The “Folklore” Correspondence, 1892-3

On January 22nd, 1892, p6, a brief mention in the Wales Day By Day section of The Western Mail announced:

An attractive programme of lectures has been arranged for the next session of the Cymmrodorion Society, which begins this week. Mr. J. W. Wiiiis-Bond will lead off with a paper on “The Early History of the Welsh Church.” Mr. Sidney Hartland, formerly of Swansea, will follow with one on “The Sin Eater,” which will have a peculiar interest for folk-lorists; …

The announcement was also picked up by the Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald and North and South Wales Independent in its edition of January 29th, 1892, p4:

THE CYMMRODORION SESSION

… In February there will be a joint meeting of the Cymmrodorion and Folk Lore Societies, at which Mr E. Sidney Hartland, formerly of Swansea, author of “The Science of Folk Tales,” will read a paper on “The Sin-Eater.” …

Hartland’s presentation to the meeting was reviewed at length in the February 24th, 1892 edition of Bye-gones, p266-8:

THE CYMMRODORION SOCIETY.

MR E. SIDNEY HARTLAND ON THE “SIN-EATER” The second lecture of the Cymmrodorion Session was given at a joint meeting of the Cymmrodorion and Folk-Lore Societies, which was held on Wednesday, the 10th February, at the rooms of the Royal Asiatic Society in Albemarle-street, under the presidency of Professor Rhys, when Mr E. Sidney Hartland, of Gloucester, who is an active member of both Societies, and the author of “The Science of Fairy Tales,” read a paper on “The Sin-Eater.”

The review begins with a mention of certain notable attendees:

Amongst others present there were :— Mr Henry Owen, F.S.A., Mr G. Lawrence Gomme, Mr Alfred Nutt, Mr T. Marchant Williams, Mr Edward Clodd, Dr Karl Blind, Dr Gaster, Mr Sydenham Jones, Mr D. McRitchie, Mr F. A. Milne (secretary to the Folk-Lore Society), Mr E. Vincent Evans (secretary to the Cymmrodorion Society),&c, &c.

Then the review of the presented paper begins, which begins with a review of Aubrey:

The Chairman, after a brief reference to Mr Hartland’s contributions to the study of folk-lore, called upon him to read his paper on “The Sin- Eater.”— The earliest mention of the curious custom of the Sin-Eater, formerly observed in Wales and the Welsh Marches at funerals, is to be found, according to Mr Hartland, in “The Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme,” a work of John Aubrey, (1686-7) which remained in MS. for 200 years, until it was for the first time issued by the Folk-Lore Society in 1881. The passage in question (p. 23-4) runs as follows :— “Offertories at Funeralls.— These are mentioned in the Rubrick of ye ch. of Engl. Common-Prayer-booke : but I never sawe it used, but once, at Beaumaris, in Anglesey; but it is used over all the Counties of North-Wales. But before when the Corps is brought out of Doores, there is Cake and Cheese, and a new Bowle of Beere, and another of Milke with ye Anno Dni ingraved on it, and ye parties name deceased, w’ch one accepts of on the other side of ye Corps; and this Custome is used to this day, 1686, in North Wales.” On this there is the following note by Bishop Kennett:—” where a small tablet or board is fixt near the Altar, upon w’ch the friends of ye defunct lay their offerings in mony according to their own ability and the quality of the person deceased…. Sinne-Eaters.— It seems a remainder of this custom w’ch lately obtained at Amersden [(1) Ambrosden (near Bicester, Oxon.), of which parish Kennett was vicar 1684-1691] in the county of Oxford, where at the burial of every corps one cake and one flaggon of Ale just after the interrment were brought to the minister in the Ch, porch.” Aubrey also has (p. 35-6) the following note on “Sinne-Eaters:— In the County of Hereford was an old Custome at funeralls to { hire | have } poor people, who were to take upon them all the sinnes of the party deceased. 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, w’ch 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. This custome alludes (me-thinkes) something to the Scape-goate in ye old Lawe… This custome (though rarely used in our dayes) yet by some people was { observed | continued } even in the strictest time of ye Presbyterian government : as at Dynder, volens nolens the Parson of ye Parish,the { kinred | relations} of a woman deceased there had this ceremonie punctually performed according to her Will : and also the like was donne at ye City of Hereford in these times, when a woman kept many yeares before her death a Mazard-bowle for the Sinne-eater; and the like in other places in this Countie ; as also in Brecon, e.g., at Llangors, where Mr. Gwin the minister about 1640 could no hinder ye performing of this ancient custome. I believe this custome was heretofore used over all Wales….. In North-Wales, the Sinne-eaters are frequently made use of ; but there, insted of a Bowle of Beere, they have a bowle of Milke. Methinkes, Doles to Poore people with money at Funeralls have some resemblance of that of ye Sinne-eater. Doles at Funeralls were continued at Gentlemens funeralls in the West of England till the Civil-warre. And so in Germany at rich mens funerals Doles are in use, and to every one a quart of strong and good Beer.—Cramer.”

Bagford’s letter is also reviewed:

Ellis (in Brand and Ellis’s “Observations on Popular Antiquities,” ed. 1813, ii., 155), who quotes Aubrey from this MS., also reprints from Leland’s Collectanea, vol. i., p. lxxvi., the following passage of Mr John Bagford’s Letter relating to the Antiquities of London (dated Feb. 1, 1714-5), giving a slightly varied account, also professedly derived from Aubrey.

“Within the memory of our Fathers in Shropshire, in those Villages adjoyning to Wales, when a Person dyed, there was notice given to an old Sire (for so they call’d him), who presently repair’d to the Place where the deceased lay, and stood before the Door of the House, when some of the Family came out and furnished him with a Cricket, on which he sat down facing the door. Then they gave him a Groat, which he put in his pocket; a Crust of Bread, which he eat; and a full Bowle of Ale, which he drank off at a draught. After this he got up from the Cricket, and pronounced with a composed Gesture, The ease and rest of the Soul departed, for which he would pawn his own Soul. This I had from the ingenious John Aubrey, Esq., who made a collection of curious Observations, which I have seen, and is now remaining in the hands of Mr Churchhill the Bookseller.”

Looking elsewhere, Hartland raises mention of Moggridge’s account from the Ludlow meeting of 1852:

The only other mention of the custom of the Sin-Eater, of any importance, is that made by the late Mr Mathew Moggridge of Swansea at a meeting of the Cambrian Archaeological Association held at Ludlow in 1852. His account was 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, 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 irremediably lost.” Mr Moggridge specified the parish of Llandebie, Carmarthenshire, about twelve or thirteen miles N. of Swansea, as a place where the custom had survived to within a recent period. (Arch. Camb. for 1852, 2nd Series, vol. ii. pp. 330-2).

The reviewer then describes Hartland’s attempts to track down the provenance and origins of the tradition:

So far as Mr Hartland was aware, no explanation of this strange custom had been hitherto offered beyond Aubrey’s conjecture that it had some reference to the Hebrew scapegoat. He (Mr Hartland) proposed to compare it with one or two other customs in this country and abroad, for the purpose, if possible, of tracing its origin. He assumed that in the custom described we have only a mutilated form of the original ceremony. The first point to be noted was that the rite had to do with the disposal of the dead, that the eating of food placed upon the coffin.or rather upon the body itself, was the substance of the rite, and that the belief connected with it was that by the act of eating some properties of the dead were taken over by the eater.

Hartland also reviewed evidence of related traditions in other cultures, including traditions relating to “corpse cakes” in Bavaria, a Dyak funeral rite, and the Scottish custom of “dishaloof”:

Mr Hartland then proceeded to look for analogies, and described a custom, formerly prevalent in the highlands of Bavaria, of eating Corpse-cakes [i.e., cakes prepared from dough placed to rise on the enshrouded dead body, and afterwards baked], to which the belief attached that they contained the virtues of the departed, which virtues passed over by means of the Corpse-cakes into the kinsmen who consumed them, and so were retained within the kindred. A Dyak funeral rite in which food was placed before the dead ere the coffin was closed, to be afterwards devoured by the nearest relations of the departed, was next described ; then a curious custom in the Scottish Lowlands, called the dishaloof, in which salt played a prominent part.

These customs are then compared with customs relating to the giving of doles in general at funeral times:

All these customs were pronounced to be more archaic and therefore more significant in form than the custom of doles of money and food at funerals, which was identified in the passages quoted from Aubrey, as well as by more recent writers, as a survival of the Sin-Eater.

Hartland then attempts to further strengthen claims as to the long history of such traditions by quoting Pennant:

That this identification is substantially correct will be seen not only from the instances already given, but also from Pennant’s statement (Tours in Wales, ed. 1883, iii, 150-1) that in Wales, previously to a funeral, it was customary when the corpse was brought out of the house, for the next of kin (a female) to give over the coffin a quantity of white loaves, and sometimes a cheese with a piece of money stuck in it, to certain poor people. After that they presented in like manner a cup of drink, and required the person to drink a little of it immediately; then the minister repeated the Lord’s prayer, after which they proceeded with the corpse. To this hour, Pennant adds, the bier is carried by the next of kin, a custom considered as the highest respect that filial piety can pay to the deceased. It is not at all uncommon, as folk-lore students are aware, for tribal, communal, and other feasts in the last stage of their decadence to come to be represented by gifts of food to the poor. The significance of the custom as related by Pennant is that the food and drink are given across the coffin by the next of kin,* and that if the recipients are not required to eat the bread on the spot they have at least to drink of the liquor offered them. Mr Hartland cited many variants of this custom in this and other countries. When these traditional observances are set side by side, their meaning, he observed, is transparent.

