Lyr Add: Welsh Mari Lwyd/Wassail Song

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Welsh Mari Lwyd/Wassail Song
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 07:37 PM

Mari Lwyd in Baltimore at our Wassail this year for photos and information go to the blog
http://baltimorewassail.blogspot.com/
Baltimore Wassail and Mari Lwyd

Conrad

Subject: Lyr Add: Y WASSAEL
From: GUEST,Mick Tems
Date: 30 Dec 00 - 11:52 AM

Sorry to be almost a year late joining this thread! Still, it's a particularly suitable time as the Mari Lwyd will be going out tonight and tomorrow night.

Y WASSAEL is a part of the Mari Lwyd ceremony; it is the entry song used by the Mari party at the end of the pwnco (the rhyming challenges). To see the tradition done in this way, go to the Old House in Llangynwyd on New Year's Day at around 2pm.

In other places where the pwnco has died away, Y Wassael is used as the leaving song, when the party are saying goodbye to their hosts. With slight variants, the words are always very similar to this:

Wel dyma enw'r feinwen
Sy'n codi gyda seren (this couplet repeated)
A hon yw'r washael fawr ei chlod
Sy'n caru bod yn llawen.

Dymunwn i'ch' lawenydd
I gynnal blwyddyn newydd (x2)
Tra paro gwr yn dincian cloch
Well, well yn boch chwi beinydd. (x2)

Ffarweliwch, foneddigion,
Ni gawsom croeso ddigon (x2)
Bendith Duw fo ar eich tai
A phob rhyw rhai o'ch ddynion (x2).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Welsh Mari Lwyd/Wassail Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 10:36 PM

For more about the Mari Lwyd (Grey Mare), and related Old Horse traditions in Wales, see Mick Tems' Mari Arts site,    here.

Malcolm

Subject: Welsh Mari Lwyd/Wassail Song
From: GUEST,Conrad Bladey
Date: 22 Jan 00 - 12:06 PM

I have finally found tune used for the "Y Wassael" recorded by Iona. I have not found a song by that name anywhere. The tune is qute similar with the Iona version deviating a bit changing the feel of the music at least from that of this version. It is not really appropriate to mix Mari Lwyd traditions with those of Wassail despite the fact that folks go door to door etc...there is much more to Mari Lwyd than that. I have included the song none the less as an example of a related tradition..... There are other Welsh (Gower etc.) Wassail songs- those which actually use the word and do not involve Mari Lwyd. I do not have the lyrics for the Iona version (On: Nutmeg and Ginger) but if their's is this same Mari Lwyd song they should not have called it a Wassael but even in the source I found the title was translated to Wassail Song. So the edges blur which is what we would expect them to in such a genre..... Almost forgot....sorry about accents....they are yet to come. I wonder if windows 98 has a Welsh keyboard...

Anyway you will find the midi and abc and notation on the Wassail epicenter. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5567/wassail.html

(Mari Lwyd)=Blessed Mary Wel,dyma nin dwad Gyfeillion diniwad, Wel, dym nin dwad, Gyfeillion diniwad, I ofyn cawn gennad, I ofyn cawn genad, I I ofyn cawn gennad I ganu (Ateb) Rhoweh glywed wyr dothion, Pa faint ych o ddynion, A pheth yn wch union Yw'ch enwau? (Mai Lwyd) Os na chawn ni gennad Rhowch glywed ar ganiad Pa fodd mae'r 'madawiad Nos heno. (Ateb) Does gen i ddim cinio Nac arian i'w gwario I wenud i chwi roeso Nos heno

See, here be we coming Six mummers a-mumming To sing, if becoming, Our carol Good luck to your labours Your pipes and your tabors; But frist tell me, neighbours, Who be you? In song you must quell us, Good fellow, or tell us How you can compel us To leave you! Then Stay; but I fear, Sirs You'll never find help here, Sirs, Or money or beer, Sirs, To cheer you -English Metrical version Sir H.I. Bell, From "Old Welsh Folk-Songs"

-Source=Caneuon Traddodiadol Y Cymry (Traditional Songs of the Welsh)., W.S. Gwynn Williams, Gwynn, LLangollen,N.Wales,1961.
"Carol or penillion sung at Christmas-tide in Gwent and Morganwg, in the old pastime called "Mari Lwyd". LLangollen (Eisteddfod) MS (1858). It was understoodthat the carol singers could demand food and liquor at any house where one of the inmates could not answer each of their stanzas with another. "This type of song was common all over Wales.  There is a large collection of the Anglesey ones in the British Museum.  "Mari Lwyd" was merely a S. Wales variant of a custom common throughout the country."-J.H. Davies (J.W.E.S.S., Vol.1,Part 1(1909 No.9)
Also may be  known as: Y Wassael

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