Chapter VIII

The Tolaeth Death Portent--Its various Forms--The Tolaeth
before Death--Ewythr Jenkin's Tolaeth--A modern
Instance--The Railway Victim's Warning--The Goblin
Voice--The Voice from the Cloud--Legend of the Lord and the
Beggar--The Goblin Funeral--The Horse's Skull--The Goblin
Veil--The Wraith of Llanllwch--Dogs of Hell--The Tale of
Pwyll--Spiritual Hunting Dogs--Origin of the Cwn Annwn.

I.

The Tolaeth is an ominous sound, imitating some earthly sound of one sort or another, and always heard before either a funeral or some dreadful catastrophe. Carpenters of a superstitious turn of mind will tell you that they invariably hear the Tolaeth when they are going to receive an order to make a coffin; in this case the sound is that of the sawing of wood, the hammering of nails, and the turning of screws, such as are heard in the usual process of making a coffin. This is called the 'Tolaeth before the Coffin.' The 'Tolaeth before Death' is a supernatural noise heard about the house, such as a knocking, or the sound of footsteps in the dead of night. Sometimes it is the sound of a tolling bell, where no bell is; and the direction in which the ear is held at the time points out the place of the coming death. Formerly the veritable church-bell in its steeple would foretell death, by tolling thrice at the hour of midnight, unrung by human hands. The bell of Blaenporth, Cardiganshire, was noted for thus warning the neighbours. The 'Tolaeth before the Burying' is the sound of the funeral procession passing by, unseen, but heard. The voices are heard singing the 'Old Hundredth,' which is the psalm tune usually sung by funeral bands; the slow regular tramp of the feet is heard, and the sobbing and groaning of the mourners. The Tolaeth touches but one sense at a time. When this funeral procession is heard it cannot be seen. But it is a peculiarity of the Tolaeth that after it has been heard by the ear, it sometimes makes itself known to the eye also--but in silence. The funeral procession will at first be heard, and then if the hearer stoop forward and look along the ground, it may perhaps be seen; the psalm-singers, two abreast, with their hats off and their mouths open, as in the act of singing; the coffin, borne on the shoulders of four men who hold their hats by the side of their heads; the mourners, the men with long black hatbands streaming behind, the women pale and sorrowful, with upheld handkerchiefs; and the rest of the procession stretching away dimly into shadow. Not a sound is heard, either of foot or voice, although the singers' mouths are open. After the procession has passed, and the observer has risen from his stooping posture, the Tolaeth again breaks on the ear, the music, the tread of feet, and the sobbing, as before. A real funeral is sure to pass that way not long afterwards.

This form of the Tolaeth should not be confused with the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral proper, which is a death-warning occupying its own place.

II.

John Clode, an honest labouring man living on the coast of Glamorganshire, near the Sker Rocks, had just gone to bed one night, when he and his wife heard the door open, the tread of shuffling feet, the moving about of chairs, and the grunting of men as if setting down a load. This was all in the room where they lay, it being the only room their cottage afforded, except the one upstairs. 'John, John!' cried his wife in alarm, 'what is this?' In vain John rubbed his eyes and stared into the darkness. Nothing could he see. Two days afterward their only son was brought home drowned; and his corpse being borne into the house upon a ladder, there were the same noises of opening the door, the shuffling of feet, the moving of chairs, the setting down of the burden, that the Tolaeth had touched their ears with. 'John, John!' murmured poor Mrs. Clode; 'this is exactly what I heard in the night.' 'Yes, wife,' quoth John, 'it was the Tolaeth before Death.'

Before Ewythr Jenkin of Nash died, his daughter Gwenllian heard the Tolaeth. She had taken her old father's breeches from under his pillow to mend them (for he was very careful always to fold and put his breeches under his pillow, especially if there was a sixpence in the pocket), and just as she was about sitting down at the table on which she had thrown them, there came a loud rap on the table, which startled her very much. 'Oh, Jenny, what was that?' she asked of the servant girl; but Jenny could only stare at her mistress, more frightened than herself. Again did Gwenllian essay to sit and take the breeches in hand, when there came upon the table a double rap, much louder than the first, a rap, in fact, that made all the chairs and kettles ring. So then Gwenllian fainted away.

