#wales | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cincinnatiburgoo · 7 months

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I can’t stop laughing at this 🤣😂🤣

#gos2 #michael sheen #wales #azirasheen #aziraphel #xitter

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celestial-kestrel · 4 months

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It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

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As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

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#Mari Lwyd #Wales #Welsh #Welsh culture #Youtube

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illustratus · 2 months

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Transept of Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire by Joseph Mallord William Turner

#joseph mallord william turner #jmw turner #art #tintern abbey #ruins #architecture #transept #monmouthshire #wales #england #britain #ruin #nature #history #j.m.w. turner #romantic #romanticism

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animentality · 1 month

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#twitter #wales #scotland #ireland #uk #uk politics

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maureen2musings · 1 year

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jacklodgephotography

#snowdonia #wales #roman bridge #forest #Lord of the Rings #fairy bridge #curators on tumblr

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angiethewitch · 1 month

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I am absolutely disgusted to learn that crown owns our castles and the profits are sent to Westminster. Wales is struggling, our economy is struggling, our people are struggling, our health services are struggling, and that money could go to the betterment of our lives - instead it goes to England.

despite the fact we maintain the castles and land, we don't own them. they are in OUR country. ownership should belong to us, the people who built them. we maintain them. we work in them. theyre ours and we should be able to use the profits generated by them to help welsh people, not allow the money be funnelled into the monarchy.

the fact the crown owns so much of wales is such an outdated and medieval concept and has no place in modern society.

petition here:

please sign. I am disgusted.

#angie talks #wales #cymru #cymru am byth #annibyniaeth cymru #welsh independence

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delyth-thomas-art · 1 month

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Please help the National Museum Of Wales

Please sign the petition!!!!

You don't need to be living in Wales or the uk to sign.

#wales #welsh #museum #history #petition #signal boost #geology #paleontology #palaeoblr #support education #support history

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princessbubblegumandjustice · 2 years

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Queen Elizabeth II’s Death Could Jump-Start Efforts to Abolish Monarchy in Former British Colonies

As it should! And why stop there? :)

#queen elizabeth ii #queen elizabeth #british monarchy #wales #scotland #colonization #*original #*uk

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bodhrancomedy · 1 year

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Listen, for people wanting to call out colonialism, there are way too many of you mocking Irish, Welsh, and Scottish names.

No, they’re not alphabet soup, no they do not look like “you’ve thrown letters at a wall and used what stuck,” they are living, breathing languages which we did CPR on after the British Empire shot them.

Like, people DIED to keep them alive.

Every time I see some (English/American) interviewer make an entire segment forcing Saoirse Ronan to list off Irish names, I die a little inside. It’s particularly galling to see the same people ooh-ing over how “mystical” they sound, or claiming ancient heritage to us.

Realise there’s a world beyond your myopic lens and just accept sometimes you’ve got new stuff to learn. Fuck knows I do.

#deaf #Irish #Irish names #Scotland #Ireland #Scottish #Wales #Welsh names

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archaeologicalnews · 3 months

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Roman-era silver 'toilet spoon' discovered in Wales

A Roman-era silver "toilet spoon" discovered by a metal detectorist in the U.K. has been declared a "treasure" by experts.

Valentinas Avdejevas made the peculiar finding in 2020 while exploring Vale of Glamorgan, a county in Wales. He surrendered the metal artifact to the Portable Antiquities Scheme for Wales, a local authority that works directly with metal detectorists who have unearthed artifacts. The utensil is currently in the possession of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, according to a statement.

The narrow silver spoon (also known as a Roman ligula) contains a shallow, circular bowl attached to a thin, bent handle and would have been used to scoop out cosmetics and perfume from long-necked bottles. Read more.

#archaeology #archeology #wales #silver #toilet spoon #roman ligula #roman-era

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jacindaelena · 11 months

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