Before the light of the Gospel prevailed, there were  in Carmarthenshire and elsewhere often heard before  burials what by some were called Cwn Annum, — (Dogs  of Hell) : by others Cwn bendith eu Mammau, — (Dogs  of the Fairies) : and by some Cwn wybir, — (Sky Dogs).  The nearer they were to a man, the less their voice  was,— like that of small beagles; and the farther the  louder : and sometimes like the voice of a great hound  sounding among them, like that of a blood-hound, —  a deep hollow voice.  One Thomas Phillips, of Trelech Parish, heard  those Spiritual Dogs, and the great Dog sounding  among them; and they went in a way which no corpse  used to go; at which he wondered, as he knew they  used to go only in the way in which the corpse was to  go. Not long after a woman who came from another  Parish, that died at Trelech, was carried that way to  her own Parish church to be buried, in the way in  which those Spiritual Dogs seemed to hunt.