NEITHIOR.
When the ceremony at the church and the horse racing which followed were over, the guests proceeded to the young married couple’s house to partake of some food, and in the afternoon and the evening they paid their “pwython” to the newly married couple, that is those of the guests who had not paid already. Others again gave fresh presents. There was much consumption of beer and cakes on such occasions always, and the sale of which was a further source of income to the young couple, so that between everything they were provided with the means for a good start in their married life. Very often such a large crowd attended the Neithior, that the house was often too small to accommodate them all; so a party of the men resorted to the barn or any other convenient place to drink beer.
It was also customary for the young men to treat the young maidens with cakes; so there was a good deal of love-making, and often of rivalry, especially should there be a very pretty girl among the merry company. Those young maids who were fortunate enough as to be in favour with the young men had their aprons full of cakes and biscuits, etc., to take home with them in the evening. Such festivities as a rule were very merry and kept up till a late hour, and there was a good deal of singing, harp-playing and dancing, for the Welsh were expert dancers in former times; but at the present day dancing is almost unknown, at least in country places.
On such occasions, it was customary, as a rule, to secure the presence of a harper, for the harp was from time immemorial a favourite musical instrument among the Welsh people; for Giraldus Cambrensis writing 700 years ago, says:—“Those who arrive in the morning are entertained till evening with the conversation of young women and the music of the harp; for each house has its young women and harps allotted to this purpose ... and in each family the art of playing on the harp is held preferable to any other learning.” During the last three generations, however, the dear old instrument with its sweet and melodious sounds gradually declined in popular favour in Wales, and at the present, there are but very few who can play on the harp at all, indeed, in many districts the instrument has entirely disappeared, giving place to the modern piano. This is to be greatly regretted, and every patriotic Welshman should do his best to encourage playing on the harp.
It happened once that a “Neithior” or wedding festivities took place, strange to say, without a wedding! This was about two generations ago in the Parish of Llandyssul. A man of the name of B. T. Rees, in that part of the country was engaged to be married to a young woman who was known as Sally. Two Bidders had been sent round the country to invite people to the wedding, and all other preparations had been made ready for the joyful occasion, and everything appeared most promising. But when B. T. Rees, a few days before the appointed time for the wedding ceremony, went to visit his bride-elect, she would neither receive him nor speak to him, but ordered him to depart immediately from her presence, to the great astonishment and disappointment of Rees, the bridegroom, and his friends. He endeavoured to reason with her, but to no purpose. Afterwards some of his friends were sent to speak to her, but nothing availed; it seemed as if she had suddenly made up her mind to banish him entirely from her heart.
The wedding was to take place at Henllan on a certain morning, and the “Neithior” in the afternoon at Llandyssul. When that morning arrived, the bridegroom and his friends, decided to seek the bride once more, but she had hidden herself and could not be found anywhere. Rees and his party were in a strange predicament, and did not know what to do; but they returned to Llandyssul, and in the afternoon the wedding festivities were kept up just as if the wedding had actually taken place; and when night came, Rees had come into possession of large sums of money from the sale of beer, and donations, or wedding gifts and the sincere sympathy of the guests, but he had failed to secure a wife after all! Rees and Sally were married ultimately, however.
In the last century, the Neithior took place on the wedding day; in former times, however, the festivities were continued on the Sunday, which followed. Sir S. R. Meyrick, writing about one hundred years ago says:—“Sunday being come, the bride and bridegroom’s business is to stay at home all day and receive good-will and pwython. This is called “Neithior.” They receive more money this day than Saturday, and all are written down as before, whether fresh presents, or those repaid.”
It seems from what I have been informed by old persons, that such doings on Sundays had almost disappeared, if not completely so, in Meyrick’s time, at least in most places, but it is evident that Sunday observances of the kind were common about the middle of the eighteenth century; and in the old Church Register of the parish of Llanfihangel Geneu’r Glyn, in Cardiganshire, the following record is found:—
“11 June, 1745. Whereas the parish has been notorious hitherto in upholding and continuing a wicked custom of keeping Biddings or meetings upon the Sabbath day to the dishonour of God, and contempt of religion, to prevent such irregularities for the future, it is this day ordered by the consent of a vestry legally called and kept that the said custom shall stop and be discontinued entirely hereafter, and whosoever within our said parish encourages or practices and obstinately refuses to obey this our order, we do unanimously consent and join to punish him to the utmost rigour of the law.—W. Williams, Clerk, etc.”
