A CORPSE CANDLE SEEN NEAR CONWIL.
An old man named James, living at Nantgaredig in Carmarthenshire, gave me an account of how he himself and his father and others had seen a Corpse Candle in the parish of Conwil Elvet.
When James was a boy, he was sent one day by a farmer’s wife on a message to Llanpumpsaint, about three miles off, to fetch a pair of clogs from the blacksmith, and a few small things from a shop in the village. When he arrived there he went first to the blacksmith, but he had to wait there as the clogs were not ready. Then he went to the village shop, but, unfortunately, the woman who kept the shop was not at home, and he had to wait several hours; so that when he returned to the farm with his message it was quite dark. But the farmer’s wife gave him plenty to eat and a present of a waistcoat. Then he went home to Nantglas, where his father and mother lived. It was now getting late in the evening, and he was only a boy going along a lonely road. When he was between Yetyffin, and Cwmgweren, he noticed some light coming after him nearer and nearer, and it even passed him at last. It hovered within about two feet from the ground as it went slowly along. The boy, who was a little bit frightened, now knocked at the door of a house he was passing and called the attention of the inmates to the strange light on the road.
On he went again, and he even passed the light on the road; but when he reached home and told his parents about it, his father would not believe that he had seen a light. But the boy opened the door just as the light was passing and he called his father to come out and see it. The whole family now came out, and both his father and the other children saw the light, but his mother and one of the children did not see it—not possessing second sight.
Soon after this, a child died at a house called Yet-y-ffin; and my informant’s father and his neighbours were convinced that the light which they had seen was his corpse candle.
Sometimes a corpse candle was seen coming into the chamber of the person about to die.
A woman, who was a native of Gwynfi in Carmarthenshire, told me about five years ago that when her child was dying, she took particular notice of a pale bluish light coming in through the window and standing right over the bed. I have also heard several other persons saying things of this kind.