Chapter I: AM to give you the best satisfaction I can touching those fiery

apparitions* (Corps Candles) which do as it were mark out the way for corpses to their {Greek text: Koimeterion} and sometimes before the parties themselves fall sick, and sometimes in their sickness. I could never hear in England of these, they are common in these three counties, viz. Cardigan, Carmarthen, and Pembroke, and as I hear in some other parts of Wales.**

* Mr. Baxter's Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, p. 137. ** And Radnor.

These {Greek text: Phantasmata} in our language, we call Canhwyllan Cyrph, (i.e.) Corps Candles; and candles we call them, not that we see any thing besides the light; but because that light doth as much resemble a material candle-light as eggs do eggs, saving, that in their journey these candles be "modo apparentes, modo disparentes", especially, when one comes near them; and if one come in the way against them, unto whom they vanish; but presently appear behind and hold on their course. If it be a little candle pale or bluish, then follows the corps either of an abortive or some infant; if a big one, then the corps of some one come to age: if there be seen two, or three, or more, some big, some small together, then so many and such corpses together. If two candles come from divers places, and be seen to meet, the corpses will the like; if any of these candles are seen to turn, sometimes a little out of the way, or path, that leadeth to the church, the following corps will be forced to turn in that very place, for the avoiding some dirty lane or plash, &c. Now let us fall to evidence. Being about the age of fifteen, dwelling at Lanylar, late at night, some neighbour saw one of these candles hovering up and down along the river bank, until they were weary in beholding it, at last they left it so, and went to bed. A few weeks after came a proper damsel from Montgomeryshire, to see her friends, who dwelt on the other side of that river Istwith, and thought to ford the river at that very place where the light was seen; being dissuaded by some lookers on (some it is most likely of those that saw the light) to adventure on the water, which was high by reason of a flood: she walked up and down along the river bank, even where, and even as the aforesaid candle did, waiting for the falling of the water; which at last she took, but too soon for her, for she was drowned therein. Of late my sexton's wife, an aged understanding woman, saw from her bed, a little bluish candle on her tables-end; within two or three days after, came a fellow enquiring for her husband, and taking something from under his cloak, claped it down upon the tables-end; it was a dead born child.

Another time, the same woman saw such another candle upon the end of the self same table; within a few days after a weak child newly christened by me, was brought to the sexton's house, where presently he died: and when the sexton's wife, who was then abroad, came home, she found the child on the other end of the table, where she had seen the candle.

Some thirty or forty years since, my wife's sister, being nurse to Baronet Rudd's three eldest children, and (the Lady mistress being dead) the Lady comptroller of the house going late into the chamber where the maid servants lay, saw no less than five of these lights together. It happened a while after, that the chamber being newly plaistered, and a grate of coal fire therein kindled to hasten the drying of the plaister, that five of the maid servants went to bed as they were wont (but as it fell out) too soon; for in the morning they were all dead, being suffocated in their sleep with the steam of the new tempered lime and coal. This was at Langathen in Carmarthenshire. --- Jo. Davis. See more.---

Generglyn, March 1656.

To this account of Mr. Davis, I will subjoin what my worthy friend and neighbour Randal Caldicot, D.D. hath affirmed to me many years since, viz. When any Christian is drowned in the river Dee, there will appear over the water where the corps is, a light, by which means they do find the body: and it is therefore called the Holy Dee. The doctor's father was Mr. Caldicot, of Caldicot in Cheshire, which lies on the river.

ORACLES.

HIERONIMUS Cardanus, lib. 3, "Synesiorum Somniorum", cap. 15, treats of this subject, which see. Johannes Scotus Erigena, when he was in Greece, did go to an Oracle to enquire for a Treatise of Aristotle, and found it, by the response of the oracle. This he mentions in his works lately printed at Oxford; and is quoted by Mr. Anthony a Wood in his Antiquities of Oxon, in his life. He lived before the conquest, and taught Greek at the Abby in Malmesbury, where his scholars stabbed him with their penknives for his severity to them. Leland mentions that his statue was in the choir there.

ECSTACY.

