Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

by Jonathan Ceredig Davies

A CORPSE CANDLE SEEN TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO.

There is a tradition at Llanilar that a young woman got drowned long ago in attempting to cross the river Ystwyth during a flood; and that a short time before the melancholy event took place, people in the neighbourhood had seen a corpse candle hovering up and down the river. According to the Rev. Edmund Jones, the young woman had come from Montgomeryshire to see her friends at Llanilar.

There is also a tradition in Carmarthenshire of a three-flamed corpse candle which had been seen on the surface of the water near Golden Grove a short time before three persons were drowned near the spot.