Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

by Jonathan Ceredig Davies

“Shann, Ty Clai died lately, at the age of 90 without leaving a child to bewail her loss, except Abel, her grandson, a lad of 18 years of age, who was crying sorrowfully after the only friend he had in the whole world. There was there a very strange Wake-night kept at the house. They got some beer there from Nanny Dan-yr-Allt’s Inn, and the time was spent until midnight in telling stories about Twm Shon Catty, and in drinking. Then a rope was let down secretly through the chimney by some fellows, while their companions inside were singing ‘Ysgyfarnog pen Crug y Balog.’ Poor Abel was sitting in the corner of the hearth in sorrow, with his hand under his head, and crying by himself, and Evan, Blaen Cwm, close by him comforting him and saying, ‘Don’t cry, dear Abel; drink a drop more; you must try and be calm, and we will do our best for thee. Yes, by jove, we shall!’ At the same time the old rascal was tying a rope around the poor lad’s waist. Then, suddenly, the party outside cried ‘Hirwen-gwd,’ and Evan from within, cried, ‘Chwareu yn barod.’

“Almost instantly, Abel found himself being dragged up the chimney, whereupon Evan asked ‘Where are you going, dear Abel?’ The latter answered, ‘I don’t know where the d——l takes me to.’ He was pulled out through the chimney—a narrow old luffer as it was, full of soot, and there was an awful sight on him afterwards....

“My father and the best men feel to the very life that such a thing has taken place in the district, and they say that no such thing has taken place before for 15 years.”

It seems that many strange and mysterious events took place sometimes at the Wake-nights in Pembrokeshire, if all the stories we hear are true. Miss Martha Davies, Fishguard, informed me that her late uncle, Mr. Howells, Cilgwyn, vouched for the truth of the following account of an event which happened about a hundred years ago or more. Saith she:—An old gentleman farmer, who was a notorious ungodly man, lived at a farmhouse called Dolgaranog, in North Pembrokeshire. He at last died, and was placed in his coffin, and the candles were lighted, and people came together to the house and the ‘gwylnos,’ or wake-night went on in the usual manner, according to the customs of those days. Some of the young men and young maidens were talking together, whispering words of love to each other, and were rather merry, it seems. As these things went on, they were suddenly surprised by hearing the sound of horses’ feet, as if a large concourse of people were approaching the house on horses and driving full speed. The next moment the sound of men’s footsteps was heard entering in through the door and into the very room where the wakenight went on; but nothing could be seen.

The invisible intruders, as they passed into the room where the dead man lay, put out all the candles. At last the same sound of footsteps could be heard departing from the house, and as this mysterious sound passed out through the room, people heard the bustle, and even felt the crush, and on leaving, the strange visitors re-lighted the candles, but nothing was to be seen, but the sound of horses’ feet was heard as if a large concourse of cavaliers were driving away from the house, in the same manner as they had approached it, and gradually the sound died away. Then the relatives and friends and others who were present at the ‘gwylnos,’ keeping vigil over the dead, were anxious to know what this sound of invisible footsteps meant, and what had happened, so they entered the room where the coffin was, and when they opened it, to their great alarm, they found that nothing but an empty coffin, for the corpse was gone, and was never found again. The people of the neighbourhood really believed that the body was taken by the Devil, or evil spirits, as the man had lived such a bad life. The coffin was afterwards filled with stones and buried.

Another strange old death custom, if it ever existed, was the “Sin Eater.”

It seems that the first to refer to the subject was Mr. John Aubrey, in 1686, who asserted that there was such a custom in Herefordshire and also in North Wales, and at the annual meeting of the Cambrian Archæological Association, which was held at Ludlow in August, 1852, Mr. Matthew Moggridge, of Swansea, made the following observation:—“When a person died, his friends sent for the Sin-eater of the district, who, on his arrival, placed a plate of salt on the breast of the defunct, and upon the salt a piece of bread. He then muttered an incantation over the bread, which he finally ate, thereby eating up all the sins of the deceased. This done, he received his fee of 2s. 6d. and vanished as quickly as possible from the general gaze; for, as it was believed that he really appropriated to his own use and behoof the sins of all those over whom he performed the above ceremony. He was utterly detested in the neighbourhood—regarded as a mere Pariah—as one irredeemably lost.” The speaker then mentioned the Parish of Llandebie, in Carmarthenshire, where the above practice was said to have prevailed to a recent period. Mr. Allen, of Pembrokeshire, said that the plate and salt were known in that county, where also a lighted candle was stuck in the salt, and that the popular notion was that it kept away the evil spirit.

A few years ago, one Rhys read at Tregaron an interesting paper on that town and district, and after referring to the custom of keeping vigil over the dead, he makes the following statement: “There was also an old custom in the town (Tregaron) connected with the ‘Sin-eater.’ Where there was a corpse in the house the ‘Sin-eater’ was invited. The relatives of the dead prepared him a meal on the coffin, he was supposed to eat the sins of the dead man so as to make the deceased’s journey upward lighter.”

The late Chancellor D. Silvan Evans, and other well-informed Welshmen, have denied that any such custom as that of the Sin-eater ever existed in Wales, and Wirt Sikes, after diligent searching, failed to find any direct corroboration of it, and I may add that, though I venture no opinion of my own upon the subject, I have never come across in any part of Wales any old persons, either men or women, who had heard any tradition about it. On the other hand, the celebrated Welsh Novelist, Allen Raine, informed me a short time ago, that she knew a man at Carmarthen who had seen a “Sin-eater”; and the Rev. G. Eyre Evans showed me a portrait of a man that had seen one long ago in the Parish of Llanwenog.

Perhaps the following, which appeared in Volume 15 of “Folk Lore,” may prove of interest in connection with the subject. The writer, Mr. Rendel Harries, who had visited Archag, an Armenian village, where he attended service, says as follows in his “Notes from Armenia:—“At the evening service, to my great surprise, I found that when the congregation dispersed, a corpse laid out for burial was lying in the midst of the building. It had, in fact, been brought in before we came, and was to lie in the Church in preparation for burial next day. I noticed that two large flat loaves of bread had been placed upon the body. Inquiry as to the meaning of this elicited no other explanation than that the bread was for the Church mice and to keep them from eating the corpse. I did not feel satisfied with the explanation. Some months later, on mentioning the incident to some intelligent Armenians in Constantinople, they frankly admitted that in former days the custom was to eat the bread, dividing it up amongst the friends of the deceased. Whether this is a case of Sin-eating, I leave Mr. Frazer and Mr. Hartland to decide.”