The tradition of consuming food or drink placed near the body is seen as a key element, which Hartland appears to claim is a relic of a more savage behaviour:

The partaking of food and drink which have been placed upon or near the body or the coffin of the deceased, or are delivered over the coffin to be consumed— an act, in the most elaborate of these rites, distinctly believed to convey to the persons who partake some, at all events, of the properties of the dead— can only be a relic of a savage feast where the meat consumed was the very body of the deceased kinsman.

This appears to be the first time that cannibalistic practices are explicitly associated with the sin-eater rite or its pre-cursor traditions, and seems to represent a huge leap of imagination in associating the one with the other.

Hartland’s identificstion of cannibalism as a feature of “savage” funeral rituals is then justified:

The eating of the dead, however repulsive to us, is known by the testimony of ancient writers to have been the practice of many barbarous tribes, and travellers have found it among modern savages. In particular Strabo records it of the ancient Irish. The inference that the cannibalism related of them was once common to those peoples among whom similar modern practices, like those of the Sin-Eater, &c, have been found, is well within the limits of induction. The reason for the custom is doubtless to be found in the belief that the qualities of the food are communicated to the eater.

A relic of such cannibalistic practice is then claimed to be seen as carried over to corpse cake rituals:

The same reason which induces the wild South American warrior to love the flesh of tigers, &c., because from it courage passes into those who eat thereof, leads the Bavarian peasant to retain within the kindred the good qualities of a departed member by means of the symbolical act of eating “corpse-cakes.”

…as well into the sin-eater tradition:

In the Sin-Eater the same act is put to another, but strictly analogous, use in the absorption of the sins of the dead. Why it was supposed that in the one case good and in the other evil properties were communicated we do not know.

Various forces that might have affected the continuation, or extinction, of the tradtion, are then considered:

Some variation in the view taken of the matter by the clergy may have led to the rite being considered disgraceful in Wales, and so may have rendered those who persisted in it the objects of persecution. Payment to undertake the odium, the consequent degradation as well of the rite as of the person who performed it, and the influence of the Biblical account of the Hebrew Scapegoat may have done the rest. The gifts of food to the poor, both in their immediate form described by Pennant, and in their final form as doles, however, point to a different interpretation of the same original observance. They can hardly be derived from the Sin-Eater; their relation to it is not lineal but collateral. They are variants of the ceremony, and variants bearing the strongest testimony to the form and meaning of the parent type.

The paper appears to have been mostly well-received, yet also provoked some discussion:

Mr Hartland’s paper was most cordially received by the company, but various points were more or less criticised by the members of both Societies. The theory set forth is undoubtedly an ingenious one, but it requires further proofs to make it altogether acceptable. So far as Wales is concerned there existed up to a very recent period some very curious funeral customs, the recital of which might throw further light on the custom of the Sin-Eater.

As to what comments were raised by other members of the meeting, I have as yet found no direct record.

The reviewer closes by suggesting suggests that any readers who might be ble to provide further information or evidence regarding the exitence of the sin-eater tradition, as described, or funeral customs that might relate to it, should fowrward them tto Mr Hartland:

We would suggest that persons cognisant of the customs referred to should forward their information either direct to Mr Sydney Hartland, at Barnwood Court, Gloucester (who we are sure will make the best possible use of all bits of Welsh Folk-Lore sent to him), or contribute it to the congenial columns of Bye-Gones for the edification and enlightenment of the public.

A further report of the meeting in the March, 1892 edition of the Welsh Review, also reviewed the meeting, albeit in slightly briefer terms, p517:

Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, formerly of Swansea, the author of “The Science of Folk-Tales,” at a joint meeting of the Cymmrodorion and Folk-Lore Societies the other day, dealt with the curious and interesting customs connected with the being known as “the Sin-Eater.” The earliest mention of the custom of “sin-eating” formerly observed in Wales and the Welsh marches at funerals, is found in The Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme, a two centuries’ old manuscript of John Aubrey’s, published some ten or twelve years ago by the Folk-Lore Society. He says, in referring to offertories at funerals, “ But before, when the corps is brought out of doores, there is cake and cheese, and a new bowle of beere, and another of milke, with ye Anno Dni. ingraved on it, and ye parties name deceased, which one accepts of on the other side of ye corps, and this custom is used to this day, 1686, in North Wales.” That some such custom was observed throughout Wales in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries appears to be undoubted. The late Mr. Mathew Moggridge, of Swansea, mentioned the custom at a meeting of the Cambrian Archaeological Association, held at Ludlow in 1852, and specified the parish of Llandevie, about 12 or 13 miles from Swansea, as a place where the custom had survived to within a recent period. Mr. Hartland compared the custom with others of a similar character in this country and abroad. Placing these traditional observances side by side, he came to the conclusion that they could only be the relics of a savage feast, where the meat consumed was the very body of the deceased kinsman. The reason for the custom is doubtless to be found in the belief that the qualities of the food are communicated to the eater. In some of the customs mentioned the virtues of the deceased were supposed to be absorbed; in others, the custom meant the absorption of the sins of the dead. Some variation in the view of the matter taken by the clergy may have led to the rite being considered disgraceful in Wales. It has long since disappeared, though gifts of food to the poor and doles at funerals may be considered as interpretations of a different kind of the original observance.

The paper, or perhaps even an extended or revised version of it, was published in the June, 1892, volume of Folklore.

E. Sidney Hartland, The Sin-Eater, Folklore, June 1892

Edwin Sidney Harland’s paper to the Foklore Society appeared in full in the Vol. III, No. II, p145-157 edition of Folklore in June 1892. Not surprisingly, the sections relating to sin-eater closely follow the earlier report of the presented paper, starting with the earliest mention found to date, as provided by John Aubrey:

THE SIN-EATER.

THE earliest mention of the curious custom of the Sin-eater, formerly observed in Wales and the Welsh Marches at funerals, is found in The Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, work of John Aubrey, which remained in manuscript for two hundred years, until it was for the first time issued by the Folk-lore Society ten or twelve years ago. The passages in question run as follows :

“ Offertories at funeralls.

“ These are mentioned in the Rubrick of ye ch. of Engl. Comon Prayer-booke : but I never sawe it used, but once at Beaumaris, in Anglesey ; but it is used over all the Counties of North-Wales. But before when the corps is brought out of Doores, there is Cake & Cheese, and a new Bowle of Beere, and another of Milke with ye Anno Dni ingraved on it, & ye parties name deceased, whch one accepts of on the other side of ye Corps ; & this Custome is used to this day, 1686, in North Wales.

“ [ … “ Sinne-eaters.

“ It seems a remainder of this custom wch lately obtained at Amersden, in the county of Oxford, where at the burial of every corps one Cake and one flaggon of Ale just after the interrment were brought to the minister in the Ch. porch. W. K.] [Pp. 23-4. The passage in brackets is added by Dr. Kennett. Vol. III]

The quotation is almost certainly taken from the Folk-Lore Society published edition of John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme, 1881, [Aubrey, 1881].

“ In the County of Hereford was an old Custome at funeralls to {hire / have} poor people, who were to take upon them all the sinnes of the party deceased. 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. This custome alludes (methinkes) something to the Scape-goate in ye old La we. Leviticus, cap. xvi, verse 21, 22. “And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goate and confesse over him all ye iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fitt man into the wildernesse. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities, unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let the goat goe unto the wildernesse.” This Custome (though rarely used in our dayes) yet by some people was {observed / continued} even in the strictest time of ye Presbyterian goverment : as at Dynder, volens nolens the Parson of ye Parish, the {kinred / relations } of a woman deceased there had this Ceremonie punctually performed according to her Will : and also the like was donne at ye City of Hereford in these times, when a woman kept many yeares before her death a Mazard-bowle for the Sinne-eater; and the like in other places in this Countie; as also in Brecon, e.g. at Llangors, where Mr. Gwin the minister about 1640 could no hinder ye performing of this ancient custome. I believe this custom was heretofore used over all Wales.

“ * * *

“ In North-Wales the Sinne-eaters are frequently made use of; but there, insted of a Bowie of Beere, they have a bowle of Milke.

“ Methinkes, Doles to Poore people with money at Funeralls have some resemblance to that of ye Sinne-eater. Doles at Funeralls were continued at Gentlemens funeralls in the West of England till the Civil-warre. And so in Germany at rich mens funerals Doles are in use, and to every one a Quart of strong and good Beer. — Cramer. [P. 35.]

There is no, more explicit, reference to “Cramer”, but the text appears to be a quote of page 35 of the Folklore Society edition of [Aubrey, 1881].

As we have already heard, Bagford’s letter was also introduced:

Ellis, who quotes Aubrey from the MS., also reprints from Leland’s Collectanea a letter from a Mr, Bagford giving a slightly varied account, also professedly derived from Aubrey. The letter is dated 1st Feb. 1714-15, and runs thus :

“Within the memory of our Fathers, in Shropshire, in those villages adjoyning to Wales, when a person dyed, there was notice given to an old Sire, (for so they called him,) who pre- sently repaired to the place where the deceased lay, and stood before the door of the house, when some of the Family came out and furnished him with a Cricket, on which he sat down facing the door. Then they gave him a Groat, which he put in his pocket ; a Crust of Bread, which he eat ; and a full bowle of Ale, which he drank off at a draught. After this, he got up from the Cricket and pronounced, wdth a composed gesture, the ease and rest of the Soul departed, for which he would pawn his own Soul.” [Brand and Ellis, Observations on Pop. Antiquities, 11, 155.]

And Moggridge’s contributions to the meeting at Ludlow:

The only other mention of this custom of any importance is by the late Mr. Matthew Moggridge of Swansea, at a meeting of the Cambrian Archaeological Association held at Ludlow in 1852. His account was 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., 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. [Archaaeologia Camdrefisis, N.S., iii (1852), 330.]