At a place called by its owner Llynwent, in Radnorshire, at a certain time the man of the house and his wife were gone from home. The rest of the family were sitting at supper, when three of the servants heard the sound of horses coming toward the house, and cried out, 'There, they are coming!' thinking it was their master and mistress returning home. But on going out to meet them, there was nobody near. They re-entered the house, somewhat uneasy in their minds at this strange thing, and clustered about the fire, with many expressions of wonderment. While they were so seated, 'Hark!' said one, and all listening intently, heard footsteps passing by them and going up stairs, and voices of people talking among themselves. Not long afterward three of the family fell sick and died.

III.

An instance of recent occurrence is given by a local newspaper correspondent writing from the scene of a Welsh railway accident in October, 1878. It was at Pontypridd, famous the world over for its graceful bridge, (now old and superannuated,) and renowned in Druidic story as a seat of learning. A victim of the railway accident was, a few days before the collision, 'sitting with his wife at the fireside, when he had an omen. The house was still, and they were alone, only a little servant girl being with them. Then, while so sitting and talking, they both heard a heavy footstep ascending the stairs, step by step, step by step, as that of one carrying a burden. They looked at one another, and the husband called, "Run, Mary, upstairs; some one has gone up." Mary did run, but there was no one. She was told to look in every room, and she did so, and it was put down as fancy. When the news was borne to the poor wife on Saturday night, she started up and said, "There now, that was the omen!"'[100] That his readers may not by any perversity fail to understand him as alluding to the Tolaeth before Death, our newspaper correspondent states his creed: 'I believe in omens. I knew a lady who heard distinctly three raps at her door. Another lady was sitting with her near it too. The door was an inner door. No servant was in the house. The two ladies heard it, and yet no human hand touched that door, and at the time when the knock was heard a dear brother was dying. I know of strange things of this sort. Of voices crying the names of half-sleeping relatives when the waves were washing some one dear away to the mighty deep; but then the world laughs at all this and the world goes on.' The correspondent is severe; there is nothing here to laugh at.

FOOTNOTE:

[100] 'Western Mail,' Oct. 23, 1878.

IV.

The Tolaeth has one other form--that of a Voice which speaks, in a simple and natural manner, but very significant words. Thus Edward Lloyd, in the parish of Llangurig, was lying very ill, when the people that were with him in his chamber heard a voice near them, but could see no one; nor could they find any one anywhere about the house, to whom the voice might belong. Soon afterwards they heard it utter, so distinctly that it seemed to be in the room where they were, these words, 'Y mae nenbren y t[^y] yn craccio,' (the upper beam of the house cracketh.) Soon the Voice spoke again, saying, 'Fe dor yn y man,' (it will presently break.) And once more it spoke: 'Dyna fe yn tori,' (there it breaks.) That moment the sick man gave up the ghost.

John, the son of Watkin Elias Jones, of the parish of Mynyddyslwyn, was one day ploughing in the field, when the oxen rested, and he sent the lad who drove the oxen, to fetch something which he wanted; and while thus alone in the field, he saw a cloud coming across the field to him. When the cloud had come to that part of the field where he was, it stopped, and shadowed the sun from him; and out of the cloud came a Voice, which asked him which of these three diseases he would choose to die of--fever, dropsy, or consumption. Being a man who could give a plain answer to a plain question, he replied that he would rather die of consumption. The lad now returning, he sent him home with the oxen, and then, feeling inclined to sleep, lay down and slept. When he awoke he was ill, and fell by degrees into a consumption, of which he died one year from the day of this warning. He did not tell of this apparition, however, until within six weeks of his death.

V.

One of the most beautiful legends in the Iolo MSS. gives an ancient tale of the Tolaeth which may be thus condensed: A great and wealthy lord, rich in land, houses and gold, enjoying all the luxuries of life, heard a voice proclaim thrice distinctly: 'The greatest and richest man of this parish shall die to-night.' At this he was sadly troubled, for he knew that the greatest and richest man of that parish could be no other than he; so he sent for the physician, but made ready for death. Great, however, was his joy when the night passed, the day broke, and he was yet alive. At sunrise the church bell was heard tolling, and the lord sent in haste to know who was dead. Answer came that it was an old blind beggar man, who had asked, and been refused, alms at the great man's gate. Then the lord knew the meaning of the warning voice he had heard: that very great and very rich man had been the poor beggar--his treasures and wealth in the kingdom of heaven. He took the warning wisely to heart, endowed religious houses, relieved all who were in poverty, and when at last he was dying, the voices of angels were heard to sing a hymn of welcome; and he was buried, according to his desire, in the old beggar's grave.[101]

FOOTNOTE:

[101] Iolo MSS., 592.

