IV.

A custom called the Coolstrin is now apparently obsolete, unless in occasional rural communities remote from railroads. It resembles the old custom once known in certain parts of England, called the skimitry or skimmington, in which a man whose wife had struck him was forced to ride behind a woman, with his face to the horse's tail, while a band of pans and cow-horns made music for them. The Welsh custom is, however, more elaborate, and more comical, while it is less severe on the man. A husband who is suspected of having a termagant wife, is made the subject of espionage. If it be found that he drinks his mug of ale standing, with his eye twinkling toward the door, the circumstance is considered most suspicious. Efforts are accordingly made to induce the henpecked man to stay and be merry, and if he can be made drunk a great point is gained, as then a squad of volunteers take him inside his own door and critically observe his reception. A moral point involved appears to be that a henpecked husband is a disgrace to manhood in general; and the purpose of the coolstrin is to reform it altogether. However, although it may even be proved that a woman is in the habit of cuffing her husband, the case does not come under the jurisdiction of the coolstrin court until she has 'drawn blood on him.' Then the court is convened. It is composed, no doubt, of any rakehelly youngsters, married or single, who are ripe for sport. One of them is chosen for judge; a special point is that he must be a married man who is not afraid of his wife; and he is invested with robe and gown, that is to say, the collar-bone of a horse is set on his head, around the crown of a slouch hat, and a bed-quilt is made fast to his shoulders. He marches through the streets, with a youth behind him bearing his bed-quilt train, and mounts a chosen wall for a judge's bench. Officers with long white wands range themselves solemnly on either side of him; men are chosen as advocates; and a posse of rustics with pitchforks keeps order. The court is opened by a crier who calls on all good men who as yet wear their own clos,[140] to attend the court. The case is argued by the advocates; witnesses are examined to prove, first, that the man is henpecked, second, that his wife has struck him and drawn blood with the blow. In one case it was proved that the wife had knocked her beery lord down, and that his nose, striking a stool, had bled. The wife's advocate nearly gravelled the judge, by holding that blood drawn by a stool could not be said to have been drawn by the woman. The judge got over this by deciding that if the woman had taken the stool by one of its three legs, and hit the man, drawing blood, the blood would be clearly chargeable to her. 'And where is the difference,' asked he, triumphantly, 'between knocking the stool against him, and knocking him against the stool?' The woman was found guilty. 'For,' said the prosecuting attorney indignantly, 'if a man shan't drink a blue of beer with a neighbour or so, to what won't it come?' Her condemnation followed; to be ridden on the Ceffyl Pren. A derisive procession was formed, and two fellows were rigged up to personate the husband and wife. The male bore a broom, and the female brandished a ladle, and the two were paraded through the town. A band of 'musicians' marched before them, beating frying-pans with marrow bones, banging gridirons and kettles with pokers, tongs and shovels, and two playing on a fife and drum. These were followed by two standard bearers, one bearing a petticoat on top of a pole, the other a pair of breeches in the same manner. Other orts and ends of rabble made up the procession, which with antic and grimace marched about the village and neighbourhood. The orgie ended by the planting in front of the culprit's house of the pole and petticoat, and the pelting of it with addled eggs, stones, and mud, till it fell to the ground. The noble bifurcated emblem of manhood, the clos, was then elevated proudly aloft, and the woman's punishment was deemed complete.

This is the story of a rural village in Glamorganshire. The custom was known in other counties, and varied in its details. In Breconshire, the virago was punished through the ceffyl pren merely by the moral influence of parading it before her cottage. Quarrelsome wives were said to stand in great and constant dread of its possible appearance before their doors. In Cardiganshire, on the contrary, the custom termed the coolstrin is _vice versa_, and it is only husbands who ill-use their wives who are amenable to its discipline.

FOOTNOTE:

[140] Breeches.

## CHAPTER VII.

Death and Burial--The Gwylnos--Beer-drinking at Welsh Funerals--Food and Drink over the Coffin--Sponge Cakes at Modern Funerals--The Sin-eater--Welsh Denial that this Custom ever existed--The Testimony concerning it--Superstitions regarding Salt--Plate of Salt on Corpse's Breast--The Scapegoat--The St. Tegla Cock and Hen--Welsh Funeral Processions--Praying at Cross-roads--Superstition regarding Criminals' Graves--Hanging and Welsh Prejudice--The Grassless Grave--Parson's Penny, or Offrwm--Old Shoes to the Clerk--Arian y Rhaw, or Spade Money--Burials without Coffin--The Sul Coffa--Planting and Strewing Graves with Flowers.