The lack of an explanation for the tradition, as we also heard from the previous review, is something of an issue:

No explanation of this strange custom has, so far as I know, been hitherto offered, beyond Aubrey’s conjecture that it has some reference to the Hebrew Scape-goat.

In the full paper, the comparison with other traditions is justtified as providing a basis for under the Welsh tradition:

I propose briefly to compare it with one or two other customs in this country and abroad, for the purpose if possible of tracing its origin. In doing so I will ask you to assume that, as is usual in traditional rites which have continued to modern times, we have in the custom described only a mutilated form of the original ceremony. If that ceremony was in ancient times at all widely distributed we shall probably find its remains in places far apart ; but we must not expect to find them all exactly alike. The portion of the ceremony, or the interpretation of it, which most forcibly strikes the popular imagination, and is consequently held most tenaciously in the popular memory, in one place is not always precisely that which is to be recognized at first sight elsewhere. We shall have to piece together the relics we find, first in order to show that they relate to the same rite, that they are in fact portions of the same pattern, though perhaps distorted or half obliterated, and secondly to discover what the original pattern was. Fortunately in the present case the pattern is simple, and the fragments, though few, are unmistakable in their characteristics.

And the “reason” for the tradition claimed in the following terms:

At present we will note that the rite has to do with the disposal of the dead, that the eating of food placed upon the coffin, or rather upon the body itself, is the substance of the rite, and that the belief connected with it is that by the act of eating some properties of the dead are taken over by the eater. With this general idea in our minds we may look for analogues.

As previously reported, “corpse cakes” are seen to be a Bavarian tradition:

In the Highlands of Bavaria we are told that when the corpse is placed upon the bier the room is carefully washed out and cleaned. It was formerly the custom for the housewife then to prepare the Leichen-nudeln, which I may perhaps freely translate as Corpse-cakes. Having kneaded the dough, she placed it to rise on the dead body, which lay there enswathed in a linen shroud. When the dough had risen the cakes were baked for the expected guests. To the cakes so prepared the belief attached that they contained the virtues and advantages (Vortheile) of the departed, and that thus the living strength of the deceased passed over by means of the corpse-cakes into the kinsmen who consumed them, and so was retained within the kindred. [Dr. M. Hoefler of Toelz, in Am Urquell, ii, 101]

And claims are made, as reported, regarding food-related funeral customs:

Here we find ourselves at an earlier stage in the disintegration of tradition than in the Welsh custom. The eating is not merely that of food placed upon the breast of the dead man, and so in some way symbolically identified with him. The dough in rising is believed actually to absorb his qualities, which are transmitted to those of his kin who partake of the cakes, and, consistently with the custom requiring the relatives to eat these cakes, that the qualities transferred are not evil but good ones : the living strength, the virtues and so on of the dead are retained within the kin.

Similar customs are recorded in Borneo, home to the Dyaks, and Hungary, recorded his with notes as to provenance for the claims:

Something like this may have been the meaning of the Dyak funeral rite in which food is set before the dead ere the coffin is closed. It is allowed to stand for about an hour by the corpse and is then devoured by the nearest relations of the departed. [F. Grabowsky in Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, ii, 180.] So also when a Hungarian Gipsy dies he is carried out of the tent or hut. It is then the duty of the members of his family (Stammgenossen) to offer to the deceased gifts, especially food and drink of various kinds which they lay beside the body, and afterwards themselves consume. [Von Wlislocki, Volksglaube und religiöser Branch der Zigeuner, 99.]

The Scottish tradtion of “dishaloof” was included in the original report, though not at the level of detial with which it is described here:

In the Scottish Lowlands a curious, and apparently meaningless, ceremony used to take place about a hundred years ago on the occasion of a death. It is thus described :

“ “When a body has been washed and laid out, one of the oldest women present must light a candle, and wave it three times around the corpse. Then she must measure three handfuls of common salt into an earthenware plate, and lay it on the breast. Lastly, she arranges three ‘toom’ or empty dishes on the hearth, as near as possible to the fire ; and all the attendants going out of the room return into it backwards, repeating this ‘rhyme of saining’ :

“ ‘ Thrice the torchie, thrice the saltie. “ Thrice the dishies toom for “ loffie” [i.e., praise], “ These three times three ye must wave round “ The corpse until it sleep sound. “ Sleep sound and wake nane. “ Till to heaven the soul’s gane. “ If ye want that soul to dee “ Fetch the torch frae th’ Elleree [seer, or wizard] ; “ Gin ye want that soul to live, “ Between the dishes place a sieve. “ An’ it sail have a fair, fair shrive.’

This rite is called Dishaloof. Sometimes, as is named in the verses, a sieve is placed between the dishes, and she who is so fortunate as to place her hand in it is held to do most for the soul. If all miss the sieve, it augurs ill for the departed. Meanwhile all the windows in the house are opened, in order to give the soul free egress… In some of the western counties, however, the dishes are set upon a table or ‘bunker’ (as they call a long chest) close to the death-bed ; and it is actually said that while the attendants sit with their hands in the dishes they ‘spae’ or tell fortunes, sing songs or repeat rhymes, in the middle of which the corpse, it is averred, has been known to rise frowning, and place its cold hand in one of the dishes, thus presaging death to her whose hand was in that dish already. The Dishaloof so far over, the company join hands and dance round the dishes, singing this burden : ‘A dis, a dis, a dis, a green gris, a dis, a dis, a dis.’ Bread, cheese, and spirits are then placed on the table, and, when the company have partaken of them, they are at liberty to go home.” [Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, 53, quoting the Wilkie MSS.]

Hartland then attempts to critique the tradition to see how it compares with the other described rites:

The explanation of this Scottish rite is not quite so easy as that of some others. But I think it will be agreed that it is hardly possible to assign an intelligible meaning to it if it be not of the same order of thought as that expressed in the Bavarian, and perhaps also in the Dyak, and Gipsy rites. The empty dishes placed on the hearth, or on a table close beside the corpse, the attendants sitting with their hands in them, the completion of the performance by eating and drinking of food set on the table in the very place where the dishes have been, all point to a ceremonial banquet in which the food has a mysterious connection with the dead. There is no doubt something which this supposition does not fully explain — the sieve, for example, and the words of the songs ; but we must remember that the dishes give their name to the rite, and are bound up with its essential elements, while there can be no doubt that it is in a state of decadence. Now when a ceremonial is decaying and passing gradually out of use, the non-essential portions first drop out and are replaced by others, or altogether omitted. This, therefore, is what we should have expected to occur to this Lowland rite.

The Lowland, the Dyak, and the Gipsy rites, however, are all more archaic, and therefore more significant in form than the custom of doles of money and food at funerals, which was identified by Aubrey in the passages I have quoted, as well as by more recent writers, as a survival of the Sin-eater. That this identification is substantially correct will be seen, not only from the instances already given, but also from Pennant’s statement 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 person to drink a little of it immediately. When that is done, all present kneel down, and the minister, if present, says the Lord’s Prayer ; after which they proceed with the corpse… To this hour the bier is carried by the next of kin ; a custom considered as the highest respect that filial piety can pay to the deceased.” [Pennant, Tour in Wales (London, 1784), ii, 338.]

Hartland then appears to make a claim about the evolution of form of tribal and communal rites:

It is not at all uncommon, as folk-lore students are aware, that tribal, communal, and other feasts in the last stage of their decadence come to be represented by gifts of food to the poor. The significance of the custom as related by Pennant is that the food and drink are given across the coffin, by the next of kin, and that if the recipients are not required to eat the bread on the spot, they have at least to drink of the liquor offered them. At funerals in Ireland a plate of snuff is placed upon the breast of the dead, or upon the coffin, and everyone who attends the funeral is expected to take a pinch. This custom seems to be hardly yet extinct, as I have lately spoken to eye-witnesses of it during quite recent years. In South Wales a plate of salt is still often laid on the breast of the corpse (a custom once common in a much wider area) ; and “in a parish near Chepstow it was usual to make the figure of a cross on the salt, and cutting an apple or an orange into quarters, to put one piece at each termination of the lines” ; while in Pembrokeshire a lighted candle was stuck in the salt. [Arch. Cambr., N.S., iii, 330, 331.] At the opening of a coffin in St. Mary’s Church, Leicester, not long ago there was found on the breast of the dead a plate made of tin which it was conjectured had contained salt. [Rev. des Trad. Pop., vi, 485.] In the neighbourhood of Salzwedel, in Altmark, a spoon and dish were, among other things, form.erly put into the coffin. [Temme, Die Volkssagen der Altmark, 77.] It is impossible, however, to lay any stress on the last-mentioned custom, since salt is of frequent use against spirits and witches, and the articles buried with the dead may rather have been intended for use in the spirit- world than the relics of a funeral observance in the nature of a feast by the survivors. The occupant of the coffin at Leicester may have been a priest, for a paten of some inferior metal was commonly buried with a priest.

And old English and Welsh custom of giving snall cakes is also remarked upon:

But I ought not to leave quite unmentioned as vestiges of a feast the custom which obtained in Wales as well as in England of giving small sponge-cakes to the funeral guests. In Yorkshire and elsewhere the last part of the funeral entertainment before the procession started for the churchyard was to hand round “glasses of wine and small round cakes of the crisp sponge description, of which most of the guests partook.” These cakes were called “Avril bread”. The word avril is said to be derived from arval, succession-ale, heir-ale, the name of the feasts held by Icelandic heirs on succeeding to property. [Atkinson, Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, 227 ; Arch. Cambr., 4th S., iii, 332 ; *Gent. Mag. Lib. (Manners and Customs), 70 ; Cymru Fu N. and Q., ii, 271, 275. See also Antigua and the Antiguans, ii, 188.] Many other survivals of funeral feasts might be cited ; but they would be irrelevant to my present purpose. I will only add that a foreigner, describing a nobleman’s obsequies which he witnessed at Shrewsbury in the early years of King Charles II, states that the minister made a funeral oration in the chamber where the body lay, and “ during the oration there stood upon the coffin a large pot of wine, out of which every one drank to the health of the deceased. This benig finished six men took up the Corps, and carried it on their shoulders to the church.” [Quoted, Brand and Ellis, ii, 153 n.]

