The old gentleman who saw the vision has himself been dead for over sixty years, but the locality is probably quite unchanged from what it must have been in his day, and I have often thought when passing the spot how well the natural surroundings of romantic beauty lent themselves as a setting to any such weird happening, and have tried to conjure up the scene in my own mind. To this day it is said that when a death occurs in that particular family a corpse-light is always seen a few days previously, flickering and quivering up the drive from the direction of the churchyard.
But very soon all these ancient beliefs will be obliterated in the land of Cambria; and though it seems a pity from the picturesque point of view, and to lovers of antiquity and folk-lore, yet on the whole it is a good thing. For we who are apt to bewail the passing of the old ideas often forget that they frequently went hand in hand with dreadful ignorance both mental and moral. For instance, belief in witchcraft is very interesting and picturesque to read about in our times, but we should not overlook the terrible consequences of it which took the form of torturing and persecuting hundreds of innocent persons only three hundred years ago. Read Sir Walter Scott's "Demonology and Witchcraft" if you want to know what the result of a "picturesque superstition" may be among ignorant people. There is no question as to the ultimate benefit of enlightenment and education, even if at first they appear to banish originality and produce monotony of character. But that is better than the type of mind which could drown an old woman because she kept a black cat, and sold nasty herbal "love-philtres" to silly girls. I do not think witches were much persecuted in Wales as a matter of fact, and, as I have shown, they and "wise men" are still to be found in the country. As we have seen, superstition took other forms there, and a greater hold, because it was, I am convinced, rooted in a foundation of psychic facts, just as the "second sight" was, and I suppose is still, a fact amongst the Highlanders of Scotland. But I have no doubt that for one Welshman who did really have the vision of his own or a neighbour's funeral, there were at least ten who would make the same assertion out of their own imaginations. And probably now the real faculty is very rare indeed, for it is a gift belonging to primitive races, and ever stifled by education and self-consciousness. We cannot deplore its loss, because with it has gone a mass of darkest ignorance, but that need not prevent us from being interested in its effect on the traditions and beliefs of the country. Personally I am quite indifferent as to the amount of occult truth contained in the miscellaneous material of this volume; that some truth there is, I do not doubt, but its existence is of secondary importance in comparison with the delightful, old-world atmosphere that clings to these antiquities, and seems in some way to make us realise "the times of our forefathers" better than the history of more serious events. So let us, in our hurrying, bustling days, cherish this faint fragrance of a bygone age as long as we can; it will fade quickly enough, dying with that