Another odd custom was the manner in which public opinion expressed itself on account of any domestic or social delinquency. A large crowd assembled before the house of the delinquent, one of whom was dressed up in what seemed to be a horse’s head; the crowd then burst forth into strong vituperative abuse, accompanying the execrations with the rough music of old kettles, marrow-bones, and cleavers; finally, the effigy of the sinner was burnt before the house, and the sacred wrath of the multitude appeased. The majesty of outraged opinion being vindicated, they dispersed.
Some superstitions were of a more gentle character; the fairies, or “little men in green,” as they were popularly called, continued to hold their tenantry of Wales long after they had departed from England; and even Glamorganshire, one of the counties nearest to England,—its roads forming the most considerable highway through Wales,—was, perhaps, the county where they lingered last; certainly not many years have passed by since, in the Vale of Neath, in the same county, there would have been a fear in taking some secluded pathway in the night, lest the “little people” should be offended by the intrusion upon their haunts.
With all these singular observances and superstitions, there was yet a kind of Christian faith prevalent among the people, but buried beneath dark ignorance and social folly. At Christmas time, at night, it was usual to illuminate all the churches in the villages. And upon the New Year’s morning, children came waking the dawning, knocking at the doors,—usually obtaining admittance,—when they proceeded to sprinkle the furniture with water, singing as they did so the following words, which we quote on account of their quaint, sweet, old-world simplicity:—
“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.”
It is admitted on all hands that the dissolution of the mists of darkness and superstition is owing to the people usually called Dissenters; the Church of the Establishment—and this is said in no spirit of unkindness—did very little to humanise or soften the rugged character, or to put to flight the debasing habits of the people. Of course, there are high and honourable exceptions; but while many clergymen devoted themselves, with great enthusiasm, to the perpetuation of the singular lore, the wild bardic songs, the triads, or the strange fables and mythic histories of the country, we can call to mind the names of but very few who attempted to improve, or to ameliorate, the social condition. So that the preachers, and the vast gatherings of the people by whom the preachers were surrounded, when the rays of knowledge were shed abroad, and devotion fired, were not so much the result of any antagonism to the Established Church,—that came afterwards; they were a necessity created by the painful exigencies of the country.
The remarks on the superstitions of Wales are not at all irrelevant to the more general observations on Welsh preaching; they are so essentially inwoven with the type of character, and nationality. The Welsh appears to be intimately related to the Breton; the languages assimilate,—so also do the folk-lores of the people; and the traditions and fanciful fables which have been woven from the grasses of the field, the leaves of the forest, and the clouds of the heavens, would have furnished Christmas Evans with allegoric texts which he might have expanded into sermons. It is not possible to doubt that these form one branch, from the great Celtic stem, of the human family. And not only are they alike in language and tradition, but also in the melancholy religiousness, in the metaphysical brooding over natural causes, and in the absence of any genuine humour, except in some grim or gloomy and grotesque utterance. The stories, the heroes, and the heroines, are very much the same; historic memory in both looks back to a fantastic fairyland, and presents those fantastic pictures of cities and castles strangely submerged beneath the sea, and romantic shadows and spectral forms of wonderful kings and queens, such as we meet in the Mabinogi of Taliesin, in the Fairy Queen of Spenser, and in the Idylls of our Laureate. Thus, all that could stir wonder, excite the imagination and the fancy, and describe the nearness of the supernatural to the natural, would become very charming to a Welshman’s ears; and we instantly have suggested to us one of the sources of the power and popularity of Christmas Evans with his countrymen.
Even the spread and prevalence of Christian knowledge have scarcely disenchanted Wales of its superstitions. Few persons who know anything at all of the country, however slight such knowledge may be, are unaware of this characteristic of the people. This remark was, no doubt, far more applicable even twenty-five years since than now. The writer of this volume has listened to the stories of many who believed that they had seen the Canwyll-y-corph—corpse-candles—wending their way from houses, more or less remote, to the churchyard. Mr. Borrow, also, in his “Wild Wales,” tells us how he conversed with people in his travels who believed that they had seen the corpse-candles. But a hundred years ago, this was a universal object of faith; as was also the belief in coffins and burial trains seen wending their way, in the dead of night, to the churchyard. Omens and predictions abounded everywhere, while singular legends and traditions in many districts hung also round church bells. And yet with all this the same writer, remarking on Welsh character, says, “What a difference between a Welshman and an Englishman of the lower class!” He had just been conversing with a miller’s man,—a working labourer in the lowliest walk of life; and found him conversant with the old poets, and the old traditions of the country, and quite interested in them; and he says, “What would a Suffolk miller’s man have said, if I had repeated to him verses out of Beowulf or even Chaucer, and had asked him about the residence of Skelton?” We must bear this in mind as we attempt to estimate the character with which the preacher had to deal. Haunted houses were numerous. A lonely old place, very distinct to the writer’s knowledge, had hung round it some wild traditions not unlike “Blind Willie’s Story” in “Redgauntlet.” No doubt, now, all these things have, to a considerable extent, disappeared,—although there are wild nooks, far wilder than any we have in England, where the faith in the old superstitions lingers. In the great preaching days, those men who shook the hearts of the thousands of their listeners, as they dealt with unseen terrors, believed themselves to be—as it was believed of them that they were—covered with the shadow of an Unseen Hand, and surrounded by the guardianship of the old Hebrew prophet—“chariots of fire, and horses of fire;” they believed themselves to be the care of a special Providence; and some of the stories then current would only move the contempt of that modern intelligence which has, at any rate, laid all the ghosts.