A further cake-related custom is described in the context of a tradition continued by Greeks in Turkey regarding a “Kólyva cake”:

The exhibition of cakes at the recent Folk-lore Congress included a Kólyva cake as made and used among the Greeks of Turkey. On the fortieth day after death a loaf is sent to each family of the friends of the deceased as a token of invitation to the commemorative service. The kólyva, a mixture of which the basis is boiled wheat, is blessed by the priests, and each person present takes a handful, saying, as he does so, “God rest him!” The ceremony is repeated the next day. The mourners then eat a meal together before proceeding to the cemetery with the priest to erect a tombstone over the grave. The poor of the neighbourhood, we are told, are in the evening regaled with a supper, during which their wishes for the soul of the departed are repeatedly expressed. [Miss Garnett, The Women of Turkey (The Christian Women), 99.] This custom is recorded in Miss Garnett’s book on the women of Turkey. More remarkable still is another custom which I do not find mentioned there, but of which she herself informed me. Cakes made of boiled wheat similar to the kólyva cakes, but without the elaborate ornamentation which covers them, are carried in the funeral procession — whether or not immediately behind the corpse Miss Garnett was not quite certain, though that is not, perhaps, very material. After the coffin has been put into the grave the cake is broken up and eaten by the mourners then and there above the tomb, each one of them pronouncing the words : “God rest him !” just as the Sin-eater pronounced the ease and rest of the soul departed, and just as at the nobleman’s funeral at Shrewsbury the guests drank to the health of the deceased. [When this paper was read to the Folk-lore Society, the Rev. Dr. Gaster, who was present, mentioned that he had often witnessed the ceremony described, and added the detail, of which I was unaware, that images of the dead were made upon the cakes. This detail, I venture to think, strengthens my argument, though it is fair to say that Dr. Gaster did not accept this view nor my conclusion.] The eating of the kólyva on the fortieth day seems to be a commemorative repetition of this ceremony.

Hartland then attempts to provide a synoptic (in the sense of “summary”) view over all these traditions:

When we set these traditional observances side by side their meaning is transparent. The partaking of food and drink which have been placed upon, or near, the body, or the coffin of the deceased, or are delivered over the coffin to be consumed — an act, in the most elaborate of these rites, distinctly believed to convey to the persons who partake some at all events of the properties of the dead — can only be a relic of a savage feast where the meat consumed was the very body of the deceased kinsman. The solemn eating at the grave of a cake carried in the funeral procession is an analogous rite and points to an identical origin. The eating of the dead, however repulsive to us, is known by the testimony of ancient writers to have been the practice of many barbarous tribes ; and travellers have likewise found it among modern savages. [It is hardly necessary to refer to the very numerous cases recorded by modern travellers. The latest I have met with is a disgusting custom among the Bangala, referred to by Dr. Schneider, Die Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker, 135.] In particular, Strabo records it of the ancient Irish, telling us that they considered it praiseworthy to devour their dead fathers. [Strabo, Geog. Bk. iv, c. 5, s. 4.] The inhabitants of Britain were at that time, as he ex- pressly says, more civilized than the Irish. They had perhaps already passed beyond the stage at which this rite, in its horrible literalness, was possible. But they came of the same stock as the Irish, in so far at least as they both were of Celtic blood ; and it is apposite to my argument to remind you that the latest anthropological investigations seem to point to a large proportion of Celtic blood also in the people of Upper Bavaria. The inference that the ancient cannibalism related only of the Irish was once common to all these three peoples, among whom similar modern practices like those of the Sin-eater, the snuff-taking, and the corpse-cakes have been found, is well within the limits of induction. And it is confirmed by the customs, either still existent or quite recent, of the Greeks, the Scotch, and (though more doubtfully) of the Dyaks and the Gipsies, which appear to indicate the like practice among their respective ancestors.

Finally, Hartland drops in one further piece of evidence not described in the report of the paper read to the Cymmrodorion and Folk Lore Societies:

But the strongest corroboration of the correctness of my conclusion is found in a repulsive custom, to which my attention has been called by a friend since this paper was read to the Society. This custom is practised by a number of tribes inhabiting the valley of the Uaupés, a tributary of the Amazons. Their houses are generally built to accommodate the whole community ; and the dead are buried beneath the floor. About a month after the funeral, Dr. Wallace tells us, the survivors “disinter the corpse, which is then much decomposed, and put it in a great pan, or oven, over the fire, till all the volatile parts are driven off with a most horrible odour, leaving only a black carbonaceous mass, which is pounded into a fine powder, and mixed in several large couches (vats made of hollowed trees) of a fermented drink called caxiri : this is drunk by the assembled company till all is finished ; they believe that thus the virtues of the deceased will be transmitted to the drinkers.” [A. R. Wallace, LL.D., A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, 3rd ed. (1890), 346.]

Similarities and differences between this custom and the previously described customs are then drawn out:

The reason here expressly assigned for the custom is neither more nor less than that given by the Highlanders of Bavaria for making and eating the corpse-cakes. It is a general belief in the lower culture that food communicated its qualities to the eater. From the flesh of tigers courage and strength, speed from that of stags, timidity from that of hares, pass into those who eat them. The same order of thought leads the Taridnas and other tribes of the Uaupés to try to retain within the kindred the good qualities of a departed member by consuming his body powdered in drink. The Bavarian peasant has passed the stage whereat the coarse directness of this expedient can be tolerated. He tries to achieve the same result by the symbolical act of eating cakes baked of dough which has been put upon the breast of the dead man to rise, and has in rising absorbed his virtues.

Hartland finally attempts to draw all the stands together in the context of the sin-eater, suggesting their considerable variation in their final stages somehow implies a common origin previously:

In the Sin-eater the same act is put to another, but strictly analogous, use in the absorption of the sins of the dead. Why it was supposed that in the one case good, and in the other evil, properties were communicated we do not know. Some variation in the view taken of the matter by the clergy may have led to the rite being considered disgraceful in Wales, and so may have rendered those who persisted in it the objects of persecution. Payment to undertake the odium, the consequent degradation as well of the rite as of the person who performed it, and the influence of the Biblical account of the Hebrew Scape-goat may have done the rest. The gifts of food to the poor, both in their intermediate form described by Pennant, and in their final form as mere doles, however, point to a different interpretation of the same original observance. They can hardly be derived from the Sin-eater ; their relation to it is not lineal but collateral. They are variants of the ceremony, and variants bearing the strongest testimony to the form and meaning of the parent type.

E. Sidney Hartland.

As with Hartland’s earlier presentation, there is still no mention of the correspondence debate that played out across several issues of the Academy in 1875. Even if we accept that his scholarship had failed to unearth it when preparing the original paper, that no-one then raised it to his attention suggests that the relatively recent historical treatment of the sin-eater was not a widely appreciated one. With the paper now published in the journal of the Folk-Lore Society, the membership of that particular society should surely have the requisite knowledge among them to bring the fruits of that earlier round of criticism to bear, or at least, a collective memory deep enough to reference it?

Responses to the Paper

An article in The Cardiff Times dated June 11th, 1892, p4, acknowledges the publication of the paper, picking up on Hartland’s conclusion that many surviving customs hint back to a common, cannibailistic tradition:

WELSH ECHOES FROM LONDON

Welsh Folk-Lore. The current number of Folk-Lore opens with the paper on “The Sin-Eater,” read by Mr E. Sidney Hartland, of Gloucester (formerly of Swansea), before a recent meeting of the Cymmrodorion Society. It is many years since the sin-eater has disappeared from Wales, but if Mr Hartland’s conclusions be correct many of the quaint funeral customs prevalent amongst the Welsh people were survivals of the more ancient ceremony, which, traced back to its origin, is probably the relic of a savage feast, where the meat consumed (with the object of taking over some of the properties of the dead) was the very body of the deceased kinsman.

The correspondent also comments on how knowledge of many Welsh traditions had died out in recent years:

There is now little left in Wales of the funeral customs of thirty and forty years ago, and it behoves Welsh folk lorists to be diligent in completing the record. Professor Rhys, who has rendered so much valuable service to the cause of folk lore, adds some interesting notes to a previous communication on the “First foot and Allied Superstitions,” in which he draws attention to the importance attached to the sex or complexion of the first person who enters the house on New Years Day, and the editor of the journal, Mr Joseph Jacobs, appeals for further information on the subject. To Dr Griffith Evans, of Bangor, folk-lorists are indebted for a contribution giving detailed statements as to certain forms of exorcism that were in use in Wales so recently as the forties. The excellent record of folk-lore Bibliography is continued.

The publication of the paper was also noted by a correspondent to the Oswestry Advertiser on June 29th, 1892, who recalled previous mentions in the pages of it’s sister publication, Bye-Gones:

Folk-Lore, for June (Part 2. Vol. iii), published David Nutt, 270, Strand, contains an article on the Sin Eater by Mr Sidney Hartland (as to which subject some of our readers will remember an interesting correspondence in the earlier volumes of Bye-Gones), the continuation Samoan Tales, “German Christmas and the Christmas Tree”, “The Baker of Beauly”, “Divination among the Malagasy”,” The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, and “First Foot in the British Isles”.

The same corresponded also quoted from another item in the same volume of Folk-Lore. Whilst not directly relevant to the sin-eater tale, it might prove of passing interest and could perhaps be used to weave in elements of possession into “creative” sin-eater tales.

Exorcism in Wales

From “Exorcism in Wales,” in Miscellanea, we take the following :—

This is taken from Folklore, 1892, Part II, Vol. iii, p274-5.

