Curious Cymru: The Death Omens of Wales

"As big as a calf!" One was heard to exclaim. "As big as a calf!" They both fell backwards in fright, cascading down the ladder in an injurious tumble to the lower level. The story doesn't record if they expired soon afterwards. Given the (super)nature of the sighting, we can assume that they did.

Cwn Annwn is the plural - ci meaning 'dog' in Welsh, with 'cwn' becoming the whole pack - for these Otherworldly harbingers of doom. In truth, they don't predict the death, they cause it.

They are the packhounds of Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of the Underworld, whose task it is to gather up the errant souls of the Cymric dead, and escort them into Annwn. The latter being the Welsh equivalent to Heaven, Valhalla, Hades or, most specifically of all, Tír na nÓg.

The Cwn Annwn are pure white, with red glowing eyes, and their bark is heard way before they rush into view. In fact, the further they are away, the louder their raucous growls.

An alternative name for them is the Cwn Mamau - Hounds of the Mothers - as they were once viewed in a much gentler way, sent by the Mother Goddess to bring her recently deceased back to Her bosom. But the Christianization of Cymru brought a much darker tale. They were now the Hounds of Hell, and those encountering them would be forever denied entry into Heaven.

Reports of the Cwn Annwn continue around the sites of major Welsh disasters, shortly before the catastrophe occurs.

During the course of their conversation, the old man noticed a piece of timber propped up against the wall. He tapped it with his walking stick and said, "That's the stuff for my coffin."

Like many younger men confronted with morbid talk from the elderly, the carpenter dismissed the notion. Awkwardly, he shifted the discussion onto the plank itself, which was amongst many other similar pieces, arguing that it was nothing special. Plus there were plenty more here of much greater quality.

The old man was having none of it. "That's for my coffin right enough." He insisted, the tip of his stick touching a distinctive knot in the woodwork. "Just the stuff."

By and by, their brew supped, the gentleman left and the carpenter got on with his work. Days passed before he ever contemplated that timber again, and then it was only to fetch it for his workbench, in order to work it as part of a table.

But as soon as his plane touched the first rough edge, a loud knocking startled him into stopping.

Thinking it was someone at the front door requesting entrance, he called, "Come on with you. It's open." Nothing. "Come on." No-one. He checked outside, there was nobody even close by in the street. He attempted to work again. The knocking came as soon as he set tool to plank. It happened three times in all, before the carpenter noticed that knot in the timber and realized it was the old man's coffin wood.

Slightly spooked, he set it aside, out in the yard beyond the workshop. It wasn't like there was anything special about it. He just picked up the next plank for the table.

Within days, the news came along with a commission. The old man was dead, would he make the coffin?  The carpenter was saddened, but started immediately on the big job of making his friend's final resting place. He reached for some wood and realized with shock that the timber in his hand bore that same distinctive knotwork.

His apprentice had found the plank aside and, thinking it dropped or misplaced, he'd returned the plank to where it should be stored. It was therefore the topmost piece of timber, when the carpenter came to create the coffin.

Needless to say that this time there was no knocking, as the timber was used for the purpose bestowed by the man it was destined to keep.

The fact that it was knocking sounds wouldn't have surprised anyone much in Wales. That particular tolaeth phenomena is so prevalent that there's a saying connected with it - three knocks for Death, or death knocks three times.

Worst of all is when the knocking sounds in a mine. That's a surefire harbinger that a mining disaster will soon befall them. But that's the Coblynau (goblin-like creatures) causing rockfalls, not tolaeth, so we'll leave them be.

However, the smell of roses in a mine is a definite tolaeth warning of a catastrophe to come. The old Welsh miners would definitely move away, if they scented that. Even more so, if they spotted the Canwyll Corff in the same vicinity.

Mr Griffith investigated, but there was nothing up there but planks of wood stored for drying by the village carpenter. None of it had fallen though, nor did anything else seem disturbed.

