Making the Mari Lwyd

If ye the ‘oodened ‘orse do feed, the rest of the year, ye shall not need.

Whether you call her the Mari Lwyd, ‘oodening horse or the ‘oby ‘orse, she lurks at the edges of our wintery imagination. She is a horse skull that is paraded from home to home during Yule chasing out ill luck and giving children a fun fright. Drinks and food are given to her attendants to ensure good luck and fertility of the land for the coming year. Come create a realistic cardboard Mari to bring this tradition home for Yule. While crafting, we will meet a real Mari Lwyd and look at historic photos. As we move onto decorating we will enjoy a glass of Wassail and discuss the Mari Lwyd,wassailing and other british isle christmas traditions in depth. We will discuss how to incorporate these old traditions into our own Yule celebrations, practice moving with the Mari lwyd, and discuss techniques for working with the skull and connecting to the Mari Lwyd spirit. Finally, we will try our hand at Pwnco verses (think folk rap battle) and sing some wassailing songs.

What you get in this workshop

Make a cardboard mari lywd

Learn how to do transe work with skulls/puppets

Learn history of horse and pole tradition

Discuss how to bring these traditions into you own yule celebrations

Sing wassailing songs and try to improvise a pwnco