About 1842, the house of a relation of mine at Barmouth was haunted by noises, as if all the crockery in the cupboards and on the shelves were breaking, and other noises in different places which could not be accounted for. This went on for many weeks. A well-known conjurer and exorcist was sent for, but failed put stop to the disturbance, which got so bad that all the family— parents, children, and maids — left the house one night for refuge at the house of a relation who lived near. But as soon as they arrived there similar noises commenced in the corner cupboard of that house. Then, from mere bravado, the children said they would make as much noise as the spirit, so they got sticks and hammered the floors and doors and tables and tin kettles, &c., until the spirit-noise in the corner cupboard ceased, and for some time after. I was often told by them they made a regular Bedlam, merely from bravado to drown the noises of the “spirit” or whatever it was, never disturbed them after that night; they returned to their own house next morning, and never heard a repetition of the noises.

For many years before and after 1845 there lived an apothecary not beyond twelve miles from Machynlleth, who went to Machynlleth every market and fair day meet his customers and patients. I shall not mention his name, nor where lie lived, because some of his descendants are highly and deservedly respected. I shall call him Mr. H. (Humbug). He became noted as one having power to exorcise evil spirits which cause disease to man and beast by witchcraft. I remember an old woman who had a chronic sore on the bridge of her nose, and I was told many times it was Mr H. who caused it by his incantations to mark her and to check her, because she was witch. Mr H. was a deacon of the Church to which he belonged. On one occasion he was severely called to account at a Church-meeting for his dealings with evil spirits and witchcraft. He denied the charge, but had that many people came him, believing he could conjure or exorcise evil spirits, and he found that was useless for him tell them he had no such power, so, in order ease their minds, he wrote certain passages in Latin with hieroglyphic signs, which they used as charms, and they paid him willingly, much more willingly than for rational medicine. There was another elder of the same Church who had cow which he thought was bewitched, because she had been in ill health for long time, and no one could tell for certain what the disease was. He returned home late one Sunday night and told his son he had consulted H. that night about the cow, and Mr H. had written charm on paper, which was to be given to the cow without delay in pint of hot gruel. The charmed paper would drive the evil spirit of witchcraft out of the cow. The old man was too tired to prepare the gruel and give the charmed paper himself to the cow, as he had promised H., therefore he went to bed, and instructed his son to give the paper to the cow. His son prepared the gruel and gave it the cow, but he retained the charmed paper and brought it my father next morning, with a history related as above, and the history of the cow. The son had no belief in witchcraft, nor in Mr H., but he dare not let his own father know that he disobeyed the instruction of Mr. H. My father gave me the charmed paper, and I know I had it with other documents of a similar character since my return from India in I886, but I cannot find them now. It commenced with “Abracadabra” and signs of the Zodiac, then quoted verses from the Bible, Psalms, and the Prophets, and ended by charging the evil spirit to depart in the name of Godm Jesus Christ, and the angel Gabriel, &c. That is, so far as I can recollect it.

In 1868 I was informed by the owner of a farm that he had pulled down an old cow-house, and built a new one some years previously. He happened to be there one day when the workmen found a small box, much eaten and perforated by rust, in the wall of the old cow house which they were then pulling down. My friend, the owner, opened the box, and found in it a paper, a copy of which is given. Both the box and the original document found in it are now in my possession. My friend asked his tenant whether he could explain how the box and paper got into the wall The tenant said that many years before then his late father, a former tenant of that farm, lost several of his cows from some obscure disease which he believed was witchcraft. His father consulted H., and abtained from him a charmed paper in a tin-box which he was to hide the wall of the cow-house to ward off all evil spirits and witchcraft, and it appeared to have answered the purpose well, for there was no recurrence of the obscure disease after that, nor any reason to suspect witchcraft of any kind on the farm. The son did not know in what part of the wall his father hid the box and charmed paper, but he had no doubt those found were those given by Mr H. for the purpose protection against witchcraft. Afterwards too writing was identified with that of Mr H., though written in the name of the old farmer, who could not have written it himself — he could notwrite his own name well.

Griff. Evans, M.D.

Bryncynallt, Bangor, N. Wales.

Rather amusingly, an advert immediately following the letter advertised something that might perhaps have eased the digestion of the sin-eater!

Advert: “Holloways Pills for Weak Stomachs”

Holloways Pills—

Weak stomachs. The wisest I cannot enumerate one quarter of the distressing symptons arising from enfeebled digestion, all of which might be readily dispelled by these admirable Pills. They remove all unpleasant tastes from the mouth, flatulency and constipation. Holloway’s Pills rouse the stomach, liver, and every other organ, helping digestion to that healthy tone which fully enables it to convert all we eat and drink to the nourishment of our bodies. Hence these Pills are the surest strengtheners and the safest restoratives in nervousness, wanting and chronic debility. Holloway’s Pills are infallible remedies for impaired appetite, eructations, and a multitude of other disagreeable symptoms, which render miserable the lives of thousands. These Pills are approved by all classes.

Correspondence in Folklore

Following Hartland’s article in Folklore, several items of correspondence appeared relating to the matter.

Godden’s Response to Hartland’s Paper

The first formal response to Hartland’s published paper appeared in Folklore, Vol III, No. IV, p546-9) of December, 1892.

In particular, the correspondent asks Hartland to explain the reasoning behind why the presence of distinct traditions at one point in time might derive from a common precursor rite:

MR. HARTLAND’S “SIN-EATER”, AND PRIMITIVE SACRAMENTS.

To the Editor of FOLK-LORE.

Sir, — Will you allow me to ask Mr. Hartland how the very interesting funeral rites which we owe to his paper on the “Sin-Eater”, in the current journal, can be considered as the outcome of one belief, in various stages ?

The correspondent then sets out a possible interpretation of Hartland’s reasoning:

I gather that he would treat as acts expressing a common idea the “sin-eating” of old English custom, where the whole gist of the usage, as celebrated by the “folk”, lies in the cathartic significance, and where the celebrant has no kinship with the deceased ; the Bavarian usage, where the ritual cake is eaten by the kindred, that they may therewith receive the “virtues and advantages” of the dead kinsman, on or beside whose body the cake has lain ; the Scotch watchers’ rite of placing their hands in the empty dishes and afterwards eating ; and the breaking and eating over the grave of the Turkish cakes.

But the correspondent doesn’t seem to be convinced:

The customs of which these seem to be typical examples are classed together as expressions of one belief; and this belief is explained as the survival of a primitive cannibalism induced by the widely-spread primitive idea that, by eating the flesh, the qualities of the man or creature may be received. How does Mr. Hartland prove that all the instances he gives, where the reception of the qualities of the dead is in no way mentioned, can be treated as resting on this special cause ; and not on that universal article of primitive creeds — perhaps one of the most necessary and sacred of all faiths to the savage mind — the renewal of the tribal kinship by the tribal sacrament of commensal eating? Most of Mr. Hartland’s instances seem to point to this as their cause, and to be examples of the universal custom of offering food to the disembodied tribesman, and of preserving the tie between the dead and living by eating together in the sacrament of the common meal.

In fact, they seem to take a contrary position:

I do not like to trespass on your space by giving the full evidence which would, I think, justify me in venturing to differ from Mr. Hartland. But the importance of any point touching on primitive sacraments, and of the kind of intercourse which the undeveloped reason conceives to be possible between tribal spirits (“ghosts of worship” often) and tribesmen still in the flesh, will, I think, excuse my troubling you with these brief references, not as accumulative evidence, but as examples.

Additional citations are then provided:

Bishop Callaway (pp. 141-44) gives ample evidence, from direct native sources, of the desire of tribesmen to “recall” — renew the bond of intercourse with — the soul of the dead tribesman. [Callaway, Amazulu, pp. 141-44. ] Dr. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, p. 16, refers to a commensal meal between the spirits and the tribe in yearly ritual ; and on p. 40 seq. he gives Mexican, Hindoo, Chinese, and Slavonic examples. [Primiive Culture, vol. ii, pp. 36-40 seq.] Dr. Codrington deals with the question of the “common participation” in the death-meal (p. 272) ; the eating of the meal by the grave (ibid.) ; and he quotes one case (p. 281) where the rite of placing the common food upon the body is transferred to that of placing the kinsman himself thereon. Could the kin-bond be expressed with more physical and primitive directness ? [Dr. Codrington, Melanesians*, pp. 272, 281, 283-85, etc. *]

Some commentary on at least one of those accounts then follows, using it to cast doubt on cannibalistic origins :

I think it is worth noting that in Dr. Codrington’s account of the details of Melanesian beliefs and practices concerning the body and soul after death, there is only one mention of the cannibalistic usages Mr. Hartland quotes (except an incidental reference on p. 28.4) ; and that in this one case the rite is performed by women, who would scarcely be selected (unless with a view to their descendants) as recipients by this means of the dead tribesman’s good qualities. No mention of such design is here made, and the act in this case looks like a form of the primitive taboo, which forbids any holy thing (such, e.g., as the tribesman’s blood) to fall to the ground.

The correspondent then critiques some of Hartland’s own examples:

The commensal meal, shared between the spirit of the dead kinsman and the survivors, seems clearly betrayed in the elapse of an hour in the Dyak rite quoted by Mr. Hartland. The Amazulu may again serve as an example of the primitive form of sacrifice, which, according to express native statement, consists in leaving the offering for an interval, during which the deity receives the invisible, and after which the worshippers eat the visible, portion. [Callaway, op. cit., p. 11.] (Cf. the ghostly meal, “tamani”, leaving the visible food intact upon the grave, in Melanesia, Dr. Codrington, op. cit., p. 283.)