VI.

Of the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral, a death-portent of wide prevalence in Wales, numberless stories are told. This omen is sometimes a form of the Tolaeth, but in itself constitutes an omen which is simple and explicit. A funeral procession is seen passing down the road, and at the same time it is heard. It has no shadowy goblin aspect, but appears to be a real funeral. Examination shows its shadowy nature. Subsequently a real funeral passes the same way, and is recognised as the fulfilment of the omen. The goblin funeral precedes the other sometimes by days, sometimes by weeks. Rees Thomas, a carpenter of Carmarthenshire, passing by night through Rhiw Edwst, near Capel Ywen, heard a stir as of a procession of people coming towards him, walking and speaking; and when they were close to him he felt the touch of an unseen hand upon his shoulder, and a voice saying to him, 'Rhys bach, pa fodd yr y'ch chwi?' (my dear Rees, how are you?) A month after, passing that way again, he met a funeral in that very place, and a woman of the company put her hand upon his shoulder and spoke exactly the same Welsh words to him that the invisible spirit had spoken. Rev. Howel Prosser, many years ago curate of Aberystruth, late one evening saw a funeral procession going down the church lane. Supposing it to be the funeral of a man who had recently died in the upper part of his parish, yet wondering he had not been notified of the burial, he put on his band in order to perform his office over the dead, and hastened to meet the procession. But when he came to it he saw that it was composed of strangers, whom he had never seen before. Nevertheless, he laid his hand on the bier, to help carry the corpse, when instantly the whole vanished, and he was alone; but in his hand he found the skull of a dead horse. 'Mr. Prosser was my schoolmaster, and a right honest man,' says Edmund Jones,[102] who is responsible for this story, as well as for the ensuing: Isaac William Thomas, who lived not far from Hafodafel, once met a Goblin Funeral coming down the mountain toward Llanhiddel church. He stood in a field adjoining the highway, and leaned against the stone wall. The funeral came close to the other side of the wall, and as the bier passed him he reached forth his hand and took off the black veil which was over the bier. This he carried to his home, where many people saw it. 'It was made of some exceeding fine stuff, so that when folded it was a very little substance, and very light.' That he escaped being hurt for this bold act was long the marvel of the parish; but it was believed, by their going aside to come so near him, that the goblins were willing he should do as he did.

An old man who resided near Llanllwch church, in Carmarthenshire, used to assert in the most solemn manner that he had seen the Teulu going to church again and again. On a certain evening hearing one approaching, he peeped over a wall to look at it. The persons composing the procession were all acquaintances of his, with the exception of one who stood apart from the rest, gazing mournfully at them, and who appeared to be a stranger. Soon afterwards there was a real burying, and the old man, determined to see if there would be in the scene any resemblance to his last Teulu, went to the churchyard and waited. When the procession arrived, all were there as he had seen them, except the stranger. Looking about him curiously, the old man was startled by the discovery that he was himself the stranger! He was standing on the identical spot where had stood the man he did not recognise when he saw the Teulu. It was his own ghost.

FOOTNOTE:

[102] 'Account of the Parish of Aberystruth,' 17.

VII.

The death portent called Cwn Annwn, or Dogs of Hell, is a pack of hounds which howl through the air with a voice frightfully disproportionate to their size, full of a wild sort of lamentation. There is a tradition that one of them once fell on a tombstone, but no one was able to secure it. A peculiarity of these creatures is that the nearer they are to a man the less loud their voice sounds, resembling then the voice of small beagles, and the farther off they are the louder is their cry. Sometimes a voice like that of a great hound is heard sounding among them--a deep hollow voice, as if it were the voice of a monstrous bloodhound. Although terrible to hear, and certain portents of death, they are in themselves harmless. 'They have never been known,' says a most respectable authority,[103] 'to commit any mischief on the persons of either man or woman, goat, sheep, or cow.' Sometimes they are called Cwn y Wybr, or Dogs of the Sky, but the more sulphurous name is the favourite one. They are also sometimes called Dogs of the Fairies. Their origin in fairyland is traced to the famous mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed; but in that fascinating tale of enchantment their right to be called Cwn Annwn is clearly set forth, for they are there the hounds of a King of Annwn. There are several translations of this mabinogi in existence, and its popularity in South Wales is great, for the villages, vales, and streams mentioned in it are familiar to residents in Pembroke, Carmarthen, and Cardigan shires. Pwyll, the Prince, was at Narberth, where was his chief palace, when he went one day to a wood in Glyn Cych. Here 'he sounded his horn and began to enter upon the chase, following his dogs and separating from his companions. And as he was listening to the cry of his pack, he could distinctly hear the cry of another pack, different from that of his own, and which was coming in an opposite direction. He could also discern an opening in the woods towards a level plain; and as his pack was entering the skirt of the opening he perceived a stag before the other pack, and about the middle of the glade the pack in the rear coming up and throwing the stag on the ground. Upon this he fixed his attention on the colour of the pack, without recollecting to look at the stag: and of all the hounds in the world he had ever seen he never saw any like them in colour. Their colour was a shining clear white, with red ears; and the whiteness of the dogs and the redness of their ears were equally conspicuous.'[104] They were the hounds of Arawn, a crowned king in the land of Annwn, the shadow-land of Hades.

