are quoted by Manby[115] without other

credit than 'a very antient manuscript.' Another tradition is thus

given in a pamphlet of 1642:[116] 'S. David when hee always went into

the field in Martiall exercise he carried a Leek with him, and once

being almost faint to death, he immediately remembred himself of the

Leek, and by that means not only preserved his life but also became

victorious: hence is the Mythologie of the Leek derived.' The practice

is traced by another writer[117] to 'the custom of Cymhortha, or the

neighbourly aid practised among farmers, which is of various kinds.

In some districts of South Wales all the neighbours of a small farmer

without means appoint a day when they all attend to plough his land,

and the like; and at such a time it is a custom for each individual to

bring his portion of leeks, to be used in making pottage for the whole

company; and they bring nothing else but the leeks in particular for

the occasion.' Some find the true origin of the custom in Druidical

days, but their warrant is not clear, nor how it came to be associated

with the 1st of March in that case. The military origin bears down the

scale of testimony, and gives the leek the glory of a Cambrian victory

as its consecrator to ornamental purposes. Whether this victory was

over the Saxon or the Gaul does not exactly appear; some traditions

say one, some the other. The battle of Poictiers has been named; also

that of Cressy, where the Welsh archers did good service with the

English against a common enemy; but an older tradition is to the

effect that the Saxon was the foe. The invaders had assumed the dress

of the Britons, that they might steal upon them unsuspected; but St.

David ordered the Welshmen to stick leeks in their caps as a badge of

distinction. This he did merely because there was a large field of

leeks growing near the British camp. The precaution gave the day to

the favoured of St. Dewi.

It cannot be denied that there have been found Englishmen rude enough

to ridicule this honourable and ancient custom of the Welsh, though

why they should do so there is no good reason. The leek is not

fragrant, perhaps; but if an old custom must smell sweet or be laughed

at, there is work enough for our risibles in every English parish.

The following is one of the foolish legends of the English respecting

the leek: 'The Welsh in olden days were so infested by ourang outangs

that they could obtain no peace day or night, and not being themselves

able to extirpate them they invited the English to assist, who came;

but through mistake killed several of the Welsh, so that in order to

distinguish them from the monkeys they desired them to stick a leek in

their hats.' The author of this ridiculous tale deserves the fate of

Pistol, whom Fluellen compelled to eat his leek, skin and all.

_Flu._ I peseech you heartily, scurvy lowsy knave, at my

desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look

you, this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor

your affections, and your appetites, and your digestions,

does not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.

_Pist._ Not for Cadwallader, and all his goats.

_Flu._ There is one goat for you. [_Strikes him._] Will you

be so good, scald knave, as eat it?

_Pist._ Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

_Flu._ You say very true, scald knave, when Got's will is: I

will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your

victuals.... If you can mock a leek you can eat a leek....

_Pist._ Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see, I eat.

_Flu._ Much goot do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, 'pray

you, throw none away; the skin is goot for your proken

coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I

pray you, mock at them! that is all.[118]

FOOTNOTES:

[115] 'Hist. and Ant. of the Parish of St. David,' 54.

[116] 'The Welchmen's Ivbilee to the honour of St. David, shewing the

manner of that solemn celebration which the Welchmen annually hold in

honour of St. David, describing likewise the trve and reall cause why

they wear that day a _Leek_ on their Hats, with an excellent merry

Sonnet annexed unto it, composed by T. Morgan Gent. London. Printed

for I. Harrison.'

[117] Owen, 'Camb. Biog.' 86.

[118] Shaks., 'K. Henry V.,' Act V., Sc. 1.

VI.

The traditional St. David is a brilliant figure in Welsh story; with

the historical character this work has not to deal. The legendary

account of him represents a man of gigantic stature and fabulous

beauty, whose age at his death was 147 years. He was a direct

descendant of the sister of the Virgin Mary, and his first miracles

were performed while he was yet unborn. In this condition he regulated

the diet of his virgin mother, and struck dumb a preacher who

presumed to preach in her presence. At the hour of his birth St. Dewi

performed a miracle; another when he was baptized; and he was taught

his lessons (at a place called The Old Bush, in South Wales) by a

pigeon with a golden beak, which played about his lips. As he grew up,

his miraculous powers waxed stronger; and magicians who opposed him

were destroyed by fire which he called from heaven to consume them.

