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Folklore of Glamorgan

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1 to 15 of 15 entries

23 January

Folklore from the old calendars

St Dwynwen’s love-spells No longer kept Anglesey, GlamorganSt Dwynwen's Day was once kept in Wales with festivities, love-spells and the giving of love-tokens, for Dwynwen was the patron saint of lovers.

17 March

Folklore from the old calendars

Smugglers’ revels on St Patrick’s Day in Glamorgan No longer kept GlamorganSt Patrick's Day was kept with revels on the Glamorgan coast, where smugglers, wreckers and dealers in contraband held high revelry in the seaboard parishes.

Easter Sunday

Folklore from the old calendars

Whitened gravestones at Neath No longer kept GlamorganIn Neath churchyard two stones marked the head and foot of each grave, and they were whitened with lime every Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide.

Easter Monday

Folklore from the old calendars

Flowers at the spring on Easter Monday No longer kept Carmarthenshire, GlamorganOn Easter Monday young men and women walked to the nearest important spring, drew water into jugs and threw flowers on the grass, stones and bushes around it.
The last-married man and the Easter stocks No longer kept Caernarfonshire, GlamorganIn Glamorgan the man most recently married before Easter led a crowd, each carrying a branch of gorse, up the highest hill after morning service on Easter Day, and there ordered every young man to be up at dawn on Easter Monday.

1 May

Folklore from the old calendars

The brown-meal cake at the Beltane fire No longer kept GlamorganIn South Glamorgan the May fire was built by nine men who had emptied their pockets of all money and metal, from sticks of nine kinds of tree, and lit by rubbing two pieces of oak together.

3 May

Folklore from the old calendars

Llantwit’s Anwyl Day and the pirate O’Neil No longer kept GlamorganOn 3 May Llantwit Major kept Llantwit's Anwyl, its darling or pet day, in memory of the capture of an Irish pirate named O'Neil.

Whit Sunday

Folklore from the old calendars

Dressing the graves at Whitsun in Glamorgan No longer kept GlamorganIn Glamorgan it was an old and general practice to plant the graves with flowers, so that many churchyards looked like rich gardens, and only sweet-scented plants were allowed: pinks, polyanthus, sweet williams, gillyflowers, carnations, mignonette, thyme, hyssop, camomile and rosemary.

Trinity Sunday

Folklore from the old calendars

Splashing at Taff’s Well after Easter No longer kept GlamorganAbout seventy years before Trevelyan wrote, the young people of the parish gathered at Taff's Well, a thermal spring a few miles above Cardiff, on the eighth Sunday after Easter.

59 days after Easter

Folklore from the old calendars

The sick at the altar on Corpus Christi Eve No longer kept GlamorganOn the eve of Corpus Christi in some Welsh parishes, people with any ailment knelt before the altar of the parish church to pray for their own and their friends' recovery, believing prayers made then could not fail.

23 June

Folklore from the old calendars

A cheese through the Midsummer fire at Newton No longer kept GlamorganOld people at Newton in Glamorgan remembered meeting at a small stone enclosure near the village well on Midsummer Eve and throwing a small cheese across through the flames of the fire.
The burning wheel in the Vale of Glamorgan No longer kept GlamorganAt Midsummer people in the Vale of Glamorgan wrapped a cart-wheel thickly in straw, pushed a pole through its centre and, at a signal, set it alight and sent it rolling down the hill.
The culm fire at Port Eynon No longer kept GlamorganAt Port Eynon in Gower the villagers gathered culm, the small coal of the district, and kept it hidden for a fire on 23 June, Midsummer Eve.

24 June

Folklore from the old calendars

A quarter-pound of pepper for Waterton Farm No longer kept GlamorganWaterton Farm near Coity, Bridgend, was held by an odd tenure: suit of court and a quarter of a pound of pepper paid to the lord of the manor.

26 August

Folklore from the old calendars

Rain on St Mary Hill Fair Day Lore and belief GlamorganA Glamorgan saying held that the weather changed completely on 26 August, St Mary Hill Fair Day, when it generally rained.

From the shop: Folklore

The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery RhymesIona Opie, Peter Opie
FolkloreOwen Davies, Ceri Houlbrook
The Fairies in Tradition and LiteratureKatharine Briggs

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