It is stated in the "Cambro-British Saints," page 444, that previous to the death of St. David "the whole city was filled with the music of angels."
The Rev. Edmund Jones in his "Apparitions in Wales," says that at the death of one Rees David in Carmarthenshire, "a man of more than common piety," several persons who were in the room heard "the singing of angels drawing nearer and nearer; and after his death they heard the pleasant incomparable singing gradually depart until it was out of hearing."
The Cyhyraeth was another death portent. It has been described as a wailing or moaning sound heard before a death, and it was thought to be a sound made by a groaning spirit. This spirit was never seen, only its sound was heard.
According to "British Goblins" by Sikes, one David Prosser, of Llanybyther, heard the Cyhyraeth pronouncing the words "Woolach! Woolach!" before a funeral.
According to the same book "this crying spirit, especially affected the twelve parishes in the hundred of Inis Cenin, which lie on the south-east side of the river Towy, 'where some time past it groaned before the death of every person who lived that side of the country! It also sounded before the death of persons 'who were born in these parishes, but died elsewhere.'
"Sometimes, the voice was heard long before death, but not longer than a quarter of a year. So common was it in the district named, that among the people there is a familiar form of reproach to any one making a disagreeable noise, or children crying or groaning unreasonably was to ejaculate 'Oh'r Cyhyraeth!' A reason why Cyhyraeth was more often heard in the hundred of Inis Cenin, was thought to be that Non, the mother of St. David lived in those parts where a village is called after her name Llanon."
The Tolaeth is also a sound heard before death or a funeral.
It is represented as superstitious rappings, or knockings, strange noises, or sounds of footsteps or of carriages, etc.
This superstition is common in all parts of the country at the present day; and I have met and heard of many carpenters who always know when they are to have an order for a coffin, as they hear strange knockings in their workshops resembling the noise or knockings made by a carpenter when engaged in coffin-making. An old lady who lives at Pontshan, Llandyssul, told me three years ago, that when she was a young woman, she and two other young women were on one occasion sitting near the fire all night watching and nursing a sick old woman of 80 years of age. About four o'clock in the morning, to their great surprise, they heard the door open, and the sound of someone or something entering the house and going about the room, but nothing was visible, nor did the door open as a matter of fact. The aged patient also heard the sound and enquired who had come in. At four o'clock next morning the old woman died. The same woman also told me that before the death of a prominent Esquire in Carmarthenshire, she remembered hearing the sound of a carriage before the front entrance of the mansion, when no carriage was near.