#Wales

[mydododiedandthenreactivated]

Looking out

[rokonrrc2]

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*jazz hands* welsh miku

[admiral-morgana]

50/50 split on if a poem back and forth followed or an absolute blood bath

[official-wales]

hi! i am unfortunately an American (booooo) and am very interested in wales and welsh culture (autism sees welsh shit and says !!!!!!!!) is there any books or anything you recommend to learn abt wales?

is there anything i should be worried about doing thats bad? the last thing i wanna do is upset real people or like fetishize welsh culture and shit. i just wanna learn abt yall

( and also maybe live there one day because i am not staying in this hellhole)

also i saw Nye in theatres and it ruled it was so good

SHWMAE! YOU HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE :D

Honestly, the main things to remember if you're worried about offending people is 1) we're not England, and 2) we don't all watch Gavin and Stacey, please if another person asks me about Barry Island, I'm going to commit violence

I don't have any specific book recommendations, but I'd definitely recommend looking into the Welsh language if you haven't already. With any celtic language, it's important to respect it as a language in its own right, especially since they're quite different to what English-speakers 'expect' (i.e. different pronunciations, structure and spellings, almost as if it's not English!)

As it's almost Christmas, you could have a look into Mari Lwyd as well - a Welsh Victorian wassailing tradition where a horse skull on a stick demands entry into your home to drink your alcohol (not a mythical cryptid, sorry). Very fun.

Two films which are really good and focus on Welsh life are Twin Town and Pride. Twin Town's set in Swansea (South Wales) about two brothers who terrorise the city. The only reason I mention it is because my old science teacher played any extra in one of the scenes. Pride is based on a true story about the lesbian and gay supporters of the Welsh miners' strike in 1984. Very emotional.

If anyone could comment below with book or documentary recommendations, that would be great!

And, because I'm Stereotypical Wales Incarnate, here's some YouTube videos! As a treat.

[invisibleicewands]

A Fireside Chat with Michael Sheen - 21/12/2024

[1939-wizard-of-oz]

Celtic Warriors in Scotland or Neandertal women in Alps mountains ?

What is your hypothesis ?

[156km]

Snowdonia National Park, Wales

[gr3y-heron-art]

The Ghost of Christmas Past

I saw a stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol in Cardiff recently, and their version of the ghost of Christmas past was so beautiful I had to paint it. She sang beautifully in Welsh as well, which is something I wish I could also capture in the painting.

[click on the image for higher quality!]

[cincinnatiburgoo]

I can’t stop laughing at this 🤣😂🤣

[runawayandhide]

[mydododiedandthenreactivated]

Copper carpet

[celestial-kestrel]

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

[maureen2musings]

North Wales

itsrachelhannah

[illustratus]

Transept of Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire by Joseph Mallord William Turner

[official-wales]

im like 1% welsh!! hurrah!!!!!!! wales and that sick ass flag for life!!!! can you tell me some fun wales facts or fun whale facts maybe even welsh whales facts

Wales has four UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Blaenavon Industrial Landscape, Castle and Town Walls of King Edward I in Gwynedd, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales

The Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913) first sailed from Cardiff on the 15th June 1910, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott. They wanted to complete previous scientific research and get to the South Pole before the Norwegians (spoilers, they didn't make it :( )

There are whales in Wales! The most common are minke whales and fin whales in Pembrokeshire, but a humpback whale was seen recently near Fishguard too

Y Ddraig Goch only became the official flag in 1959, but the flag and dragon imagery has been used for hundreds of years

It would take roughly 9133 blue whales nose to tail to take up the same length as Wales (274km, average blue whale 30m in length)