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Winter Folklore and Tradition: The Mari Lwyd

What is the Mari Lwyd?

One of the most well-known Welsh customs is the Mari Lwyd, meaning 'Grey Mare', a horse-figure carried from door to door by wassail-singing groups. The tradition begins on Christmas Day and continues through to Twelfth Night and Hen Galan (Old New Year, celebrated on January 13).

Popular in South Wales during the 19th century, the tradition features a real horse's skull, usually decorated with coloured ribbons and rosettes and with glass bottle eyes. The lower jaw is fixed on a spring which shuts the mouth with a loud snap and brings the creation to life. A long white cloth is draped down the carrier which hides him from view.

Occasionally the head was of wood, one account says paper, and in around 1935 a group of boys in Swansea used a pillow, but a horse's head was characteristic. The same horse's head tended to be used annually, for it was buried in lime to preserve it for most the year, and dug up each December.

How is Mari Lwyd celebrated?

In terms of the celebration itself, the custom used to begin at dusk and often lasted late into the night. During the ceremony, a party of usually all men, would carry the Mari through the streets of the village singing and dancing. The Mari does not hunt alone, for depending on the area and the amount of people in the wassailing party, she can be joined by an array of other characters named Punch and Judy, the Sergeant and the Merryman.

Even very small groups usually have a leader, who holds the reigns to control the horse and take charge of the singing.

They would visit every house or pub in the village and stand in front of the door to sing traditional songs.

Next followed the pwnco, an improvised rhyme and verse contest between the Mari party and the inhabitants of the house.

There was a lot of leg pulling, and the verses were usually quite mischievous.

Traditionally these exchanges would be done with the door closed, and the contest could last for some time, sometimes even an hour or so, until one side gave up.

If the Mari side lost the contest, they would have to leave without being admitted to the house. However this would have been quite a rare occurrence, as the Mari entering the building was thought to bring good luck, so they would usually win (or be allowed to win).

Alternatively, the Mari party might sing one last verse begging for entrance.

Once inside, the entertainment continued with the Mari running around neighing and snapping its jaws, creating havoc, and frightening the children, while the Leader pretended to try to restrain it.

The Merryman played music and entertained the householders. Punch and Judy would also be part of the festivities. The participants would be rewarded with food and drink, and sometimes received a gift of money as well. The visit concluded with a traditional farewell song.

Popularity of the Mari Lwyd

With the earliest account of the Mari dating from 1798, the boom years, as regards to the amount of horse's heads in existence, were between 1850 and 1920.

Apart from one or two sightings in the north, the ritual remained exclusive to south Wales, being especially popular in Glamorgan, Monmouthshire and Carmarthenshire.

A general decline occurred in the number of Mari Lwyd groups during the twentieth century. One of the reasons normally given for its demise is the decrease of Welsh speakers, preventing inhabitants from replying to the Mari group, as the Mari Lwyd contest was almost always sung and performed in Welsh.

Another reason for the custom's decline was the increasing rowdiness and drunkenness which became associated with it. This was seen as unacceptable behavior especially with the rise of the Chapel and Methodism in Wales.

However there has been a growing interest in the Mari Lwyd in recent years, and this has resulted in a resurgence in groups performing this tradition across all of Wales.

Where can you see the Mari Lwyd?

Join us at St Fagans this winter to witness the Mari Lwyd tradition brought to life. Explore our full winter programme here.

The Mari Lwyd figure will also be on display as part of our new Wales: Told by Us exhibition. Learn more about the exhibition and plan your visit here.

The Mari Lwyd Song Audio and Lyrics

Publish date: 29 October 2026

Tagged with: Christmas customs Cultural Life History Social and Cultural History Traditions Traditions, Tales and Customs Winter

New Year Traditions: Collecting Calennig

At one time in Wales – New Year’s festivities were even more important than Christmas. In fact, one resident of Cynwyl Elfed, Carmarthenshire, in the 1860s, said that the chief importance of Christmas was , ‘that it was within a week of New Year’s Day, the biggest day of the year’.

