#Wales

[mydododiedandthenreactivated]

Slender

Young silver birch tree and, in the backgound, the Nantlle Ridge covered in snow.

Nantlle, Cymru, UK

[flagwars]

This is the 66th birthday of the Welsh flag being adopted! The final round of the Y Ddraig Goch Flag Wars starts tomorrow!

[immastealurkneecaps]

new/old photos of Jensen Ackles from Comic Con Wales last year

[msilverstar]

If I ever get back to Wales, I'm absolutely going to take this train! And when we travel this summer, I'm going to find a steam train, because I love it. Actually, maybe Santa Cruz still has a steam train...

can't believe there's people out there getting radicalized and watching alpha male podcasts on god's own youtube when timsvideochannel1 has two full hours of Driver's Eye View - Welsh Highland Railway (Rheilffordd Eryri) - Porthmadog to Caernarfon

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Well fucks? Get to it!

[starlightshadowsworld]

Calling all Brits on this hellsite.

We all saw Elon Musk do the nazi salute at the Trump inauguration. We know that he is influencing and fanning the flames of right wing political parties.

And that very well may include ours.

Because Elon Musk has pledged to donate $100 million to the Reform party. He has since mentioned that it might be hard to give such a large sum now.

But I don’t think we should take our chances. And I think we can agree that letting billionaires influence our countries politics is a terrible idea.

If you also agree here’s a link to a Parliament petition.

It calls for the government to remove loopholes that allow wealthy foreign individuals to make donations into UK political parties (e.g. by funnelling through UK registered companies).

As it is a parliament petition the government are required to debate it in parliament. But for that to happen it needs to reach 100,000 signatures.

Non British folk I’m afraid you guys can’t sign but I encourage you guys to reblog so that more people can see this.

[windwenn]

*jazz hands* welsh miku

[livhowlett]

It's a possibility!? I need to manifest harder!

I think Michael Sheen should be the next Doctor.

There hasn't been a Welsh Doctor yet, and who better than Michael Sheen to represent Wales.

Also, a Doctor with a beard? Yes please!

[cincinnatiburgoo]

I can’t stop laughing at this 🤣😂🤣

[runawayandhide]

[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

[mydododiedandthenreactivated]

Looking out

[illustratus]

Transept of Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire by Joseph Mallord William Turner

[alexmurison]

Little puffin just cruising on the wind