Seasonal Songs in Wales

Brief Overview
For an extremely brief historical background on Wales, see the first paragraph of my last post. Wales is know as a "land of song". (I had never heard this before, but it says so in The Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales). This title was born in the 19th century when Wales saw an explosion of musical fervor, that was displayed starting in 1861 in Eistedfod, a large Welsh cultural festival. Unfortunately, this 19th century idea masks the rich history of music in Wales dating back to Pagan times. Songs were used to celebrate the seasons (Winter Solstice, the coming of spring, Summer Solstice), the new year, etc. I'm going to go the route of a general authority at conference and divide my blog post into three subtopics that will hopefully better enable you to remember the message of this post.


Mari Lwyd
According  to The Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales'  article on "Music" the Mari Lwyd was a kind of Wassailing (a tradition of carrying a "wassail cup" door to door in hopes of hospitality, food and a small sum of money, maybe like trick or treating?) done around Winter Solstice time. The word "mari" is the root of the modern English word "mare", and the wassail cup used at this time was a decorated horse skull carried on a pole. The people carrying the mari would go door to door singing songs asking for admittance, where it was tradition to at first be denied by an answering song verse. The group asking for entrance and the group in the house would sing verses back and forth until finally the outsiders were let in. Below are some Celtic studies students reinacting the tradition. This custom was adapted when the Welsh adopted Christianity and many people mistakenly think the "mari" refers to the Virgin Mary. This is just one example among many how Pagan customs were passed down and transformed to fit changing religions, which goes to show how deeply rooted traditions can become in a culture.

Hunting the Wren



Another winter time wassailing tradition, "Hunting the Wren" was a time when people took a dead wren from door to door similarly asking for food and hospitality. This is an excellent example of how song passes down and continues cultural customs as is evident in this video.

This song, recorded in 2006 by Heather Dale, uses a traditional first verse, but the remaining verses are written by the author. This reminds me of Rachel's last post as well as Summer's last post, which talk about bards using the same theme, rythms and patterns in their songs, but altering and making the words their own. This is a modern day example of this, and in the encyclopedia article it even mentions how traditional Welsh music finds it's way into modern popular music in Wales.

Cadi Haf

This was a song and dance performed on Calan Mai, or the first day of May, which was the beginning of the summer on the Celtic calender. The dancers would sing and hold out ladels to collect money from the audience. (It seems like all of these traditions were driven by the want for money and food. I wonder if that's the same across all the cultures our blogging group is covering.)

Here's one more video to once again illustrate how these songs and dances have been preserved throughout the ages:



So as we can see, song and dance were a large part of the pagan celebrations of ancient Welsh culture, just as song and dance are large parts of our holiday celebrations and daily life in modern American culutre. I think sometimes people read about ancient songs and dance like these and think they're weird or funny, but I'm sure if we played Lady Gaga, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, or Lil Wayne or showed them people doing the Charleston or Dougie, the ancient Celtic people they would find it just as strange and comical. I find it so interesting that although the styles of music and dance change immensely, the tendency of people to listen to song and dance to it hasn't really changed much throughout human history.