Cardanus, lib. 2. Synes. Somniorum, cap. 8.

"IN Ecstasin multis modis dilabuntur homines, aut per Syncopen, aut animi deliquium, aut etiam proprie abducto omni sensu externo, absque alia Causa. Id vero contingit consuetis plerunque, & nimio affectu alicujus rei laborantibus; --- Ecstasis medium est inter vigiliam & somnium, sicut somnus inter mortem & vigiliam, seuvitam --- Visa in Ecstasi certiora insomniis: Clariora & evidentiora --- Ecstasi deprehensi audire possunt, qui dormiunt non possunt".

Men fall into an Ecstacy many ways, either by a syncope, by a vanishing and absence of the spirits, or else by the withdrawing of every external sense without any other cause. It most commonly happens to those who are over sollicitous or fix their whole minds upon doing any one particular thing. An Ecstacy is a kind of medium between sleeping and waking, as sleep is a kind of middle state between life and death. Things seen in an Ecstacy are more certain than those we behold in dreams: they are much more clear, and far more evident. Those seized with an Ecstacy can hear, those who sleep cannot.

Anno 1670, a poor widow's daughter in Herefordshire, went to service not far from Harwood (the seat of Sir John Hoskins, Bart. R.S.S.) She was aged near about twenty; fell very ill, even to the point of death; her mother was old and feeble, and her daughter was the comfort of her life; if she should die, she knew not what to do: she besought God upon her knees in prayer, that he would be pleased to spare her daughter's life, and take her to him: at this very time, the daughter fell into a trance, which continued about an hour: they thought she had been dead: when she recovered out of it, she declared the vision she had in this fit, viz. that one in black habit came to her, whose face was so bright and glorious she could not behold it; and also he had such brightness upon his breast, and (if I forget not) upon his arms. And told her, that her mother's prayers were heard, and that her mother should shortly die, and she should suddenly recover; and she did so, and her mother died. She hath the character of a modest, humble, virtuous maid. Had this been in some Catholick country, it would have made a great noise.

'Tis certain, there was one in the Strand, who lay in a trance a few hours before he departed. And in his trance had a vision of the death of King Charles II. It was at the very day of his apoplectick fit.

There is a sheet of paper printed 16 ... concerning Ecstacies, that James Usher, late Lord Primate of Ireland, once had: but I have been assured from my hon. friend James Tyrrell, Esq. (his Lordship's grandson) that this was not an ecstacy; but that his Lordship upon reading the 12, 13, 14, &c. chapters of the Revelation, and farther reflecting upon the great increase of the sectaries in England, supposed that they would let in popery, which consideration put him into a great transport, at the time when his daughter (the Lady Tyrrel) came into the room; when he discoursed to her divers things (tho' not all) contained in the said printed paper.

GLANCES OF LOVE AND MALICE.

"AMOR ex Oculo": Love is from the eye: but (as the Lord Bacon saith) more by glances than by full gazings; and so for envy and malice.

Tell me dearest, what is Love ?
'Tis a Lightning from above:
'Tis an Arrow, 'tis a Fire,
'Tis a Boy they call Desire.*

* Mr. Fletcher in Cupid's Revenge.

'Tis something divine and inexplicable. It is strange, that as one walks the streets sometimes one shall meet with an aspect (of male or female) that pleases our souls; and whose natural sweetness of nature, we could boldly rely upon. One never saw the other before, and so could neither oblige or disoblige each other. Gaze not on a maid, saith Ecclus. 9, 5.

The Glances of envy and malice do shoot also subtilly; the eye of the malicious person, does really infect and make sick the spirit of the other. The Lord Bacon saith it hath been observed, that after triumphs, the triumphants have been sick in spirit.

The chymist can draw subtile spirits, that will work upon one another at some distance, viz. spirits of alkalies and acids, e.g. spirits coelestial (sal armoniac and spirits of C. C. will work on each other at half a yard distance, and smoke;) but the spirits above mentioned are more subtile than they.

"Non amo te Sabati, nece possum dicere quare,
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te".

Fellow, I love thee not, I can't tell why,
But this, I'll tell thee, I could sooner die.

