Most corpse candle stories come from farm labourers and preachers walking lanes at night. This one comes from a gentry house, and is dated. Dolaucothi was the mansion of the Johnes family in the Cothi valley at Pumsaint, near the Roman gold mines, and in 1881 a Mr Johnes of Dolaucothi wrote a letter describing what had been seen there.
Three lights came down the staircase of the house, crossed the hall, and went out of the house to the north. Not long afterwards three servants of the household died, and their coffins were carried out along the same route, down the stairs, across the hall and out northward, on the way to burial.
The account is quoted by the National Library of Wales in an article on the cannwyll corff. The house itself was demolished in the twentieth century and the estate now belongs to the National Trust, so the staircase can no longer be seen.
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