In Wales the exhalations seen in churchyards, called corpse candles, were taken as a sign of a funeral to come. Hone, following Brand, says that hardly anyone in Carmarthen died without fancying they had first seen their own corpse candle, or death-light. Hone gives them among the many tokens of death believed in across Britain and Ireland.
Corpse Candles
Printed under 25 July · Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire
Lore and belief
Very few of the good people of Carmarthen died without imagining they saw their corpse candles, or death-lights.
From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 2, col. 1020. Read the original
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