New Year has always been important in that it symbolized hope and starting afresh, every January 1st we make resolutions and try to turn over a new leaf. It’s not surprising therefore, that this period was associated with future fortunes.

It was said that one’s behavior at the beginning of the year was held to influence his fate for the proceeding twelve months. The custom of ‘letting in’ in the New Year is familiar throughout most of Britain and in Wales, the first visitor to enter somebody’s house was of great significance, depending on who they were and their personal characteristics.

For instance, on New Year’s Day in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire it was unlucky for a woman to see a woman first, and for a man to see a man first. People from Pencoed, near Bridgend, believed it bad luck to see a red-haired man first; in Pembrokeshire it was lucky to bring a fresh loaf into the house on January the first.

What is calennig?

A well-known Welsh tradition, still seen in some areas, is the collection of calennig (New Year’s gift) where children rise early and carry from door to door, as bearers of good luck, a decorated apple, pierced with three sticks and adorned with a sprig of box and hazelnuts.

The children usually sing a simple verse and in return usually received a gift or food or money for their troubles. Rhymes and songs were concisely worded and their message was to announce the New Year's arrival, to wish the family a prosperous twelvemonth, and to ask from it ‘calennig’ or (New Year's Gift).

Two boys collecting Calennig in Llangynwyd c.1904 - 1910

Here is a verse sung in Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire:

(I left my house today
With my bag and my stick,
And here is my message to you,
Fill my bag with bread and cheese.)

The words and verses varied from place to place. Listen to Selina Griffiths of Dinas Cross, near Fishguard, singing a version she learnt as a young girl in the 1880s, or hear Phillip Owen of St Davids, Pembrokeshire, recall the verse as he knew it from childhood.

What is the New Year’s water ritual?

The New Year’s water ritual also took place in some parts of Wales, where children, after filling cups or small bowls with spring water, which they’d drawn from the well that morning, dipped into it a sprig of box, myrtle or mistletoe. This was then sprinkled either on grown ups hands and faces or around the house, in order to do away with the old year and usher in the new. The adults gave them a small gift in return of the sprinkling, which was commonly regarded as a sign of cleansing or or purifying.

Two girls at Tenby partaking in New Year's water ritual, 1928.

Publish date: 29 October 2026

Tagged with: Christmas Cultural Life History Social and Cultural History Traditions Traditions, Tales and Customs Winter

Life in the Sea

Amgueddfa Cymru houses nearly 750,000 specimens of marine life in its collections, such as worms, crabs, starfish and more!
The collections are an important reflection of which animals live in which habitat at any point in time. Therefore, they are vitally important in tracking what happens with climate and ecological change.
Delve into the world of the curators who look after these collections and carry out research into these wondrous animals

Amgueddfa Cymru has a rich history researching sea life, starting with the work of William Evans Hoyle, our first director (1909-1924), and continuing with the work of our current curators and scientists. Hoyle focused his research on squid, octopus and cuttlefish (cephalopods), but since then the museum has been actively involved in understanding more about the diversity of life living in and on the seabed, a subject known as benthic biodiversity.

An important role of museums is to house and care for collections, and whilst some of these collections may be used in the galleries and exhibitions you see around you, others are utilised for different functions such as education and scientific research. Our collections are enhanced by our research activities and expertise, and this goes for the sea life collections housed in National Museum Cardiff.

The Museum holds a wide and diverse collection of marine invertebrates. These are animals in our oceans and seas without back bones, such as sea worms, shells, starfish, crabs, lobsters, corals, sea urchins and many more. Whilst most of our marine invertebrate collection is housed together, our extensive collection of molluscs (a group which includes clams, oysters, mussels, cephalopods to name a few) is housed separately and cared for by specific curators.

