British Goblins Part 24

With the growth of modern refinement the people of every land have become constantly more decorous in their grief. The effort of the primitive and untutored mind to utter its sorrow in loud and wild lamentations, and of friends and neighbours to divert the mind of the sufferer from his bereavement, gave rise to many funeral customs of which we still find traces in Wales. Pennant, while travelling in North Wales, noted, with regard to one Thomas Myddleton, a fact which he held 'to prove that the custom of the Irish howl, or Scotch Coranich, was in use among us (the Welsh); for we are told he was buried "c.u.m magno dolore et clamore cognatorum et propinquorum omnium."' No such custom now exists; but there is a very impressive rite, of a corresponding character, but religious, called the Gwylnos.

It is a meeting held in the room where the corpse is lying, on the night before the funeral. The Irish cry, 'Why did ye die?' is replaced by pious appeals to Heaven, in which great and strong emotion is expressed, the deceased referred to in stirring sentences, and his death made a theme for warnings on the brevity of earth-life and the importance of the future life of the soul.

On the day of the funeral, however, the customs are not always in keeping with modern notions of the praiseworthy. Indulgence in beer-drinking at funerals is still a Welsh practice, and its antiquity is indicated by a proverb: 'Claddu y marw, ac at y cwrw'--(To bury the dead, and to the beer.)[141] The collection of Welsh writings called 'Cymru Fu' refers to the custom thus, (to translate:) 'Before the funeral procession started for the church, the nearest friends and relatives would congregate around the corpse to wail and weep their loss; while the rest of the company would be in an adjoining room drinking warm beer (cwrw brwd) and smoking their pipes; and the women in still another room drinking tea together.'[142] The writer here speaks of the custom in the past tense, but apparently rather as a literary fas.h.i.+on than to indicate a fact; at any rate, the custom is not extinct. Occasionally it leads to appearances in the police-court on the part of injudicious mourners.[143] After taking the coffin out of the house and placing it on a bier near the door, it was formerly customary for one of the relatives of the deceased to distribute bread and cheese to the poor, taking care to hand it to each one over the coffin. These poor people were usually those who had, in expectation of this gift, been busily engaged in gathering flowers and herbs with which to grace the coffin. Sometimes this dole was supplemented by the gift of a loaf of bread or a cheese with a piece of money placed inside it. After that a cup of drink was presented, and the receiver was required to drink a little of it immediately.[144] Alluding to this subject the Rev. E. L. Barnwell[145] says: 'Although this custom is no longer in fas.h.i.+on, yet it is to some extent represented by the practice, especially in funerals of a higher cla.s.s, to hand to those who are invited to attend the funeral, oblong sponge cakes sealed up in paper, which each one puts into his or her pocket, but the providing and distribution of these cakes are now often part of the undertaker's duty.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: GIVING FOOD OVER THE COFFIN. (_From an old drawing._)]

FOOTNOTES:

[141] So the Spanish say, 'The dead to the bier, the living to good cheer.'

[142] 'Cymru Fu,' 91.

[143] 'Two Llancaiach men named Servis and Humphrey were arrested for fighting. They had _been to a funeral_, had done the customary honours by the remains of the departed brother or sister who had suffered, died, and was "chested," and then, after drowning their grief in the "cwrw," finished up in the police-court with a _finale_ involving the payment of 5_s._ and costs, and 8_s._ 8_d._ damage, or in default twenty-one days' hard labour.'--'Western Mail,' Jan. 31, 1877.

[144] Pennant, quoted by Roberts, 'Camb. Pop. Ant.,' 175.

[145] 'Arch. Camb.' 4th Se., iii., 332.

II.

