Diary

cards on Twelfth Night, but
kept them up for a much longer
period!
The Monday after Twelfth
Night was called Plough
Monday and signified the
return to work in the fields by
the farmer and his labourers
after the Christmas break. The
Plough was taken out from
beneath the table and in some
districts carried through the
parish by youthful revellers
into the village church to be
blessed. Then youngsters, all
dressed in fancy costumes and
colourful adornment, would
noisily parade from house to
house asking for gifts of food,
drink or money. Woe betide
any tight-fisted residents if
they refused to pay up. The
ground in front of their homes
might even be ploughed or
dug up by the revellers in
revenge! Some of the money
in medieval times would be
given to the church to support
the Plough Light kept there
by the Ploughmen’s Guild.
However, since HenryVlll’s time
the money collected was given
directly to church officials to
maintain the building. Plough
Monday customs have been
revived in England since the
war. The considerable number
of inn names involving the
Plough such as “The Plough
and Harrow” in Monknash
testify to the importance of
Agriculture to the vast majority
in earlier times, and this is
also reflected in religious and
secular customs like those
mentioned above.
Over the past few years a lot of
attention has been given by the
cultural media to St. Dwynwen,
about whom I knew nothing in
my youth. However, nowadays
this unfortunate Anglesey
woman is once again being
acknowledged as the true
patron saint of Welsh lovers
like she was in the Middle Ages.
Her memory has been invoked
in modern times as well as in
various parts of Wales since
the 1960s and dances and
charity events have been held
in honour. St. Dwynwen’s
Feast Day is January 26th- a
couple of weeks before St.
Valentine’s Day. I was glad to
see that she appears in the
Oxford “Dictionary of Saints”,
where she is also said to have
been called St. Donwenna.
It is interesting to note that
Anglesey has two places
named after her and we know
that her shrine and holy well
were much visited in the Age of
Saints and later. St. Dwynwen
also appears in Welsh poetry as
the patron of true love. After
her unhappy love affair with
Maelon, she removed herself
to a nunnery to be ever free
from desire and passion.
Talking of nuns, I wonder how
many reading this article will
know that St. Bride, whose
Feast Day is held a few days
after St. Dwynwen, was the
founder of the first nunnery
in Ireland and that her special
day is held on February 1st.
Moreover St. Bride or Bridget,
the abbess of Kildare, was the
most popular saint in Ireland
after St. Patrick. She is said
to have been later reburied
with Patrick at Downpatric.
Interestingly St. Bride is also
culted in Scotland, The Isle of
Man and Wales (where a dozen
churches are dedicated to her).
In our locality there are three
St. Bride Churches, namely,
those at St. Bride’s Major and
St. Bride’s Minor near Bridgend
and St. Bride’s-super-Ely near
Cardiff. However, it is possible
that these three churches are
Norman rather than Celtic
dedications. St. Bride’s Day in
Ireland was much venerated
and work involving wheels like
carting, spinning and milling
was frowned upon. Also her
Feast Day was yet another
day when the Christmas
decorations were taken down.
Candlemas is celebrated
on February 2nd and in
Welsh was called Gwyl Fair y
Canhwyllau it is the Feast of
the Purification of Our Lady
and the Presentation of Christ
in the Temple. Before the
Reformation an important
service was held in the parish
church in which candles were
blessed and carried around the
church in solemn procession.
This symbolic importance of
the lighted candle and other
customs associated with
Candlemas survived into the
20th century. In the Vale of
Glamorgan Mari Trevelyan,
the folklorist of Llantwit Major
named a custom that predicted
a long life. Members of the
family would sit around the
table that had two candles on
it, then drink out of a goblet
or beaker and finally toss the
vessel over their heads. If it
landed upright the person who
threw it would expect to live to
a great age.
