Before passing on to stories of the Toili, a word of explanation regarding them may not be out of place, in case it happens that these lines travel to a region where there is no Toili, or fall into the hands of those not privileged to see it. The Toili was a spirit burial or funeral. It was also an apparition or "double"; and very often in days gone by one heard that So-and-so had seen his own apparition. In some parts the Cyheuraeth[13] was seen. The people of Glamorganshire always saw the Cyheuraeth; and the folks of Teify-side used to see, and still do see, the Toili. All the movement and action of a real funeral were to be perceived in the Toili. In this way the whole business of the real funeral could be known beforehand by the person who happened to witness the spectral one, and a few of his friends to whom he would speak about it. There was the crowd collected round a certain house, then came the corpse carried out to the bier or hearse, the reading, the prayers, the singing, and if any particularly penetrating voice were heard at the funeral in the crying of the deceased's relatives, that was sure to have been noticed beforehand in the Toili. In this way it came to be known very often which of a family was to go. In the movement of the procession the sound of the coach-wheels was loudly heard. And on it went, just like the real funeral, to the churchyard; there again it could be observed where the real body should be buried. The voice of the minister was clearly to be heard going through the burial service. As was the Toili, so was the funeral. But we have never heard of the church bell tolling for the Toili; that is the one difference between the vision and the reality.
[Footnote 13: A horrible spectre, supposed to foretell death.]
They were able to predict the date of the burial from the time of night when the Toili appeared. If it were seen at the beginning of the night, the funeral would be soon; if very late at night, it would not happen quickly. Every one had his Toili, but it could not always be seen, and not by everybody. Those people born on Sunday could not see it, nor any other kind of spirit either.
As a rule we readily observed that whenever the Toili was heard or seen, a funeral did inevitably follow. And we only knew it fail once, thus showing there is no rule without exception.