Folklore of Wales

by Anne Ross

  It was a fine time for flowers, wild and cultivated (9), which the people used to gather and give as posies to their girlfriends or to the heads of households. On the morning of May Day, people went to the fields and meadows to collect cowslips and then went home and decorated the house outside; the door, the windows, the gate and the path were all strewn with flowers; well-heads were also decorated. Other plants such as trees could be used, according to what was available in any given locality. In Radnor rowan and birch branches (cangen haf) were gathered, and the birch tree was, as we have seen, frequently used for the maypole. May Day was begun with the singing of carolau Mai, or carolau haf (May or summer carols), and canu haf, summer singing. The singers, on visiting a family on a May morning, saluted them on the appearance of summer and the high expectation of the season. Many summer carols seem to have been written by clergymen, and were serious rather than flippant in character. Sometimes they help to clarify what really happened at these celebrations. We are not sure when the May Day celebrations originated, but there is no doubt of their great popularity.

  9 Welsh Poppy. ‘In rocky woods and shady places, in the hilly districts of western Europe from Spain to Ireland, Wales and the western counties of England.’ G. Bentham and J.D. Hooker, 1924 (1945), p.20, fig.41

  There was a great variety of customs, all of which were competitive: indeed, little in the way of customs has survived unless they are competitive, such as Gwyl fair y gwirodau, one of several feasts created for the Virgin. There was also a great deal of carol-singing and drinking of alcohol (T. Gwynn Jones et al., p.100).

  The carols that were sung were traditional carols based on the life of the Virgin Mary. There was also the custom of walking round or ‘making rounds’ of a fire. The gwyl mabsant, saint’s day, was kept in every parish. Games were played and there were competitions of every kind and it attracted great numbers of people. Overnight accommodation was scarce and people had to provide makeshift bedding on the floor. This custom caused the beds to be known as gwely gwyl mabsant. The festivals were usually held on Sundays but often began the day before, and carried on until the following Tuesday! There was every kind of contest, such as cock-fighting, football, hurling, wrestling, leaping and running. In the football (pêl-droed), the team would consist of men from two different parishes, in opposition to each other, and the ones who lost the match had to provide the successful team with beer. In some places, relics of the saints were carried. In the eighteenth century certain churchmen attempted to terminate these riotous meetings or to move them to weekdays. There were many such meetings; drunkenness and aggressive behaviour seem to have been the order of the day at these eighteenth-century gatherings.

  The Mari Lwyd (Grey Mary)

  The Christmas season was of lesser importance in Wales than the festivities of the New Year. This was also the case in Scotland, right down to the middle of the twentieth century, in many places. Customs observed in this season include Calan Gaeaf, (the Calends of winter), and gwyl mabsant (festival of the patron saint). The Plygain we have already mentioned. Some of the Christmas legends were similar to those of Gaelic Scotland, but several are quite different and of interest. The plant rosemary and the sacred thorn that allegedly sprang from a living branch of thorn brought from the Holy Land by Joseph of Arimathea as his staff, allegedly planted at Glastonbury in the first century AD, is still believed to have survived. Cuttings were taken from it, according to tradition, to ensure its continuance down the long centuries. True or not, many people visit Glastonbury at this season to see the wondrous tree in bloom, as I myself have done. There is a tradition that a Welshman made the pilgrimage and took a cutting from the thorn, which grew into a fine tree.

  Ever popular was the Mari Lwyd. This extraordinary ‘hobby horse’ consisted of the skull of a horse which was buried for some time in a pit lined with quicklime or in the ground to excarnate the head (see 7). The lower jaw was fitted up with springs which made the mouth shut with a loud clap as it was operated by the one who was carrying it. A substantial pole, some 5ft in length, was fixed into the horse’s skull and a pure white sheet was draped over it to give the impression of the animal’s body. The skull was decorated with different coloured ribbons and coloured glass was used for the eyes. Ears made of remnants of black cloth were sewn onto the white sheet, and the result was extremely impressive. The man whose job it was to carry the horse got under the sheet, held the pole and operated the lower jaw by means of a wooden handle, making it ‘snap’ in an alarming manner. Reins with bells were attached to the head and these were held by the leader of the troupe who also carried the stick for the purpose of knocking on doors during the performance. Verses were chanted and people gave presents or asked the horse in. A lot of fun and joking took place, but the overall ritual was fairly rigid, although it allowed for some variation in detail. This was a Glamorgan custom, and it survived perhaps longer than any other of the ‘horsings’ which were once common more widely in Wales. The name of the horse differed from place to place and records or folk memory show that it was a very popular festival and could sometimes last for several days.

