Mrs Mary Jones
The sky lit up, the nation wondered, and still nobody knows what happened. Maybe you can unravel the mystery of the Egryn Lights.
Of Islaw’rffordd Farm, near Dyffryn, who is accompanied by a miraculous star wherever she walks, as vouched for by many disinterested witnesses.
IT ALL BEGAN with a luminous arch that spanned the sky from the hilltop to the sea, high above the tiny Snowdonian chapel. Then a star appeared that flooded the building with light. It was December 1904 and a revivalist called Mary Evans was preaching at Egryn, a hamlet between Barmouth and Harlech. For weeks the mysterious lights followed her, shape-shifting into many different forms. One person described ‘a huge bottle suspended in midair, emitting from the neck a rainbow-hued mass of flame’. Another saw a six-foot brilliant blue flame shooting from a chimney, and a third talked of ‘an enormous luminous star flashing forth an intensely brilliant white light, and emitting from its whole circumference dazzling sparklets like flashing rays from a diamond’. Evans herself witnessed many variations: ‘Today it appears as a star, which shines steadily for a few moments, thirty feet it may be, or half a mile ahead of me, then rushes towards or away from me and disappears only to return immediately. Tomorrow, perhaps, it is a red ball of fire, or takes the form of sudden waves of light, which flood the road and hedges all around me.’
Word of the mystic lights hit the local papers, then the nationals, and even got a story in the
Los Angeles Herald. The public was fascinated and mooted numerous theories: A sign from God? A trick? The aurora borealis? A will-o’-the-wisp created by burning marsh gas? Mass hysteria? An astral body trying to materialise? Glowing insects? Ball lightning? The luminous plasma known as St Elmo’s Fire? The Daily Mail and Mirror dispatched correspondents to investigate.
They arrived sceptical but soon saw the light (even though, curiously, none of the photographers with them ever did). At first they likened them to ‘large and brilliant motor-car lights’, but were rapidly convinced it was something far more curious. They consulted numerous experts for explanation, including one who said it was gas given off by putrefying fish. When pressed about why dead fish would be on a mountain top, he theorised they’d been deposited there aeons ago when the hills of north Wales were beneath the ocean.
And these weren’t the first mysterious lights seen here. Thomas Pennant, in his 18th-century book
Tour In Wales, wrote of events in winter 1694. ‘A pestilential vapour resembling a weak blue flame arose… out of a sandy, marshy tract called Morfa Bychan, and crossed over a channel of eight miles to Harlech. It set fire on that side to 16 ricks of hay and two barns... It was easily dispelled: any great noise, sounding of horns, discharging of guns, at once repelled it.’
Mary’s lights soon dispelled too; no sightings were reported here after March 1905 and Evans faded from the headlines. The chapel still stands, although it’s now boarded up and the A496 passes right by the front door. But the hills behind are as alluring as ever, rising to a little trodden ridge where the rocky Rhinogydd lower and soften towards Barmouth, and the views up top arch from Cadair Idris to the sea. And Snowdonia is an International Dark Sky Reserve so if there are any mysterious illuminations you’ve an excellent chance of seeing them.
Still nobody knows what the lights were. In 1983, New Scientist published an article about the case in which the authors plotted all the locations and discovered they clustered around the Mochras Fault. They went on to suggest they were ‘earth lights’ that could have been caused – in a manner not fully understood – by pressure in the tectonic plates. We have no idea what happened, so we’ll just encourage you to come and walk here and leave the concluding words to Beriah Evans from The Daily News in 1905: ‘Those are the simple facts. I offer no comment on them. I only state what I saw.’
WALK HERE: There’s a bus stop near the chapel on the A496 (grid ref SH593204) from which you can follow the Wales Coast Path south along the pavement for a quarter of a mile, and turn left on a footpath up beside Egryn Abbey, straight on up Mynydd Egryn to the pass of Bwlch y Rhiwgyr. Fork right to follow path curving roughly south by Cerrig Arthur and on to Bwlch y Llan, then trace paths west to meet the A496 again near Llanaber. Turn right with Wales Coast Path beside road for 1½ miles back to start. 8 miles total.