But if an astrologer had their nativities, he would find a great disagreement in the schemes. These are hyper-physical opticks, and drawn from the heavens.

Infants are very sensible of these irradiations of the eyes. In Spain, France, &c. southern countries, the nurses and parents are very shy to let people look upon their young children, for fear of fascination. In Spain, they take it ill if one looks on a child, and make one say, God bless it. They talk of "mal de ojos". We usually say, witches have evil eyes.

AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF SECOND-
SIGHTED MEN IN SCOTLAND.

**In Two Letters from a learned friend of mine in Scotland.

I.

**To Mr. JOHN AUBREY, Fellow of the Royal Society.

SIR,

FOR your satisfaction I drew up some queries about the second-sighted men, and having sent them to the northern parts of this kingdom, some while ago, I received answers to them from two different hands, whereof I am now to give you an account, viz.

Query 1.

If some few credible, well attested instances of such a knowledge as is commonly called the second-sight, can be given ?

Answer.

Many instances of such knowledge can be given, by the confession of such who are skilled in that faculty: for instances I refer you to the fourth query.

Query 2.

If it consists in the discovery of present or past events only ? or if it extend to such as are to come ?

Answer.

The second-sight relates only to things future, which will shortly come to pass. Past events I learn nothing of it.

Query 3.

If the objects of this knowledge be sad and dismal events only; such as deaths and murders ? or, joyful and prosperous also ?

Answer.

Sad and dismal events, are the objects of this knowledge: as sudden deaths, dismal accidents. That they are prosperous, or joyful, I cannot learn. Only one instance I have from a person worthy of credit, and thereby judge of the joyfulness, or prosperity of it, and it is this. Near forty years ago, Maclean and his Lady, sister to my Lord Seaforth, were walking about their own house, and in their return both came into the nurse's chamber, where their young child was on the breast: at their coming into the room, the nurse falls a weeping; they asked the cause, dreading the child was sick, or that she was scarce of milk: the nurse replied, the child was well, and she had abundance of milk; yet she still wept; and being pressed to tell what ailed her; she at last said Maclean would die, and the Lady would shortly be married to another man. Being enquired how she knew that event, she told them plainly, that as they both came into the room, she saw a man with a scarlet cloak and a white hat betwixt them, giving the Lady a kiss over the shoulder; and this was the cause of weeping. All which came to pass after Maclean's death; the tutor of Lovet married the Lady in the same habit the woman saw him. Now by this instance, judge if it be prosperous to one, it is as dismal to another.

Query 4.

If these events which second-sighted men discover, or foretel, be visibly represented to them, and acted, as it were before their eyes ?

Answer.

Affirmatively, they see those things visibly; but none sees but themselves; for instance, if a man's fatal end be hanging, they will see a gibbet, or a rope about his neck: if beheaded, they will see the man without a head; if drowned, they will see water up to his throat; if unexpected death, they will see a winding sheet about his head: all which are represented to their view. One instance I had from a gentleman here, of a Highland gentleman of the Macdonalds, who having a brother that came to visit him, saw him coming in, wanting a head; yet told not his brother he saw any such thing; but within twenty-four hours thereafter, his brother was taken, (being a murderer) and his head cut off, and sent to Edinburgh. Many such instances might be given,

Query 5.

If the second-sight be a thing that is troublesome and uneasy to those that have it, and such as they would gladly be rid of?

Answer.

It is commonly talked by all I spoke with, that it is troublesome; and they would gladly be freed from it, but cannot: only I heard lately of a man very much troubled in his soul therewith, and by serious begging of God deliverance from it, at length lost the faculty of the second- sight.

Query 6.

If any person, or persons, truly godly, who may justly be presumed to be such, have been known to have had this gift or faculty ?

Answer.

Negatively, not any godly, but such as are virtuous.

Query 7.

If it descends by succession from parents to children ? or if not, whether those that have it can tell how they came by it ?

Answer.

