Folk-Lore of West and Mid-WalesDavies, Jonathan Ceredig
History
Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales
Davies, Jonathan Ceredig
Folklore -- Wales; Wales -- Social life and customs
Owen Evans, Maesydderwen, near Llansawel, Carmarthenshire, who is
over 90 years of age, gave me the following account of a Corpse Candle
which had been seen at Silian, near Lampeter.
When Evans was a boy, his father lived in an old house close to the
churchyard walls, and kept the key of the church door. At that time
singing practice was often conducted in the church, especially during
the long winter evenings. One evening a certain young man entered
the churchyard with the intention of going to the church to attend
this singing-class, though it was a little too early; but he could
see light in the church through one of the windows. So on he went
to the church door thinking that the singing had commenced, or at
least that some one was in the church. But to his great surprise he
found the door closed and locked, and when he looked in through the
key-hole there was not a soul to be seen inside the church. The young
man then went to the house of Owen Evans's father and informed the
old man that there was light in the church, but that he did not see
anyone inside. "You must be making a mistake," said my informant's
father to the young man, "there cannot possibly be any light in the
church; no one could have entered the building to light it, for the
door is locked, and I have the key here in the house." "But I am
positively certain," said the young man again, "that there is light
in the church, for I took particular notice of it." Both of the two
men now went to the church together, and as they approached, they
noticed a light coming out from the church. This light moved slowly
towards a certain part of the churchyard, and the two men followed it
and watched it until it suddenly disappeared into the ground. That it
was a corpse candle they had no doubt in their minds. The young man
had a walking stick in his hand with which he made a mark or a hole
in the ground on the spot where the light had sunk. Soon after this
a death took place in the neighbourhood, and the dead was buried in
the very spot where the corpse candle had sunk into the ground.
My informant told me also that he had seen a corpse candle himself
before the death of an adopted son of one Mr. John Evans, who lived
at Glandenis, in the same neighbourhood.
A CORPSE CANDLE SEEN TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO.
There is a tradition at Llanilar that a young woman got drowned
long ago in attempting to cross the river Ystwyth during a flood;
and that a short time before the melancholy event took place, people
in the neighbourhood had seen a corpse candle hovering up and down
the river. According to the Rev. Edmund Jones, the young woman had
come from Montgomeryshire to see her friends at Llanilar.
There is also a tradition in Carmarthenshire of a three-flamed corpse
candle which had been seen on the surface of the water near Golden
Grove a short time before three persons were drowned near the spot.
A CORPSE CANDLE SEEN NEAR CONWIL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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