Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

by Jonathan Ceredig Davies

A young man who lives in the Gwaun Valley, between Pontfaen and Fishguard informed me in the beginning of November, 1905, that he had just seen a phantom or a spirit funeral only a few weeks previously.

A friend of his, a young porter at a Railway Station in the neighbourhood of Cardiff, had come home ill to his native place in Pembrokeshire, and his friend, my informant, one night sat up by his bedside all night. About three o’clock in the morning the patient was so seriously ill that my informant in alarm hurried to call the father of the poor sufferer to come to see him, as the old man lived in a small cottage close by. As soon as he went out through the door into the open air, to his great astonishment he found himself in a large crowd of people, and there was a coffin resting on some chairs, ready to be placed on the bier; and the whole scene, as it were, presented a funeral procession, ready to convey the dead to the grave. When the young man attempted to proceed on his way, the procession also proceeded, or moved on in the same direction, so that he found himself still in the crowd. After going on in this manner for about a hundred yards, he managed to draw one side from the crowd and soon reached the house of his sick friend’s father, and nearly fainted. Three days after this vision the seer’s friend died; and on the day of the funeral the young man noticed that the crowd stood in front of the house and the coffin resting on chairs exactly as he had seen in the apparition. I may add that my informant who had seen the phantom funeral was so terrified even at the time when I saw him, that he was too much afraid to go out at night. It so happened that I was staying in that part of Pembrokeshire at the time, so I went to see the man myself, and a clergyman accompanied me.

AN APPARITION!

I obtained the following account of a phantom funeral from the Rev. John Phillips, Vicar of Llancynfelyn, North Cardiganshire. The scene of the story was Cilcwm, Carmarthenshire:—

A PHANTOM FUNERAL.

Though more than thirty years have run their course since the incident which is to be described here occurred, still the impression which it left on the writer’s mind was so vivid and lasting that he finds not the slightest difficulty in recalling its minutest details at the present moment. Some experiences are so impressive that time itself seems powerless to efface them from the memory, and of such the following appears to be an instance:—

It happened in the early Spring, just when the days were perceptibly lengthening, and a balmy feeling was creeping into the air, and a glad sense of hope was throbbing throughout the whole of nature. A boy of ten, or may be a couple of years younger, tired out after a hard day of play and pleasure, sat resting on a log near a lonely house, in a sparsely populated district. As he sat, he gazed down a long stretch of white and dusty road leading away past the house. As a rule, few and far between would be the travellers who used that unfrequented road. The sole exception would be on a Sunday, when perhaps a dozen or more of the neighbours might be seen wending their way, to or from the nearest place of worship. Intense, therefore, was the boy’s surprise, when on this week-day, his eyes discerned a goodly company turning the corner in the distance, and proceeding in an orderly procession along the stretch of straight road which his vantage ground commanded. He watched it keenly, and wondered greatly. Never had he before seen such a crowd on that particular road. As the people drew nearer and nearer, something of solemnity in their orderly and silent manner struck on the watcher’s imagination, but no sense of anything akin to the supernatural obsessed his mind for a second, still he failed not to mark, that for so large an assemblage, it was remarkably noiseless. Twenty yards, more or less, from where the youthful watcher sat, a footpath leading over a piece of wet and barren land joined the road. This path, which could be traversed only in dry weather, terminated half a mile away, at the door of a solitary cottage inhabited by a farm hand named Williams, who dwelt there with his wife and several young children. When the crowd arrived at the spot where the path ran on to the road, there seemed to be a momentary hesitation, and then the procession left the road and took to the footpath. The watcher strained every nerve, in an effort to recognise some one or other in the crowd, but though there was something strangely familiar about it all, there was also something so dim and shadowy, as to preclude the possibility of knowing anyone with certainty; but as the tail end of the procession curved round to gain the path, something he did observe, which caused a thrill, for the last four men carried high on their shoulders a bier,—but it was an empty bier. Soon as the multitude was out of sight, the boy rushed to the house, and related his curious experience. No thought of anything weird and uncanny had so far crossed his mind, and his one desire at the time was to gain some information as to where the people were bound for. Neither could he just then understand the manifest consternation, and the hushed awe, which fell upon his hearers as he unfolded his tale. Amongst these there happened to be a visitor, an old dame of a class well known in many parts of rural Wales in those days. It was her habit to stroll from farm to farm along the country side, regaling the housewives with the latest gossip. In return she would be sure of a meal, and also something to carry home in her wallet. Naturally, such a character would be shrewd and keen, knowing well not only what tales would suit her company, but also the truth, or otherwise, of any tales which she herself might be a listener to. In addition, the old dame in question was generally supposed to be immune from all fear, and cared not how far from home she might be when the shades of night overtook her. On the present occasion, although a few minutes before, she had been on the point of starting, and was indeed only waiting to be handed her usual dole of charity, no sooner had she heard the lad’s strange tale, than she flatly declared that no power on earth could move her to travel an inch further that evening, and so at the expense of much inconvenience to the household a bed had to be prepared for her. However, she started early on the following morning, and long before noon, owing mainly to her assiduous diligence, the news had travelled far and near, that a phantom funeral had been seen on the previous evening. Her tale made a deep impression throughout the country-side. Those prone to superstition,—and it must be confessed, they were many,—lent a ready ear. A few,—and these prided themselves on their commonsense,—doubted. The latter class were not slow to point out, what they considered to be, a fatal flaw in the evidence. The supposed funeral was travelling in a direction, which led away from the churchyard. Had it been going down the road instead of up, they argued, that there might be something in it. Then again, it took the footpath, and it was pointed out, not only that funerals kept to the high roads, but that this particular path, could not by any stretch of imagination be said to lead to any burial ground. This seemed a reasonable view to take, and as one day succeeded another, without anything unusual happening, the excitement cooled down. However, within a few weeks Williams, who lived in the cottage across the marsh was taken ill. At first, it was thought that he had contracted a chill, and it was hoped that he would soon be well again. The nearest medical man lived six miles away, and that caused further delay. On the fifth day the doctor came, but he came to find that it was too late for his skill to be of any avail. A glance at the patient had satisfied him that it was a case of double pneumonia, and that the end was rapidly approaching. A few hours later and Williams had drawn his last breath. Three days more and the funeral took place. As is the custom in country places, the neighbours from far and near attended, and on their way a group of men called at the burial place for the bier. This group was joined by others so that long before the house of mourning was reached the procession was a large one. It travelled up the long stretch of road where the lad had watched that mysterious crowd, in the twilight six weeks before. The same lad watched again, and when the procession reached the point, where the footpath branched away across the fields, the man who acted as leader stopped, and raised his hand, while the procession hesitated for a moment, then looking at his watch, the leader spoke in low clear tones, “men,” said he, “it is already getting late if we go round by the road, it will get very late; we will take the path.” He led the way and as his followers swept round the curve, the lad saw that the last four men carried on their shoulders an empty bier. It was being taken to fetch the body.