Thirsty, a fountain rose in Glyn Hodnant at his call, and from this

fountain ran not water but good wine. When he went about the country

he was always accompanied by an angel. On the banks of the river

Teify, a miserable woman wept over her son who lay dead; she appealed

to Dewi, who laid hold of the boy's right hand and he arose from the

dead as if from a sleep. At Llandewi Brefi, in Cardiganshire, as he

was preaching on the surface of the flat ground, the ground rose as a

high mount under his feet, so that the people all about could see him

as well as hear him. A labourer lifted his pickaxe to strike a friend

of Dewi's, which the saint seeing from afar off, raised his hand and

willed that the labourer's hand should become stiff--which it did.

Another friend, going away to Ireland, forgot and left behind him a

little bell that Dewi had given him; but Dewi sent the bell across the

sea by an angel, so that it arrived there next day without the aid of

human hands. And finally, having made up his mind that he would die

and go to heaven, he did so--but quite of his own will--at his own

request, so to speak. Having asked that his soul might be taken, an

angel informed him it would be taken on the first of March proximo. So

David bade his friends good-bye on the 28th of February, greatly to

their distress. 'Alas!' they cried, 'the earth will not swallow us!

Alas! fire will not consume us! Alas! the sea will not come over the

land! Alas! the mountains will not fall to cover us!' On Tuesday

night, as the cocks were crowing, a host of angels thronged the

streets of the city, and filled it with joy and mirth; and Dewi died.

'The angels took his soul to the place where there is light without

end, and rest without labour, and joy without sorrow, and plenty of

all good things, and victory, and brightness, and beauty.' There Abel

is with the martyrs, Noah is with the sailors, Thomas is with the

Indians, Peter is with the apostles, Paul is with the Greeks, other

saints are with other suitable persons, and David is with the

kings.[119]

On the summit which rose under St. Dewi while he stood on it and

preached, now stands St. David's church, at Llandewi Brefi. In the

days of its glory--i.e. during nearly the whole period of Roman

Catholic rule--it was renowned beyond all others in Britain. To go

twice to St. David's was deemed equal to going once to Rome, and a

superstitious belief prevailed that every man must go to St. David's

once, either alive or dead. William the Conqueror marched through

Wales in hostile array in 1080, but arriving at St. David's shrine

laid aside the warrior for the votary.

FOOTNOTE:

[119] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 402, etc.

VII.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in Wales with much enthusiasm. The

Welsh believe that St. Patrick was a Welshman. Born at Llandeilo

Talybont, in Glamorganshire, and educated at the famous college of

Llantwit Major, he held St. David's place till the coming of Dewi was

announced to him; then he went into Ireland, to do missionary work,

as it were. This is the monastic tale. Patrick was comfortably settled

in the valley of Rosina, and intended to pass his life there, but an

angel came to him and said, 'Thou must leave this place to one who is

not yet born.' Patrick was annoyed, even angered, but obedient, and

went off to Ireland, where he became a great man.[120] The story of

the Iolo MSS., however, presents the matter in a different light:

'About A.D. 420 the Island of Britain seemed to have neither ruler nor

proprietor.' The Irish took advantage of this state of things to

invade and oppress Britain, robbing her of corn, cattle, 'and every

other moveable property that they could lay their hands on.' Among

other things, they stole away St. Patrick from the college at Llantwit

Major, 'whence that college became destitute of a principal and

teacher for more than forty years, and fell into dilapidation'--a

condition it remains in at present, by the way. 'Patrick never

returned to Wales, choosing rather to reside in Ireland; having

ascertained that the Irish were better people than the Welsh, in those

times.'[121] Still, it is not the native Welsh who are as a rule the

celebrators of St. Patrick's Day in Wales.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 403.

