I.
Wearing mourning throughout Lent was formerly common in Wales. In Monmouthshire, Mothering Sunday—the visiting of parents on Mid-Lent Sunday—was observed in the last century, but is nowhere popular in Wales at present. Palm Sunday takes precedence among the Welsh, and is very extensively and enthusiastically observed. The day is called Flowering Sunday, and its peculiar feature is strewing the graves of the dead with flowers. The custom reaches all classes, and all parts of the Principality. In the large towns, as Cardiff, many thousands of people gather at the graves. The custom is associated with the strewing of palms before Christ on his entry into Jerusalem, but was observed by the British Druids in celebration of the awakening life of the earth at this season.
II.
In Pembrokeshire, it was customary up to the close of the last century, to walk barefoot to church on Good Friday, as had been done since times prior to the Reformation. The old people and the young joined in this custom, which they said was done so as not to ‘disturb the earth.’ All business was suspended, and no horse nor cart was to be seen in the town.
Hot-cross buns also figured in a peculiar manner at this time. They were eaten in Tenby after the return from church. After having tied up a certain number in a bag, the folk hung them in the kitchen, where they remained till the next Good Friday, for use as medicine. It was believed that persons labouring under any disease had only to eat a portion of a bun to be cured. The buns so preserved were used also as a panacea for all the diseases of domestic animals. They were further believed to be serviceable in frightening away goblins of an evil sort.
That these buns are of Christian invention is the popular belief, and indeed this notion is not altogether exploded among the more intelligent classes. Their connection with the cross of the Saviour is possible by adoption—as the early Christians adopted many pagan rites and customs—but that they date back to pre-historic times there is abundant testimony.
Innumerable are the superstitious customs and beliefs associated with Good Friday. In Pembrokeshire there was a custom called ‘making Christ’s bed.’ A quantity of long reeds were gathered from the river and woven into the shape of a man. This effigy was then stretched on a wooden cross, and laid in some retired field or garden, and left there.
The birth of a child on that day is very unlucky—indeed a birth on any Friday of the whole year is to be deprecated as a most unfortunate circumstance.