Folklore of Wales

1 May

Folklore from the old calendars

Guarding the bedwen No longer kept WalesIn Wales the maypole was called the bedwen, the word for a birch tree, because Owen's Welsh dictionary says it was always made of birch.
Rosemary at the maidens’ windows on May morning No longer kept WalesUntil about forty years before Trevelyan wrote, young Welshmen decked a large bunch of rosemary with white ribbons on May Day morning and set it at the bedroom window of the girl they admired.
Summer against Winter on May Day in South Wales No longer kept South WalesIn South Wales May Day was not complete without a mock battle between Summer and Winter.
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.
The Cadi and the May garland No longer kept WalesA 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.

Folklore from the old calendars

Guessing the man in green at Whitsuntide No longer kept WalesAt Whitsuntide the Welsh morris dancers were sometimes joined by a man dressed in green and entirely covered with ivy, leaves and flowers.
Nettles on the sluggard’s latch on Whit Monday No longer kept WalesEarly on Whit Monday farm boys and others went round the village with noise and song to wake the lazy, leaving a bunch of nettles tied to the latch of every sluggard's door.
Sweethearts paired for the Whit Monday dance No longer kept WalesIn the late eighteenth century, about a fortnight before Whitsun, Welsh farm boys went to a secluded spot in the woods and told each other their sweethearts' names, and the girls did the same.
The Fool and the Megen No longer kept WalesAt Whitsuntide Welsh morris dancers, nine men with ribbons on their clothes and bells at their knees, danced to the tune of Country Bumpkin.