Traditions

Beneath the floorboards

Adult's left boot. 9 button fastening at side (buttons missing). Used as lucky charm under floorboards at Old Gwernyfed, Felindre, Brecon.

Renovating an old house? Stay alert! Who knows what you'll find beneath the floorboards or behind the walls. You might discover a deliberately concealed garment, hidden by a previous occupant to bring good luck and fertility to the home. These concealments are called 'caches' — a term deriving from the French word 'cache', meaning 'to hide'. St Fagans National History Museum has collected several caches over the years. Each new find provides a valuable insight into this little known but widely practiced folk custom.

Hidden shoes

A leather shoe found behind a fireplace at Ty Cerrig, Llanfachreth, in March 1994

The most frequently found hidden garments are shoes. They are usually discovered near chimneys or fireplaces, but rarely are they found in pairs. Children's shoes are the most commonly found garments. This mid 19th century leather shoe was discovered in 1994 behind a fireplace in a stone built house in Llanfachreth. The owners found four other shoes in the same location, each well-worn and in a degraded condition. They almost certainly belonged to a family unit of two parents and three children.

Chimneys and fireplaces were probably chosen as hiding places because they served as the main focal point in most homes — a source of heat and comfort and an important place to congregate as a family. Shoes were also hidden under floorboards, around doorways and below staircases. Some considered these places to be the weakest part of a building, where evil spirits and witches would enter. Shoes were placed in these areas in order to trap or corner potential evil.

A concealed corset

A fragment of a mid-18th century corset found in a wall during restoration work to a thatched cottage in Pontarddulias

Although shoes are the most frequent finds, other types of garments have also been discovered — for example, hats, jackets and breeches. This fragment of a corset was found in a thatched cottage in Cae Cerrig Road, Pontarddulais. It was discovered in 2002 lying in soil behind a thick wall to the side of the fireplace. Dating from the mid 18th century, it is roughly heart-shaped and is constructed from three layers: an outer layer of buff coloured wool, a stiffening layer of whalebone strips and a linen lining. Evidence of silk stitching remains in some areas. In its original condition, this fragment would have formed the front panel of the corset, covering the chest and abdomen.

What should you do if you find a concealed garment? If possible, avoid excessive handling and contact your local museum for further guidance. Remember to take plenty of photographs or drawings of the garment in its found location. Above all, stay vigilant — that heavily worn 'rag' could be a piece of history!

People from all over Wales have shared their memories of Christmas food with the Museum. Here are some of their stories and recipes from our archive.

The Goose

For centuries, the goose was the festive bird associated with Christmas in Wales. Since late medieval times, the yeoman farmer would have had a goose on the Christmas table. Geese were easy to breed and cheap to feed, especially in early autumn, when they were let loose to glean the fields after the corn harvest. Many farmers would give a goose to their tenants and workers to celebrate Michaelmas Day, but plenty more were kept back and fattened up for the Christmas market.

Group with geese at a farm on Stalling Down, near Cowbridge

Turkeys

Although turkeys reached Britain in the 1500s, they were very expensive and only the wealthy could afford them. In rural Wales, the goose stayed firmly on the Christmas table, and turkey wasn’t widely accepted until the second half of the 1900s.

Goose Blood Tart

Gooseblood tart, a Christmas delicacy in parts of Montgomeryshire

In parts of mid-Wales, goose blood tart was a very special Christmas treat. It was made each year when farmers were killing their geese for the festive table and Christmas market.

Oral history recordings in our archive tell us that this tart was made in Trefeglwys, Staylittle, Llanbrynmair and Llangurig in Montgomeryshire. So far, we haven’t found any evidence of it being made anywhere else in Wales.

To make the tart, the blood of about three geese was put in a greased basin and boiled in a saucepan half full of water. Once it had cooled and set solid, it was rubbed between the fingers into fine crumbs. Then it was mixed with currants, flour, suet, salt, spice and golden syrup, and baked between two layers of pastry on a plate in the oven.

A strange mixture of ingredients, you may think, but not so different from the mincemeat in mince pies, which originally included real meat!

Watch a film from our archive showing how the tart was made: 

Plum Pudding

Christmas card from the collection

The traditional way to cook it was in one big lump. The mixture was placed in a linen pudding cloth, then the edges were gathered up and tied with a strong cord to form a bag. This was hung from a stick laid across the top of the boiler or cauldron filled with boiling water. That’s how it got its Welsh names: pwdin lwmp (lump pudding), pwdin clwt (rag pudding) or pwdin cŵd (bag pudding). On Christmas Day, it was served with menyn melys, a sweet butter sauce.

