When reading the above description of the "Tanwe"--of which I had previously never heard--there came to my mind a story told me by an old Welsh lady of an extraordinary phenomenon, which she solemnly declared had preceded the death of her brother-in-law--a gentleman well known and respected in Cardiganshire. Shortly before his last and fatal illness his wife, returning home one evening, was amazed to see the most curious lights, apparently falling from the sky immediately over their house. From the account given by my friend, her sister seems to have at once recognised the supernatural character and sinister import of the mysterious lights; their appearance being recalled with melancholy interest by her and her sisters after the sad event which so soon followed. Can this incident be explained as a survival of the old "Tanwe" idea, of which our authority, the then Vicar of Geneurglyn, wrote in the seventeenth century? It seems as if it might be so, and that belief in the Tanwe was probably an old _local_ superstition, peculiar to that district; considering the fact that the parish of which Mr. Davies was Vicar is in the same county and not more than a dozen miles from the house where the fiery death-signals are supposed to have been seen twelve or fifteen years ago. For so far I have neither heard nor read of the Tanwe being known in any other part of Wales.
Belief in the Toili used to be very widely spread in Cardiganshire, especially, it is said, in the northern part of the county. Meyrick, the historian of Cardiganshire, tells us: "The Toili ... is a phantasmagoric representation of a funeral, and the peasants affirm that when they meet with this, unless they move out of the road, they must inevitably be knocked down by the pressure of the crowd. They add that they know the persons whose spirits they behold, and hear them distinctly singing hymns." But the Toili was not always visible; sometimes the presence of the ghostly _cortège_ would be known merely by the sudden feeling of encountering a crowd of people and hearing a dim wailing like the sound of a distant funeral dirge.
Those of us who have lived in the country, and know how characteristic of a Welsh burial is this singing of funeral hymns--one or two of which are of a poignant sadness impossible to describe--can imagine how significant and suggestive such a ghostly sound would be to peasant ears. An old woman, whom I knew well years ago, used always to declare that she heard this hymn singing before the death of any friend or neighbour. She would invariably say, if one commented on any death that occurred: "Yes, indeed, but I knew some one was going; I heard the Toili last week."