What connection there may be between these customs and the strange and striking rite of the Sin-eater, is a question worthy of careful consideration. It has been the habit of writers with family ties in Wales, whether calling themselves Welshmen or Englishmen, to a.s.sociate these and like customs with the well-known character for hospitality which the Cymry have for ages maintained. Thus Malkin writes: 'The hospitality of the country is not less remarkable on melancholy than on joyful occasions. The invitations to a funeral are very general and extensive; and the refreshments are not light, and taken standing, but substantial and prolonged. Any deficiency in the supply of ale would be as severely censured on this occasion, as at a festival.'[146] Some have thought that the bread-eating and beer-drinking are survivals of the sin-eating custom described by Aubrey, and repeated from him by others. But well-informed Welshmen have denied that any such custom as that of the Sin-eater ever existed in Wales at any time, or in the border s.h.i.+res; and it must not be a.s.serted that they are wrong unless we have convincing proof to support the a.s.sertion. The existing evidence in support of the belief that there were once Sin-eaters in Wales I have carefully collated and (excluding hearsay and second-hand accounts), it is here produced. The first reference to the Sin-eater anywhere to be found is in the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, in the handwriting of John Aubrey, the author. It runs thus: 'In the county of Hereford was an old custom at funerals to hire poor people, who were to take upon them the sins of the party deceased. One of them (he was a long, lean, ugly, lamentable poor rascal), I remember, lived in a cottage on Rosse highway. The manner was that when the corpse was brought out of the house, and laid on the bier, a loaf of bread was brought out, and delivered to the Sin-eater, over the corpse, as also a mazard bowl of maple, full of beer (which he was to drink up), and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him, _ipso facto_, all the sins of the defunct, and freed him or her from walking after they were dead.' Aubrey adds, 'and this custom though rarely used in our days, yet by some people was observed in the strictest time of the Presbyterian Government; as at Dynder (_nolens volens_ the parson of the parish), the kindred of a woman, deceased there, had this ceremony punctually performed, according to her will: and also, the like was done at the city of Hereford, in those times, where a woman kept many years before her death a mazard bowl for the Sin-eater; and the like in other places in this country; as also in Brecon, e.g., at Llangors, where Mr. Gwin, the minister, about 1640, could not hinder the performance of this custom. I believe,' says Aubrey, 'this custom was heretofore used all over Wales.' He states further, 'A.D. 1686: This custom is used to this day in North Wales.'

Upon this, Bishop White Kennet made this comment: 'It seems a remainder of this custom which lately obtained at Amersden, in the county of Oxford; where, at the burial of every corpse, one cake and one flaggon of ale, just after the interment, were brought to the minister in the church porch.'[147]

No other writer of Aubrey's time, either English or Welsh, appears to have made any reference to the Sin-eater in Wales; and equal silence prevails throughout the writings of all previous centuries. Since Aubrey, many references to it have been made, but never, so far as I can discover, by any writer in the Welsh language--a singular omission if there ever was such a custom, for concerning every other superst.i.tious practice commonly ascribed to Wales the Welsh have written freely.

In August, 1852, the Cambrian Archaeological a.s.sociation held its sixth annual meeting at Ludlow, under the Presidency of Hon. R. H. Clive, M.P. At this meeting Mr. Matthew Moggridge, of Swansea, made some observations on the custom of the Sin-eater, when he added details not contained in Aubrey's account given above. He said: '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 2_s._ 6_d._ 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 where the above practice 'was said to have prevailed to a recent period.' He spoke of the survival of the plate and salt custom near Swansea, and indeed generally, within twenty years, (i.e. since 1830) and added: 'In a parish near Chepstow it was usual to make the figure of a cross on the salt, and cutting an apple or an orange into quarters, to put one piece at each termination of the lines.' Mr.

Allen, of Pembrokes.h.i.+re, testified that the plate and salt were known in that county, where also a lighted candle was stuck in the salt; the popular notion was that it kept away the evil spirit. Mr. E. A.

Freeman, (the historian) asked if Sin-eater was the term used in the district where the custom prevailed, and Mr. Moggridge said it was.

Such is the testimony. I venture no opinion upon it further than may be conveyed in the remark that I cannot find any direct corroboration of it, as regards the Sin-eater, and I have searched diligently for it. The subject has engaged my attention from the first moment I set foot on Cambrian soil, and I have not only seen no reference to it in Welsh writings, but I have never met any unlettered Welshman who had ever heard of it. All this proves nothing, perhaps; but it weighs something.[148]

FOOTNOTES:

[146] 'South Wales,' 68.

[147] Vide Hone's 'Year Book,' 1832, p. 858.

[148] Mr. Eugene Schuyler's mention of a corresponding character in Turkistan is interesting: 'One poor old man, however, I noticed, who seemed constantly engaged in prayer. On calling attention to him I was told that he was an iskatchi, a person who gets his living by taking on himself the sins of the dead, and thenceforth devoting himself to prayer for their souls. He corresponds to the Sin-eater of the Welsh border.'--'Turkistan,' ii., 28.

III.

Of superst.i.tions regarding salt, there are many in Wales. I have even encountered the special custom of placing a plate of salt on the breast of the corpse. In the case of an old woman from Cardigans.h.i.+re, who was buried at Cardiff, and who was thus decked by her relatives, I was told the purpose of the plate of salt was to 'prevent swelling.'