Whether the cathartic rite of “Sin Eating” has any essential connection with this tribal sacrament would seem to be a most interesting point, and would perhaps touch the question of the ethical element in savage religion ; but all that I would ask here is whether Mr. Hartland is justified in treating all the customs and rites he collects, as essentially related, and therefore as evidence for a common cause ; and whether the cause of some of these rites is not a far deeper and more significant one, than the idea which he suggests ?

They also suggest the need for an alternative interpretation to the one Hartland offered:

Ritual celebrated among many peoples, by the kinsmen, at the death of a member of the kin, in survival or in situ, such as Mr. Hartland quotes, seems to me to demand a cause lying nearer to the principles of primitive tribal life, and to the primitive religious need of the individual tribesman, than a device occasionally resorted to for increasing physical or mental acquirements. Moreover, is the usage restricted to the cases of powerful or respected members of the kindred? Since Mr. Hartland finds in this usage the origin of practices which are identical in every detail with the sacramental meals participated in by the spirits of dead kinsmen and their surviving kindred, these his argument must also claim to have explained. What would Professor Robertson Smith say to this theory of the origin of the primitive sacramental meal?

I don’t know if Professor Robertson Smith took up the bait and responded to this appeal…

The correspondent signs off with their own simpler explanation for a common origin:

If the cases quoted by Mr. Hartland of the consumption of the body of the kinsman are essentially related to the rites he seeks to explain, is it not only as the accidental condition which the universal ritual of the primitive tribal sacrament sometimes assumes?

[SOME GREEK SCRIPT]

G. M. GODDEN.

Aynsley’s Paper on the Sin-Eater

It seems from a report in the the next edition of Folklore, of March, 1893, Vol. IV, No. I, p120, that a meeting of the Folklore Society on Wednesday, December 21st, 1892, another paper on the subject of the sin-eater was read by Mrs. Murray Aynsleythat provoked a discussion involving one Rev. C. Swynnerton and E. Sidney Hartland:

An Evening Meeting was held at 22, Albemarle Street, on Wednesday, December 21st, 1892 ; the President (Mr. G. L. Gomme) in the chair.

The Minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed.

The following new members were elected : Mrs. Fuller Maitland and Mr. Egerton Beck.

Mrs. Gomme exhibited some rubbings of games cut on stones found at Norwich Castle, and exhibited at the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries : (i) A Spiral Game (not at present known to survive in any modern form), consisting of a long line with a hole in the centre, and a series of smaller holes at equal distances along the line. (2) A roughly-drawn “3-squares”, one inside the other. (3) The Fox and Geese game.

A printed version of the Mummers’ Play, sent by Mr. W. H. Patterson of Garranard, Strandtown, Belfast, was also exhibited.

The Secretary read a short paper by Mrs. Murray Aynsley on “The Sin Eater”, and a discussion followed, in which the Rev. C. Swynnerton and Mr. E. S. Hartland took part.

As to what the topic of the paper might have been, or as to why Mrs. Murray Aynsley was not present or able to read the paper at the meeting herself, a letter apparently dated in July 1892, but not published until the September, 1893, issue of Folklore, Volume IV, No. III, p398-399, from one “H. G. M. Murray-Aynsley” of “Srinagar, Kashmir”, might provide some clues.

In it, Mrs. Murray-Aynsley appears to be claiming that several traditions spanning the Mediterranean to Central Asia all bear some thematic relationship to that of the sin-eater tradition.

She begins by quoting Dr Schuyler, whose Turkistan we have seen mentioned briefly, several times before in our journey in the context of the iskachi.

The Sin-Eater.

In his work on Turkestan, [Vol. ii, p. 28.] Dr. Schuyler speaks of a custom existing in that country which is worth noting in connection with Mr. Sidney Hartland’s paper on this subject in the June number of FOLK-LORE, 1892. “Life in Ach Kûrgân”, Dr. S. says, “was rather dull, amusement there was none, all games being strictly forbidden. Such things as jugglery, dancing, and comic performances are, I am told, forbidden in the Kanate, the licentious Khan having seen the error of his ways, and having put on, for his people at least, the semblance of virtue. Of praying there was very little ; occasionally in the afternoon at sunset some few pious individuals would spread out a rug and make their supplications to Allah. One poor old man, however, I noticed, who seemed constantly engaged in prayer. On calling attention to him, I was told that he was an iskachi, a person who makes his living by taking upon himself the sins of the dead, and thenceforward devoting his life to prayer for their souls. He corresponds to the sin-eater of the Welsh border.”

Mrs. Murray-Aynsley then describes a variety of India behaviours she has apparently observerd that relate in some way to “sin processing”:

In Kashmir, on the borders of Central Asia, where the present writer now is, it is the living, apparently, who need a sin-eater.

We have just passed through a terrible visitation of cholera ; when the outbreak was at its worst, the deaths in the native city rose to nearly three hundred daily. An order then came from the Maharaja (who was at Jamu, his second capital [The chief town of a fief belonging to the Maharaja of Kashmir’s progenitors for two or more generations before Kashmir was given over to that family]) that a couple or more bulls were to be bought, and driven for some hours round and about the streets and the lanes of the city, and then turned out loose to wander at will, in order to remove the pestilence.

It was accordingly done, and the effect this would seem to have had on the minds of the people was something marvellous ; the seizures diminished, and the death-rate suddenly declined in a most marked manner. It would appear that the Kashmiris believed either that these animals bore away the disease, or the sins and shortcomings which had brought this scourge upon them.

At Jamu itself, some years ago, the writer saw numerous ownerless cattle wandering about the native city and its environs, and was then told that these were animals which, by a particular ceremony, had had the sins of certain persons laid upon them; they looked sleek and well-fed, living most probably upon the charity of the general public.

She also claims witnessing hearsay of the sin-eater tradition in Italy:

The notion regarding the sin-eater in Southern Italy becomes even more directly personal, as the following anecdote serves to show. The writer had it from a Roman lady who had then resided some years in Naples, she knew one of the parties concerned, and spoke of it as a singular piece of superstition. A family of her acquaintance had settled themselves down in an apartment in that city ; not long afterwards another flat in the same house was taken by a lady whom the first-comers believed possessed the Mal Occhio — the Evil Eye. They were in despair, and, in order to avert any bad consequences which might result to themselves, they caused a bull to be brought to the house, and had it driven through the entrance archway, and led round and round the courtyard for some hours. There seems a remarkable connection between the sin-eater of Central Asia and of the Welsh border, the bull of Kashmir, and the Neapolitan custom.

H. G. M. Murray-Aynsley.

Srinagar, Kashmir, July 28, 1892.

Hartland Responds to Godden

Returning back to 1892/3, Hartland’s response to Godden’s letter in the December, 1892, issue also appeared in Folklore Vol IV, no. I, p106, dated March, 1893, and is brief and to the point:

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. HARTLAND’S “SIN-EATER”, AND PRIMITIVE SACRAMENTS.

To the Editor of FOLK-LORE.

Sir, — Miss Godden’s wide reading and rapid induction have anticipated a conclusion which, when I wrote the paper on “The Sin-Eater”, had definitely formed itself in my mind, but which I did not feel justified in enunciating for want of evidence. The evidence, however, is accumulating, and I hope to deal with it ere long. Meantime, it Miss Godden would be good enough to direct my attention to any facts of special interest in this connection she would be conferring a favour upon me.

E. Sidney Hartland.

So it seems that more evidence has recently come to hand, although what that evidence is not revealed. Instead, it appears to be something we must wait for…

Gertrude Hope’s New Evidence

In the meantime, additional evidence was to find its own way into the pages of Folklore. Just over a year after Hartland’s paper was published, in Volume IV No. III, p392-3, another correspondent, Gertrude Hope, writing at the end of July, 1893, claims to have found additional, and current evidence of the tradition existing in England:

“THE SIN-EATER.” To the Editor of FOLK-LORE.

Sir, — In connection with Mr. Hartland’s article on “The Sin-Eater” in Folk-Lore for June 1892, the following occurrence at a funeral near Market Drayton in Shropshire may interest you.

The funeral took place on the first of this present month.

The minister of the chapel where the deceased woman had been a regular attendant held a short service in the cottage before the coffin was removed.

The lady, who gave ms the particulars, arrived rather early, and found the bearers enjoying a good lunch in the only downstairs room. Shortly afterwards the coffin was brought down and placed on two chairs in the centre of the room, and the mourners having gathered round it the service proceeded. Directly the minister ended, the woman in charge of the arrangements poured out four glasses of wine and handed one to each bearer present across the coffin, with a biscuit called a “funeral biscuit”.

Danger

In chasing this further, Hartland discovered that in fact the wine and biscuits weere not passed across the coffin (see Hartland’s correspondence in the Academy January 11th, 1896 ; Vol 49 Iss 1236, p37).

One of the bearers being absent at the moment, the fourth glass of wine and biscuit were offered to the eldest son of the deceased woman, who, however, refused to take them, and was not obliged to do so.

The nature of the biscuits is then commented upon:

The biscuits were ordinary sponge biscuits, usually called “sponge fingers” or “lady’s fingers”. They are, however, also known in the shops of Market Drayton as “funeral biscuits”.

A link to Wales, and related Welsh traditions, is noted in closing:

The minister, who had lately come from Pembrokeshire, remarked to my informant that he was sorry to see that pagan custom still observed. He had been able to put an end to it in the Pembrokeshire village where he had formerly been.

July 27, 1893.

Gertrude Hope.

That letter was picked up by Bye-gones of October 11th, 1893, p191, and reprinted in full.

FUNERAL CUSTOM IN SHROPSHIRE.

