The day before the Wedding was once allotted to bringing home the “Ystafell,” or household goods and furniture, of the young couple; but these customs varied considerably in different parts of the country. The furniture of the bride, as a rule, consisted of a feather bed and bed clothes, one or two large oaken chests to keep clothes in, and a few other things; and it was customary for the bridegroom to find or provide tables, chairs, bedstead, and a dresser. The dresser was perhaps the most interesting relic of family property, and is still to be seen in Welsh farm-houses, and is greatly valued as a thing which has been an heirloom in the family for generations. It consists of two or more stages, and the upper compartments, which are open, are always decked with specimens of useful and ornamental old Welsh ware, which are getting very rare now, and people offer a high price for them as curiosities.
It was also customary on the same day for the young man and the young woman to receive gifts of various kinds, such as money, flour, cheese, butter, bacon, hens, and sometimes even a cow or a pig, also a good many useful things for house-keeping. This was called “Pwrs a Gwregys”—a purse and a girdle. But these gifts were to be re-paid when demanded on similar occasions; and, upon a refusal, were even recoverable by law; and sometimes this was done.
About a hundred years ago, and previous to that date, the day before the wedding, as a rule, was allotted to the “Ystafell,” or bringing home of the furniture, etc.; but more recently it became the custom to appoint a day for that purpose at other times in some districts, that is, it took place whenever the young married couple went to live at a house of their own; this would be perhaps three or six months after the wedding. In Wales it is very common to see a young married couple among the farmers remaining with the parents of the young man, or with the young wife’s parents until it is a convenient time for them to take up a farm of their own.
I have already noticed that these customs varied in different parts of the country. In some districts, the day preceding the Wedding was a great time for feasting, whilst in other localities people came together to drink for the benefit of the young couple, and when cakes were prepared for the Neithior which was to follow the wedding on the next day.
THE WEDDING DAY.
At the present time, Welsh people marry on any day of the week, but about fifty years ago Wednesday was a favourite day in some places, and Friday in other places. I am writing more especially, of course, of West Wales. Indeed, in some parishes old men informed me that when they were young they did not remember any one marrying, except on a Friday. This fact, undoubtedly, is likely to surprise many English readers, who regard Friday as an unlucky day for anything.
Meyrick, writing about one hundred years ago in his History of Cardiganshire, says Saturday was the Wedding Day, and other writers mention the same thing, and it is evident that Saturday was the day on which most people did marry, except in a few districts, about three generations ago, as well as in older times. Whether this day, that is, Saturday, was commonly fixed upon from a belief that it was a lucky day for marriage, or from the convenience of Sunday intervening between it and a working day, is rather difficult to know, but it seems that the following old English Marrying Rhyme was either unknown to the Welsh, or that they did not give heed to it:—
To marry on
“Monday wealth, Tuesday for health,