In North Wales the November Eve fire, which each family built in the most prominent place near the house, was called Coel Coeth. Into the dying fire each member of the family threw a white stone marked so that he could recognize it again. Circling about the fire hand-in-hand they said their prayers and went to bed. In the morning each searched for his stone, and if he could not find it, he believed that he would die within the next twelve months. This is still credited. There is now the custom also of watching the fires till the last spark dies, and instantly rushing down hill, "the devil (or the cutty black sow) take the hindmost." A Cardiganshire proverb says:
"A cutty[1] black sow
On every stile,
Spinning and carding
Every Allhallows' Eve."
[1] Short-tailed.
November Eve was called "Nos-Galan-Gaeof," the night of the winter Calends, that is, the night before the first day of winter. To the Welsh it was New Year's Eve.
Welsh fairy tradition resembles that in the near-by countries. There is an old story of a man who lay down to sleep inside a fairy ring, a circle of greener grass where the fairies danced by night. The fairies carried him away and kept him seven years, and after he had been rescued from them he would neither eat nor speak.
In the sea was the Otherworld, a
"Green fairy island reposing
In sunlight and beauty on ocean's calm breast."
Parry: Welsh Melodies.
This was the abode of the Druids, and hence of all supernatural beings, who were
"Something betwixt heaven and hell,
Something that neither stood nor fell."