British Goblins Part 25

VIII.

Until a recent date, burials without a coffin were common in some parts of Wales. Old people in Montgomerys.h.i.+re not many years ago, could remember such burials, in what was called the cadach deupen, or cloth with two heads. Old Richard Griffith, of Trefeglwys, who died many years ago, recollected a burial in this fas.h.i.+on there, when the cloth gave way and was rent; whereupon the clergyman prohibited any further burials in that churchyard without a coffin. That was the last burial of the kind which took place in Montgomerys.h.i.+re.[155]

In the middle ages there was a Welsh custom of burying the dead in the garment of a monk, as a protection against evil spirits. This was popular among the wealthy, and was a goodly source of priestly revenue.

FOOTNOTE:

[155] 'Bye-gones,' Nov. 22, 1876.

IX.

Sul Coffa is an old Welsh custom of honouring the dead on the Sunday following the funeral, and for several succeeding Sundays, until the violence of grief has abated. In the Journal of Thomas Dinelly, Esquire, an Englishman who travelled through Wales and Ireland in the reign of Charles II.,[156] this pa.s.sage occurs, after description of the wake, the keening, etc.: 'This done y{e} Irish bury their dead, and if it be in or neer y{e} burying place of that family, the servants and followers hugg kiss howle and weep over the skulls that are there digg'd up and once a week for a quarter of an year after come two or three and pay more noyse at the place.' The similarity in spirit between this and the Welsh Sul Coffa is as striking as the difference in practice. The Welsh walk quietly and gravely to the solemn mound beneath which rest the remains of the loved, and there kneeling in silence for five or ten minutes, pray or appear to pray.

The Sul Coffa of Ivan the Harper is a well-known anecdote. Ivan the Harper was a noted character in his day, who desired that his coffa should be thus: 'I should like,' said he, on his death-bed, 'to have my coffa; but not in the old style. Instead of the old custom ask Williams of Merllyn and Richard the Harper to attend the church at Llanfwrog, and give these, my disciples, my two harps, and after the service is over, let them walk to my grave; let Williams sit at the head and Richard at the feet, of my grave, and let them play seven Welsh airs, beginning with Dafydd y Garreg Wen,' (David of the White Stone) 'and ending with, Toriad y Dydd,' (the Dawn.) 'The former is in a flat key, like death, and the latter is as sober as the day of judgment.' This request was religiously obeyed by the mourners on the ensuing Sul Coffa.

FOOTNOTE:

[156] Quoted in the Proceedings of the Kilkenny Arch. Soc., 1858.

X.

Reference has been made, in the chapter on courts.h.i.+p and marriage, to the Welsh practice of planting graves with flowers. There are graves in Glamorgans.h.i.+re which have been kept blooming with flowers for nearly a century without interruption, through the loving care of descendants of the departed. By a most graceful custom which also prevailed until recently, each mourner at a funeral carried in his hand a sprig of rosemary, which he threw into the grave. The Pagan practice of throwing a sprig of cypress into the grave has been thought to symbolize the annihilation of the body, as these sprigs would not grow if set in the earth: whereas the rosemary was to signify the resurrection or up-springing of the body from the grave.

The existing custom of throwing flowers and immortelles into the grave is derivable from the ancient practice. But the Welsh carry the a.s.sociation of graves and floral life to the most lavish extreme, as has already been pointed out. Shakspeare has alluded to this in 'Cymbeline,' the scene of which tragedy is princ.i.p.ally in Pembrokes.h.i.+re, at and about Milford Haven:

_Arv._ With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor The azur'd harebell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Outsweeten'd not thy breath.[157]

[Music: DAFYDD Y GARREG WEN.]

FOOTNOTE:

[157] 'Cymbeline,' Act IV., Sc. 2.

BOOK IV.

BELLS, WELLS, STONES, AND DRAGONS.

Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.

MILTON: _Paradise Lost_.

Then up there raise ane wee wee man Franethe the moss-gray stane; His face was wan like the collifloure, For he nouthir had blude nor bane.