[121] Iolo MSS., 455.

VIII.

Shrove Tuesday was once characterised by a custom called throwing at

cocks, now obsolete. Hens which had laid no eggs before that day were

threshed with a flail, as being good for nothing. The person who hit

the hen with the flail and killed her got her for his reward.

The more reputable custom of cramming with crammwythau (pancakes)

still survives, and is undoubtedly of extreme antiquity.

CHAPTER II.

Sundry Lenten Customs--Mothering Sunday--Palm

Sunday--Flowering Sunday--Walking Barefoot to

Church--Spiritual Potency of Buns--Good Friday

Superstitions--Making Christ's Bed--Bad Odour of

Friday--Unlucky Days--Holy Thursday--The Eagle of

Snowdon--New Clothing at Easter--Lifting--The Crown of

Porcelain--Stocsio--Ball-Playing in Churchyards--The Tump of

Lies--Dancing in Churchyards--Seeing the Sun Dance--Calan

Ebrill, or All Fools' Day--May Day--The Welsh Maypole--The

Daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint--Carrying the Kings of Summer

and Winter.

I.

Wearing mourning throughout Lent was formerly common in Wales. In

Monmouthshire, Mothering Sunday--the visiting of parents on Mid-Lent

Sunday--was observed in the last century, but is nowhere popular in

Wales at present. Palm Sunday takes precedence among the Welsh, and is

very extensively and enthusiastically observed. The day is called

Flowering Sunday, and its peculiar feature is strewing the graves of

the dead with flowers. The custom reaches all classes, and all parts

of the Principality. In the large towns, as Cardiff, many thousands of

people gather at the graves. The custom is associated with the

strewing of palms before Christ on his entry into Jerusalem, but was

observed by the British Druids in celebration of the awakening life of

the earth at this season.

II.

In Pembrokeshire, it was customary up to the close of the last

century, to walk barefoot to church on Good Friday, as had been done

since times prior to the Reformation. The old people and the young

joined in this custom, which they said was done so as not to 'disturb

the earth.' All business was suspended, and no horse nor cart was to

be seen in the town.

Hot-cross buns also figured in a peculiar manner at this time. They

were eaten in Tenby after the return from church. After having tied up

a certain number in a bag, the folk hung them in the kitchen, where

they remained till the next Good Friday, for use as medicine. It was

believed that persons labouring under any disease had only to eat a

portion of a bun to be cured. The buns so preserved were used also as

a panacea for all the diseases of domestic animals. They were further

believed to be serviceable in frightening away goblins of an evil

sort.

That these buns are of Christian invention is the popular belief, and

indeed this notion is not altogether exploded among the more

intelligent classes. Their connection with the cross of the Saviour is

possible by adoption--as the early Christians adopted many pagan rites

and customs--but that they date back to pre-historic times there is

abundant testimony.

Innumerable are the superstitious customs and beliefs associated with

Good Friday. In Pembrokeshire there was a custom called 'making

Christ's bed.' A quantity of long reeds were gathered from the river

and woven into the shape of a man. This effigy was then stretched on a

wooden cross, and laid in some retired field or garden, and left

there.

The birth of a child on that day is very unlucky--indeed a birth on

any Friday of the whole year is to be deprecated as a most unfortunate

circumstance.

III.

The bad odour in which Friday is everywhere held is naturally

associated, among Christians, with the crucifixion; but this will not

account for the existence of a like superstition regarding Friday

among the Brahmins of India, nor for the prevalence of other lucky and

unlucky days among both Aryan and Mongolian peoples. In the Middle

Ages Monday and Tuesday were unlucky days. A Welshman who lived some

time in Russia, tells me Monday is deemed a very unlucky day there, on

which no business must be begun. In some English districts Thursday is

the unlucky day. In Norway it is lucky, especially for marrying. In

South Wales, Friday is the fairies' day, when they have special

command over the weather; and it is their whim to make the weather on

Friday differ from that of the other days of the week. 'When the rest

of the week is fair, Friday is apt to be rainy, or cloudy; and when

the weather is foul, Friday is apt to be more fair.'

