The Cadi and the May garland

A correspondent told Hone that labouring people in Wales still kept the May dance, and for a fortnight beforehand the talk of the village was who would dance, who would carry the garland and who would be the Cadi. The garland was a frame on a pole hung with borrowed silver spoons and watches and crowned with a cup or tankard, and it spent May Eve at the farm that had lent the most. The Cadi, half in man’s and half in woman’s clothes with a mask or blackened face, led the dancers from farm to farm with a ladle, clowning and collecting money.