Such Sunday customs were by degrees discontinued entirely in every part of Wales, and the Welsh have been for some generations now, and to their credit still are, the most strict Sabbatarians in the world with the exception perhaps of the Scotch. The Methodists Revivalists in the eighteenth century, who greatly inveighed against Sabbath breaking, contributed towards bringing about this satisfactory state of things.
The curious old Welsh Weddings, which I have endeavoured to describe in this book do not prevail now; the only surviving feature of them is perhaps what is known in some parts as “Ystafell,” and in other parts as “Cwyro Ty.” “Ystafell” is rather popular now in some districts, especially between Tregaron and Lampeter, but instead of a Gwahoddwr or Bidder an aunt or some other near relative of the bride goes round the houses inviting the neighbours to bring wedding gifts so as to give the young couple a good start in life.
I have been informed that similar old wedding customs to those of the Welsh were once in vogue in Cumberland, a county where the Celtic element is very strong, and also in Brittany, another Celtic province, and the present custom of wedding gifts which is so common in connection with fashionable weddings at the present day, is only a survival of the old Welsh customs.
It seems that in China also it is customary for the friends and relations of the bride and bridegroom to present them with wedding gifts, and in Ancient Peru a dwelling was got ready for the newly-married pair at the charge of the district, and the prescribed portion of land assigned for their maintenance, and the ceremony of marriage was followed by general festivities among the friends of the parties, which lasted several days.
[1] King George and Caroline. [↑]
CHAPTER III.
FUNERAL CUSTOMS.
As the Wedding Customs differed, the Funeral Customs also differed, and still differ in many respects in Wales from those of England. In Wales funerals are public, and the day and the hour on which they are to take place are always announced both in church and chapel, and in some places the day was made known by sending a man or a woman round the houses. One or two from almost every house in the neighbourhood in which the deceased lived attend his funeral, so that funeral processions are very large, even in districts where the population is small and scattered. Both men and women come, many of them from a long distance, the majority of them on foot, others in their traps, and some on horses, and even wet and stormy weather does not prevent them, for they have a profound reverence for the dead and death from time immemorial; and the night before the funeral a prayer meeting is held in the room where the corpse is lying, and pious appeals to Heaven are made in which strong emotions are expressed, the deceased is referred to in stirring sentences, and his death made a theme for warning on the brevity of earthly life, and the importance of the future life of the soul.
This prayer meeting is called Gwylnos (wake-night), and it is the only surviving feature of the various customs which were once in vogue in connection with watching the corpse in the house, or keeping vigil over the dead.
In Wales in former times when any one died, candles were always lighted every night in the room where the corpse was, and it was customary for friends or relatives to sit up all night to watch it, and even at the present day the custom is observed by some. Some are of the opinion that this custom had its origin in pre-reformation times. But it seems more probable to have been a Pagan custom, and much older than Christianity.
The original design of the lighted candles, undoubtedly, was to give light to the spirit of the dead on its way to the other world. This is done for that purpose at the present day in China.
It was once the custom in some parts to open the windows when a person was dying. Principal Sir John Rhys, Oxford, says that he well remembers this done in the neighbourhood of Ponterwyd, in North Cardiganshire, and that a farmer near Ystrad Meurig, in the same county, informed him that when his mother (the farmer’s) was dying, a neighbour’s wife who had been acting as nurse tried to open the window of the room, and as it would not open, she deliberately smashed a pane of it; and the learned Professor remarks that “this was doubtless originally meant to facilitate the escape of the soul.”—Celtic Folk-Lore.