It is not within the province of this volume to recapitulate and classify Welsh superstitions; they were, and probably, in many neighbourhoods, are still, very various: we must satisfy our readers with a slight illustration. Perhaps some may object to the retailing such stories, for instance, as the following. The apology for its insertion, then, must be, that it is one of a number tending to illustrate that sense which the old Welsh mind had, of its residence upon the borders of, and relation to, the Invisible World. The Rev. John Jones, of Holywell, in Flintshire, was one of the most renowned ministers in the Principality; he was a man of extraordinary zeal and fervour as a preacher, and his life and character were, in unblemished reputation, equal to his gifts and zeal. He used to recite, with peculiar solemnity, a story of a mysterious horseman, by whom he believed he had been delivered from a position of extreme danger, when he was travelling, alone, from Bala, in Merionethshire, to Machynlleth, in the county of Montgomery. He travelled on horseback through a wild, desolate country, at that time almost uninhabited; he had performed nearly half his journey, when, as he was emerging from a wood, he says, “I observed coming towards me a man on foot. By his appearance, judging from the sickle which he carried sheathed in straw over his shoulder, he was doubtless a reaper in search of employment. As he drew near, I recognized a man whom I had seen at the door of the village inn at Llanwhellyn, where I had stopped to bait my horse. On our meeting, he touched his hat, and asked if I could tell him the time of day. I pulled out my watch for the purpose,—noticing, at the same time, the peculiar look which the man cast at its heavy silver case. Nothing else, however, occurred to excite any suspicion on my part; so, wishing him a good afternoon, I continued my journey.” We must condense Mr. Jones’s narration, feeling that the story loses much of its graphic strength in so doing. He pursued his way down a hill, and, at some distance farther on, noticed something moving on the other side of a large hedge; he soon discovered it to be a man, running in a stooping position. He watched the figure with curiosity, which grew into something like fear as he recognized the reaper with whom he had spoken a short time before, and that, as he moved on, he was engaged in tearing the straw band from his sickle. The man hurried on, and Mr. Jones saw him conceal himself behind a thicker part of the hedge, within a few yards of the road, and near where a gate crossed the park. Mr. Jones says he did not doubt, then, that he intended to attack and, perhaps, murder him for the sake of the watch, and whatever money he might have about him. He looked round: no other person was in sight,—no house near; he was hemmed in by rocky banks and high hedges on either side.
“I could not turn back,” he says; “my business was of the utmost importance to the cause for which I was journeying.” He could not urge his horse with speed, for the gate was not open through which he had to pass; he felt that he was weak and unarmed, and had no chance against a powerful man with a dangerous weapon in his hand. “In despair,” he says, “rather than in a spirit of humble trust and confidence, I bowed my head, and offered up a silent prayer. At this juncture, my horse, growing impatient of delay, started off. I clutched the reins, which I had let fall on his neck,—when, happening to turn my eyes, I saw, to my utter astonishment, that I was no longer alone: there, by my side, I beheld a horseman, in a dark dress, mounted on a white steed. In intense amazement, I gazed upon him. Where could he have come from? He appeared as suddenly as if he had sprung from the earth; he must have been riding behind, and have overtaken me,—and yet I had not heard the slightest sound. It was mysterious, inexplicable; but joy overcame my feelings of wonder, and I began at once to address my companion. I asked him if he had seen any one; and then described to him what had taken place, and how relieved I felt by his sudden appearance. He made no reply, and, on looking at his face, he seemed paying but slight attention to my words, but continued intently gazing in the direction of the gate,—now about a quarter of a mile ahead. I followed his gaze, and saw the reaper emerge from his concealment, and run across a field to our left, resheathing his sickle as he hurried along. He had evidently seen that I was no longer alone, and had relinquished his intended attempt.”
Mr. Jones sought to enter into conversation with his mysterious companion, but he gave him no word in reply. He says he “was hurt at his companion’s mysterious silence;” only once did he hear his voice. Having watched the figure of the reaper disappear over the brow of a neighbouring hill, he turned to the stranger, and said, “‘Can it for a moment be doubted that my prayer was heard, and that you were sent for my deliverance by the Lord?’ Then it was that I thought I heard the horseman speak, and that he uttered the single word, ‘Amen!’ Not another word did he give utterance to, though I spoke to him both in English and Welsh. We were now approaching the gate, which I hastened to open; and having done so, I waited at the side of the road for him to pass through,—but he came not. I turned my head to look; the mysterious horseman was gone; he was not to be seen; he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. What could have become of him? He could not have gone through the gate, nor have made his horse leap the high hedges, which on both sides shut in the road. Where was he? had I been dreaming? was it an apparition, a spectre, which had been riding by my side for the last ten minutes?—was it but a creature of my imagination? I tried hard to convince myself that this was the case; but why had the reaper resheathed his murderous-looking sickle and fled? And then, a feeling of profound awe began to creep over my soul. I remembered the singular way of his first appearance,—his long silence, and the single word to which he had given utterance after I had mentioned the name of the Lord; the single occasion on which I had done so. What could I, then, believe, but that my prayer had been heard, and that help had been given me at a time of great danger? I dismounted, and throwing myself on my knees, I offered up my thankfulness to Him who had heard my cry. I then mounted my horse, and continued my journey; but through the long years that have elapsed since that memorable summer’s day, I have never for a moment wavered in my belief, that in the mysterious horseman I had a special interference of Providence, by which I was delivered from a position of extreme danger.”