Custom demised: Coel Coeth Fires on All Saint’s Eve, Wales

John Brand in his Popular Antiquities notes that:

“ln North Wales there is a custom upon All Saints’ Eve of making a great fire called Coel Coeth, when every family for about an hour in the night, makes a great bonfire in the most conspicuous place near the house, and when the fire is almost extinguished every one throws a white stone into the ashes, having first marked it; then having said their prayers turning round the fire, they go to bed. In the morning, as soon as they are up, they come and search out the stones, and if any one of them is found wanting they have a notion that the person who threw it in will die before he sees another All Saints’ Eve.”

In Owen’s Account of the Bards, preserved in Sir R. Hoare’s Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales the following particulars are given in connection with the above custom:

“The autumnal fire kindled in North Wales on the eve of the 1st of November is attended by many ceremonies, such as running through the fire and smoke, each casting a stone into the fire, and all running off at the conclusion, to escape from the black short-tailed sow; then supping upon parsnips, nuts, and apples; catching at an apple suspended by a string, with the mouth alone, and the same by an apple in a tub of water; each throwing a nut into the fire, and those that burn bright betoken prosperity to the owners through the following year, but those that burn black and crackle, denote misfortune. On the following morning the stones are searched for in the fire, and if any be missing, they betide ill to those who threw them in.”

Thus the custom was to watching the fires till the last spark dies, and instantly rushing down the hill, “the devil (or the cutty black sow) take the hindmost.” In some parts of Wales the custom moved to the 1st of November and in other on Hallowe’en as noted by a Cardiganshire proverb says:

“A cutty [short-tailed] black sow
On every stile,
Spinning and carding
Every Allhallows’ Eve.”

November Eve was called “Nos-Galan-Gaeof,” the night of the winter Calends, that is, the night before the first day of winter. To the Welsh it was New Year’s Eve but sadly the custom is now demised.