Moggridge described the full custom: when a person died, friends sent for the sin-eater of the district, who put a plate of salt on the breast of the body and a piece of bread on the salt. He muttered an incantation over the bread and ate it, thereby eating up the sins of the dead. He was paid two shillings and sixpence and left as quickly as he could, because he was detested as someone who had taken on the sins of everyone over whom he had performed the rite.
Moggridge placed the full practice in the parish of Llandybie in Carmarthenshire, where it had "prevailed to a recent period". For his own district he was more cautious. He spoke of the survival of the plate and salt custom near Swansea, and more generally, within twenty years, that is, since about 1830. Asked by the historian E. A. Freeman whether "sin-eater" was really the local term, he said it was.
Sikes, who "searched diligently", could find no direct corroboration of the sin-eater itself and declined to give an opinion. The plate of salt on the breast of a corpse is much better attested across Britain and was often explained as keeping the body from swelling or evil spirits away. What Moggridge reported for Swansea is the salt custom, with the sin-eater as a disputed older layer behind it.
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