The Last on the Path
The fire had begun to die, and that was when the whispering started.
On the hills above the valley, the village of Llanfair had gathered for Nos Calan Gaeaf—the eve of the winter’s first day. It was the boundary night, the thin slice of time when the veil between the living world and the cold dark of the afterlife frayed into loose threads.
For hours, the great coelcerth had burned bright against the black Welsh sky. The children had laughed, throwing their carefully marked stones into the heart of the embers. Each stone carried a name, a silent pact with the coming year: if your stone was found whole and untouched in the ashes by morning, you would see the next autumn. If it vanished, or if it cracked, the winter would claim you.
But as the clock crept toward midnight, the laughter curdled into uneasy silence. The wind shifted, blowing over the high ridges, carrying a sound that made the old men reach instinctively for their iron charms. It was a heavy, wet trudge through the dead leaves. A dragging, heavy weight.
"The fire is sinking," muttered Gwilym, his voice tight as he kicked a stray log back into the dying pile. "Time to go. Best not be the last on the path tonight."
The warning rhyme was older than the churchyard down the lane, whispered by mothers to children for generations:
Hwch Ddu Gwta a Ladi Wen heb ddim pen…
Hwch Ddu Gwta a gipio’r ola’!
"The tailless black sow and the headless white lady,
The tailless black sow will snatch the last one!"
Fourteen-year-old Ifan pretended not to care. He lingered at the edge of the clearing, arms crossed, watching the younger children scramble down the hillside toward the safety of their stone cottages. His younger sister, Elen, tugged desperately at his sleeve.
"Ifan, come on! The embers are turning grey," she begged, her eyes wide as she stared into the encroaching ring of pitch-black oaks.
"Go on then, run," Ifan scoffed, pulling his arm away. "It’s only an old story to make you sprint. There are no monsters in these woods."
"The Hwch doesn't care if you believe," Elen whispered, her voice trembling before she turned and bolted down the dirt track, her boots clicking frantically against the loose shale.
Ifan stood alone. The great bonfire collapsed into a heap of glowing, orange eyes. The warmth vanished instantly, replaced by a biting frost that crept out from the hedgerows. He kicked a stone with his boot, intending to head down, but stopped dead.
A sound tore through the quiet—a deep, rattling, guttural grunt that seemed to vibrate straight through the soles of his shoes. It wasn't the sound of a common farm pig. It was massive, wet, and ancient.
He spun around. The fire was dead. Only a thin coil of choking white smoke drifted upward.
From the absolute dark of the tree line, something moved. It didn't step; it shifted, a mass of shadows detaching itself from the oaks. It was a swine of monstrous proportions, its hide an unnatural, light-absorbing black. As it stepped forward into the dim moonlight, Ifan’s breath caught in his throat. The creature’s rear was a mangled, smooth mass of scarred skin—it had no tail.
But it was the head that paralysed him. Two burning, sulphurous red eyes locked onto his. They glowed with a horrific, malicious intelligence, wide and unblinking.
Ifan’s bravado shattered. He turned and sprinted.
The mountain path, familiar by day, became a treacherous gauntlet of grasping roots and slick mud. Behind him, the crashing through the undergrowth was shockingly fast. The Hwch Ddu Gwta was hunting. He could hear the snapping of thick branches, the wet snorting of its breath, and a terrifying, clicking sound—the grinding of its massive, bone-crushing jaws.
Hwch Ddu Gwta a gipio’r ola’!
The rhyme screamed through his mind. He was the last one left on the mountain.
He stumbled, his knee striking a jagged rock. Pain flared up his leg, and he scrambled wildly in the mud as the temperature around him plummeted. A foul smell washed over him—the stench of rotting earth, old graves, and stagnant bogs. He looked back over his shoulder. The towering black shape was at the top of the path, its red eyes cutting through the mist like twin lanterns of doom.
It raised its massive snout and let out a squeal that sounded like a dying man’s scream.
Ifan dragged himself up, ignoring the agony in his leg, and ran blindly. The crossroads were just ahead. If he could reach the parish boundary, if he could make it to the gate of the village, the old laws of the spirits might hold the beast back.
His lungs burned. The heavy, thudding hooves were right on his heels. He could feel the unnatural heat radiating from the beast’s breath against the back of his neck. He lunged forward, throwing his weight blindly down the final slope toward the village stile.
As he tumbled over the wooden barrier, a pale, headless shape floated briefly near the crossroads—the Ladi Wen, another phantom of the fateful night—warning him away from the dark. Ifan hit the dirt road of the village just as the church clock began to strike midnight.
Behind him, a horrific thud shook the wooden stile. Ifan rolled over, pressing his back against the stone wall of the nearest cottage, gasping for air.
At the edge of the path, just beyond the village boundary, the Hwch Ddu Gwta stood. It scraped its massive front hoof against the earth, its red eyes blazing with fury at the lost meal. For a long, agonising minute, it stared at Ifan, marking his face. Then, as the final stroke of midnight faded into the hills, the black mass dissolved backward into the shadows of the winter night, vanishing as if it had never been there at all.
Ifan lay in the dark, shivering violently, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked up at the quiet moon, knowing that for the rest of his days, he would never be the last to leave the fire.
I hope Ifan and Elen’s story brought a little bit of that raw, seasonal shadow to your day, wherever you happen to be reading this. It’s a stark reminder that as the dark half of the year closes in, our safety lies not just in the boundaries we set, but in the people we choose to run toward.
How do you like to mark the deep shift into the winter months? Do you have a favourite tradition to keep the cold at bay, or a hearth fire that always brings you back to safety?
I’d love to hear your thoughts—just hit reply and let me know.
Wishing you a safe, warm, and deeply grounded Calan Gaeaf.
Here's to new chapters, ancient legends, and the stories that connect us all. Happy reading. 💙
