Many Christmas traditions have been observed over the holiday’s long history – from Christmas games in the UK’s Victorian and Georgian eras to the rituals associated with the Christmas tree and Christmas feast.
Among these festive customs are quite a few that involve Christmas-related creatures – like Iceland’s Yule Cat and the monstrous Krampus of the Alps.
The Mari Lwyd, Wales’ Christmas horse, is a somewhat similar fantastical animal. But unlike the mythical Yule Cat or Krampus, the mischievous Mari Lwyd is a being that you might really see on your doorstep one frosty night in the south of Wales.
What is the Mari Lwyd?
The Mari Lwyd is, in one sense, a costume. It often takes the form of a horse’s skull with a hinged jaw, mounted on a pole. From the neck of the horse flow ribbons or streamers and a white piece of cloth that covers the person holding the pole.
In some places, the Mari Lwyd’s skull was buried during the rest of the year and unearthed when Yuletide came again.
What does the Mari Lwyd do?
The Mari Lwyd tradition is related to those of wassailing and carol singing – it also involves a group of people going door to door for fun activities. In the custom of Christmas wassailing, a group of people knock on their neighbours’ doors and sing carols, asking for food, gifts or a drink in their wassail cup.
The Mari Lwyd also is accompanied by a group of friends, typically men, as it visits each house at Christmastime. Traditions vary, but sometimes this group includes other costumed characters.
After the Mari Lwyd party knocks on a door, they sing a traditional song and then engage in a Welsh poetry contest. This poetry competition is called the pwnco, and it connects to a great Welsh tradition of song and rhyme.
If the Mari Lwyd group wins the poetry contest, as expected, they’ll be allowed into the house, where the Mari Lwyd may run around and get up to mischief. Ultimately, though, the Mari Lwyd and its companions will receive food and drink as a reward for their troubles – and the household will in turn receive good luck in the year ahead.
Different areas may also have their own local customs to weave into the main Mari Lwyd tradition.
How the tradition began
Like many old Christmas traditions, the Mari Lwyd has origins that are not entirely clear but may be rooted in pagan customs or beliefs.
There are two primary theories about the meaning of the name Mari Lwyd. One is that ‘Mari’ is connected to Mary, as in the religious figure from Christianity. The Mari Lwyd might be a horse who had to leave her stable when Mary and Joseph came to lodge there before the birth.
The other theory holds that the name Mari Lwyd means ‘grey mare’, and that the Mari Lwyd herself is part of a long pre-Christian tradition of horse veneration in the British Isles.
It’s interesting to note that there are some folk customs in England that likewise involve a person disguised as a horse or other four-legged animal by means of a head on a pole. Is the Mari Lwyd related to these? We can’t really know, but it seems likely.
In the end, the Mari Lwyd’s history is as mysterious as the unearthly horse herself. All that’s clear from the folklore is that the Mari Lwyd is definitely female.
How it evolved
The heyday of the Mari Lwyd was the 19th century – the late Georgian and Victorian eras. But the year 1800 marks only the first record we have of the Mari Lwyd’s activities. We don’t know how long she was getting up to mischief before anyone wrote about it.
Through the 1800s, the Mari Lwyd was often present in the wintertime, particularly in the south of Wales. In the first half of the 20th century, however, her prevalence began to wane. This might have been partly due to opposition to the Mari Lwyd’s revelry.
The Mari Lwyd might also have been affected by the fact that fewer people were able to speak Welsh and take part in the pwnco – the poetry contest.
That being said, the Mari Lwyd tradition is certainly not extinct and may even be growing in popularity again. Today, some people may prepare verses for the pwnco rather than coming up with them on the spot.
In the 21st century, the Mari Lwyd has received a bit of a makeover, too. Where once she had shining eyes made from the bottoms of glass bottles, her eyes may now glow with electric lights.
