Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. Today’s blog post is about the Welsh tradition of the Mari Lwyd, a Horse Skull affixed to a pole with a sheet trailing behind her. This allows the person beneath the Mari Lwyd a great way to control her actions during the Wassailing Traditions of the Yuletide Season! I want to begin by defining the term Mari Lwyd, and while there is conjecture on the definition, the most common one is that Mari Lwyd means ‘Grey Mare.’ This name connects the tradition to Otherworldly Faery Lore, but more on that at the end of the post.
As I mentioned, that the Mari Lwyd is a Wassailing Tradition, let’s define that. Wassailing is a tradition of going door to door singing and offering people drinks from the Wassailing Bowl (usually containing wine or other alcohol) in exchange for small gifts, and there is also a version of Wassailing that takes place in orchards to bless the crops for a good harvest (using cider in the bowl). The Mari Lwyd version of Wassailing was performed at the Yuletide, as it was believed to bring good luck for the New Year. Besides being considered a Wassailing Tradition, the Mari Lwyd also falls into the category of a Mumming Tradition, where people would dress up to disguise themselves while singing and going door to door.
Now that I have defined the terms Mari Lwyd, Wassailing, and Mumming, let’s dig deeper into this tradition. This is one of the great spooky traditions for the Winter Holiday Season. Along with Krampus and various Christmas Witches, and even the Ghosts of Dickens, the Mari Lwyd is part of the long tradition of spooky Winter tales and festivities. These spookier traditions serve to remind us that Winter is a time full of possible dangers and also to remind us to be grateful for what we have and share it with others (as it is also a time of communion with loved ones)! So, the actual tradition of the Mari Lwyd can only definitively be dated back to the 17th century at the earliest. In fact, much of the earliest cultural purposes of the Mari Lwyd remain unknown, just as the exact age of the tradition remains a bit of a mystery. What is known is that it was a popular tradition in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and has been making a comeback in recent years!
You may wonder how the Mari Lwyd was practiced, and I want to give a brief explanation (and I will link articles below that go into more detail). The Mari Lwyd tradition involves a group of people going from house to house with their decorated Horse Skull to participate in a singing contest known as a ‘pwnco.’ As I mentioned above, the Mari Lwyd is carried by a person who hides under the sheet during the singing contest where the participants in the Wassailing banter with the occupants of the house. This banter would take the form of an exchange of verses (usually in song) in a battle between the two groups. This battle really takes the form of a poetic battle of the wits (funnily, I have heard it compared in modern times to a rap battle). If the group outside won this battle, they would be invited into the house to partake in the feast being held within! As soon as they were let in, the Mari Lwyd would often chase the women in the house around, snapping the horse skull’s mouth shut and making noise as it pretended to bite. It has been observed that this part of the tradition can be seen as sexually suggestive, which adds to the fertility aspect of blessings and abundance for the New Year. The group would also share the drink from the Wassailing Bowl they carried. The Wassailing Bowl was said to impart good fortune, fertility, and prosperity to those who drank from it, which is likely tied to the reason that this custom is done in the Holiday Season prior to the New Year most often! After the shared feast and merrymaking in the house, the Mari Lwyd Wassailing group would leave while singing songs of blessings.
So, to finish off this post, I want to discuss the Faery Otherworld connection to the Mari Lwyd. Being that the Mari Lwyd is connected to horses, there is certainly a resonance with several Celtic Goddesses associated with horses. This includes Epona, Macha (the Red Mare and an aspect of the Morrigan), and, of course, my beloved Rhiannon! I personally would link the Mari Lwyd’s Horse nature most to Rhiannon, given that she is the Welsh Goddess associated with horses, and this is a Welsh custom. I would say that even the fact that a horse skull in particular is used to create the Mari Lwyd relates to the Death aspect of Rhiannon, who has the Adar Rhiannon, the Birds of Rhiannon who can raise the dead and lull the living to sleep. Even the sexually suggestive and fertility aspects of the tradition can be seen as connected to Rhiannon as a mother and Faery Queen Goddess whose marriage to Pwyll cemented his right to rule!
I hope you have enjoyed this look at the Mari Lwyd tradition. If you want to know more, I have linked a couple of good articles and a video below. Have you heard of the Mari Lwyd before? Do you find this tradition as fascinating as I do? Would you participate in this tradition, given the chance? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a really cool artwork of a Mari Lwyd, so not a picture of the actual tradition, but I thought it was beautiful. I found the image on https://www.whpublications.com/the-wanderers-creature-feature-mari-lwyd/.
LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries
Further Reading/Watching
- https://ynysafallon.com/mari-lwyd
- https://www.wales.com/about/history-and-heritage/welsh-traditions-myths-and-legends/mari-lwyd
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQvJS9Kf5V0 (This is an informative and short video on the Mari Lwyd.)