The sick at the altar on Corpus Christi Eve

On the eve of Corpus Christi in some Welsh parishes, people with any ailment knelt before the altar of the parish church to pray for their own and their friends’ recovery, believing prayers made then could not fail. Trevelyan tells of a squire in the mountains of north Glamorgan who locked the church to stop the gathering, only to hear the bells ring wedding peals and funeral knells at midnight though the belfry was empty. After that he let the villagers in whenever they liked on Corpus Christi Eve.