Mixing the pudding involved the whole family. Everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, took a turn to stir the pudding and make a secret wish. Small coins, such as the old silver threepenny or sixpenny pieces, were often stirred in too, and whoever found one on Christmas Day could look forward to good luck.

Why not try these recipes from the archive:

Noson Gyflaith (Toffee Evening)

Noson Gyflaith was a traditional part of Christmas or New Year celebrations in some areas of north Wales in the early 1900s. Families took turns to invite friends round for supper, usually a Christmas dinner, followed by an evening of games, stories and toffee-making.

Once the ingredients had boiled to just the right point, the toffee was poured onto a well-greased slate or stone slab. In some houses, the hearthstone itself was used. Then everyone buttered their hands and tried to "pull" the toffee while it was still warm. Pulling and twisting it until it turned golden yellow was a real skill. Some were good at it, and some weren’t, but everyone joined in the fun.

Watch a film of Gretta Jones and her brother Herbert, who grew up at Tŷ Du, Y Parc, near Bala, where a Noson Gyflaith was held every Christmas.

Toffee was also popular in south Wales, especially in the coal-mining areas. As far as we know, it wasn't linked to any celebration, but local women often made it to sell from their homes or on market stalls. It was known by various names, such as taffi or dant, and was sometimes named after whoever made it, like losin Magws or losin Ansin bach. Children could buy a six-inch strip, or two ounces, for a penny. Here’s a recipe from Gwaelod-y-garth

Loaf Cake

In the industrial valleys of south Wales, the cake commonly eaten at Christmas was loaf cake. Families made the dough at home and carried the loaves to the local bakehouse, where the baker would bake them for a penny or two per loaf.

Neighbours were invited to taste each other's cakes, and in the Margam area, near Port Talbot, tradition had it that if a young woman tasted 13 different cakes in one season, she would be married by the following Christmas. Here’s a recipe for loaf cake from Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil.

Loaf cake, the rich yeast fruit cake baked for Christmas in the counties of south Wales

An ancient manly game

Bando stick from around 1845, belonging to Thomas Thomas, a member of the Margam Bando Boys

Popular across Wales, especially in Glamorgan, up until the late nineteenth century, the boisterous game of Bando was the cause of much local rivalry and violence.

Until the late nineteenth century Bando was a popular team game across Wales, especially in the county of Glamorgan. John Elias (1774-1841), the famous Calvinistic Methodist preacher from Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire, and politician David Lloyd George (1863-1945), raised in Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire, were both keen players in their youth, while a traveller from Cowbridge to Pyle in 1797 commented on the extreme barrenness of ash and elm on account of their being used to make bando sticks.

Bando resembled an early form of hockey, as it involved striking a ball with a curved club (called a 'bando') across a fixed area of play before attempting to drive it into the opponents' goal. The term 'bando' derives from the French 'bande', meaning 'bent stick', and the clubs used were made of hard local woods while the ball, similar in size to today's hockey ball, was often carved from holly or box.

Gambling, drink and boisterous behaviour

Bando stick from around 1845, belonging to Thomas Thomas, a member of the Margam Bando Boys

Matches were traditionally held between parishes, and the players often took them so seriously that they were known to train in advance. Although bando was usually played by men, women were keen spectators, and there is evidence that at a bando match played once in the Vale of Glamorgan the wife of one of the players concealed the ball with her petticoat until her spouse arrived to retrieve it. Games varied depending on the area, for there were no standardised rules, no set time limit to the play and no restrictions on the number of those taking part. Violence was commonplace, and even if a referee was present players were not deterred from hitting the opposition with their sticks. Spectators often placed bets on the final score, while local innkeepers ensured that there was always enough alcohol available. This lethal combination of gambling, drink and boisterous behaviour both on and off the pitch was eventually responsible for forcing bando out of existence.

The Margam Bando Boys

The First Glamorgan Rifle Volunteers were formed in Margam, Port Talbot in 1859. This military badge, showing two bando sticks, was adopted by the Volunteers in 1875.

The prominence of the game in Margam, west Glamorgan, is celebrated in a nineteenth-century ballad entitled The Margam Bando Boys. This was also the year in which the Margam Volunteer Rifle Corps was formed. All the Margam Bando Boys followed their team captain Theodore Talbot into the Margam Volunteer Rifle Corps, which was formed in 1859. The badge design of this organisation included two crossed bandies or bando sticks.

