Roamer: Old yuletide custom of horsing about with dem dry bones

But a photograph which he took recently on a ramble near his Welsh country home is the absolute opposite of cute. It’s a horse’s skeleton, and amazingly, it’s reminiscent of a Celtic Yuletide tradition, as Martin now explains:

It is late December and coal black outside. You are cheered by the glow from the fireplace as the wind squalls and rattles at your window pane. Your first sherry of the season has just hit the spot and all seems right with the world.

An urgent knock startles you from your reverie!

With trepidation you go to the front door and an icy gust rushes in as it creaks open. In the dim light spilling from your hallway you come face-to-face with the bone-chilling spectacle of a horse’s skull.

Its gaping eye sockets glare at you with menace from atop its white gown. With a clatter and a creak it’s skeletal jaw jerks open and the ‘thing’ starts to sing at you.

It’s south Wales and you’ve been visited by the Mari Lwyd!

This wassailing folk tradition is rooted somewhere in the swirling mists of time. The horse’s skull is decorated with ribbons, is operated by a man concealed by the cloak and is accompanied by a small band of brightly-dressed singers wearing sashes and rosettes.

Mari Lwyd (pronounced ‘marry luid’) literally means ‘grey mare’ - though the precise etymology, as per its history, is quietly undecided.

The tradition goes that Mari Lwyd will sing to you - or in some versions, metrically rhyme with you - to request admission to your house.

You must sing back with reasons why this band of minstrels cannot enter. The Mari Lwyd will sing another verse, even more determined, which you must counter with an additional verse of your own.

These exchanges are often filled with innuendo and insults. When the occupier of the house ultimately loses this battle of wits and runs out of valid excuses they are obliged to allow the Mari Lwyd and its band to enter for ale and food.

This barter of improvised verse or song by way of debate is called a ‘pwnco’ (pronounced poon-koh) and is widespread in Celtic folk traditions.

One such version would be north west Scotland’s ‘Blue Men of the Minch’ myth whilst a modern equivalent may be found in ultra-contemporary ‘battle rap’.

Once inside the house, the Mari Lwyd lopes around neighing and snapping its jaws, creating a commotion and likely frightening the kids, if not the adults.

The leader of the band pretends to try to restrain the beast.

As often as not the members of the band are paid off with food or money, just to get them out of the house!

Who needs carol singers when you can have a ghostly singing horse’s skeleton creating havoc about your home?

The Mari Lwyd tradition peaked before the turn of the 20th century and then faded somewhat but never quite went away.

There has been a huge revival of the custom, mostly in the south west of Wales but increasingly over the rest of the country, often in pubs.

And so it came about that towards the end of a long day’s hike across the spine-like back of the Black Mountains in Wales, we came across a rather long-deceased horse.

These remote uplands, bordering on to Herefordshire, England, are home to many Welsh Mountain Ponies.

Completely untamed, they are free to roam, graze the moors, breed and ultimately die up there.

Such a sight would rightly elicit revulsion, or at least sighs of sympathy. from most passers-by but the group of walkers I was with spotted the opportunity for a new ‘hobby-horse’ Mari Lwyd of our own.

A DIY kit if you like, and we would have detached the skull there and then but for being beaten back by the appalling stench.

Our mental note to pick it up, less smelly, next time, will probably come to nought as someone else will likely find and disassemble it and before very long it may well chill the bones of some unsuspecting homeowner answering his door to a late-night Yuletide knock!

For more on TPAS see telegraphpoleappreciationsociety.org