There is an Irish custom of placing a plate of snuff on the body of a corpse; hence the saying, addressed to an enemy, 'I'll get a pinch off your belly yet.' The Irish also employ the plate of salt in the same manner. In view of the universal prevalence of superst.i.tions regarding salt, too much weight should not be placed on this detail, in connection with the accounts of the Sin-eater. Such superst.i.tions are of extreme antiquity, and they still survive even among the most cultivated cla.s.ses. Salt falling toward a person was of old considered a most unlucky omen, the evil of which could only be averted by throwing a little of the fallen salt over the shoulder. My own wife observes this heathen rite to this day, and so, I fancy, do most men's wives--jocularly, no doubt, but with a sort of feeling that 'if there _is_ anything in it,' &c. Salt was the ancient symbol of friends.h.i.+p, being deemed incorruptible. In the Isle of Man no important business was ventured on without salt in the pocket; marrying, moving, even the receiving of alms, must be sanctified by an exchange of salt between the parties. An influential legend is noted among the Manx inhabitants, of the dissolution of an enchanted palace on that island, through the spilling of salt on the ground. In Da Vinci's picture of the Lord's Supper, Judas Iscariot is represented as overturning the salt--an omen of the coming betrayal of Christ by that personage. In Russia, should a friend pa.s.s you the salt without smiling, a quarrel will follow. The Scotch put salt in a cow's first milk after calving.

Even the Chinese throw salt into water from which a person has been rescued from drowning. All these practices point either to l.u.s.tration or propitiation.

IV.

It has been suggested that the custom of the Sin-eater is in imitation of the Biblical scapegoat. 'And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.'[149] This brings up the subject of charms and magic, and is ill.u.s.trated in Wales, if not by the Sin-eater, by the c.o.c.k and hen of St. Tegla's Well. This well is about half-way between Wrexham and Ruthin, in the parish of Llandegla, and has been considered efficacious in curing epilepsy. One of the common names of that complaint in Welsh is Clwyf y Tegla, (Tegla's disease).

Relief is obtained by bathing in the well, and performing a superst.i.tious ceremony in this manner: The patient repairs to the well after sunset, and washes himself in it; then, having made an offering by throwing into the water fourpence, he walks round it three times, and thrice recites the Lord's Prayer. If of the male s.e.x, he offers a c.o.c.k; if a woman, a hen. The bird is carried in a basket, first round the well, then round the church, and the rite of repeating the Pater Noster again performed. After all this, he enters the church, creeps under the altar, and making the Bible his pillow and the communion cloth his coverlet, remains there until the break of day. In the morning, having made a further offering of sixpence, he leaves the c.o.c.k (or hen, as the case may be) and departs. 'Should the bird die, it is supposed that the disease has been transferred to it, and the man or woman consequently cured.'[150] The custom is a.s.sociated with the ancient Druids as well as with the Jews, and its resemblance to the scapegoat is suggestive.

FOOTNOTES:

[149] Levit. xvi., 21, 22.

[150] Ab Ithel, 'Arch. Camb.' 1st Se., i., 184.

V.

The funeral procession, in rural districts where hea.r.s.es are unknown, wends its way graveward on foot, with the corpse borne by the nearest relatives of the deceased, a custom probably introduced in Wales during their residence here by the Romans. The coffin of Metellus, the conqueror of Macedon, was borne by his four sons. The coffins of Roman citizens held in high esteem by the Republic, were borne by justices and senators, while those of the enemies of the people were borne by slaves and hired servants. As the Welsh procession winds its way along the green lanes, psalms and hymns are sung continually, except on coming to cross-roads. Here the bier is set down, and all kneel and repeat the Lord's Prayer. The origin of this custom, as given by the Welsh, is to be found in the former practice of burying criminals at cross-roads. It was believed that the spirits of these criminals did not go far away from the place where their bodies lay, and the repeating of the Lord's Prayer was supposed to destroy and do away with any evil influence these spirits might have on the soul of the dear departed.[151]

The Welsh retain much of the superst.i.tious feeling regarding the graves of criminals and suicides. There is indeed a strong prejudice against hanging, on account of the troublesome spirits thus let loose.

The well-known leniency of a 'Cardigan jury' may be connected with this prejudice, though it is usually a.s.sociated with a patriotic feeling. 'What! would you have hur hang hur own countryman?' is the famous response of a Cardigan juror, who was asked why he and his brethren acquitted a murderer. The tale may be only a legend; the fact it ill.u.s.trates is patent. It is related that in a dispute between two Cardigan farmers, some fifty years ago, one of them killed the other.

The jury, believing the killing was unintentional, acquitted the homicide; but 'whether the man was guilty or not, his neighbours and the people who lived in the district, and who knew the spot where the farmer was killed, threw a stone upon it whenever they pa.s.sed, probably to show their abhorrence of the deed that had been perpetrated in that place. By this means a large heap of stones, which was allowed to remain for many years, arose.'[152] They were then removed to repair the turnpike. This custom is apparently Jewish.

Hangings are almost unknown in Wales, whether from the extra morality of the people, or the prejudice above noted.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] 'Cymru Fu,' 92.

