[8] Fach, a mild term of endearment in Welsh.
[9] In "Folk-lore of the Northern Counties" Mr. Henderson says: "They believe in the county of Sussex that the death of a sick person is shown by the prognostic of 'shell-fire.' This is a sort of lambent flame, which seems to rise from the bodies of those who are ill and envelop the bed."
[10] I am indebted to Mr. Owen M. Edwards, the Editor of Cymru, for his kind permission to publish the translations included in this and Chapter VII.
[11] In Welsh folk-lore cross-roads always figure as likely spots for uncanny happenings.
[12] To "send" any one means to go with him part of the way back—a Welsh idiom.
[13] A horrible spectre, supposed to foretell death.
[14] Literally, "Fair Family."
[15] Rooms.
[16] I.e., the sun.
[17] "Eglwysfach" is the real name, and in "Welsh Folk-lore" Mr. Owen relates a case of "measuring the yarn" in the same village, where the custom seems to have been long prevalent and firmly believed in. His account of the charming for a case of "Clefyd y Galon" (or heart-sickness) is worth quoting. The patient was bidden to roll his sleeves up above the elbow, then "Mr. Jenkins (a respectable farmer and deacon amongst the Wesleyans) took a yarn thread and placing one end on the elbow measured to the tip of Felix's (the patient) middle finger, then he tells his patient to take hold of the yarn at one end, the other end resting the while on the elbow, and he was to take fast hold of it, and stretch it. This he did and the yarn lengthened, and this was a sign he was actually sick of heart-disease. Then the charmer tied the yarn around the patient's left arm above the elbow, and there it was left, and in the next visit measured again, and he was pronounced cured."