Welsh Journals

NOTES AND QUEEIES. oil REPLIES. The Sin Eater (vi.—477; vii.—89).—Had " Blackletter Folio" referred to Brand, he would have found there all the information needed. Bagford's letter relative to the antiquities of London, printed in Leland's Collectanea, vol. I., and dated February 15th, 1714, has the following :— " Within the memory of our fathers, in Shropshire, in those villages adjoyning to Wales, when a person dyed, there was notice given to an old Sire (for so they called him), who presently repaired to the place where the deceased lay, and stood before the door of the house, when some of the Family came out and furnished him with a cricket, on which he sat down facing the door. Then they gave him a Groat, which he put in his pocket; a crust of Bread, which he eat; and a full howle of Ale, which he drank at a draught. After this he got up from the cricket, and pronounced with a composed gesture the ease and rest of the Soul departed, for which he ivould paion his own Soul. This I had from the ingenious John Aubrey, Esq., who made a collection of curious Observations, which I have seen and is now remaining in the hands of Mr. Churchill, bookseller. How can a man think otherwise of this, than that it proceeded from the ancient Heathens ?'"' Brand then gives the passage from The Remains of Gentilism and Judaism to ■which allusion is made at the latter reference by " Ap Ifan," and which, complete, reads as follows :— " In the County of Hereford was an old Custome at Funeralls to hire poor People, who were to take upon them the Sinnes of the Party deceased. One of them (he was a long, leane, ugly, lamentable poor Raskal) I remember lived in a Cottage on Kosse high-way. The manner was, that when the Corps was brought °ut of the House, and laid on the Biere, a Loaf of Bread was brought out and delivered to the Sinne Eater, over the Corps, as also a Mazar Bowie, of Maple, full °f Beer (which he was to drink up), and Sixpence in money; in consideration whereof he took upon him, ipso facto, all the Sinnes of the defunct, and freed him °r her from walking after they were dead. This custome alludes, methinks, some¬ thing to the Scape-Goat in the old lawe, Levit. chap, xvi., 21, 22. 'And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live Goate, and confesse over him all the iniquities of the Children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their |Wls, putting them upon the head of the Goate, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the Wilderness. And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a Land not inhabited ; and he shall let the Goat goe into the Wilderness.' " This Custome (though rarely used in our days) yet by some people was observed even in the strictest time of the Presbyterian Government, as at ■"ynder (volens molens the parson of the Parish) the kindred of a Woman deceased there had this Ceremonie punctually performed, according to her Will; and also *he like was done at the City of Hereford in those times, where a Woman kepte lriany years before her death a Mazard Bowie for the Sinne Eater ; and the like in °ther places in this Countie ; as also in Brecon ; e.g., at Llanggors, where Mr. ^win, the Minister, about 1640, could not hinder the performance of this ancient Custome. I believe this Custom was used heretofore all over Wales." Oswestry. Geo. H. Brierley. # * f< The Burial of King Arthur (vii.—408).—Will the following extract help Antiquarian?"—"The year 1179 the sepulture of King Arthur with his wife C wenhwyfar was found in the Isle of Afalon without the Abbey of Glastonbury ; their bodies being laid in a hollow elder tree, buried fifteen feet in the earth. •the bones of the king were of marvellous and almost incredible bigness, and he queen's hair seemed to the sight to be fair and yellow, but when touched Jt crumbled to dust. Over the bones was laid a stone with a cross of lead, upon ."e lower side of which stone were engraven these words : Hie jacet sepultus lnclytus Hex Arthurus in insula Ava Lenia." Powel, 206. I find this in the margin °* an old work which gives an account of the battle of Camlan, where Arthur ^d Mordred finally met. Mordred fell, and the great King was so severely wounded that he died two days after the contest. Lyss, Hants. Helen Watney.