The Marine Invertebrate Collection comprises approximately 750, 000 specimens, and this number is continually growing through the museum’s own fieldwork and research, as well as donations. The collection represents many different groups of animals but over half is comprised of marine bristleworms, or polychaetes to give them their scientific name. Marine bristleworms , are segmented worms related to earthworms and leeches and are a vital part of seabed communities. The abundance of sea worms in our collections reflects our museum’s expertise but also the abundance of bristleworms occurring in seabed sediments, sometimes as many as 50–80% of the animals living there.

Most of our marine collections are preserved in fluid, usually industrial denatured alcohol (IDA) or ethanol, which prevents the specimens from rotting. Much of this material will have been additionally fixed before preservation using formaldehyde. However, we also have frozen tissue samples, used for DNA analysis (allowing us to see which species are more closely related to one another) and dry collections, the latter of which are predominantly collections of Crustacea (e.g., crabs and lobsters) and corals.

Most of the material in our collection is from the UK, and we house the largest collection of Welsh marine invertebrates in the world. Much of this material has been collected during years of seabed life surveys around the Welsh coast and Irish Sea by Museum staff. However, we also have specimens from over 60 different countries around the world, some arrived as donations, and some came from our own survey work in places such as the Seychelles, Hong Kong and the Falkland Islands. The donated material includes reference collections from oil and gas survey work and surveys monitoring the health of the seabed in the UK and around the world.

So why are our collections important, and why is it important to have so many specimens? Our collections are a unique record of which species lived in which habitat at any given time. This is important as it allows us to track changes which may occur as a response to climate or environmental change, pollution events or even transportation of alien or invasive species around the world, allowing us to assist in the protection of seabed life. We can also check any previous identifications that have been made by going back to the original samples, something that you would not be able to do just with the record itself. Our collections are also used by researchers and scientists to enhance their skills in identification and as part of the work describing other new species.

One of the most important uses of our collections is keeping safe the scientifically priceless specimens we call ‘types’. When a new species is discovered, described and named, the scientists in question choose a specimen that they say best represents the new species, and this specimen is then known as the holotype. These specimens are vitally important because they enable people across the world to know what the new species looks like in comparison to other species. Many museums across the world are depositories for type material and are entrusted to keep it safe but facilitate access to it for those who need to.

Our own curators and scientists use our collections too. Our expertise in the marine invertebrate section is in marine bristleworms and we have described over 35 new species since 2000. The collections allow us to compare similar species so that we can see when a species is new to science or a new record for a particular area. To do this work we employ drawing techniques, Scanning Electron Microscopy (which allows us to take images at high magnifications), photography and DNA analysis.

You can find out about some of our research on marine bristleworms in the following blogs:

So, next time you are in the main hall of National Museum Cardiff, think about the marine invertebrate collections beneath your feet and the importance they have in keeping our seabed habitats around Wales healthy. You may even find some of these collections in our displays and exhibitions. We used many of our bristleworm specimens in the touring exhibition ‘Wriggle! The Wonderful World of Worms’.

Publish date: 28 October 2026

Tagged with: Natural History

A Colourful Language of the Sea: How Flags Connected Wales to the World

Dafydd Newton-Evans, 19 October 2026

Imagine standing on the deck of a ship in Swansea Harbour 150 years ago. Around you, vessels are arriving from across the world, carrying cargo, passengers and stories from distant shores. But how did sailors communicate with one another before radios and modern technology?

The answer was often found in the colourful flags flying high above their ships.

For centuries, maritime flags have helped sailors communicate across oceans, overcoming language barriers and sharing important information through colours and patterns.

Five colours, countless messages

The International Code of Signals uses just five colours: red, blue, yellow, black and white.

Chosen for their visibility and contrasting combinations, these colours form distinctive patterns that allow ships to communicate messages without exchanging a single word.

Each flag represents a letter of the alphabet, but many also carry a specific meaning when flown individually.

Here are three examples:

🔴 Red – Bravo

A solid red flag warns that a vessel is carrying, loading or unloading dangerous goods.

🔵⚪ Blue and white – Alpha

This distinctive flag signals that a diver is working beneath the water and warns other vessels to keep clear and proceed slowly.

