Gwynt Traed y Meirw
Chronicle Entry
Recorded by Brother Wyn of Caermynach, Anno Domini 922
Known As: The Wind from the Feet of the Dead
Date of Events: Burial custom established circa 380 BC, saying recorded 8th–9th centuries AD
Status: Active weather lore, burial practice discontinued
Primary Source: Oral tradition from Buallt, druidic accounts preserved at Caermynach, observations from the eastern valley
Welsh people have a phrase for the bitter wind that comes down from the east in winter: gwynt traed y meirw, the wind from the feet of the dead. The phrase describes a particular quality of cold that seems to reach deeper than temperature alone would explain, the sort of chill that makes a man pull his cloak tighter even when standing beside a good fire.
The phrase has outlasted the burial custom that gave it birth. For centuries before the Church brought their order to these hills, the Welsh buried their dead with feet pointing east and head to the west. This practice was common enough across Christian lands once the faith took root, explained by the bishops as preparation for the resurrection. Christ would return from the east, they taught, and the dead would rise already facing the proper direction when summoned to judgment.
The older teachers remembered a different origin. They claimed the custom predates Christian theology by several hundred years and connects to specific events in the borderlands near Buallt. I have encountered this account from three separate sources who had no knowledge of one another. Both explanations carry truth. The Church has never been shy about planting new doctrine in old soil, and a practice that serves resurrection theology can serve older purposes as well.
The Tradition from Buallt
The burial custom took root during the stewardship of Irfon ap Llyr, who served as first Steward of Buallt after the moving of the great stone in the fourth century before Christ's birth. The accounts preserved at Caermynach describe him as bearing the mark of Annwn. His task was to hold balance between Powys and Brycheiniog in the gap territories where neither chiefdom could claim clear authority without provoking the other to war.
He accomplished this with sufficient skill that the frost which had gripped those valleys for generations began to thaw. Villages caught between the two powers found they could breathe without constant pressure from either side, could build modest prosperity without having it stripped away the moment it became visible. The Tricorner Tower he raised from the fallen stone gave him three-directional sight, or so the tradition claims. The old teachers maintain he used this gift to watch for threats from the east, particularly the lingering danger of one called Tafod Ddu who had attempted to poison the sacred springs generations earlier.
The threat from the Black Mountains stayed real enough that vigilance became woven into daily life. When death came to those communities, they began positioning their dead with feet toward the east where danger lurked and head toward the western fold. The living maintained vigil by day. The dead, in their own fashion, kept watch through the long dark.
A lesser-known meaning suggests the western orientation served another purpose. When the Western gate opens once more after the Second Dawn, the head positioned west will allow the dead to hear the Song of the Stars in its full wonder.
The practice spread through the gap villages within a generation and moved beyond the borderlands within two. By the time Christian missionaries arrived with their own theology of resurrection and eastern return, the custom had become so deeply established that the Church chose adoption over opposition. The resurrection explanation satisfied the faithful and left the traditionalists undisturbed.
The Weather and the Saying
The connection between burial practice and weather lore developed gradually, though the pieces were present from the beginning. A cold east wind already carried significance in Buallt during Irfon's stewardship. The druidic prophecy preserved here at Caermynach speaks to this directly: "When the east wind howls, bank your fire low." That fragment connects eastern winds with danger, with the threat that descended from the Black Mountains when conditions allowed.
Burial custom reinforced the association through generations of practice. Graveyards accumulated in valleys and hillsides with the dead positioned toward the east. Wind from that direction had to pass over those resting places, had to sweep down from high country where old threats lingered in memory even after active danger faded. Eventually, the observation crystallised into a phrase that captured both the chill and its source.
Drovers passing through Builth in my grandfather's time remarked on that eastern wind, how it felt different from other cold, as though it carried something in its passage beyond mere temperature. The phrase gwynt traed y meirw appears in fragments I have examined from the eighth century, always describing bitter weather from the east. By then the burial custom had faded from most areas, replaced entirely by Christian practice oriented toward resurrection rather than vigilance.
Final Entry
The phrase will persist long after its origins fade completely from knowledge. Weather lore survives because it names what people feel without requiring them to understand the history behind it. The cold eastern wind will continue to bite, and those who feel it will continue to speak of the feet of the dead whether or not they remember why such a phrase was ever needed.