Yet with all this tolaeth going on, the schoolmaster was saddened but not greatly surprised, when the news soon followed that one of his boys had passed away.  Nevertheless, he did have to admit to some goosebumps when the carpenter - come to collect some timber for the coffin - accidentally knocked a stack and sent it flying.

The noise, when heard below, was exactly the same as that discerned some days before.

Edward Hamer, in his Parochial Account of Llanidloes, recounts one such risky occurrence, whereby a miner met a toili in the town's China Street. On this occasion, it could be seen but not heard (tolaeth often assault only one sense at the exclusion of the others), and the ghostly mourners were emerging from the home of a man known to be ill.

Instantly the miner turned his back on them and hurried in the opposite direction. But it was too fast for him. Suddenly he was surrounded by specters, none of them seeming to notice him at all, as they knocked him over, trampled, then dragged him along with them.

He eventually emerged, badly shaken and fainting, as the whole procession made its way down Longbridge Street, in Llanidloes. He made it home, but was bedridden himself for days afterwards.

Despite the meetings (or because of them), with no heed apparently being made towards the plethora of death portents, many Welsh workers were so uneasy about it that they stayed home. It's estimated that on the morning of the pit explosion, only half of the Morfa Colliery shift turned up.

The rest were safely on the surface, ready to begin the rescue work, as soon as the alarm was raised. They'd all listened to the omens, and the robin really had been the last straw.

Robins were seen as specifically bad in mines. It was noted that one had nested inside the office at Senghenydd Colliery shortly before 86 men were killed there. Another found a home in the subterranean pump room at Llanbadrach Colliery, just before eight miners died in a shot fire induced gas explosion.

But elsewhere in Wales, it can be many different birds who take on the aspect of 'Deryn Corff (pron. dare-rin cor-f), though mainly owls and ravens.

Others get a kinder experience with the 'Deryn Corff. People on their death-bed have reported birdsong, which may also be heard by those sitting with them.  Yet a look out of the window will find no bird close enough to be singing so loudly.

Usually it's an owl, as that is the bird associated with the goddess Arianrhod, or a raven, as that is very much related to death and/or the Dark Mother. Both are viewed as avian messengers from the Lady, come to call her Fated one home.

On each occasion, Her terrible moaning will sound much like someone expiring of dreadful injuries or sickening unto death. But a grand search will uncover no body. Not that anyone expects to find one, as Cyhyraeth's doleful groaning is very distinctive, and those searching will be Welsh.

If She is heard on a beach or coastal road, then the deaths will be occurring out at sea. She's known to turn up before a shipwreck.

The reason that it may be considered more dreadful to hear Cyhyraeth than any other tolaeth is because of the scope of things. She is more likely to turn up before major disasters resulting in multiple deaths, than the knockers and birds of other omens. Whole communities may end up lamenting right alongside Her.

The classic stories about Her tell of a hag taking to the night skies on black wings, leathery or feathered depending upon the eye-witness account. Her arms are long and withered, ending in fingers like talons. Her mismatched eyes pierce in staring. Her dark clothes are tattered in strips.

She flies above travelers, or up to bedroom windows, scratching on the panes for attention, or else She prowls into their pathway as they walk. And She cries.

As you may have suspected, I'm not talking about a few pretty tears here, nor even a bit of a sob. Her wail fills the air with grief, entering the ears to touch the very soul with loss. Nor it is all just a screeching lament. She calls out names, She's personal, She looks right at you and you know that She sees you.

"Fy mhlentyn, fy mhlentyn bach!" She bitterly screams, if it's a child. "My child! My child!" That's what She'd be saying, if She was English, and it is the anguished keening of a mother who has lost a son or daughter. Or else it may be a lover's emotional sinking upon discovering that they are widowed. "Fy ngŵr, fy ngŵr!" She might wail. "My husband! My husband!"

If it wasn't all so heart-breaking, and sounded it too, then you'd swear that Gwrach-y-Rhibyn was mocking that grief so terrible that it takes the legs from under you.

So far so banshee, but then there's more.