A Cock Crowing in the Night.
This, too, was thought to foretell a death, but whose death, depended on the direction of the bird’s head whilst crowing. As soon as the crowing was heard someone went to ascertain the position of the cock’s head, and when it was seen that his head was turned from their own house towards someone else’s abode, the dwellers in that house slept in peace, believing that a neighbour, and not one of themselves, was about to die. It was supposed, that to make the prognostication sure, the cock would have to crow three times in succession before or about midnight, and in the same direction.
The Corpse Candle—Canwyll Corph.
The corpse candle, or canwyll corph, was a light like that of a candle, which was said to issue from the house where a death was about to occur, and take the course of the funeral procession to the burial place. This was the usual way of proceeding, but this mysterious light was also thought to wend its way to the abode of a person about to die. Instances could be given of both kinds of appearances.
I have met with persons in various parts of Wales who told me that they had seen a corpse candle. They
described it as a pale bluish light moving slowly along a short distance above the ground. Strange tales are told of the course the light has taken. Once it was seen to go over hedges and to make straight for the churchyard wall. This was not then understood, but when the funeral actually took place the ground was covered with snow, and the drift caused the procession to proceed along the fields and over the hedges and churchyard wall, as indicated by the corpse candle.
It was ill jesting with the corpse candle. The Rev. J. Jenkins, Vicar of Hirnant, told me that a drunken sailor at Borth said he went up to a corpse candle and attempted to light his pipe at it, but he was whisked away, and when he came to himself he discovered that he was far off the road in the bog.
The Rev. Edmund Jones, in his book entitled A Relation of Ghosts and Apparitions, etc., states:—
“Some have seen the resemblance of a skull carrying the candle; others the shape of the person that is to die carrying the candle between his fore-fingers, holding the light before his face. Some have said that they saw the shape of those who were to be at the burying.”
Those who have followed the light state that it proceeded to the church, lit up the building, emerged therefrom, and then hovered awhile over a certain spot in the churchyard, and then sank into the earth at the place where the deceased was to be buried.