What connection there may be between these customs and the strange and striking rite of the Sin-eater, is a question worthy of careful consideration. It has been the habit of writers with family ties in Wales, whether calling themselves Welshmen or Englishmen, to associate these and like customs with the well-known character for hospitality which the Cymry have for ages maintained. Thus Malkin writes: "The hospitality of the country is not less remarkable on melancholy than on joyful occasions. The invitations to a funeral are very general and extensive; and the refreshments are not light, and taken standing, but substantial and prolonged. Any deficiency in the supply of ale would be as severely censured on this occasion, as at a festival.” Some have thought that the bread-eating and beerdrinking are survivals of the sin-eating custom described by Aubrey, and repeated from him by others.
But well-informed Welshmen have denied that any such custom as that of the Sin-eater ever existed in Wales at any time, or in the border shires ; and it must not be asserted that they are wrong unless we have convincing proof to support the assertion. The existing evidence in support of the belief that there were once Sin-eaters in Wales I have carefully collated and (excluding hearsay and secondhand accounts), it is here produced. The first reference to the Sin-eater anywhere to be found is in the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, in the handwriting of John Aubrey, the author.
It runs thus: “In the county of Hereford was an old custom at funerals to hire poor people, who were to take upon them the sins of the party deceased. One of them (he was a long, lean, ugly, lamentable poor rascal), I remember, lived in a cottage on Rosse highway. The manner was that when the corpse was brought out of the house, and laid on the bier, a loaf of bread was brought out, and delivered to the Sin-eater, over the corpse, as also a mazard bowl of maple, full of beer (which he was to drink up), and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him, ipso facto, all the sins of the defunct, and freed him or her from walking after they were dead.” Aubrey adds, “and this custom though rarely used in our days, yet by some people was observed in the strictest time of the Presbyterian Government; as at Dynder (nolens volens the parson of the parish), the kindred of a woman, deceased there, had this ceremony punctually performed, according to her will : and also, the like was done at the city of Hereford, in those times, where a woman kept many years before her death a mazard bowl for the Sineater ; and the like in other places in this country ; as also in Brecon, e.g., at Llangors, where Mr. Gwin, the minister, about 1640, could not hinder the performance of this custom. I believe,” says Aubrey, “this custom was heretofore used all over Wales.” He states further, “A.D. 1686: This custom is used to this day in North Wales.” Upon this, Bishop White Kennet made this comment: “It seems a remainder of this custom which lately obtained at Amersden, in the county of Oxford ; where, at the burial of every corpse, one cake and one flaggon of ale, just after the interment, were brought to the minister in the church porch.”
No other writer of Aubrey's time, either English or Welsh, appears to have made any reference to the Sin-eater in Wales ; and equal silence prevails throughout the writings of all previous centuries. Since Aubrey, many references to it have been made, but never, so far as I can discover, by any writer in the Welsh language a singular omission if there ever was such a custom, for concerning every other superstitious practice commonly ascribed to Wales the Welsh have written freely.
In August, 1852, the Cambrian Archaeological Association held its sixth annual meeting at Ludlow, under the Presidency of Hon. R. H. Clive, M.P. At this meeting Mr. Matthew Moggridge, of Swansea, made some observations on the custom of the Sineater, when he added details not contained in Aubrey's account given above. He said : “When a person died, his 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 zs. 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.” The speaker then mentioned the parish of Llandebie where the above practice was said to have prevailed to a recent period. “He spoke of the survival of the plate and salt custom near Swansea, and indeed generally, within twenty years, (i.e. since 1830) and added : “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.” Mr. Allen, of Pembrokeshire, testified that the plate and salt were known in that county, where also a lighted candle was stuck in the salt ; the popular notion was that it kept away the evil spirit. Mr. E. A. Freeman, (the historian) asked if Sin-eater was the term used in the district where the custom prevailed, and Mr. Moggridge said it was.
Such is the testimony. I venture no opinion upon it further than may be conveyed in the remark that I cannot find any direct corroboration of it, as regards the Sin-eater, and I have searched diligently for it. The subject has engaged my attention from the first moment I set foot on Cambrian soil, and I have not only seen no reference to it in Welsh writings, but I have never met any unlettered Welshman who had ever heard of it. All this proves nothing, perhaps; but it weighs something.
(From Wirt Sikes,
British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions, London, 1880)
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