History of Mari Lwyd
Yuletide blessings from Mari Lwyd and Miss PJ! The skeletal Welsh Christmas horse Mari Lloyd is a wassailing (festive drinking) tradition in which those who carry the horse from door to door sing riddles in demand for cider, beer, mulled wine, or what have you to do for a cup of holiday cheer. 🥂
The origins of Mari Lwyd are debated among folklorists. Why? There is not much linguistic history available on Old Welsh as a result of the English laws that long forbade any native British language. British isles school children were literally physically tortured for several generations until recently for speaking their ancestral languages including Welsh and both Irish and Scots Gaelic. Resultantly, etymological links to the literal translation of Mari Lwyd as simply “gray mare” is only able to be hypothesized rather than proved. The folkloric associations with Mother Mary as recorded by early 20th century Welsh poet and historian Cyfeiliog are hypotheses as well. It is likely both aspects may hold simultaneous truths. Cyfeiliog, the importance of whose work in documenting Welsh folk traditions cannot be overstated, interviewed locals of South Wales who had many variations on their stories about this custom and found repeating tales about Mari Lwyd being the spirit of a pregnant mare who, according to myth, walked from her stall in the stable on her own to allow Virgin Mary to lie down and birth Jesus. Some lyrics of versions of the songs sang when casting Mari Lwyd playfully hint to seeking to awake that spirit of Christmas compassion with a revelrous tone.
Although several cloaked animal skull figures popularly feature throughout pagan British history Mari Lwyd is rather absent from any surviving medieval accounts among these. That is not to say definitively that Mari Lwyd cavorted about no earlier than the 1800 date commonly given considering centuries of real effort to erase such traditions. In fact throughout the 1980-90s as part of that era’s “Satanic Panic” Mari Lwyd was highly discouraged as a pagan act even by English secularists simply because it looked “tacky”.
I created Mari Lwyd line work for my sugar guardians (only!) to color as well on my Patreon