With seven bright gold wires, and bugles that do shine;
Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her toe,
Open you the west door and turn the old year go;
Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her chin,
Open you the east door and let the New Year in.”
When the children entered into a house, it was customary for them to sprinkle every one of the family even in their beds with this fresh spring water, and they received a small fee for the performance.
There was a ceremony among the Druids and others in ancient times, of throwing spring water over the shoulder in order to command the attention of elemental spirits.
It is customary in some places, especially in parts of Carmarthenshire, for young men to sprinkle the young girls with water in their beds, and the young maidens in their turn sprinkle the young men, and this is sometimes done when the one upon whom water is thrown is fast asleep.
It is still customary for young men with musical instruments to visit the palaces of the gentry at early dawn, and play some of the beautiful old Welsh Airs, when they receive warm welcome and generous gifts.
Among Twelfth Night Custom, none was more celebrated in Pembrokeshire in the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth than the “cutty wren,” though there are hardly any traces of the custom in Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire. The custom was something as follows: