In addition to corpse-candles and blue lights, the Welsh, according to Mr Wirt Sykes, in his work, British…
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- Byways of Ghost-Land
- Reference
- Byways of Ghost-Land · selected passage 71
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
In addition to corpse-candles and blue lights, the Welsh, according to Mr Wirt Sykes, in his work, British Goblins, pp
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIn addition to corpse-candles and blue lights, the Welsh, according to Mr Wirt Sykes, in his work, _British Goblins_, pp. 212-216, possess a species of ill-omened ghost that is not, however, restricted to any one family, but which visits promiscuously any house or village prior to a death. Sometimes it flaps its leathern wings against the window of the room containing the sick person, and in a broken, howling tone calls upon the latter to give up his life; whilst, at other times, according to Mr Dyer in his _Ghost World_, it actually materialises and appears in the form of an old crone with streaming hair and a coat of blue, when it is called the "Ellyllon," and, like the banshee, presages death with a scream.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.