The superstitious prejudice of the quarrymen in North Wales regarding

Holy Thursday has been cited. It is not a reverential feeling, but a

purely superstitious one, and has pervaded the district from ancient

times. It has been supposed that Thursday was a sacred day among the

Druids. There is a vulgar tradition (mentioned by Giraldus), that

Snowdon mountains are frequented by an eagle, which perches on a fatal

stone on every Thursday and whets her beak upon it, expecting a battle

to occur, upon which she may satiate her hunger with the carcases of

the slain; but the battle is ever deferred, and the stone has become

almost perforated with the eagle's sharpening her beak upon it. There

may perhaps be a connection traced between these superstitions and the

lightning-god Thor, whose day Thursday was.

IV.

Easter is marked by some striking customs. It is deemed essential for

one's well-being that some new article of dress shall be donned at

this time, though it be nothing more than a new ribbon. This is also a

Hampshire superstition. A servant of mine, born in Hampshire, used

always to say, 'If you don't have on something new Easter Sunday the

dogs will spit at you.' This custom is associated with Easter baptism,

when a new life was assumed by the baptized, clothed in righteousness

as a garment. A ceremony called 'lifting' is peculiar to North Wales

on Easter Monday and Tuesday. On the Monday bands of men go about with

a chair, and meeting a woman in the street compel her to sit, and be

lifted three times in the air amidst their cheers: she is then invited

to bestow a small compliment on her entertainers. This performance is

kept up till twelve o'clock, when it ceases. On Easter Tuesday the

women take their turn, and go about in like manner lifting the men. It

has been conjectured that in this custom an allusion to the

resurrection is intended.

[Illustration: LIFTING. (_From an old drawing._)]

A custom, the name of which is now lost, was that the village belle

should on Easter Eve and Easter Tuesday carry on her head a piece of

chinaware of curious shape, made expressly for this purpose, and

useless for any other. It may be described as a circular crown of

porcelain, the points whereof were cups and candles. The cups were

solid details of the crown: the candles were stuck with clay upon the

spaces between the cups. The cups were filled with a native beverage

called bragawd, and the candles were lighted. To drink the liquor

without burning yourself or the damsel at the candle was the

difficulty involved in this performance. A stanza was sung by the

young woman's companions, the last line of which was,

Rhag i'r feinwen losgi ei thalcen.

(Lest the maiden burn her forehead.[122])

Stocsio is an Easter Monday custom observed from time immemorial in

the town of Aberconwy, and still practised there in 1835. On Easter

Sunday crowds of men and boys carrying wands of gorse went to Pen

Twthil, and there proclaimed the laws and regulations of the following

day. They were to this effect: all men under sixty to be up and out

before 6 A.M.; all under forty, before 4 A.M.; all under twenty, to

stay up all night. Penalty for disobedience: the stocks. The crier who

delivered this proclamation was the man last married in the town

previous to Easter Sunday. Other like rules were proclaimed, amid loud

cheers. Early next morning a party, headed by a fife and drum,

patrolled the town with a cart, in search of delinquents. When one was

discovered, he was hauled from his bed and made to dress himself; then

put in the cart and dragged to the stocks. His feet being secured

therein, he was duly lectured on the sin of laziness, and of breaking

an ancient law of the town by lying abed in violation thereof. His

right hand was then taken, and he was asked a lot of absurd questions,

such as 'Which do you like best, the mistress or the maid?' 'Which do

you prefer, ale or buttermilk?' 'If the gate of a field were open,

would you go through it, or over the stile?' and the like. His answers

being received with derision, his hand was smeared with mud, and he

was then released amid cheers. 'This sport, which would be

impracticable in a larger and less intimate community, is continued

with the greatest good humour until eight; when the rest of the day is

spent in playing ball at the Castle.'[123]

FOOTNOTES:

[122] 'Arch. Camb.' 4 Se., iii., 334.

