V.
A death-portent which is often confused with the Gwrach y Rhibyn, yet which is rendered quite distinct by its special attributes, is the Cyhyraeth. This is a groaning spirit. It is never seen, but the noise it makes is no less terrible to the ear than the appearance of its visible sister is to the eye. Among groaning spirits it is considered to be the chief. The Prophet Jones succinctly characterises it as ‘a doleful, dreadful noise in the night, before a burying.’ David Prosser, of Llanybyther parish, ‘a sober, sensible man and careful to tell the truth,’ once heard the Cyhyraeth in the early part of the night, his wife and maid-servant being together in the house, and also hearing it; and when it came opposite the window, it ‘pronounced these strange words, of no signification that we know of,’ viz. ‘Woolach! Woolach!’ Some time afterward a funeral passed that way. The judicious Joshua Coslet, who lived by the river Towy in Carmarthenshire, testified that the Cyhyraeth is often heard there, and that it is ‘a doleful, disagreeable sound heard before the deaths of many, and most apt to be heard before foul weather. The voice resembles the groaning of sick persons who are to die; heard at first at a distance, then comes nearer, and the last near at hand; so that it is a threefold warning of death. It begins strong, and louder than a sick man can make; the second cry is lower, but not less doleful, but rather more so; the third yet lower, and soft, like the groaning of a sick man almost spent and dying.’ A person ‘well remembering the voice’ and coming to the sick man’s bed, ‘shall hear his groans exactly like’ those which he had before heard from the Cyhyraeth. This crying spirit especially affected the twelve parishes in the hundred of Inis Cenin, which lie on the south-east side of the river Towy, ‘where some time past it groaned before the death of every person who lived that side of the country.’ It also sounded before the death of persons ‘who were born in these parishes, but died elsewhere.’ Sometimes the voice is heard long before death, but not longer than three quarters of a year. So common was it in the district named, that among the people there a familiar form of reproach to any one making a disagreeable noise, or ‘children crying or groaning unreasonable,’ was to ejaculate, ‘Oh ’r Cyhyraeth!’ A reason why the Cyhyraeth was more often heard in the hundred of Inis Cenin was thought to be that Non, the mother of St. David, lived in those parts, where a village is called after her name, Llan-non, the church of Non.
On the southern sea-coast, in Glamorganshire, the Cyhyraeth is sometimes heard by the people in the villages on shore passing down the channel with loud moans, while those dismal lights which forebode a wreck are seen playing along the waves. Watchers by the sea-shore have also heard its moan far out on the ocean, gradually drawing nearer and nearer, and then dying away; and when they thought it gone it has suddenly shrieked close to their startled ears, chilling their very marrows. Then, long after, they would hear it, now faint, now loud, going along the sands into the distant darkness. One or more corpses were usually washed ashore soon after. In the villages the Cyhyraeth is heard passing through the empty streets and lanes by night, groaning dismally, sometimes rattling the window-shutters, or flinging open the door as it flits by. When going along the country lanes it will thus horrify the inmates of every house it passes. Some old people say it is only heard before the death of such as are of strayed mind, or who have long been ill; but it always comes when an epidemic is about to visit the neighbourhood.
A tradition of the Cyhyraeth is connected with the parish churchyard at St. Mellons, a quaint old-fashioned village within easy tramping distance of Cardiff, but in Monmouthshire. It is of a boy who was sent on an errand, and who heard the Cyhyraeth crying in the churchyard, first in one place, then in another, and finally in a third place, where it rested. Some time after, a corpse was brought to that churchyard to be buried, but some person came and claimed the grave. They went to another place, but that also was claimed. Then they went to a third place, and there they were allowed to bury their dead in peace. And this going about with the corpse was ‘just the same as the boy declared it.’ Of course the boy could not know what was to come to pass, ‘but this crying spirit knew exactly what would come to pass.’ I was also told by a person at St. Mellons that a ghost had been seen sitting upon the old stone cross which stands on the hillside near the church.
VI.
Other groaning spirits are sometimes heard. A girl named Mary Morgan, living near Crumlyn Bridge, while standing on the bridge one evening was seized with mortal terror on hearing a groaning voice going up the river, uttering the words, ‘O Dduw, beth a wnaf fi?’ (O God, what shall I do?) many times repeated, amid direful groans. The conclusion of this narration is a hopeless mystery, as Mary fainted away with her fright.
Much more satisfactory, as a ghost-story with a moral, is the tale of the groaning spirit of Bedwellty.[99] There was one night a wake at the house of Meredith Thomas, over the body of his four-year-old child, at which two profane men (named Thomas Edward Morgan and Anthony Aaron) began playing at cards, and swearing most horribly. In the parish of Bedwellty, the wakes—or watch-nights, as they are more commonly called in Wales—were at that time very profanely kept. ‘Few besides the dissenters,’ says Jones (who was himself a dissenter, it must be remembered), ‘had the sense and courage to forbid’ this wickedness, but ‘suffered it as a custom, because the pretence was to divert the relations of the dead, and lessen their sorrows.’ While the aforementioned profane men were playing cards and swearing, suddenly a dismal groaning noise was heard at the window. At this the company was much frightened, excepting the card-players, who said ‘Pw!’ and went on playing. But to pacify the rest of the company they finally desisted, and at once the groaning ceased. Soon after they began playing again, when at once the groaning set up in most lamentable tones, so that people shuddered; but the profane men again said, ‘Pw! it is some fellow playing tricks to frighten us.’ ‘No,’ said William Harry Rees, a good man of the Baptist persuasion, ‘it is no human being there groaning, but a spirit,’ and again he desired them to give over. But though they were so bold with their card-playing, these wicked men had not the hardihood to venture out and see who it was ‘playing tricks,’ as they called it. However, one of the company said, ‘I will go, and take the dogs with me, and see if there be any human being there.’ The groaning still continued. This bold person then ‘took the prime staff, and began to call the dogs to go with him;’ but the dogs could not be induced to go out, being in great terror at the groaning noise, and sought to hide themselves under the stools, and about the people’s feet. In vain they beat the dogs, and kicked and scolded them, out-door they would not go. This at last convinced the profane men, and they left off playing, for fear the devil should come among them. For it was told in other places that people had played cards till his sulphurous majesty appeared in person.
FOOTNOTE:
[99] Jones, ‘Apparitions,’ 24.