The History of Wales

 

In Wales, Calan Mai or Calan Haf was a time for celebration and festivities as it signified the beginning of summer.

* Wales has a wealth of May Day customs and traditions. Many date from the time of the Druids, such as the lighting of fires for Beli Mawr, the Celtic god of fire andsun, purification, science, fertility, crops and success. This is commonly known as the festival of Beltaine.

* 'Spirit nights', or ysprydnos, took place on May Eve. It was a night when the world of the supernatural was closest to the real world.

* May Day was the point in the year when herds would be turned out to pasture.

* Villagers would gather hawthorn branches and flowers to decorate the outside of their houses to celebrate the new growth and fertility of the new season, but it was believed to be unlucky to bring them into the house

* The maypole played a central role in Welsh May Day tradition. In South Wales, it was called 'codi'r fedwen' (raising the birch). The maypole was brightly painted and the dancers would wrap ribbons around it, then it would be raised and the dancing would begin. In North Wales it was called 'y gangen haf' (the summer branch), and was often decorated with silver watches and spoons. Young men dressed in white and decorated with ribbons would sing and dance around it as it was carried by another man called the Cadi.

* May Day was the time that the twmpath chwarae (the village green) was opened, where villagers would gather in the evenings to dance and play sports. A mound was prepared and decorated with oak branches, on top of which a fiddler or harpist would sit and play.

* A 12th century poem celebrating Calan Haf, welcoming the new season:

The beginning of summer, fairest season;

Noisy are the birds, green the woods,

The ploughs are in the furrow, the ox at work,

Green the sea, the lands are many-coloured.