Traditional plygain singing. Photo of Parti Llanrhaeadr taken in Dolanog by John Tegwyn Roberts on 30 Jan. 1973 © National Museum of Wales

Customs Mari Lwyd, calennig, plygain ... this is a page of Welsh Christmas and New Year customs, illustrated with photographs from the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans near Cardiff.

o Plygain - singing from 3-6am on Christmas Day
o Making taffy - a Christmas Eve custom
o Mari Lwyd - the grey mare that brings good luck
o Make a Mari Lwyd - with a horse's skull
o Wassail - before mulled wine and punch, there was this
o Calennig - trick or treat Welsh style
o Make your own calennig - for New Year's Day
o Hunting the wren - on Twelfth Night

PLYGAIN
In the dark hours on the morning of Christmas Day, before the cockerel crowed, men gathered in rural churches to sing. They sang mainly unaccompanied, three or four part harmony carols in a service that went on for three hours or so. That's Plygain.
This is a tradition which still thrives in parts of mid Wales.

Listen to some Plygain sining...

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TAFFY
Got a sweet tooth? Why not re-live an old Welsh custom this Christmas? Taffy-making.
This is how families whiled away the dark hours of Christmas Eve's night, leading up to the Plygain service.
Toffee was boiled in pans on open fires and - this is a nice twist - dollops were dropped into icy cold water. The taffy curled into all sorts of shapes - like letters. This was a way of divining the initials of the younger, unmarried family members' future loves.

Would you like a recipe for taffy?

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MARI LWYD
Imagine hearing a knock on your door around Christmas and being challenged to a battle of rhyming insults by a man with a scary horse with a skull-head. That's the Mari Lwyd - Grey Mare - a pre-Christian custom that's still acted out in parts of Wales.

Listen to an account of the Mari Lwyd tradition...

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Llangynwyd Mari Lwyd 1904-10. © National Museum of Wales

MAKE A MARI LWYD

Making your own Mari Lwyd could be tricky, as you'll need to get hold of a horse's skull and jaw. (However, it may be possible to improvise with polystyrene or cardboard instead). Stick on false ears, plug big shiny glass marbles into the eye sockets and give the head a mane of ribbons. Stick the head on to a broom handle, hold on to it and wrap a white sheet - just long enough to reach the ground - around yourself so the head sticks out at the top. Hold on to the broom handle and clack the Mari Llwyd's jaw against the top of the skull as you go from door to door, visiting your friends this Christmas and New Year.

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Wassail bowl of green glazed Ewenny ware, c 1910. © National Museum of Wales

WASSAIL

This is a tradition that went hand-in-hand with Mari Lwyd and other Christmas get-togethers. Just as we drink mulled wine and punch at Christmas and New Year parties nowadays, a Welsh Christmas at the turn of the century involved drinking from the wassail bowl. These bowls were often elaborate, ornate and many-handled. The bowl was filled with fruit, sugar, spices and topped up with warm beer. As it was passed around, the drinkers would make a wish for a successful year's farming and a bumper crop at harvest time.

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CALENNIG
Was trick or treat invented in Wales?
Well, for centuries here in Wales, something very similar has been going on. Not at Hallowe'en, but on New Year's Day. Ever heard of calennig?
From dawn until noon on New Year's Day, all around Wales, groups of young boys would go from door to door, carrying three-legged totems, chanting rhymes, splashing people with water and asking for calennig - gifts of small change.

Listen to some Calennig rhymes and to an explanation of this tradition...

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Hel calennig. Photo taken 1906-14 by Frederic Evans, Llangynwyd. © National Museum of Wales

MAKE YOUR OWN CALENNIG

Take three short sticks - as long as lollipop sticks - and stick them into the bottom of an apple, as if they were stool legs. Now pepper the apple all round, hedgehog-style, with cloves, almonds, corn ears, etc. Stick a sprig of holly and a candle in the top of the calennig. Come New Year's Day, you'll be ready to play your part in making sure this ancient Welsh tradition doesn't die out.

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HUNTING THE WREN
On Twelfth Night in Wales, groups of men would go out Hunting the Wren. The tiny bird would be caged in a wooden box and carried from door to door. Householders would pay for the privilege of peeping at the poor wren in the box.

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