Troi Crysau Or Clothes Drying Test
:
RHAMANTA, OR OMEN SEEKING.
Young maidens washed linen after the household had retired, and placed
the articles by the fire to dry, and then watched to see who should come
at midnight to turn the clothes. In this case, again, the evil one is
said to have entered the kitchen to perform this work for the young
woman, and also it is affirmed that a coffin has, ere this, moved along
through the room, a sure prognostication that she was doomed to die
single. Bardd Cwsg mentions this practice.
He writes in the third part of his book, where a devil is accused in the
Parliament of Hell, thus:--Aeth nos Ystwyll ddiweddaf i ymweled a dwy
ferch ieuanc yng Nghymru oedd yn troi crysau, ac yn lle denu'r genethod
i faswedd, yn rhith llanc glandeg, myned ag elor i sobreiddio un; a myned
a thrwst rhyfel at y llall mewn corwynt uffernol.
He went on the night of Epiphany to visit two young girls in Wales,
who were turning shirts, and, instead of enticing them to folly, in the
form of a handsome young man, he took to the one a coffin to sober her,
and to the other he appeared in a hellish whirlwind, with a horrible
noise.
Happy, however, is the young woman should the man she loves appear, for
he is to be her husband.