🔴🟡 Red and yellow – Oscar

Divided diagonally into red and yellow, this flag communicates one of the most urgent messages at sea: Man overboard!

Connecting Wales to the world

These colourful flags have a particular connection to Wales’s rich maritime history.

During the nineteenth century, Welsh ports such as Swansea, Cardiff, Porthmadog and Newport became bustling centres of international trade. Ships carried Welsh coal, copper and other goods to destinations across the globe, returning with cargoes, people and ideas that helped shape Welsh communities.

In these busy harbours, maritime flags were an important part of everyday life.

Ships displayed national ensigns and shipping company flags to identify themselves, while signal flags provided a shared means of communication between vessels whose crews might speak different languages.

From the copper ships of Swansea to the coal-carrying vessels of Cardiff, the maritime world relied on systems of communication that helped connect Wales with distant shores.

A tradition that continues today

Although modern ships now rely on radio, satellite navigation and digital technology, maritime signal flags remain in use.

Their bold colours and distinctive designs are a lasting reminder of the ingenuity of generations of seafarers.

And behind each flag is a story of communication, cooperation and the extraordinary connections made possible by the sea.

Next time you spot colourful flags flying from a ship, remember that you’re looking at a language that once helped connect Welsh ports with the rest of the world.

Publish date: 19 October 2026

Tagged with: National Waterfront Museum

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Slate quarries in the landscape and their names

Siân Shakespear, Engagement and Volunteering Coordinator, 13 October 2026

The National Slate Museum is keen to celebrate the wealth of names for slate quarries scattered throughout Wales by carving their names into a slate path which will lead to the gateway of the refurbished Museum. Anyone who explores the many corners of Wales will easily notice the remains of the huge effort made by previous generations to dig and extract slate rock from the ground and transform it into slates for various uses. Some of these remains can be very obvious since the quarrymen reshaped the landscape by blasting the rock and pouring waste into massive tips. And yet the remains of some of the quarries are mere ripples on the face of the earth since they weren’t worked for long enough to produce much waste nor create the need for numerous holes, addits and a transport system. Whatever the size and substance of the physical remains another clue can point to the presence of a quarry and that is its name.

Most of the names are Welsh and they frequently originate from a nearby landscape feature e.g. Ffynnon y Gog – cuckoo spring, Dŵr Oer – cold water, Pompren – wooden bridge a Rhiw Gwreiddyn – hill of the root. Some of them have been named after a person such as Doctor Hughes, Chwarel Gethin – Gethin’s quarry, Mathew’s, Palmerston’s, Vivian and Hollands. Several of the names simply follow the name of the location or area where they reside such as Tal y Fan, Nantlle Vale, Hafod y Llan, Garreg Fawr and Deeside. It may be difficult to trace exactly why some quarries have been given a specific name, but the name itself is so well known that it is synonymous with a slate quarry even without the prefix ‘chwarel’ or quarry. We could refer to Dorothea, Glynrhonwy, Llechwedd, Prince of Wales and Alexandra in this regard.

More than anything, the wealth of quarry names present in various corners of Wales is testament to the sweat and labour expended by men to produce and export slate to the four corners of the world. Over the years historians and experts have recorded the majority of the quarries in various papers and books. The Slate Museum redevelopment project is keen to celebrate this wealth by carving as many names as possible into a slate path which will lead visitors to the gateway. After poring over various sources Museum staff have gathered a list of 196 names which include names from the area of the World Heritage Site in Northwest Wales in addition to Denbighshire, Pembrokeshire, Radnorshire and Carmarthenshire. However, we need to ensure that the path is as representative and comprehensive as possible and so we are calling on local knowledgeable people the length and breadth of Wales to contribute names of lesser-known quarries here:

Contribute to our list of Welsh slate quarry names here - Google Forms

Find out more here - Our website

This activity was a part of the National Slate Museum redevelopment project, which is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, UK Government via Gwynedd Council as part of the Llewyrch o’r Llechi project, Welsh Government including the Community Facilities Programme, the Wolfson Foundation, The Garfield Weston Foundation and other funders.