It was once customary in the neighbourhood of Llangennech, Carmarthenshire, to cover with muslin the looking glass in the room in which the corpse lay. But to return to the Wake Night, or keeping vigil over the dead, I have already mentioned that the only feature of the old customs in connection with it still observed is the Prayer Meeting on the night before the funeral, and even this has been almost discontinued in Pembrokeshire, though still popular in Cardiganshire and parts of Carmarthenshire, but the custom is very injurious to the health of those who attend these meetings, as people crowd together in large numbers into the room—often a small one—where the coffin is. It was once the custom for every person on entering the house to fall devoutly on his knees before the corpse, and repeat the Lord’s Prayer, or some other prayer, and then a pipe and tobacco were offered to him, but is not done now; but it was done in former times in many districts before the commencement of the prayer meeting.
The manner of conducting this prayer meeting also differs at the present day to what it used to be once. In former times, before the Nonconformists became strong in Wales, it was the custom for the clergyman to read the common service appointed for the burial of the dead, and at the conclusion of which Psalms were sung; but at the present day the custom is, as a rule, for three or four persons to offer extemporary prayers, and an address delivered on the melancholy subject by the Clergyman of the Church of England or a Nonconformist minister, and hymns are sung. And afterwards the crowd depart for their homes.
Formerly when it was customary to keep vigil over the dead, young men and women were glad to volunteer their services to watch the corpse during the night in order to enjoy the society of each other, and on some occasions, it seems, from what I have been told by old persons, some of the young men were rather merry before morning, and often went as far as to drink beer, and in order to pass the time good many stories were related about Corpse Candles, phantom funerals, etc., but the old Welsh Wake nights were never so rowdy as the Irish ones.
In Pembrokeshire, about hundred and fifty years ago there was a most curious, strange, and mysterious custom performed during the Wake Night, known as “Hir-wen-gwd” (long white bag, or shroud). The corpse was drawn up through the chimney, and the process was as follows:—A certain number of young men took out the corpse from the coffin and moved it, clad in a long white shroud, to a convenient place near the fire. Then a rope was tied round to the upper part of the body, and when this was done securely, the other end of the rope was passed up the chimney by means of a long stick for that purpose; and the next step was for a party of the men to go up to the top of the chimney from the outside of the house by means of a ladder, and take hold of the rope which had been sent up inside, and when they were ready for the ceremony, they gave a sign to those who were inside the house with the corpse, by crying in Welsh, “Hirwen-gwd,” and those who were inside the house would answer by saying, “Chware’n barod,” or we are ready. Then the party who were on top of the house pulled up the corpse slowly through the chimney by means of the rope, and brought it to the very top and lowered it again, and eventually re-placed it in the coffin. An aged person, named Mrs. Mary Thomas, Bengal, near Fishguard, told me that she had heard a good deal from her mother about this strange old custom, “Hirwen-gwd,” and that the last of such ceremonies took place at a house called Pantycnwch, in the parish of Bridell, about a hundred and forty years ago. According to Mrs. Thomas, it was customary to put a living man in the coffin whilst the ceremony of drawing up the corpse through the chimney was going on, and this was done in the case referred to at Bridell; but when the party at the end of the game approached the coffin in order to take out the living man so as to replace the corpse in it, they found him dead. This sad incident caused people after this to put an end of the old custom. When in Pembrokeshire, I enquired everywhere from very old persons as to the origin and object of such strange and mysterious ceremony, and in reply some of them informed me that it was only a game indulged in by those who were keeping vigil over the dead, to pass the time, whilst others said that there was once a superstition that another death would soon follow the funeral in the family or in the district unless the ceremony was duly performed. Hirwen-gwd, whatever might have been the origin of it, seems to have been confined to Pembrokeshire, at least I have not found any tradition of the custom among the old people of Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire, except in one district in the latter county, situated on the very border of Pembrokeshire.
It is, however, possible that such custom was once known in other parts of South Wales, but discontinued at an earlier date.
In a series of spurious letters, known as “Llythyrau Anna Beynon,” bearing the date 1720, and pretending to give an account of the old rural customs of two hundred years ago in the Parish of Llandyssul and the surrounding districts, I found the following strange story in connection with “Hirwen-gwd,” but I cannot vouch for the truth of the account, as it is evident that the “letters” referred to are not authentic:—