Due praises I'll bestow
And all the world shall know
That Margam valour shall keep its colour
When Kenfig's waters flow

Our master, straight and tall
Is foremost with the ball;
He is, we know it, and must allow it,
The fastest man of all

Let cricket players blame,
And seek to slight our fame,
Their bat and wicket can never lick it,
This ancient manly game

Our fame shall always stand
Throughout Britannia's land;
What men can beat us? Who dare meet us?
Upon old Kenfig's sand?

Should Frenchmen raise a voice
To crush our peaceful joys,
They'll get by storming a precious warming
From Margam bando boys

Like lions we'll advance
To charge the sons of France;
The Straits of Dover we'll ferry over
And make the traitors dance

Napoleon shall repent,
If war is his intent;
He'll sadly rue it if he'll pursue it;
Proud Paris shall lament

Bold Britons rule the main,
And every hill and plain,
From every nation throughout creation
Our rights we will maintain

Genealogists and family historians are often frustrated by the limited number of surnames in Wales. Why is this so? Professor Prys Morgan, co-author of the book Welsh Surnames, explains the reasons why...

What was the old Welsh way of naming?

The Welsh only began to have fixed surnames about 500 years ago. Before that period, 4 — 500 years ago, the Welsh simply didn't have a system of fixed surnames at all. Well now, how did they manage without fixed surnames, you will ask. They managed perfectly well by everybody having a baptismal name, a first name, just as we have today, and then they affixed to that, by a little particle ap, which meant 'son of', they just fixed their father and their grandfather's name and their forefathers' name going back to about nine generations.

So if you asked someone who he was and he said, 'Well I'm John.' 'Oh that's not good enough. I mean John who, John what are you?' And he would say, 'Well I'm John ap John ap Gruffydd ap Meilyr ap Llywelyn ap Gwasmeir ap Gwasmihangel ap Rhys ap Gwasteilo and so on.

And the reason why each person in Wales had this long rigmarole of a genealogy instead of a name, he had a genealogy, the reason for it was very very important to society. It wasn't a matter of fancy at all, or snobbishness at all. It was that according to the laws of Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good), Welsh people didn't hold land for example as individuals. The only way they could hold land was by proving that they were descendants of a forefather, nine or ten or twelve generations back, who had held the tribal lands. And so if you couldn't show someone a satisfactory genealogy, well tough! You didn't have any right to farm the lands.

How did the Welsh get surnames?

When about 500 years ago the Welsh were asked to take on a system of fixed surnames on the English pattern of Jackson and Greenfield and so on, they were asked to have a fixed surname and to pass that surname on to all their descendants. The Welsh were asked, 'Well, what is the thing that gives you status in your society?' And they said, 'Well we don't want nicknames, we don't want trade names. The only thing that we think of as important is our father's name.' And so they were asked, 'Well what is your father's name?' And they would say,' Well my name is John and my father is Gruffydd.' 'Alright. Well you will be John Griffiths.' And the other one would say, 'Well my father is John.' So they would say, 'Well you are to be John Jones.'

But why so many Joneses?

In exactly the same period, there was a period of streamlining and simplifying the Christian name. And this happened all over Europe, by the way, not just in Wales. But it had a very, very bad effect upon Welsh names because instead of having this magnificent variety of hundreds of ancient pagan names like Llywarch and Gwalchmai, which were — I mean Llywarch was the name of an ancient Celtic pagan god. And — or having a huge number of Catholic devotional names like Gwasdewi (the devotee of St David) or Gwasmeir (the devotee of the Virgin Mary) or Gwasmihangel (the follower of St Michael the archangel). Instead of having this huge variety of Catholic names and pagan names, people became very frightened and nervous as to what should be given as a name, and people invented a short catalogue of safe respectable names. And there were only about a dozen of them. A few safe Biblical names like John, Thomas and David, and a few safe royal names like Richard, Edward, Henry. That was the only sort of name that was safe to give. About a dozen names.

So the great tragedy was that at the very time that the Welsh were being forced by the clerks of the courts or the parsons of the parishes to take fixed surnames, it was the very time when the Welsh were being forced to take a very very small range of names. So there were hundreds and hundreds of people being forced to take fixed surnames at the very time when there were hundreds and hundreds of fathers being given the name John. So their children, also probably John, landed up in three generations, instead of being Llywarch ap Gwalchmai ap Gwasmihangel, they ended up being John Jones. And that's all. John Jones. Hundreds and hundreds of John Jones.