294 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 19. 
suggest, in all humility, that it would be really 
usetul, for the rulers of our Church and State, to 
know how far such a superstition as the following 
prevails among the peasantry : — 
That, if a dying person sees “ glory,” or a bright 
light, at or near the time of their dissolution, such 
a vision is a sure sign of their salvation, whatever 
may have been their former life, or their repent- 
ance. D. Sores. 
Superstitions in North of England, —I find 
some curious popular superstitions prevalent in 
the north of England some three centuries ago 
recorded in the Proceedings before the Special 
Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes appointed 
by Queen Elizabeth. Thus: — 
“ Anthony Huggen presented for medicioning chil- 
dren with miniting a hammer as a smythe of kynde.” 
Again — 
“ John Watson presented for burying a quick dogg 
and a quick cowe.” 
And — 
« Agnes, the wyf of John Wyse, als Winkam John 
Wyse, presented to be a medicioner for the waffe of an 
yll wynde, and for the fayryes,” 
Some of your readers may perhaps explain 
what these were. It is clear that they were super- 
stitious practices of sufficient prevalence and 
influence on the popular mind to call for the 
interference of the queen’s commissioners. <A. B: 
Decking Churches with Yew on Easter Day.— 
In the village of Berkely near Frome, Somerset, 
and on the borders of Wiltshire, the church is 
decorated on Easter Sunday with yew, evidently 
as an emblem of the Resurrection. Flowers in 
churches on that day are common, but I believe 
the use of yew to be unusual. 
W. Durrant Coorrr. 
Strewing Straw or Chaff.— The custom men- 
tioned by your correspondent “ B.” (p.245.) as 
prevailing in Gloucestershire, is not peculiar to 
that county. In Kent, it is commonly practised 
by the rustics. The publican, all the world over, 
decorates his sign-board with a foaming can and 
pipes, to proclaim the entertainment to be found 
within. On the same principle, these rustics hang 
up their sign-board, — as one of them, with whom 
I was once remonstrating, most graphically ex- 
plained to me. When they knew of a house where 
the master deems a little wholesome discipline 
necessary to ensure the obedience of love, con- 
sidering it a pity that the world should be igno- 
rant of his manly virtues, they strew “ well 
threshed” chaff or straw before his door, as an 
emblematical sign-board, to proclaim that the 
sweet fare and “‘ good entertainment” of a “well 
threshed” article may be found within. The 
custom, at all events, has one good tendency, it 
Po 
shames the tyrant into restraint, when he knows 
that his cowardly practices are patent to the 
world. Lampert B. Larxine. 
FOLK LORE OF WALES. 
No.1. Cron Annwn.— When a storm sounds 
over the mountains, the Welsh peasant will tell 
you that his ear discerns the howl of the Cron 
Annwn mingling with that of the wind, yet as 
clearly distinct from it as is the atmosphere in a 
diving-bell from that of the surrounding waters. 
These dogs of Annwn, or “ couriers of the air,” 
are spirit hounds, who hunt the souls of the dead ; 
or, as occasionally said, they foretell, by their 
expectant cries, the approaching death of some 
man of evil deeds. Few have ever pretended to 
see them; for few, we presume, would linger until 
they dawned on the sight; but they are described 
by Taliesin, and in the Mabinogion, as being of a 
clear shining white, with red ears ; colouring which 
confirms the author of the Mythology of the An- 
cient Druids in the idea that these dogs were “a 
mystical transformation of the Druids, with their 
white robes and red tiaras.” Popular superstition, 
however, which must always attribute ugliness to 
an object of fear, deems that they are either jet 
black, with eyes and teeth of fire, or of a deep red, 
and dripping all over with gore. “The nearer,” 
says the Rev. Edmund Jones, “ they are to a man, 
the less their voice is, and the farther the louder, 
sometimes swelling like the voice of a great hound, 
or a blood-hound.” 
They are sometimes accompanied by a female 
fiend, called Malt y nos— Matilda or Malen of 
the night, a somewhat ubiquitous character, with 
whom we meet under a complication of names and 
forms. 
Jones of Brecon, who tells us that the cry of 
the Cron Annwn is as familiar to the inhabitants 
of Ystrad Fellte and Pont Neath-vaughan [in 
Glamorganshire] as the watchman’s rattle in the 
purlieus of Covent Garden — for he lived in the 
days when watchmen and their rattles were yet 
among the things of this world — considers that to 
these dogs, and not to a Greek myth, may be re- 
ferred the hounds, Fury, Silver, Tyrant, &c., with 
which Prospero hunts his enemies “soundly,” in 
the Tempest. And they must recall to the minds 
of our readers the wish, wisked, or Yesk hounds of 
Devon, which are described in the Atheneum for 
March 27. 1847, as well as the Maisne Hellequin 
of Normandy and Bretagne. 
There has been much discussion respecting the 
signification of the word Annwn, which has been 
increased by the very frequent mistake of writing 
it Anwn, which means, unknown, strange, and is 
applied to the people who dwell in the antipodes 
of the speaker ; while Annwn is an adaptation of 
annwfn, a bottomless or immeasurable pit, voidless 