[123] 'Hist. and Ant. of Aberconwy,' 108.

V.

Ball-playing against the walls of the church between hours of service

was a fashion of Easter which is within recollection. It was also

common on the Sabbath day itself in many parishes, in the days when

dissent was unknown and parishioners had long distances to traverse on

a Sunday; 'and that, too, with the sanction of the clergyman, and even

his personal superintendence. Old people can remember such a state of

things, when the clergyman gave notice that the game must cease by

putting the ball into his pocket and marched his young friends into

church.'[124] Nowhere less than in a custom like this would the

ordinary observer look for traditionary significance; yet there is no

doubt our Easter eggs are but another surviving form of the same

ancient rite. Before the Reformation there was a Church of England

custom of playing ball _in_ church at Easter, according to Dr.

Fosbrooke, the dean and clergy participating.

There were other sports and pastimes common alike to Easter and to the

Sabbath day, which are full of curious interest. Some of them no doubt

arose out of the social exigencies of sparsely settled neighbourhoods,

which caused people to remain at the church between services, instead

of returning to distant homes; but a Druidic origin seems necessary to

account for others. That the people should between services gather

near the church to talk over the gossip of the day, is natural enough,

and is a phenomenon which may still be witnessed in remote parts of

the United States. In St. Dogmell's parish, Pembrokeshire, there is a

tump which bears the name of 'Cnwc y Celwydd,' videlicet, the Tump of

Lies. Here were men and women formerly in the habit of gathering

together on the Lord's day in great crowds, and entertaining each

other with the inventing and telling of the most lying and wonderful

yarns they could conjure up with the aid of an imagination spurred to

exercise by rivalry and applause. The custom is discontinued; but

there is still hardly a neighbourhood in Wales so rich in tales of

fairies and other goblins.

The custom of dancing in churchyards was common in many parts of the

Principality in the early part of this century. At Aberedwy, Malkin

saw a large yew tree in the churchyard under which as many as sixty

couples had been seen dancing at once.[125] The dancing was not in

that part of the yard consecrated to the dead, but on the north side

of the church, where it was not the custom to bury. A tradition is

preserved by Giraldus of a solemn festival dance which took place in

the churchyard at St. Almedha's church, Breconshire, on that saint's

day. The dance was 'led round the churchyard with a song,' and

succeeded by the dancers falling down in a trance, followed by a sort

of religious frenzy. This is believed to have been a Druidical rite,

described on hearsay by Giraldus, and embellished by him with those

pious inventions not uncommon in his day.

One of the customs of Easter, at a comparatively recent period in

Wales, was getting the children up early in the morning to see the sun

dance. This exercise the sun was said to perform at rising on Easter

Day, in honour of the rising of our Lord. The sun was sometimes aided

in this performance by a bowl of clear water, into which the youth

must look to see the orb dance, as it would be dangerous to look

directly on the sun while thus engaged. The religious dance of the

ancient Druids is believed to exist in modern times in a round dance

wherein the figures imitate the motions of the sun and moon. The

ball-playing in church mentioned above was also accompanied by

dancing.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] 'Arch. Camb.' 4 Se., iii., 333.

[125] Malkin's 'South Wales,' 281.

VI.

The first of April is in Welsh called Calan Ebrill, and an April Fool

a Ffwl Ebrill; the similarity of English and Welsh words may be said

to typify the similarity of observance. The universality of this

observance among Aryan peoples would certainly indicate an origin in a

time preceding the dispersion of the human family over the world. The

Druids, tradition says, celebrated the revival of Nature's powers in a

festival which culminated on the first of April in the most hilarious

foolery. The Roman Saturnalia or feast of fools perpetuated the rite,

though the purpose of the Christian revelry may quite possibly have

been to ridicule the Druidic ceremonies.

