Mari Lewd 🐴💀👻

 

Mari Lwyd.

In short summary, the Mari Lewd is a Welsh myth about a horse headed creature that shows up during the twelve days of Christmas each year and goes door to door singing with a small Troup of followers trying to gain entry to your home to eat your food and drink your booze.

The Mari Lwyd is a wassailing folk custom that involves a giant horse's skull carried from house to house. It takes place in parts of Wales during the Christmas season.

The first recorded mention of Mari Lwyd comes from 1800s, in a book called ‘A Tour through Part of North Wales’ by J. Evans. However the tradition is actually more associated with Southern Wales, and towns like Glamorgan and Gwent.

Where the name ‘Mari Lwyd’ comes from isn’t entirely clear. It translates roughly to ‘grey mare’ with some thinking this is a reference to the prominence of pale horses in Celtic mythology. Folklorist Iowerth C. Peate thought it meant ‘Holy Mary’ referring to The Virgin Mary

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The Mari Lwyd goes from door to door with a group of followers, At each house they sing a song asking to come in. (Similar to modern Christmas  Carling) The occupants of the house sing back,  denying them entry at first, before eventually relenting. This back and forth is known as ‘pwnco’, and is an improvised battle of rhyme and verse.

Once the singers are allowed in they are given cakes and alcohol, the Mari Lwyd causes some mischief maybe frightening a few children in the process and everyone moves onto the next house.

Mari Lwyd was popular in the nineteenth century, thought it all but  disappeared from Wales by the beginning of the twentieth century. 

However, by the 1960s it had been revived in the town of Llangynwyd.

 From the 1970s onwards it appeared in more towns and villages across the country. Aberystwyth even marked the millennium by organising the world’s largest Mari Lwyd.

There are some similar traditions in England, such as Hoodening in Kent, or Old Tup in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. These also involved a horse’s head, a cloak, and going from house to house at Christmas time.