'Do you know Thomas Mathews, sir?' she asked me; 'he lives at Crwys now, but he used to live here at Caerau.' 'Crwys?' I repeated, not at once comprehending. 'Oh, you must know Crwys, sir; it's just the other side of Cardiff, towards Newport.' 'Can you spell it for me?'[108] The woman blushed. ''Deed, sir,' said she, 'I ought to be a scholar, but I've had so much trouble with my old man that I've quite forgot my spellin'.' However, the story of Thomas Mathews was to the effect that he saw a Corpse Candle come out of his father's mouth and go to his feet, and away a bit, then back again to the mouth, which it did not exactly enter, but blended as it were with the sick man's body. I asked if the candle was tallow at any point in its excursion, to which I was gravely answered that it was the spirit of tallow. The man died not long after, in the presence of my informant, who described the incident with a dramatic force and fervour peculiarly Celtic, concluding with the remark: 'Well, well, there's only one way to come into the world, but there's a many ways to go out of it.' The light issuing from the mouth is a fancy frequently encountered. In the 'Liber Landavensis' it is mentioned that one day as St. Samson was celebrating the holy mysteries, St. Dubricius with two monks saw a stream of fire to proceed glittering from his mouth.[109] In old woodcuts, the souls of the dying are represented as issuing from the mouth in the form of small human figures; and the Tyrolese peasants still fancy the soul is seen coming out of the mouth of a dying man like a little white cloud.[110] From the mouth of a patient in a London hospital some time since the nurses observed issuing a pale bluish flame, and soon after the man died. The frightened nurses--not being acquainted with the corpse-candle theory of such things--imagined the torments of hell had already begun in the still living body. A scientific explanation of the phenomenon ascribed it to phosphuretted hydrogen, a result of incipient decomposition.[111] FOOTNOTES: [108] It is pronounced Croo-iss. [109] 'Liber Landavensis,' 299. [110] Tylor, 'Primitive Culture,' 391. [111] 'Transactions Cardiff Nat. Soc.,' iv. 5. III.