Welsh Folklore - Corpse Candles.

The Corpse Candle…

Corpse roads, also known as Lych Ways and bier roads – along with many other regional names – can be found throughout Great Britain. They provided a route to transport the dead from remote villages to places of burial. They could be very long tracks, often winding their way through remote areas and over difficult terrain.

Long corpse roads would frequently have coffin-rests on them. These were stones on which coffins could be placed while the bearers took a much-needed break. Because the coffin did not touch the ground, it is believed that the spirit could not escape from it and infect the land.

The entrances to British churchyards frequently had lychgates – a lych is the old Saxon word for corpse, so it literally means corpse gate. They consisted of a four-pillared, roofed, porch-like structure over a gate. Inside these small constructions, there were often benches on which you could put a coffin, enabling them to function like the stone coffin-rests.

There are many stories of the Canwyll Corff (pron. can-noo-will cor-f), or corpse candles, in Welsh tradition – today ghost hunters would probably call them orbs – and they are directly connected to Lych Ways. Witnesses describe them as small balls of yellow or blue light that follow the trail of these old roads, passing across moors, through forests, and over streams, vanishing when they arrive at their destination.

They were seen as omens of death, so to witness one was considered very unfortunate, as it meant that a friend or member of the family would soon pass away. In the shadowed corners of chapels, parishioners would whisper, “Where the corpse candle passeth, soon shall a coffin follow.”

Even Shakespeare refers to these odd entities. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck says:

Now it is the time of night,
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.

Accounts

There is the tale of a farmer who lived near Llanrwst and was witness to a dim light moving across his field. Intrigued, he followed it until it vanished before the local churchyard. Three nights later, his wife passed in her sleep, and the funeral bore her coffin along the very path the candle had traced.

Writer James Motley encountered this phenomenon in 1848. He wrote that they:

“seem to be of electrical origin, when the ears of the traveller's horse, the extremity of his whip, his spurs or any other projecting points appear tipped with pencils of light… the toes of the rider's boots, and even the tufts of hair at the fetlocks of his horse, appeared to burn with a steady blue light, and on the hand being extended, every finger immediately became tipped with fire.”

James seems to have survived his encounter and does not report the loss of any friends or relatives immediately following the event.

Corpse candles were often a feature of phantom funerals – mysterious processions that followed the old corpse roads, foretelling a funeral was soon to take place in the village. Such processions were often accompanied by the noise of muffled sobbing and the shuffling of spectral feet.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, my friend.

Until next time, stay spooky.