Description

Mari Lwyd
Anita Inverarity
Ink Drawing
8×10 inches Framed to13.5 x 15.5 inches
Custom framed in black wood with mount.

The Mari Lwyd is a Welsh wassailing style tradition of hazy origins but recorded first in around the late 1700’s and kept alive intermittently thereafter in South Wales.
Thought to be a revival of a lost tradition the Mari Lwyd (a mysterious and mischievous shrouded figure wearing a horse skull or mask) and various revellers would try to enter peoples houses by way of a song or verse.
There would then be a bit of a “sing off” or pwnco until the party was finally given permission to enter the home to terrorise the household and scare the children in a bizarre pantomime.
The tradition is kept alive in various Welsh villages around the winter season.
It is thought it may have moved from Samhain given the similarities to other old customs such a guising.