The current number of Folk-Lore contains the following letter signed Gertrude Hope, and dated July 27, 1893:— “In connection with Mr Hartland’s article on ‘The Sin-Eater’ in Folk-Lore for June, 1892, the following occurrence at a funeral near Market Drayton in Shropshire may interest you. The funeral took place on the first of this present month. The minister of the chapel where the deceased woman had been a regular attendant held a short service in the cottage before the coffin was removed. The lady, who gave me the particulars, arrived rather early, and found the bearers enjoying a good lunch in the only downstairs room. Shortly afterwards the cofBn was brought down and placed on two chairs in the centre of the room, and the mourners having gathered round it the service proceeded. Directly the minister ended, the woman in charge of the arrangements poured out four glasses of wine and handed one to each bearer present across the coffin, with a biscuit called a ‘funeral biscuit.’ One of the bearers being absent at the moment, the fourth glass of wine and biscuit were offered to the eldest son of the deceased woman, who, however, refused to take them, and was not obliged to do so. The biscuits were ordinary sponge biscuits, usually called “sponge fingers” or “lady’s fingers.” They are, however, also known in the shops of Market Drayton as “funeral biscuits.” The minister, who had lately come from Pembrokeshire, remarked to my informant that he was sorry to see that pagan custom still observed. He had been able to put an end to it in the Pembrokeshire village where he had formerly been.” Ed.

A reply in the November 8th, 1893 issue, p215, provided an additional observation on such customs:

REPLIES. FUNERAL CUSTOM IN SHROPSHIRE (Oct. 11, 1893).

The custom looks very much like “Cwrw poeth a theisenau,” which was practised at Welsh funerals as late as nearly the middle of this century. I do not know the beginning of the custom. I once witnessed it at Cefn Mawr, in the parish of Ruabon. A small glass of hot beer was handed round from a quart jug with a small cake to all present, about twenty. The funeral was that of a native of Llandegla, if I remember rightly, and she was very old. The attendants handed the beer.

Ellis Roberts. Llangwm

At this point, this particular correspondence chain comes to end; but it sets in place many of the ideas that were to arise as part a new correpsondence chain that formed the second controversy in 1895.

But before we get to that, we should take note of many of Hartland’s ideas were to be captured in yet more detail in his 1894 work, The Legend of Perseus.

E. Sidney Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, 1894

In the chapter on Funeral Rites in volume II of The legend of Perseus: a study of tradition in story custom and belief, 1894, E. Sidney Hartland really gets his teeth into the idea of cannibalism as reviews various cannibalistic practices amongst “savages” and tribes around the world. He then goes on to consider how certain ritual elements might persist as representations of original traditional practices that have died out, p287-299,, as for example in the case of the sin eater:

Speaking generally, the practice of eating a dead kinsman, which is probably the earliest form of cannibalism, is also the earliest form to be abandoned. In the South Sea Islands, for example, where the custom of eating strangers has continued until recent years, the flesh of one’s own tribesmen is rejected, save in rare instances, such as that of Hawaii. In the Banks’ Islands it is occasionally eaten, in order to establish communion with a dead man for magical purposes : a practice likewise known in Australia.[Codrington, 221 ; y.. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 285 ; F. Bonney, in xiii. ibid., 135 ; A. W. Howilt, in xvi. ibid., 30, 35. The Koniaga practice also perhaps has its basis in magic.] But though the custom changes, the sacramental idea underlying it is retained ; and the problem would be how to effect the necessary union between the dead and the living with- out partaking of the body. On the island of Vate, in the New Hebrides, the aged were put to death by burying them alive. A hole was dug, and the victim placed within it in a sitting posture, a hve pig tied to each arm. Before closing the grave, the cords were cut; and the pigs were afterwards killed and served up at the funeral feast. [ Fratherman, Papuo. Mel., 74.] In this way they seem to be identified with the corpse.

Hartland then turns his attention to countries closer to home:

In Europe, where flesh is not consumed ceremonially at the funeral feast, other means even more expressive are taken to ensure the same object. In the Balkan peninsula the rites are very significant. In Albania, cakes of boiled wheat and other ingredients are carried in the funeral procession, and eaten by the mourners upon the grave as soon as it is filled up. All expressions of sorrow are repressed as sinful while it is being eaten; and as each person takes his share he says : “ May he (or she) be forgiven ! “ [Garnett, ii. Women, 263. ] In some parts of the peninsula the cakes bear the image of the dead. They are broken up and eaten upon the tomb immediately after interment, every mourner pronouncing the words : “ God rest him ! “ [Statements of Miss Garnett and the Rev. Dr. Gaster, cited iii. Folklore, 154.] At Calymnos, among the Greeks, the funeral, as elsewhere, takes place on the day of death. Kolyva cakes like those in Albania are then made, and are guarded in the house of the departed all night, with two lighted candles, by a watcher who must not go to sleep. The next day they are carried first to the church and then to the tomb, on which they are set to be distributed. The eating of Kólyva cakes is repeated with similar ceremonies on the third, ninth and fortieth days, and again at the end of three, six and nine months and of one, two and three years, after death.[Mr. W. R. Patonina letter to me dated 17th June 1892. As to repetition of the Kólyva cakes, see Rodd, 126 ; Garnett, i. Worn., 99, The times of the commemorative repetition vary a little in different places. Compare with this the Sicilian custom of eating on the second of November (the festival of All Souls) sweetmeats impressed with images of skulls, bones, skeletons, souls in Purgatory and the like. This is called *eating the dead*. i. Rivista, 239. A similar custom at Perugia. Ibid., 322.] It is impossible to mistake the meaning of these practices : the image of the dead upon the cakes, the acts of carrying them in the funeral procession and eating them upon the grave, elsewhere the night-watching, and everywhere the cessation of mourning and the pious exclamations during eating, all admit of but one interpretation.

The role of food customs in funeral rites is considered in general terms:

The ritual eating of special food is used at funerals in many countries. Pulse is not mentioned as an ingredient of the Kólyva cakes. It was, however, an important part of the funeral feasts of the Romans ; and Mr. F. B. Jevons, commenting on Plutarch, has quoted Porphyry’s statement, that Pythagoras bade his followers “ abstain from beans as from human flesh,” and the reason mentioned by Pliny as entertained by some for the prohibition, namely, that the souls of the dead are in them. [Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 65 ; Jevons, xci. ; De Gubernatis, ii. Myth. Plantes, 134; Pliny, xviii. 30.] The various taboos and other superstitions connected with beans point to the correctness of this reason, and tend to show that pulse was in some way identified with human flesh. In the French provinces of Berry and the Marche, a plate of beans, or of dried peas, always figures among the provisions of the funeral banquet. [ii. Laisnel de la Salle, 83] In the Marches of Italy the family on returning from the burial-ground sit down together to a large plate of beans.[ii. Rivista, 65. ] In some parts of Friuli a soup of beans is distributed; in other places cakes of barley, or grated cheese. Elsewhere a loaf or cake of pan di tremeste, composed of rye and vetch, is given, with wine or brandy, to all who come to chant the rosary and other prayers over the corpse on the evening of death.[Ostermann, 489, 482.] In the neighbourhood of Rimini the feast consists of a broth of chick-pease. [C. Guerrieri, in i. Rivista, 314. A plateful is set aside for the dead, and afterwards eaten by one of the family.] But the form assumed by the ritual food is usually either cakes or fermented hquor, frequently both. Cakes called wastê are eaten in the Ardennes.[Monseur, 41. My knowledge of the Welsh custom depends on he statement of a Radnorshire woman to my brother-in-law, the Rev. W. E. T. Morgan, Vicar of Llanigon. It perhaps requires confirmation.] In Wales it seems that a hot plum-cake fresh from the oven used to be handed round to the guests, broken in pieces, not cut with a knife. In Sardinia, on the seventh or ninth day after death, savoury cakes are prepared and sent hot from the oven to all the relatives and neighbours, and to all who have joined in the weeping for the dead, or accompanied the corpse to the tomb. The family then gathers at supper, celebrating the virtues of the deceased between the mouthfuls of food and their tears.[O. Nemi, in i. Rivisla, 959. ] Dough-nuts, among the Turks, are sent to friends and to the poor on the third, seventh, and fortieth days after the funeral ; and prayers for the soul are requested in return. [Garnett, ii. Women, 496.] Bread carried in the funeral proces- sion is distributed to the poor by the Tamil population of Ceylon.[Featherman, Tur., 205.] On one of the Banks’ Islands, “when a great man dies, the people from all the villages around bring mashed yams the next morning to the place where the dead man lies and eat them there.” [Codrington, 272.] Among the Abyssinians the poor receive from the banquet pieces of bread and of the entrails and liver of the animals which are served up.[Featherman, Aram., 621. In Barbary cooked food is distributed among the poor on the evening of the burial. This is called the supper of the grave. Ibid., 511.] The Tcheremiss of the Kama and the Volga provide small pancakes, which they eat as soon as the grave is filled up, every one depositing three morsels upon the grave, saying : “This is for thee.” [Featherman, Tur., 540. To these we may perhaps add the Patagonian custom of killing the horses of the deceased and distributing their flesh among his relations. Ibid. , Chiapo Mar., 495.]

