![]() It is accompanied by a group of men in motley and bizarre garb. Between Christmas Day and New Years Eve, the Mari Lwyd ventures out into the darkened streets. It is ornamented with bright ribbons and bells. The head atop that body is usually a de-fleshed horse skull, but sometimes the facsimile of a horse skull is fashioned from straw and rags. Tall enough to cover the whole of the body of the person carrying it, the lower portion, forming a body and tall neck, is fashioned from a ghostly white sheet. To prepare for it, a sort of hobby horse is made. This was the Mari Lwyd (Grey Mare/Mary) a wassailing tradition from South Wales. ![]() of who knows what? … and then SUDDENLY a horse skull pokes through the window ! … TERROR! ![]() He remembered moments of fearful anticipation … of. ![]() His father told him, that when he was a boy in Newport, he would look outside his window, into the dark winters night, and espy sparks flashing from the ground as hobnailed boot-steps struck the flinted path as they approached his family home…. I was first introduced to the Mari Lwyd by artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins who recounted to me a tale of welsh life in the early 20th Century. ![]()
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