V.
November the Fifth, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, is much observed in Wales. ‘God grant,’ said Bishop Sanderson in one of his sermons, ‘that we nor ours ever live to see November the Fifth forgotten, or the solemnity of it silenced.’ The words are similar to those used by a great American, of the early days of the Republic, with regard to the 4th of July—God grant it might never be forgotten. But the rites by which both days are celebrated are as old as tradition, and much older than history. As the Americans have given a historical significance to bonfires and fireworks, so the English before them did to sacrificing a puppet on Guy Fawkes’ Day; and so again some Catholic nations have made the rite a religious one, in the hanging of Judas. All three customs are traced to the same original—the ancient Druidic sacrifices to the sun-god Beal or Moloch. It is noteworthy that the Fifth of November and the Fourth of July—or rather the fiery features of these days—are alike voted a nuisance by respectable and steady-going people in the countries to which they respectively belong.
VI.
On St. Clement’s Day (the 23rd of November) it was customary in Pembrokeshire in the last century to parade an effigy of a carpenter, which had been hung to the church steeple the night before. Cutting the effigy down from where it hung, the people carried it about the village, repeating loudly some doggerel verses which purported to be the last will and testament of St. Clement, distributing to the different carpenters in town the several articles of dress worn by the effigy. After the image was thus stripped of its garments, one by one, the padded remains were thrown down and carefully kicked to pieces by the crowd.
CHAPTER IV.
Nadolig, the Welsh Christmas—Bell-Ringing—Carols—Dancing to the Music of the Waits—An Evening in Carmarthenshire—Shenkin Harry, the Preacher, and the Jig Tune—Welsh Morality—Eisteddfodau—Decorating Houses and Churches—The Christmas Thrift-box—The Colliers’ Star—The Plygain—Pagan Origin of Christmas Customs.
I.
We come now to the most interesting holiday season of the year, by reason of its almost universality of observance among Christian peoples, and the variety of customs peculiar to it. In the land of Arthur and Merlin it is a season of such earnest and widespread cordiality, such warm enthusiasm, such hearty congratulations between man and man, that I have been nowhere equally impressed with the geniality and joyousness of the time. In some Catholic countries one sees more merriment on the day itself; indeed, the day itself is not especially merry in Wales, at least in its out-door aspects. It is the season rather than the day which is merry in Wales. The festival is usually understood, throughout Christendom, to include twelve days; the Welsh people not only make much of the twelve days, but they extend the peculiar festivities of the season far beyond those limits. Christmas has fairly begun in Wales a week or two before Christmas-day. The waits are patrolling the streets of Cardiff as early as December 5th, and Christmas festivals are held as early as December 19th, at which Christmas-trees are displayed, and their boughs denuded of the toys and lollipops in which the juvenile heart delights. After Christmas-day the festival continues I know not just how long, but apparently for weeks.