IN WALES
In Wales the custom of fires persisted from the time of the Druid
festival-days longer than in any other place. First sacrifices were
burned in them; then instead of being burned to death, the
creatures merely passed through the fire; and with the rise of
Christianity fire was thought to be a protection against the evil
power of the same gods.
Pontypridd, in South Wales, was the Druid religious center of
Wales. It is still marked by a stone circle and an altar on a hill.
In after years it was believed that the stones were people changed
to that form by the power of a witch.
In North Wales the November Eve fire, which each family built in
the most prominent place near the house, was called Coel Coeth.
Into the dying fire each member of the family threw a white stone
marked so that he could recognize it again. Circling about the fire
hand-in-hand they said their prayers and went to bed. In the
morning each searched for his stone, and if he could not find it,
he believed that he would die within the next twelve months. This
is still credited. There is now the custom also of watching the
fires till the last spark dies, and instantly rushing down hill,
"the devil (or the cutty black sow) take the hindmost." A
Cardiganshire proverb says:
"A cutty[1] black sow
On every stile,
Spinning and carding
Every Allhallows' Eve."
[1] Short-tailed.
November Eve was called "Nos-Galan-Gaeof," the night of the winter
Calends, that is, the night before the first day of winter. To the
Welsh it was New Year's Eve.
Welsh fairy tradition resembles that in the near-by countries.
There is an old story of a man who lay down to sleep inside a
fairy ring, a circle of greener grass where the fairies danced by
night. The fairies carried him away and kept him seven years, and
after he had been rescued from them he would neither eat nor speak.
In the sea was the Otherworld, a
"Green fairy island reposing
In sunlight and beauty on ocean's calm breast."
PARRY: _Welsh Melodies._
This was the abode of the Druids, and hence of all supernatural
beings, who were
"Something betwixt heaven and hell,
Something that neither stood nor fell."
SCOTT: _The Monastery._
As in other countries the fairies or pixies are to be met at
crossroads, where happenings, such as funerals, may be witnessed
weeks before they really occur.
At the Hallow Eve supper parsnips and cakes are eaten, and nuts and
apples roasted. A "puzzling jug" holds the ale. In the rim are
three holes that seem merely ornamental. They are connected with
the bottom of the jug by pipes through the handle, and the
unwitting toper is well drenched unless he is clever enough to see
that he must stop up two of the holes, and drink through the third.
Spells are tried in Wales too with apples and nuts. There is
ducking and snapping for apples. Nuts are thrown into the fire,
denoting prosperity if they blaze brightly, misfortune if they pop,
or smoulder and turn black.
"Old Pally threw on a nut. It flickered and then blazed up.
Maggee tossed one into the fire. It smouldered and gave no
light."
MARKS: _All-Hallows Honeymoon._
Fate is revealed by the three luggies and the ball of yarn thrown
out of the window: Scotch and Irish charms. The leek takes the
place of the cabbage in Scotland. Since King Cadwallo decorated his
soldiers with leeks for their valor in a battle by a leek-garden,
they have been held in high esteem in Wales. A girl sticks a knife
among leeks at Hallowe'en, and walks backward out of the garden.
She returns later to find that her future husband has picked up the
knife and thrown it into the center of the leek-bed.
Taking two long-stemmed roses, a girl goes to her room in silence.
She twines the stems together, naming one for her sweetheart and
the other for herself, and thinking this rhyme:
"Twine, twine, and intertwine.
Let his love be wholly mine.
If his heart be kind and true,
Deeper grow his rose's hue."
She can see, by watching closely, her lover's rose grow darker.
The sacred ash figures in one charm. The party of young people seek
an even-leaved sprig of ash. The first who finds one calls out
"cyniver." If a boy calls out first, the first girl who finds
another perfect shoot bears the name of the boy's future wife.
Dancing and singing to the music of the harp close the evening.
Instead of leaving stones in the fire to determine who are to die,
people now go to church to see by the light of a candle held in the
hand the spirits of those marked for death, or to hear the names
called. The wind "blowing over the feet of the corpses" howls about
the doors of those who will not be alive next Hallowe'en.
On the Eve of All Souls' Day, twenty-four hours after Hallowe'en,
children in eastern Wales go from house to house singing for
"An apple or a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Or any good thing to make us merry."
It is a time when charity is given freely to the poor. On this
night and the next day, fires are burned, as in England, to light
souls through Purgatory, and prayers are made for a good wheat
harvest next year by the Welsh, who keep the forms of religion very
devoutly.