HOGG: _The Witch of Fife_.

... where he stood, Of auncient time there was a springing well, From which fast trickled forth a silver flood, Full of great vertues, and for med'cine good: ...

For unto life the dead it could restore.

SPENSER: _Faerie Queene_.

CHAPTER I.

Base of the Primeval Mythology--Bells and their Ghosts--The Bell that committed Murder and was d.a.m.ned for it--The Occult Powers of Bells--Their Work as Detectives, Doctors, etc.--Legend of the Bell of Rhayader--St. Illtyd's Wonderful Bell--The Golden Bell of Llandaff.

I.

The human mind in its infancy turns instinctively to fetichism. The mind of primeval man resembled that of a child. Children have to learn by experience that the fire which burns them is not instigated by malice.[158] In his primitive condition, man personified everything in nature. Animate and inanimate objects were alike endowed with feelings, pa.s.sions, emotions, moral qualities. On this basis rests the primeval mythology.

The numerous superst.i.tions a.s.sociated with bells, wells and stones in Wales, excite constant inquiries as regards their origin in fetichism, in paganism, in solar wors.h.i.+p, or in church observances. That bells, especially, should suggest the supernatural to the vulgar mind is not strange. The occult powers of bells have place in the popular belief of many lands. The Flemish child who wonders how the voices got into the bells is paralleled by the Welsh lad who hears the bells of Aberdovey talking in metrical words to a musical chime. The ghosts of bells are believed to haunt the earth in many parts of Wales. Allusion has been made to those castle bells which are heard ringing from the submerged towers in Crumlyn lake. Like fancies are a.s.sociated with many Welsh lakes. In Langorse Pool, Brecons.h.i.+re, an ancient city is said to lie buried, from whose cathedral bells on a calm day may be heard a faint and m.u.f.fled chime, pealing solemnly far down in the sepial depths. A legend of Trefethin relates that in the church of St.

Cadoc, at that place, was a bell of wondrous powers, a gift from Llewellyn ap Iorwerth, Lord of Caerleon. A little child who had climbed to the belfry was struck by the bell and killed, not through the wickedness of the bell itself, but through a spell which had been put upon the unfortunate instrument by an evil spirit. But though innocent of murderous intent, the wretched bell became forfeit to the demons on account of its fatal deed. They seized it and bore it down through the earth to the shadow-realm of annwn. And ever since that day, when a child is accidentally slain at Trefethin, the bell of St.

Cadoc is heard tolling mournfully underneath the ground where it disappeared ages ago.

FOOTNOTE:

[158] A Mississippi negro-boy who was brought by a friend of mine from his southern home to a northern city, and who had never seen snow, found the ground one morning covered with what he supposed to be salt, and going out to get some, returned complaining that it 'bit his fingers.'

II.

There was anciently a belief that the sound of bra.s.s would break enchantment, as well as cause it; and it is presumed that the original purpose of the common custom of tolling the bell for the dead was to drive away evil spirits. Originally, the bell was tolled not for the dead, but for the dying; it was believed that evil spirits were hovering about the sick chamber, waiting to pounce on the soul as soon as it should get free from the body; and the bell was tolled for the purpose of driving them away. Later, the bell was not tolled till death had occurred, and this form of the custom survives here, as in many lands. Before the Reformation there was kept in all Welsh churches a handbell, which was taken by the s.e.xton to the house where a funeral was to be held, and rung at the head of the procession. When the voices of the singers were silent at the end of a psalm, the bell would take up the burden of complaint in measured and mournful tones, and ring till another psalm was begun. It was at this period deemed sacred. The custom survived long after the Reformation in many places, as at Caerleon, the little Monmouths.h.i.+re village which was a bustling Roman city when London was a hamlet. The bell--called the bangu--was still preserved in the parish of Llanfair Duffryn Clwyd half-a-dozen years ago. I believe the custom of ringing a handbell before the corpse on its way through the streets is still observed at Oxford, when a university man is buried. The town marshal is the bellman for this office. The custom is a.s.sociated with the same superst.i.tious belief which is seen in the 'pa.s.sing bell,' the notes of pure bronze freeing the soul from the power of evil spirits.