That it is by succession, I cannot learn; how they came by it, it is hard to know, neither will they tell; which if they did, they are sure of their strokes from an invisible hand. One instance I heard of one Alien Miller, being in company with some gentlemen, having gotten a little more than ordinary of that strong liquor they were drinking, began to tell stories and strange passages he had been at: but the said Alien was suddenly removed to the farther end of the house, and was there almost strangled; recovering a little, and coming to the place where he was before, they asked him, what it was that troubled him so ? He answered he durst not tell; for he had told too much already.

Query 8. How came they by it ?

Answer.

Some say by compact with the Devil; some say by converse with those daemons we call fairies. I have heard, that those that have this faculty of the second-sight, have offered to teach it to such as were curious to know it; upon such and such conditions they would teach them; but their proffers were rejected.

This is all I could learn by tradition of that faculty, from knowing and intelligent men. If this satisfy not these queries aforesaid, acquaint me, and what can be known of it shall be transmitted.

I cannot pass by an instance I have from a very honest man in the next parish, who told me it himself. That his wife being big with child near her delivery, he buys half a dozen of boards to make her a bed against the time she lay in. The boards lying at the door of his house, there comes an old fisher-woman, yet alive, and asked him, whose were those boards ? He told her they were his own; she asked again, for what use he had them ? He replied, for a bed; she again said, I intend them for what use you please, she saw a dead corps lying upon them, and that they would be a coffin: which struck the honest man to the heart, fearing the death of his wife. But when the old woman went off, he calls presently for a carpenter to make the bed, which was accordingly done; but shortly after the honest man had a child died, whose coffin was made of the ends of those boards.

Sir, the original, whereof this that I have writ, is a true copy, was sent by a minister, living within some few miles of Inverness, to a friend of mine whom I employed to get information for me; as I insinuated before: I have other answers to these queries from another hand, which I purposed to have communicated to you at this time; but I find there will not be room enough for them in this sheet; howbeit, in case you think it fit, they shall be sent you afterward.

In the mean time, I shall tell you what I have had from one of the masters of our college here (a north country man both by birth and education, in his younger years) who made a journey in the harvest time into the shire of Ross, and at my desire, made some enquiry there, concerning the second-sight. He reports, that there they told him many instances of this knowledge, which he had forgotten, except two. The first, one of his sisters, a young gentlewoman, staying with a friend, at some thirty miles distance from her father's house, and the ordinary place of her residence; one who had the second-sight in the family where she was, saw a young man attending her as she went up and down the house, and this was about three months before her marriage. The second is of a woman in that country who is reputed to have the second-sight, and declared, that eight days before the death of a gentleman there, she saw a bier or coffin covered with a cloth which she knew, carried as it were, to the place of burial, and attended with a great company, one of which told her it was the corps of such a person, naming that gentleman, who died eight days after. By these instances it appears that the objects of this knowledge are not sad and dismal events only, but joyful and prosperous ones also: he declares farther, that he was informed there, if I mistake not, by some of those who had the second-sight, that if at any time when they see those strange sights, they set their foot upon the foot of another who hath not the second-sight, that other will for that time see what they are seeing; as also that they offered, if he pleased, to communicate the second-sight to him. I have nothing more to add at present, but that I am, Sir, Your faithful friend,

And humble servant.

II.

**To Mr. JOHN AUBREY, Fellow of the Royal-Society at
**Gresham-College, London. Honoured Sir,

SINCE my last to you, I have had the favour of two letters from you: to the first, dated February 6, I had replied sooner, but that I wanted leisure to transcribe some farther accounts of a second-sighted man, sent me from the north, whereof (in obedience to your desire) I give here the doubles.

May the 4th. 1694.

**A Copy of an Answer to some Queries concerning Second-
sighted Men, sent by a Minister living near Inverness, to a
Friend of mine.

Query 1.

THAT there is such an art, commonly called the second-sight, is certain, from these following instances.

First, in a gentleman's house, one night the mistress considering why such persons whom she expected were so late, and so long a coming, the supper being all the while delayed for them; a servant man about the house (finding the mistress anxious) having the second-sight, desires to cover the table, and before all things were put on, those persons she longed for would come in; which happened accordingly.