  The party which accompanied the Glamorgan horse consisted of the horse itself, the Leader who held the reins, then the ‘sergeant’, the ‘merry man’ and ‘Punch and Judy’. Merry Man sometimes played the fiddle and Punch and Judy had blackened faces and they would all be dressed up in colourful clothes with sashes about their waists. The entire group or party went round the whole neighbourhood and engaged in a battle of wits with each household by chanting extempore verse which had to be replied to by a wittier composition from inside the house. When the Mari Lwyd was permitted to go into a house, the horse apparently made for the women and pretended to bite them, neighed at them, butted into them and blew on them. When the horse left the house, after much rumbustious and rather risqué play, the Leader would say, in Welsh, ‘We wish you joy to live a new year; as long as the man tinkles his bell, may every day get better.’ The origin of this festival is not clear; many suggestions have been made but none of them seem to offer a really satisfactory solution. Such horsings were known at one time throughout Wales and also in Cheshire, where the Antrobus Horse consists of a real horse’s head painted ‘shiny black’ and likewise mounted on a pole. (Shuel p.179)(see 6). Two other such horse festivals are the famed Padstow horse of Cornwall, which performs on 1 May, as does the equally popular Minehead horse of Somerset. These festivals are still in full swing. In Wales, as elsewhere, horses’ heads were buried under the foundations of the front doors of houses, as a protection against evil spirits, under the hearth and sometimes one on either side of the chimney-breast. One cannot regard these widespread folk practices as signs of horse-worship — although this certainly was the case at an earlier period in the British Isles, as archaeology attests — but they were indubitably the focus of superstition. See, for example, the belief in water-horses known as ceffylau dwr in Wales and those known as each uisge in the Scottish Highlands.

  4 Medieval references to archaic Welsh folklore

  Arthur

  Arthur, the Once and Future King (Rex quondam Rex que futurus), is, has been, and in all probability will remain, an enigma. King Arthur from earliest records, from place-names (see 2), and from folklore and literary sources has occupied the thoughts and time of countless people, both academic and lay; all have succumbed to the fascination of the question: ‘Who was Arthur?’ Did he ever exist? If so, was he a historical figure, and are there reliable records from which we may trace something of his Vita? He is known throughout the Celtic countries; his name occurs in connection with dramatic field monuments such as tumuli, standing stone circles, graves and so on — although it is said that the grave of Arthur will never be known. That, of course, would not be surprising, as he was alleged not to have died, but to have been transported to the sacred island of Avalon, possibly a site near Glastonbury (Ynys Wydrin), Somerset, which is much concerned with his legend.

  There are, of course, other s
tories of his ‘demise’. In Wales there is a legend that Arthur did not die. He and his warriors allegedly lie sleeping in a cave on Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), fully armed, their weapons beside them, waiting until they are roused by the call to save Britain from disaster. This is one of many beliefs that have accrued round the shadowy folk hero whom we call Arthur, who remains an enigmatic character — a figure of folklore and a focus for endless academic speculation. It is sufficient to say that the name of King Arthur has attained to great heights of popularity in the British Isles, as in Europe, dating in written records to the medieval period and down to the present day, where the controversy still rages.

  As we have seen, Arthur represents the longed-for magical protector of his people, the one who will come again and save them from their enemies, who in the earliest written records were the Saxons. But who was he, and when did he really live? Or was he always a figure of legend, folklore and perhaps mythology? Strangely, in spite of all the scholarly research that has been carried out, this is still a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps scholars generally believe that an Arthur, a Dark Age leader of the British against the Saxons did exist; but our historical data are hardly prolific.

  It seems perhaps more likely that the legend of King Arthur began like that of so many folk heroes, as a Celtic deity of an all-purpose type — warrior, protector, magic-worker, leader of raids and exploits into the Otherworld, a typical god of the people, a British Teutates (vide Ross, Druids p.51) In this way the story of Arthur of mythology and oral tradition would be likely to find its way into the legend of an historical leader of the same name — perhaps even himself named after the deity-cum-folk-hero in the first place. Here we are primarily concerned with the manifestations of Arthur in Welsh literature as an archaic figure around whom many myths and folklore have evolved.

  Arthur as a god

  Is there any evidence for a deity of this type in Celtic mythology? The answer must be in the affirmative, although the actual evidence is limited. It is possible, from the Gaulish evidence, to glimpse what may be a divine predecessor for the ‘historical’ Arthur. The name — in Latin Arturius, in British Artorius —, has its roots in the word art, ‘bear’ (old Celtic Artos, ‘bear’ from arta). This would seem to be a pan-Celtic word and Arthur is possibly in origin a universal Celtic god-type. The bear was an important cult animal throughout the Celtic world where it was indigenous. In early Irish, art means ‘bear’, ‘warrior’, ‘god’. This is easy to understand. The bear is the only animal to walk on two legs. This gives him the appearance of a great, shaggy warrior; it is matched by his feared ferocity. Celtic warriors used to wear animal skins in battle and for warmth and the Celts also buried dead warriors in animal pelts.

