Bloccyn gwilian, the festival block

25 December · Wales

No longer kept

The Welsh Christmas log was called bloccyn gwilian, the festival block, and it had to be big enough to burn right through the twelve days of Christmas. If it was not, only part of it was burned each day so that it would last. Peter Roberts argued that the English word yule came from the Welsh gwyl, a festival.

so the block is at present called bloccyn gwilian, or the festival-block. It is thought essential, that this block should be large enough (beginning at one end) to burn during the twelve days

From Roberts's Cambrian Popular Antiquities, p. 133. Read the original

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Wrestling for the boar’s head No longer kept EssexAt Hornchurch the lessee of the tithes, which belonged to New College, Oxford, provided a boar's head, dressed and garnished with bay leaves, every Christmas Day.
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Bloccyn gwilian, the festival block

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