The festivities of May-day are in like manner associated with the

powers of Nature, whose vigour and productiveness were symbolized by

the Maypole round which village lads and lasses danced. The rites of

love were variously celebrated at this time, and some of these customs

locally have long survived the Maypole itself. The ordinance for the

destruction of Maypoles in England and Wales, printed in 1644,

declared them 'a heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition

and wickedness,' wherefore it was ordained that they should be

destroyed, and that no Maypole should thereafter be 'set up, erected,

or suffered to be within this kingdom of England or dominion of

Wales.'

The Maypole in Wales was called Bedwen, because it was always made of

birch, bedw, a tree still associated with the gentler emotions. To

give a lover a birchen branch, is for a maiden to accept his

addresses; to give him a collen, or hazel, the reverse. Games of

various sorts were played around the bedwen. The fame of a village

depended on its not being stolen away, and parties were constantly on

the alert to steal the bedwen, a feat which, when accomplished, was

celebrated with peculiar festivities. This rivalry for the possession

of the Maypole was probably typical of the ancient idea that the first

of May was the boundary day dividing the confines of winter and

summer, when a fight took place between the powers of the air, on the

one hand striving to continue the reign of winter, on the other to

establish that of summer. Here may be cited the Mabinogi of Kilhwch

and Olwen, where it speaks of the daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint. 'She

was the most splendid maiden in the three Islands of the Mighty, and

in the three Islands adjacent,' and for her does Gwyn ap Nudd, the

fairy king, fight every first of May till the day of doom.[126] She

was to have been the bride of Gwythyr, the son of Greidawl, when Gwyn

ap Nudd carried her off by force. The bereaved bridegroom followed,

and there was a bloody struggle, in which Gwyn was victorious, and

which he signalized by an act of frightful cruelty; he slew an old

warrior, took out his heart from his breast, and constrained the

warrior's son to eat the heart of his father. When Arthur heard of

this he summoned Gwyn ap Nudd before him, and deprived him of the

fruits of his victory. But he condemned the two combatants to fight

for the radiant maiden henceforth for ever on every first of May till

doomsday; the victor on that day to possess the maiden.[127]

FOOTNOTES:

[126] 'Mabinogion,' 229.

[127] 'Mabinogion,' 251.

VII.

In the remote and primitive parish of Defynog, in Breconshire, until a

few years since, a custom survived of carrying the King of Summer and

the King of Winter. Two boys were chosen to serve as the two kings,

and were covered all over with a dress of brigau bedw, (birchen

boughs,) only their faces remaining visible. A coin was tossed and the

boy chosen was the summer king; a crown of bright-hued ribbons was put

upon his head. Upon the other boy's head was placed a crown of holly,

to designate the winter king. Then a procession was formed, headed by

two men with drawn swords to clear the way. Four men supported the

summer king upon two poles, one under his knees and the other under

his arms; and four others bore the winter king in a similar

undignified posture. The procession passed round the village and to

the farm-houses near by, collecting largess of coin or beer, winding

up the perambulation at the churchyard. Here the boys were set free,

and received a dole for their services, the winter king getting less

than the other.

Another May-day custom among the boys of that parish, was to carry

about a rod, from which the bark had been partly peeled in a spiral

form, and upon the top of which was set either a cock or a cross, the

bearers waking the echoes of the village with 'Yo ho! yo ho! yo

ho!'[128]

FOOTNOTE:

[128] 'Arch. Camb.,' 2 Se., iv., 326.

CHAPTER III.

Midsummer Eve--The Druidic Ceremonies at Pontypridd--The

Snake Stone--Beltane Fires--Fourth of July Fires in

America--St. Ulric's Day--Carrying Cynog--Marketing on

Tombstones--The First Night of Winter--The Three Nights for

Spirits--The Tale of Thomas Williams the Preacher--All

Hallows Eve Festivities--Running through Fire--Quaint Border

Rhymes--The Puzzling Jug--Bobbing for Apples--The Fiery

Features of Guy Fawkes' Day--St. Clement's Day--Stripping

the Carpenter.

I.