Some aspects of the Candlemas
festivities are not unlike
the Mari Lwyd for they too
comprised bardic competition,
carol singing around the
houses and frequent use of the
wassail bowl. Then in some
English villages, by contrast,
there was a custom performed
akin to the one that my friend
Ela told me about the New
Year Feast Day in Spain (see
above). In England a large
candle was placed on the table
and the family sitting around it
would eat and drink as much
as they could until the candle
went out. As for myself I can
still remember vividly my
pupils from Llanharry Primary
School regularly attending
a Candlemas Service. We
enjoyed singing “A light to
lighten the Gentiles” and
processing with lighted candles
around the church behind
Rector Glyn Williams. Thanks
to help from Mrs. Marjorie
Williams and my wife we
always tried to avoid singed
hair!
“Valentine, valentine who
art thou?” This is a difficult
question to answer; indeed
most people haven’t a clue. It
is indeed genuinely difficult
to indentify the saint, whose
Feast Day falls on February
14th or why over the centuries
Valentine became the patron
saint of lovers. Part of the
problem is that there were
two Saint Valentines, both
martyred in Roman times, and
both supposedly on February
14th. But it is nigh impossible
to link either saint with the
long-standing act of choosing a
partner of the opposite sex and
sending them a gift or message.
Some writers have seen a slight
connection for they tell us
that Saint Valentine opposed a
ban by the Emperor Claudius
ll ( 214-270) on his troops
getting married too young.
However, the Saint Valentine
tradition may have owed more
to the Roman fertility festival
called Lupercalia, when young
men and women feasted
and danced before drawing
lots to help find their future
sweethearts or partners. In the
Middle Ages people believed
that St. Valentine’s Day was
the beginning of the period
when birds began to mate. By
the late 16th century and early
17th valentines start appearing
in the work of famous writers.
John Donne (1572-1631),
the great metaphysical poet,
wrote a poem that mentioned
Bishop Valentine, his Feast
Day and the mating of birds.
Samuel Pepys, the equally
famous diarist (1633-1703)
also mentions St. Valentine
and the customs associated
with February 14th. One soon
learns when reading his Diary
that the day was celebrated
by the giving of gifts to one’s
Valentine. That person might
be someone of importance like
Lady Batten, and the gift cost
Pepys the huge sum of two
pounds. Or cheaper presents
would be bought for his
cousins or house servants. The
Diary also tells us that the first
man a woman saw on February
14th was to be her Valentine,
whether she fancied him or
not. So people like Mrs. Pepys
went around with their eyes
covered on early St. Valentine’s
Day in case the first person
that they saw displeased or
disappointed them. Again
in Pepys’ time young people
drew lots like they had in
Roman times to find out who
would be their Valentine! We
have to wait until the 18th
century for the Valentine
card to come into being. But
it was now hand-made and
often had a verse written in
it. In some parts of Wales
the local bards were asked
to compose some amorous
lines for the sender of the
card. A lot of work went into
the making of the Valentine
cards for they were decorated
with hearts, paintings, shells,
ribbons and embroidery and
must have taken a long time
to prepare. Things changed
rapidly in the Victorian Age
when the commercially-made
card appeared in the market.
One of the first to produce
the factory-made card was an
American lady from the State
of Masserchusetts. Her name
was Esther Howland (1828-
1904). She did this by creating
the New England Valentine
Company and soon her cards
were so popular in the U.S.A.
that she became known as “the
Mother of the Valentine Card”.
After the Penny Post came into
being, valentines took off and
most stationers were stocked
up well before the big day
with cards affectionate, comic,
but also waspish or downright
spiteful ones. The latter were
of course sent by jilted lovers.
For a long time the valentine
cards were more popular than
Christmas cards and, even
in the Cowbridge district,
postmen grumbled to local
journalists like Silurian about
the long distances they had to
travel to deliver them.
Reference:
A Dictionary of British Folk
Customs by Christina Hole
(1978).
The Cassell Dictionary of
Folklore by David Pickering
(1999).
Welsh Folk Customs by Trefor
M. Owen (1978).
David J. Francis
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