[152] 'Bye-gones,' March 22, 1876.

VI.

The legend of the Gra.s.sless Grave is a well-known Montgomerys.h.i.+re tale, concerning a certain spot of earth in the graveyard of Montgomery Castle, upon which the verdure is less luxuriant than in other portions of the yard. One dark November night, many years ago, a man named John Newton, who had been at Welshpool fair, set out for home. Soon after, he was brought back to Welshpool in the custody of two men, who charged him with highway robbery, a crime then punishable with death. He was tried, and executed, in spite of his protestations; and in his last speech, admitting he had committed a former crime, but protesting he was innocent of this, he said: 'I have offered a prayer to Heaven, and believe it has been heard and accepted. And in meek dependence on a merciful G.o.d, whom I have offended, but who, through the atonement of His blessed Son, has, I trust, pardoned my offence, I venture to a.s.sert that as I am innocent of the crime for which I suffer, the gra.s.s, for one generation at least, will not cover my grave.' For thirty years thereafter, the grave was gra.s.sless; a bare spot in the shape of a coffin marked, amidst the surrounding luxuriance, the place where lay the penitent criminal, unjustly executed. Then a sacrilegious hand planted the spot with turf; but it withered as if blasted by lightning; and the grave is still gra.s.sless--certainly an unnecessary extension of the time set by the defunct for its testimony to his innocence.

VII.

A curious surviving custom at Welsh funerals is the Offrwm, or parson's penny. After having read the burial service in the church, the parson stands behind a table while a psalm is being sung, and to him go the mourners, one and all, and deposit a piece of money on the table. The parson counts it, states the amount, and pockets it. If the mourner depositing his offrwm be wealthy, he will give perhaps a guinea; if a farmer or tradesman, his gift will be a crown; and if poor, he will lay down his sixpence. 'Each one that intended making an offering of silver, would go up to the altar in his turn, and after each one had contributed there would be a respite, after which those who gave copper as their offering went forward and did likewise; but no coppers were offered at any respectable funeral. These offerings often reached the sum of ten and even twenty pounds in the year.' Thus the Welsh work, 'Cymru Fu,' speaking as usual in the past tense; but the custom is a present-day one. The Welsh believe that this custom was originally intended to compensate the clergyman for praying for the soul of the departed. It has now ceased to mean anything more than a tribute of respect to the deceased, or a token of esteem towards the officiating clergyman.

In the parish of Defynog, Brecons.h.i.+re, there was a custom (up to 1843, when it seems to have ceased through the angry action of a lawless widower,) of giving to the parish clerk the best pair of shoes and stockings left behind by the defunct.[153]

A still more curious form of the offrwm, which also survives in many rural neighbourhoods, is called the Arian y Rhaw, or spade money. At the grave, the gravedigger rubs the soil off his spade, extends it for donations, and receives a piece of silver from each one in turn, which he also pockets. In Merioneths.h.i.+re the money is received at the grave in a bowl, instead of on the spade, and the gift is simply called the offrwm. 'I well recollect, when a lad,' says an entertaining correspondent,[154] 'at Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant, seeing the clerk or s.e.xton cleaning his spade with the palm of his hand, and blowing the remaining dust, so that the instrument of his calling should be clean and presentable, and then, with due and clerk-like gravity, presenting his polished spade, first to the "cyfneseifiaid" (next-of-kin), and then to the mourners one by one, giving all an opportunity of showing their respect to the dead, by giving the clerk the accustomed offrwm.

At times the old clerk, "yr hen glochydd," when collecting the offrwm, rather than go around the grave to the people, to the no small annoyance of the friends, would reach his spade over the grave. At the particular time referred to, the clerk, having nearly had all the offrwm, saw that facetious wag and practical joker, Mr. B., extending his offering towards him from the opposite side of the grave. The clerk, as was his wont, extended the spade over the grave towards the offered gift. The opportunity for fun was not to be lost, and whilst placing his offrwm on the spade, Mr. B. pressed on one corner, and the spade turned in the hands of the unwitting clerk, emptying the whole offering into the grave, to the no small surprise of the clerk, who never forgot the lesson, and the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the standers-by.'

It is noted in this connection that the s.e.xton's spade 'was a terror to the superst.i.tious, for if the gravedigger would but shake his spade at anyone, it was a matter of but short time ere the s.e.xton would be called upon to dig the grave of that person who had come under the evil influence of the spade. "Has the s.e.xton shook his spade at you?"

was a question often put to a person in bad health.'

FOOTNOTES:

[153] 'Arch. Camb.,' 2nd Se., iv., 326.

[154] 'Bye-gones,' Oct. 17, 1877.