Antone Minard: The Mari Lwyd: Death, Beer, and Poetry in Victorian Wales
The Mari Lwyd is a distinctively South Welsh tradition where guisers lead a figure made from the skull of a horse, challenging for their right to enter. Once moribund, the tradition has revived and become a popular symbol of Welsh culture. While the individual ingredients in the ritual are not unique to Wales, the combination of elements does reveal distinctively Welsh ideas about the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it. This talk will discuss the nineteenth-century evidence for the Mari Lwyd and its parallels elsewhere in Welsh tradition and the ritual’s meaning in traditional Wales.
Bio
Antone Minard holds a PhD in Folklore and Mythology, specializing in Welsh and Breton Folklore. He currently teaches Latin and Mythology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and researches the intersection between the supernatural, cultural world and the natural world of plants and animals.
Curated and Hosted by Dr Amy Hale
Dr Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer, curator and critic, ethnographer and folklorist speaking and writing about esoteric history, art, culture, women and Cornwall. She is the author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor 2020) and is currently working on several Colquhoun related manuscripts. She is also the editor of Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave 2022). She has contributed gallery texts and essays for a number of institutions including Tate, Camden Arts Centre, Art UK, Arusha Galleries, Heavenly Records and she is a curator and host for the Last Tuesday Society lecture series.
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