Midsummer Eve, or St. John's Eve (June 23rd), is one of the ancient

Druidic festivals, still liberally honoured in Wales. The custom of

lighting bonfires survives in some of the villages, and at Pontypridd

there are ceremonies of a solemn sort. Midsummer Eve, in 1878, fell on

a Sunday. Upon that day the 'Druids and bards' at Pontypridd held the

usual feast of the summer solstice in the face of the sun. There is a

breezy common on the top of a high hill overlooking the town, where

stand a logan stone and a circle of upright stones constituting the

'temple of the Druids.' Here it is the custom of the present-day

adherents of that ancient religion, beside which Christianity is an

infant, to celebrate their rites 'within the folds of the serpent,' a

circle marked with the signs of the zodiac. The venerable archdruid,

Myfyr Morganwg, stands on the logan stone, with a mistletoe sprig in

his button-hole, and prays to the god Kali, 'creator of sun, moon,

stars, and universe.' Then the white-bearded old man delivers a

discourse, and new members are initiated into the 'mysteries,'

Occasionally these new members are Americans from over the sea, and

they include both sexes. Large crowds gather to witness the impressive

spectacle--a shadow of the ancient rites when from Belenian heights

flamed high the sacrificial fires. It was a former belief that these

fires protected the lands within their light from the machinations of

sorcery, so that good crops would follow, and that their ashes were

valuable as a medicinal charm.

The Snake-stone is another striking Welsh tradition, associated with

Midsummer eve. At this time of the year there are certain convocations

of snakes, which, hissing sociably together among one another, hiss

forth a mystic bubble, which hardens into the semblance of a glass

ring. The finder of this ring is a lucky man, for all his undertakings

will prosper while he retains it. These rings are called Gleiniau

Nadroedd in Welsh--snake-stones in English. They are supposed to have

been used by the ancient Druids as charms. There is a Welsh saying,

respecting people who lay their heads together in conversation, that

the talkers are 'blowing the gem.'

II.

The traditions connected with the Beltane fires are very interesting,

but the subject has received so much attention in published volumes

that it need not here be dwelt upon. The lad who in the United States

capers around a bonfire on the night of Independence Day has not a

suspicion that he is imitating the rites of an antiquity the most

remote; that in burning a heap of barrels and boxes in a public square

the celebrators of the American Fourth of July imitate the priests who

thus worshipped the sun-god Beal. The origins of our most familiar

customs are constantly being discovered in such directions as this.

On the face of the thing, nothing could be more absurd as a mode of

jollification, in a little American town, with its wooden

architecture, on a hot night in the midst of summer, than building a

roaring fire to make the air still hotter and endanger the surrounding

houses. The reason for the existence of such a custom must be sought

in another land and another time; had reflection governed the matter,

instead of tradition, the American anniversary would have found some

more fitting means of celebration than Druidic fires and Chinese

charms. (For it may be mentioned further, in this connection, that the

fire-crackers of our urchins are quite as superstitious in their

original purpose as the bonfire is. In China, even to this day,

fire-crackers are charms pure and simple, their office to drive away

evil spirits, their use as a means of jollification quite unknown to

their inventors.) A far more sensible Midsummer rite, especially in a

hot country, would have been to adopt the custom of St. Ulric's day,

and eat fish. This saint's day falls on the fourth of July, and

Barnabe Googe's translation of Naogeorgius has this couplet concerning

it:

Wheresoeuer Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in

Both carpes and pykes, and mullets fat, his fauour here to win.

III.

The Welsh saint called Cynog was one of the numberless children of

that famous old patriarch Brychan Brycheiniog, and had his memory

honoured, until a comparatively recent period, in the parish of

Defynog. Here, on this saint's feast Monday, which fell in October,

there was a custom called 'carrying Cynog.' Cynog was represented by a

man who was paid for his services with money, or with a suit of

clothes--sometimes a 'stranger' from an adjoining parish, but on the

last recorded occasion a drunken farmer of the neighbourhood. He was

clad in dilapidated garments, and borne through the village; after

which he was tumbled headlong into the river amid the jeers of the

crowd, to scramble out as best he might. It was not a very respectful

way of commemorating a saint who had been buried a thousand years or

thereabouts; but such as it was it died out early in the present

century. The ducking which ended the performance has been supposed to

be a puritan improvement on what was before a religious ceremony, or

mystery. It is more than possibly a relic of the Druidic sacrificial

rites; in cases where a river ran near, at the time of the Beltane

fires, a sacrifice by water was substituted for that of flame.