III.

The Welsh were formerly strong in the belief that bells could perform miracles, detect thieves, heal the sick, and the like. In many instances they were possessed of locomotive powers, and would transport themselves from place to place when they had occasion, according to their own sweet will, and without human intervention. It is even recorded that certain handbells required to be tied with the double cord of an exorcism and a piece of twine, or they would get up and walk off in the night.

Bells which presaged storms, as well as other disasters, have been believed to exist in many parts of Wales. In Pembrokes.h.i.+re the unexpected tolling of a church bell in the night is held to be the sure precursor of a calamity--a belief which may be paralleled in London, where there are still people who believe such tolling on the part of the great bell of St. Paul's portends disaster to the royal family. In the Cromwellian wars, the sacrilegious followers of the stern old castle-hater carried off a great bell from St. David's, Pembrokes.h.i.+re. They managed to get it on s.h.i.+pboard, but in pa.s.sing through Ramsey Sound the vessel was wrecked--a direct result, the superst.i.tious said, of profanely treating the bell. Ever since that time, Pembroke people have been able to hear this sunken bell ring from its watery grave when a storm is rising.

IV.

The legend of the Bell of Rhayader perpetuates a cla.s.s of story which reappears in other parts of Great Britain. It was in the twelfth century that a certain contumacious knight was imprisoned in the castle of Rhayader. His wife, being devoted to him, and a good Catholic, besought the aid of the monks to get him out. They were equal to the occasion, at least in so far as to provide for her service a magical bell, which possessed the power of liberating from confinement any prisoner who should set it up on the wall and ring it.

The wife succeeded in getting the bell secretly into her husband's possession, and he set it up on the wall and rang it. But although he had gathered his belongings together and was fully prepared to go, the doors of his prison refused to open. The castellan mocked at the magical bell, and kept the knight in durance vile. So therefore (for of course the story could not be allowed to end here) the castle was struck by lightning, and both it and the town were burned in one night--excepting only the wall upon which the magic bell was hanging.

Nothing remains of the castle walls in this day.

V.

The bell of St. Illtyd was greatly venerated in the middle ages. A legend concerning this wonderful bell relates that a certain king had stolen it from the church, and borne it into England, tied about the neck of one of his horses. For this deed the king was destroyed, but repenting before his death, ordered the bell to be restored to its place in Wales. Without waiting to be driven, the horse with the bell about his neck set out for Wales, followed by a whole drove of horses, drawn by the melodious sound of the bell. Wonderful to tell, the horse was able to cross the river Severn and come into Wales, the great collection of horses following. 'Then hastening along the sh.o.r.e, and over the mountains, and through the woods, he came to the road which went towards Glamorgan, all the horses hearing, and following the sweet sound.' When they came to the banks of the river Taff, a clergyman heard the sound of the bell, and went out to meet the horse, and they together carried the bell to the gate of St. Illtyd's church.

There the horse bent down and loosed his precious burden from his neck, 'and it fell on a stone, from which fall a part of it was broken, which is to be seen until the present day, in memory of the eminent miracle.'[159]

Some thirty years ago a bell was discovered at Llantwit Major, in Glamorgans.h.i.+re, which was thought to be the identical bell of this saint. The village named was the scene of his exploits, many of which were miraculous to the point of Arabian Nights marvelousness. The discovered bell was inscribed 'Sancte Iltute, ora pro n.o.bis,' and stood upon the gable of the quaint old town-hall. But though the bell was unmistakably ancient, it bore intrinsic evidence of having been cast long after the saint's death, when his name had become venerated.

He was one of King Arthur's soldiers, who afterwards renounced the world, and founded several churches in Glamorgans.h.i.+re.