The second instance, concerning a young Lady of great birth, whom a rich Knight fancied and came in sute of the Lady, but she could not endure to fancy him, being a harsh and unpleasant man: but her friends importuning her daily, she turned melancholy and lean, fasting and weeping continually. A common fellow about the house meeting her one day in the fields, asked her, saying Mrs. Kate, What is that that troubles you, and makes you look so ill ? she replied, that the cause is known to many, for my friends would have me marry such a man by name, but I cannot fancy him. Nay, (says the fellow) give over these niceties, for he will be your first husband, and will not live long, and be sure he will leave you a rich dowry, which will procure you a great match, for I see a Lord upon each shoulder of you: all which came to pass in every circumstance; as eye and ear witnesses declare.

A third instance, of a traveller coming in to a certain house, desired some meat: the mistress being something nice and backward to give him victuals; you need not, says he, churle me in a piece of meat; for before an hour and half be over, a young man of such a stature and garb will come in with a great salmon-fish on his back, which I behold yonder on the floor: and it came to pass within the said time.

A fourth instance, of a young woman in a certain house about supper- time, refused to take meat from the steward who was offering in the very time meat to her; being asked why she would not take it ? replied, she saw him full of blood, and therefore was afraid to take any thing of his hands. The next morning, the said steward offering to compose a difference between two men, at an ale-house door, got a stroak of a sword on the forehead, and came home full of blood. This was told me by an eye witness.

Query 2.

Those that have this faculty of the second-sight, see only things to come, which are to happen shortly there-after, and sometimes foretel things which fall out three or four years after. For instance, one told his master, that he saw an arrow in such a man through his body, and yet no blood came out: his master told him, that it was impossible an arrow should stick in a man's body, and no blood come out, and if that came not to pass, he would be deemed an impostor. But about five or six years after the man died, and being brought to his burial-place, there arose a debate anent his grave, and it came to such a height, that they drew arms, and bended their bows; and one letting off an arrow, shot through the dead body upon the bier-trees, and so no blood could issue out at a dead man's wound. Thus his sight could not inform him whether the arrow should be shot in him alive or dead, neither could he condescend whether near or afar off.

Query 3.

They foresee murthers, drownings, weddings, burials, combats, man- slaughters, all of which, many instances might be given. Lately (I believe in August last, 1695) one told there would be drowning in the river Bewly, which come to pass: two pretty men crossing a ford both drowned, which fell out within a month. Another instance; a man that served the Bishop of Catnes, who had five daughters in his house, one of them grudged, that the burthen of the family lay on her wholly: the fellow told her that ere long she should be exonered of that task, for he saw a tall gentleman in black, walking on the Bishop's right-hand, whom she should marry: and this fell out accordingly, within a quarter of a year thereafter. He told also of a covered table, full of varieties of good fare, and their garbs who set about the table.

Query 4.

They see all this visibly acted before their eyes; sometimes within, and sometimes without-doors, as in a glass.

Query 5.

It is a thing very troublesome to them that have it, and would gladly be rid of it. For if the object be a thing that is so terrible, they are seen to sweat and tremble, and shreek at the apparition. At other times they laugh, and tell the thing chearfully, just according as the thing is pleasant or astonishing.

Query 6.

Sure it is, that the persons that have a sense of God and religion, and may be presumed to be godly, are known to have this faculty. This evidently appears, in that they are troubled for having it, judging it a sin, and that it came from the Devil, and not from God; earnestly desiring and wishing to be rid of it, if possible; and to that effect, have made application to their minister, to pray to God for them that they might be exonered from that burden. They have supplicated the presbytery, who judicially appointed publick prayers to be made in several churches, and a sermon preached to that purpose, in their own parish church, by their minister; and they have compeired before the pulpit, after sermon, making confession openly of that sin, with deep sense on their knees; renounced any such gift or faculty which they had to God's dishonour, and earnestly desired the minister to pray for them; and this their recantation recorded; and after this, they were never troubled with such a sight any more.

**A Copy of a Letter, written to myself by a Gentleman's Son in
Straths-pey in Scotland, being a Student in Divinity, concerning
the Second-sight.

SIR,