Note 293.1 — Chapter XIII · FUNERAL RITES.

Here, it will be observed, the ritual food is handed across the coffin. Pennant, writing early in the fourth quarter of the eighteenth century, says that in Wales “previous to a funeral, it was customary, when the corpse was brought out of the house and laid upon the bier, for the next of kin, be it widow, mother, sister or daughter (for it must be a female), to give, over the coffin, a quantity of white loaves, in a great dish, and sometimes a cheese, with a piece of money stuck in it, to certain poor persons. After that, they present, in the same manner, a cup of drink, and require the persons to drink a little of it immediately.” The Lord’s Prayer was then repeated by the minister, if present; and the procession started.293.1 We can have little doubt that this was the same custom. A hundred years earlier still it was witnessed by John Aubrey at Beaumaris. He mentions it as occurring when the corpse is brought out of doors. The food consisted of cake and cheese, with “a new Bowle of Beere, and another of Milke with ye Anno Dni ingraved on it, & ye parties name deceased.” And Dr. Kennett, who annotated his manuscript, refers to a practice at Amersden, in Oxfordshire, of bringing to the minister in the church-porch after the interment a cake and a flagon of ale.293.2 In Wales and the Welsh border the custom underwent a curious development. It became, for some cause, a profession to eat this funeral meal, and thereby, as was believed, to become responsible for the sins of the deceased. Aubrey describes one of these Sin-eaters, as they were called. “One of them I remember lived in a Cottage on Rosse-high way. (He was a long, leane, ugly, lamentable poor raskal.) The manner was that when the Corps was brought out of the house and layd on the Biere, a Loafe of bread was brought out, and delivered to the Sinne-eater over the corps, as also a Mazar-bowle of maple (Gossips bowle) full of beer, wch he was to drinke up, and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he tooke upon him (ipso facto) all the Sinnes of the Defunct, and freed him (or her) from walking after they were dead.”294.1 The profession of Sin-eater and the full ceremony, pagan enough in all conscience, have vanished from the earth only within the lifetime of persons yet living. The most modern account of it was given by Mr. Matthew Moggridge of Swansea to the Cambrian Archaeological Association at Ludlow in the year 1852. He said that “when a person died, the friends sent for the Sin-eater of the district, who on his arrival placed a plate of salt on the breast of the defunct, and upon the salt a piece of bread. He then muttered an incantation over the bread, which he finally ate, thereby eating up all the sins of the deceased. This done, he received his fee of 2s. 6d.” (a modest fee for the service, all things considered, though it had risen since Aubrey’s day), “and vanished as quickly as possible from the general gaze; for as it was believed that he really appropriated to his own use and behoof the sins of all those over whom he performed the above ceremony, he was utterly detested in the neighbourhood—regarded as a mere Pariah—as one irredeemably lost.” Mr. Moggridge specified the neighbourhood of Llandebie, about twelve or thirteen miles from Swansea, as a place where the custom had survived to within a recent period.294.2