Some of these rites are claimed to “evidently” be trasnformations of earlier, more primitive rites:

In several of the cases cited the eating of the dead has evidently undergone a natural transformation into eating with the dead. But wherever a special food is used it may be suspected to represent the flesh of the deceased. In the funeral cakes of the Balkan peninsula the identity is manifest. I shall try to show that it is the same nearer home. In various parts of England and Wales a custom of giving small sponge-cakes to the guests is yet in force. In Yorkshire and elsewhere the last part of the funeral entertainment before the procession started for the churchyard was to hand round glasses of wine and small circular crisp sponge-cakes, whereof most of the guests partook. These cakes were called “ Avril-bread.” The word Avril is said to be derived from arval, succession-ale, heir-ale, the name of the feasts given by Icelandic heirs on succeeding to property.’ [Atkinson, 227 ; iii. Arch. Cambr., 4th ser. , 332 ; Gent. Mag. Lib. (Manners and Cust.), 70; ii. Cymru Fu N. and Q., 271, 275. See also ii. Antigua, 188, where "dyer bread" and "biscuit cakes" (species of pastry) are said to have been formerly handed round at Negro funerals on the island, enveloped in white paper and sealed with black wax.] Now, although it might be suspected that the avril-bread represented the corpse, we should not be justified in holding that it did without more direct evidence. That evidence can fortunately be supplied, from a funeral which took place near Market Drayton in Shropshire on the 1st July 1893, as described by an eye-witness. “The lady,” writes Miss Gertrude Hope, “who gave me the particulars, arrived rather early, and found the bearers enjoying a good lunch in the only downstairs room. Shortly afterwards the coffin was brought down and placed on two chairs in the centre of the room, and the mourners having gathered round it,” a short service was then and there conducted by the Nonconformist minister, as is frequently done, before setting out for the grave. “Directly the minister ended, the woman in charge of the arrangements poured out four glasses of wine and handed one to each bearer present across the coffin, with a biscuit called a ‘ funeral biscuit.’ One of the bearers being absent at the moment, the fourth glass of wine and biscuit were offered to the eldest son of the deceased woman, who, however, refused to take it, and was not obliged to do so. The biscuits were ordin- ary sponge biscuits, usually called ‘sponge fingers’ or ‘lady’s fingers.’ They are, however, also known in the shops of Market Drayton as ‘funeral biscuits.’” These cakes are not exactly of the shape mentioned by Canon Atkinson as used in Yorkshire, but that is of no importance, because their shape varies with the place. What follows is enough to show that the scene described is not a solitary one. “ The minister, who had lately come from Pembroke- shire, remarked to my informant that he was sorry to see that pagan custom still observed. He had been able to put an end to it in the Pembrokeshire village where he had formerly been.” [iv. Folklore, 392.]

The manner in which food is handled around a coffin is also deemed noteworthy:

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. [iii. Pennant, 150.] 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. [ Aubrey, Remaines, 23, 24. ] 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.” [Aubrey, Remaines, 35. Ellis reprints from Leland's Collectanea a letter from a Mr. Bagford, dated 1st Feb. 1714-15, giving a slightly varied account, also professedly derived from Aubrey, of the rite as practised in Shropshire. The fee is stated as a groat. ii. Brand, 155. ] 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. [iii. Arch. Cambr., N.S., 330. Traces of a similar custom are found in Derbyshire. There no wine is drunk at a funeral until after the party has returned from the church. Wine is then offered first to the bearers. This order is strictly observed; and it is believed that every drop that you drink is a sin which the deceased has committed. You thereby take away the dead man's sins and bear them yourself." Addy, 123, 124,  ]

The “distntegration” of traditional practices into currently observed forms is next considered in India:

Thus in our own country we find the relics of a ritual feast, where food is placed upon the coffin, or rather upon the body itself, or handed across it, and so in a manner identified with it, and where it is expressly believed that by the act of eating some properties of the dead are taken over by the eater. Let us now turn back for a moment to the East. At a Hindu funeral in Sindh the relations, in the course of the march to the place of burning, throw dry dates into the air over the corpse. These, we are told, are considered as a kind of alms, and are left to the poor. On returning to the house, after the cremation, the first thing done is to offer the couch, bedding, and some clothes of the deceased to a Karnigor who is in attendance. A Karnigor is a low caste-man, — according to some, the offspring of a Brahman father and a Sudra mother. North of Hydrabad his appearance and conduct resemble those of the servile, south of that city those of the priestly, order. The condition of the gift is, that the Karnigor must eat a certain sweetmeat prepared for the occasion. If he refuse, the ghost of the dead man would haunt the place. This means that the funeral rites would have been incomplete. The Karnigor has, therefore, the game in his own hands ; and, rejecting the first advance, he demands not only all the articles of dress left by the departed, but fees into the bargain. “When his avarice is satiated, he eats four or five mouthfuls of the sweetmeat, seldom more, for fear of the spirit. After this, he carries off his plunder, taking care not to look behind him, as the Pinniyaworo [head mourner] and the person who prepared the confectionery wait until he is fifteen or twenty paces off, break up all the earthen cooking pots that have been used, and throw three of the broken pieces at him, in token of abhorrence.” [Burton, Sindh, 350, 354. ] Can we fail to be reminded of the Sin-eater ? Nor is this the most remarkable parallel to be found in India. The burning of the corpse of a king of Tanjore who died in 1801, and of two of his widows chosen for the purpose by the Brahmans, is described by the abbd Dubois. He states that a part of the bones which escaped the fury of the flames was reduced to powder, and this powder, having been mixed with boiled rice, was eaten by twelve Brahmans. The reason for the proceeding is put by the abbd almost in the very words I quoted in the last paragraph. The act “had for its object the expiation of the sins of the defunct persons : sins which, according to common opinion, are transmitted into the bodies of those whom the allurement of gain has induced to surmount the repugnance that a food so detestable should inspire. Moreover, people are persuaded that the money which is the price of this base condescension is never of any profit to them.” [iii. Mélusine, 409, quoting M. Dubois' work as cited in the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi for 1830. Mr. Frazer cites this case (ii. Golden Bough, 155) and some others from India, all of which I believe are referable to the same origin, though he interprets them by reference to the idea expressed in the Mosaic Scapegoat. His attention probably had not been drawn to the parallel cases I cite above and below. ] If any doubt could remain as to the meaning of the Welsh custom, this would be enough to dissipate it. But in truth it is not needed ; for we have in Europe other usages that set the meaning in the clearest light. In the Highlands of Bavaria, when the corpse is placed upon the bier, the room is care- fully washed out and cleaned. Formerly it was the custom for the housewife then to prepare the Leichen-nudeln, or Corpse-cakes. Having kneaded the dough, she placed it to rise on the dead body, as it lay there enswathed in a linen shroud. When the dough had risen, the cakes were baked for the expected guests. To the cakes so prepared, the belief attached that they contained the virtues and advan- tages of the departed, and that thus the living strength of the deceased passed over, by means of the corpse-cakes, into the kinsmen who’ consumed them, and so was retained within the kindred. [Dr. M. Hoefler, in ii. Am Urquell, 101. In an article on the Sin-eater in iii. Folklore, 150, I quoted Wilkie's description of the Lowland Scottish rite called Dishaloof, and expressed the opinion that it belonged to the same order of thought as the rites now under discussion. Though I adhere to that opinion, I have not met with any thing which illustrates the mysterious details of the rite ; and I have, therefore, thought it well to avoid burdening these pages with particulars that I cannot correlate. Mrs. Gomme has exhaustively analysed a children's game called Green Grass, apparently connected with the Lowland rite ; but the results attained do not help here . i. Traditional Games, 153. See Henderson, 53.] Here we find ourselves at an earlier stage in the disintegration of tradition than in the Welsh practice. The identification of the food with the dead man is not merely symbolic. The dough in rising is believed actually to absorb his qualities, which are transmitted to those of his kin who partake of the cakes; and — consistently with the requirement that the relatives eat the cakes — the qualities transferred are held to be not evil but good ones : the living strength, the virtues and so on of the dead are retained within the kin. Not less striking than the resemblance just pointed out between the objects of the Hindu and the Welsh rites, is that between the objects of the Bavarian custom and that of the Taridnas and other tribes of the Uaupes for consuming the pounded remains of their kinsmen in their caxiri. In both cases, indeed, there is more than resemblance. The objects are absolutely the same ; and it is inconceivable that the European usages wherewith we are deahng had any other origin than a cannibal feast, the material of which was the very body of the deceased kinsman.

Finally, whilst we are mainly interested in how Hartland treated the Welsh tradition, and comparisons with it, it is also worth noting his attempts at identifying the practice in Ireland.

It is natural to inquire whether any trace of this cannibalism lingers among the Irish, who alone among European races have been charged with it. There is a trace, though it must be admitted a fainter trace than we have found on this side of Saint George’s Channel. Yet I think when we compare it with the latter we shall conclude that it is enough, and therefore that in all probability Strabo’s accusation was not unfounded. The drinking which goes on at a wake is of course a relic of the funeral feast. It takes place in the presence of the corpse. A foreigner, describing a nobleman’s obsequies which he witnessed at Shrewsbury in the early years of King Charles the Second, states that the minister made a funeral oration in the chamber where the body lay, and “ during the oration there stood upon the cofiSn a large pot of wine, out of which every one drank to the health of the deceased. This being finished six men took up the corps, and carried it on their shoulders to the church.” [Denis H. Kelly, in i. Journ. Kilkenny Arch. Soc, N.S., 31 note. Smoking round the corpse was a part of the ceremony in North Wales in the last century. Owen, Crosses, 56.] I am not aware whether in Ireland the whisky is thus brought into immediate contiguity with the bier. In Connaught it was the custom about a generation ago, and probably still is, to place a plate of tobacco cut in short lengths, and a plate of snuff on the breast of the corpse ; a boy stood at the door with a basket of pipes, and each person helped himself according to his inclination.! Whatever may be the case as regards tobacco, I am informed by eye-witnesses that it is still an Irish custom to lay a plate of snuff on the breast of the dead ; and everybody who attends the funeral is expected to take a pinch. This ceremony must have assumed its present shape in recent times; but it cannot be doubted that it represents the more archaic consumption of food or drink similarly placed.

But still, there has been no mention throughout the correspondence, of the correspondence in the Academy twenty years previously, where Silvan Evans took issue with the Blackwood’s author and challenged the Welsh tradition of the sin-eater. A challenge, no less, against the very same claims offered in evidence of that peculiar rite that Sidney Hartland was also appealing to.