The Cwn Annwn are sometimes held to be the hell-hounds which hunt through the air the soul of the wicked man, the instant it quits the body--a truly terrific idea to the vulgar mind. The Prophet Jones has several accounts of them: Thomas Phillips, of Trelech parish, heard them with the voice of the great dog sounding among them, and noticed that they followed a course that was never followed by funerals, which surprised him very much, as he had always heard that the Dogs of the Sky invariably went the same way that the corpse was to follow. Not long after a woman from an adjoining parish died at Trelech, and being carried to her own parish church to be buried, her corpse did actually pass the same way in which the spirit dogs had been heard to hunt. Thomas Andrew, of the parish of Llanhiddel, heard them one night as he was coming home. 'He heard them coming towards him, though he saw them not.' Their cry grew fainter as they drew near him, passed him, and louder again as they went from him. They went down the steeps towards the river Ebwy. And Thomas Andrew was 'a religious man, who would not have told an untruth for fear or for favour.'

FOOTNOTES:

[103] 'Cambro-Briton,' i., 350.

[104] Dr. W. Owen Pughe's Trans., 'Camb.-Briton,' ii., 271.

VIII.

No form of superstition has had a wider popularity than this of spiritual hunting dogs, with which was usually connected in olden time the wild huntsman, a personage who has dropped quite out of modern belief, at least in Wales. In France this goblin was called Le Grand Veneur, and hunted with his dogs in the forests of Fontainebleau; in Germany it was Hackelberg, who sold himself to the devil for permission to hunt till doomsday. In Britain it was King Arthur who served as the goblin huntsman. Peasants would hear the cry of the hounds and the sounding of the horns, but the huntsman was invisible. When they called out after him, however, the answer came back: 'We are King Arthur and his kindred.' Mr. Baring-Gould,[105] in giving an account of the myth of Odin, the Wild Huntsman, who rides over the forests by night on a white horse, with his legion of hell-hounds, seems to ascribe the superstition to the imagination of a belated woodcutter frightened by the wind in the tree-tops. William Henderson[106] presumes the belief in the Wild Huntsman's pack, which prevails in the North of England, to come from the strange unearthly cries uttered by wild fowl on their passage southward, and which sound like the yelping of dogs. These natural phenomena have not served, however, to keep the old belief alive in Wales.

That the Cwn Annwn are descendants of the wish-hound of Hermes, hardly admits of doubt. The same superstition prevails among all Aryan peoples, with details differing but little. The souls of the dying are carried away by the howling winds, the dogs of Hermes, in the ancient mythology as in surviving beliefs; on this follows the custom of opening the windows at death, so that the released soul may escape. In Devonshire they say no soul can escape from the house in which its body dies, unless all the locks and bolts are opened. In China a hole is made in the roof for a like purpose. The early Aryan conception of the wind as a howling dog or wolf speeding over the house-tops caused the inmates to tremble with fear, lest their souls should be called to follow them. It must be constantly borne in mind that all these creatures of fancy were more or less interchangeable, and the god Hermes was at times his own dog, which escorted the soul to the river Styx. The winds were now the maruts, or spirits of the breeze, serving Indra, the sky-god; again they were the great psychopomp himself. The peasant who to-day tells you that dogs can see death enter the house where a person is about to die, merely repeats the idea of a primeval man whose ignorance of physical science was complete.

FOOTNOTES:

[105] 'Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas,' 199-203.

[106] 'Notes on Folk-Lore,' 97.