The feast of St. Cynog continued for a week. On the Tuesday there was

a singular marketing in the churchyard; from all about the farmers

brought their tithe of cheese, and taking it to the churchyard, laid

it on the tombstones, where it was sold for the parson's behoof.

IV.

All Hallows eve is by the Welsh called 'Nos Calan Gauaf,' meaning 'the

first night of winter;' sometimes, 'Nos Cyn Gauaf,' the 'night before

winter.' It is one of the 'Teir Nos Ysprydnos,' or 'three nights for

spirits,' upon which ghosts walk, fairies are abroad, mysterious

influences are in the air, strange sights are seen, and in short

goblins of every sort are to be with special freedom encountered. They

may be conjured to appear, by certain enchantments, and to give their

visitors glimpses of the future, especially as regards the subject of

marrying. On this night it is customary for the young people,

gathered in many a merry circle, to seek by tricks and charms of

various sort to become acquainted with their future lovers and

sweethearts. Not that it is always necessary to employ such aids, for

on the Teir Nos Ysprydnos the phantoms of future companions have been

known to appear unsummoned. There are many such stories as that of

Thomas Williams, the preacher, who slept in the hills on a Nos

Ysprydnos, and although he used no charms nor tricks of any sort, he

saw his future wife. As he was just about putting out his light,

having jumped into bed, the door opened and the goblin mother of the

young woman he subsequently married walked into the room, leading her

daughter. 'Here, Thomas,' said she, 'I am going, but I leave you

Mary.' And when he came down home out of the mountains he found that

the old mother had died in her bed at the very moment he saw her

goblin. To have done less than marry the girl, after that, would have

been to insult the good old lady's ghost, and cast reflections on the

reputation of All Hallows eve.

The two other spirit-nights, it may here be mentioned, are May-day eve

and Midsummer eve; which with All Hallows were three great festivals

of the ancient Druids, when they commemorated the powers of Nature and

love in the manner which has been alluded to. I have two accounts of

this matter, however, and I know not which is the older in tradition,

as I have both from the mouths of the people; but one account calls

Christmas-night the third spirit-night.

The festivities of All Hallows in Wales are in the main like those of

other Christian lands, in so far as they consist of feasting and

making merry. Bonfires were kindled in many places until recently,

and perhaps are still, in some parts, again in pursuance of the

Druidic rites, which the Christian Church adopted and continued while

changing their significance. In Owen's account of the Bards occurs a

curious description of the autumnal fires kindled in North Wales on

the eve of the first of November, and the attendant ceremonies. There

was running through the fire and smoke, and casting of stones into the

fire, 'all running off at the conclusion to escape from the black

short-tailed sow.'[129] This custom of running through the fire is

said to survive in Ireland. It is no doubt related to the ancient

sacrificial rites. As testimonies to the kinship of our race, all

these customs possess a deep interest, which is increased in this

direction as they lose in the charm of the unique.

On the Welsh Border there prevails a Hallow-e'en custom among the

children of going about to the houses singing the rhymes which follow:

Wissel wassel, bread and possel,

Cwrw da, plas yma:

An apple or a pear, a plum or a cherry,

Or any good thing to make us merry.

Sol cakes, sol cakes,

Pray you, good missus, a sol cake;

One for Peter, and two for Paul,

And three for the good man that made us all.

The roads are very dirty,

My shoes are very thin,

I've got a little pocket,

To put a penny in.

Up with the kettle and down with the pan,

Give us an answer and we'll be gan.

(_A loud rap at the door._)