  The Celts feared more than anything the prospect of the heavens falling upon the earth. A great bear rearing up to strike down upon a human being must have been akin to this catastrophe. A sculpture from Linsdorf, Haut-Rhin — possibly dating to the heyday of early Celtic culture and art — takes the form of a great, menacing, fanged bear, pressing down with his murderous claws on the severed heads of two warriors (10). Images of bears occur widely in Europe. More importantly, both a bear god and an ursine goddess are figured and invoked in Europe in the early Roman period. A small bronze head of a bear was recently excavated from road-metal in the Gaulish hill fort Camp Celtique de la Bure, near Saint-Dié, Vosges (11). A terracotta image of a bear from Altbachtal, near Trier, Rheinland-Pfalz and a rock-cut inscription, ARTIONI BIBER, near Bollendorf, on the left bank of the river Sauer, in Germany, a short distance upstream from Echternach, Luxembourg, testify to the presence of this cult among the Treveri. A bronze group from Muri is preserved in the nearby museum of Berne, Switzerland. A stately seated goddess holds out fruits to a female bear (12) which emerges amiably from a wood — is this herself in ursine form? The name ARTAIOS (MERC-VRIO AVG. ARTAIO) occurs on an altar, now lost, from near Beaucroissant, Isère (13). It has been suggested that here the god was invoked as the deity who protects travellers (from bears?).

  A medieval Rhenish legend indicates an ancient cult of the bear in connection with sacred sources. There are other, stone representations of bears from Gallo-Roman sites. A bear-goddess, Andarta, meaning ‘extremely powerful bear’, was invoked at Dea Augusta, Die, Drôme. Welsh arthgen means ‘descended from the bear god’; Irish artigan is ‘son of the bear’. Bears are amongst several stone figures of probable Iron Age date. These were found in what was obviously a shrine for some bear cult when repair work was being carried out in the graveyard of the Cathedral on Cathedral Hill, Armagh City, Northern Ireland. Raftery (p.185) mentions these bears and says: ‘It is thus possible that a bear cult existed in the Armagh region …’ There is another word for ‘bear’ in Ireland which is more common than art. This is math, an archaic word which was replaced in early Middle Irish by mathgamain, ‘bear’, Latin ursus. There is an Irish Druid whose name is Mathgen, ‘born of a bear’; and one wonders about the enchanter Math in the Mabinogion of Wales. In early Irish, mathmarcóir means ‘augur’; mathmarc is used in Medieval texts for ‘soothsayer’.

  10 The Monster, Linsdorf, Haut-Rhin, France

  Fionn MacCumhaill figures as Ffin fab Koel (Trioedd Ynys Prydein, ‘TYP’, lxxxii and Bartrum p.222): Edyrn ap Gwythno Garanhir, the man who went to run with the wind when a huge fleet came to carry off the wife of Ffin ap Coel by violence. Evidently Fionn MacCumhaill the Irish hero is meant; the reference is interesting as possible evidence for the merging of characters from Irish stories into Welsh narrative of which there are further instances: see TYP p.400.

  It is useful to now consider some other points of similarity between the two main sources of Celtic mythology, Welsh and Irish, which have some bearing on the Arthur question, a problem which still occupies scholars today. As Proinsias McCana neatly puts it: ‘The original Arthur may well have been a historical character, but the King Arthur of medieval romance, and his knightly entourage, are much larger than life, and share many of the mythological traits of the Irish Fionn MacCumhaill and his Fianna.’ Emhain Abhlach, ‘Emhain of the apple-trees’, an Irish Otherworld — which the literature identifies with the beautiful island of Arran in the Firth of Clyde, off the south-west coast of Scotland — finds a close parallel in Arthur’s Avalon, ‘place of apples’, the gentle Otherworld to which he is borne after his ‘fatal’ wounding. According to tradition, of course, he did not really die, but lies sleeping, waiting for the time when his people need him most urgently, when he will come and save them. Of particular interest is the fact that this same legend is attached to Fionn MacCumhaill and his warriors, and like the Arthur belief, there are several sites, usually caves, in which he is said to be resting.

  11 Bronze head of Bear from le Camp Celtique de la Bure, Saint-Dié, Vosges, France

  Many place-names in Ireland and Britain commemorate both Fionn and Arthur (see 2). Their legends left their impression on the landscape; they were both familiar with the Wilderness.

  The Divine Protector

  Both Fionn and Arthur are often portrayed as ageing leaders. Arthur is not always so depicted, as we shall see. The earliest appearances of Arthur make him a very close parallel to Fionn, as does his hypothetical divinity. Both defend their countries against foreign enemies, both have elevated positions. In the ninth century, Nennius refers to Arthur as Dux Bellorum, a close parallel to Fionn’s title, Righfhéinnidh. Both Fionn and Arthur fight and vanquish fierce monsters and supernatural creatures. Both invade the Otherworld and bring away treasure; both are associated with magical cauldrons; both are hunters.

  Perhaps the most interesting parallel is the fact that they are each pursuers of metamorphosed boars. Moreover, Twrch Trwyth, a magical, enchanted boar, originally a king, is known in Ireland as Orc Tréith. Arthur hunts this creature through parts of Ireland, Cornwall and south Wales. Many legends about this great boar must have been current in both countries. Fionn hunts numerous magical pigs, some of which are transformed from human sh
ape, all of which retain their human wisdom and understanding. Legends about both Fionn and Arthur and their exploits circulated in the oral tradition for centuries, and actually received the approval of the literati — the Arthurian legend from the twelfth century, the Fionn cycle from the eighteenth century.