Welsh Folk-Lore Part 37

A dog howling on the doorsteps or at the entrance of a house also foretold death. The noise was that peculiar howling noise which dogs sometimes make. It was in Welsh called _yn udo_, or crying.

_Missing a b.u.t.t_.

Should a farmer in sowing wheat, or other kind of corn, or potatoes, or turnips, miss a row or b.u.t.t, it was a token of death.

_Stopping of a Clock_.

The unaccountable stopping of the kitchen clock generally created a consternation in a family, for it was supposed to foretell the death of one of the family.

_A Goose Flying over a House_.

This unusual occurrence prognosticated a death in that house.

_Goose or Hen Laying a Small Egg_.

This event also was thought to be a very bad omen, if not a sign of death.

_Hen laying Two Eggs in the same day_.

Should a hen lay two eggs in the same day, it was considered a sign of death. I have been told that a hen belonging to a person who lived in Henllan, near Denbigh, laid an egg early in the morning, and another about seven o'clock p.m. in the same day, and the master died.

_Thirteen at a Table_.

Should thirteen sit at a table it was believed that the first to leave would be buried within the year.

_Heather_.

Should any person bring heather into a house, he brought death to one or other of the family by so doing.

_Death Watch_.

This is a sound, like the ticking of a watch, made by a small insect. It is considered a sign of death, and hence its name, _Death Watch_.

A working man's wife, whose uncle was ill in bed, told the writer, that she had no hopes of his recovery, because death ticks were heard night and day in his room. The man, who was upwards of eighty years old, died.

_Music and Bird Singing heard before Death_.

The writer, both in Denbighshire and Carnarvonshire, was told that the dying have stated that they heard sweet voices singing in the air, and they called the attention of the watchers to the angelic sounds, and requested perfect stillness, so as not to lose a single note of the heavenly music.

A young lad, whom the writer knew--an intelligent and promising boy--whilst lying on his death-bed, told his mother that he heard a bird warbling beautifully outside the house, and in rapture he listened to the bird's notes.

His mother told me of this, and she stated further, that she had herself on three different occasions previously to her eldest daughter's death, in the middle of the night, distinctly heard singing of the most lovely kind, coming, as she thought, from the other side of the river. She went to the window and opened it, but the singing immediately ceased, and she failed to see anyone on the spot where she had imagined the singing came from. My informant also told me that she was not the only person who heard lovely singing before the death of a friend. She gave me the name of a nurse, who before the death of a person, whose name was also given me, heard three times the most beautiful singing just outside the sick house. She looked out into the night, but failed to see anyone. Singing of this kind is expected before the death of every good person, and it is a happy omen that the dying is going to heaven.

In the _Life of Tegid_, which is given in his _Gwaith Barddonawl_, p. 20, it is stated:--

"Yn ei absenoldeb o'r Eglwys, pan ar wely angeu, ar fore dydd yr Arglwydd, tra yr oedd offeiriad cymmydogaethol yn darllen yn ei le yn Llan Nanhyfer, boddwyd llais y darllenydd gan fwyalchen a darawai drwy yr Eglwys accen uchel a pherseiniol yn ddisymwth iawn. . . . Ar ol dyfod o'r Eglwys cafwyd allan mai ar yr amser hwnw yn gywir yr ehedodd enaid mawr Tegid o'i gorph i fyd yr ysprydoedd."

Which translated is as follows:--

In his absence from Church, when lying on his deathbed, in the morning of the Lord's Day, whilst a neighbouring clergyman was taking the service for him in Nanhyfer Church, the voice of the reader was suddenly drowned by the beautiful song of a thrush, that filled the whole Church. . . .

It was ascertained on leaving the church that at that very moment the soul of Tegid left his body for the world of spirits.

In the _Myths of the Middle Ages_, p. 426, an account is given of "The Piper of Hamelin," and there we have a description of this spirit song:--

Sweet angels are calling to me from yon sh.o.r.e, Come over, come over, and wander no more.

Miners believe that some of their friends have the gift of seeing fatal accidents before they occur. A miner in the East of Denbighshire told me of instances of this belief and he gave circ.u.mstantial proof of the truth of his a.s.sertion. Akin to this faith is the belief that people have seen coffins or spectral beings enter houses, both of which augur a coming death.

In _The Lives of the Cambro-British Saints_, p. 444, it is stated that previously to the death of St. David "the whole city was filled with the music of angels."

The preceding death omens do not, perhaps, exhaust the number, but they are quite enough to show how prevalent they were, and how p.r.o.ne the people were to believe in such portents. Some of them can be accounted for on natural grounds, but the majority are the creation of the imagination, strengthened possibly in certain instances by remarkable coincidences which were remembered, whilst if no death occurred after any of the omens, the failure was forgotten.

BIRDS AND BEASTS.

Folk-lore respecting animals is common in Wales. It has been supposed that mountainous countries are the cradles of superst.i.tions. But this is, at least, open to a doubt; for most places perpetuate these strange fancies, and many of them have reached our days from times of old, and the exact country whence they came is uncertain. Still, it cannot be denied that rugged, rocky, spa.r.s.ely inhabited uplands, moorlands, and fens, are congenial abodes for wild fancies, that have their foundation in ignorance, and are perpetuated by the credulity of an imaginative people that lead isolated and solitary lives.