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The Mari Lwyd is a wassailing folk custom found in South Wales. The tradition entails the use of an eponymous hobby horse which is made from a horse's skull mounted on a pole and carried by an individual hidden under a sackcloth. It represents a regional variation of a "hooded animal" tradition that appears in various forms throughout Britain. As recorded from the early nineteenth through to the early twentieth centuries, the Mari Lwyd was a tradition performed at Christmas time by groups of men. They would form into teams to accompany the horse on its travels around the local area, and although the makeup of such groups varied, they typically included an individual to carry the horse, a leader, and individuals dressed as stock characters such as Punch and Judy. The team would then carry the Mari Lwyd to local houses, where they would request entry through the medium of song. The householders would be expected to deny them entry, again through song, and the two sides would continue their responses to one another in this means. If the householders eventually relented, then the team would be permitted entry to the house and given food and drink. Although the custom was given various names, it was best known as the ''Mari Lwyd''; the etymology of this term remains the subject of academic debate. The folklorist Iorwerth C. Peate believed that the term meant "Holy Mary" and thus was a reference to the Virgin Mary, while fellow folklorist E. C. Cawte thought it more likely that the term had originally meant "Grey Mare", thus referring to the heads' equine appearance. ==Description== The Mari Lwyd itself consists of a horse's skull that is decorated with ribbons and affixed to a pole; to the back of the skull is attached a white sheet, which drapes down to conceal both the pole and the individual carrying this device.〔Hole, Christina (1978). ''A Dictionary of British Folk Customs'', pp185–187, Paladin Granada, ISBN 0-586-08293-X〕 On occasion, the horse's head was represented not by a skull but was instead made from wood or even paper. In some instances, the horse's jaw was able to open and close as a result of string or lever attached to it, and there are accounts of pieces of glass being affixed into the eye sockets of some examples, representing eyes.〔 The Mari Lwyd custom was performed during festivities around Christmas time and New Year, although the precise date on which this was done varied. There is a unique example provided by an account from Gower in which the head was kept buried throughout the year, only being dug up for use during the Christmas period. The custom used to begin at dusk and often lasted late into the night.〔 Now it may start earlier in the day (as at Llangynwyd, where it begins at 2pm on New Year's Day).〔 The Mari party consisted of four to seven men, who often had coloured ribbons and rosettes attached to their clothes and sometimes wore a broad sash around the waist.〔 There was usually a "Leader", smartly dressed, who carried a staff or stick, or a whip, and sometimes other stock characters, such as the "Merryman" who played music, and Punch and Judy (both played by men) with blackened faces; often brightly dressed, Punch carried a long metal poker and Judy had a besom broom. The Mari Lwyd party would approach a house and sing a song in which they requested admittance. The inhabitants of the house would then offer excuses for why the team could not enter. The party would sing a second verse, and the debate between the two sides – known as the ''pwngco'' – would continue until the house's inhabitants ran out of ideas, at which they were obliged to allow the party entry and provide them with ale and food. An account from Nantgarw described such a performance, in which the Punch and Judy characters would cause a noise, with Punch tapping the ground to the rhythm of the music and rapping on the door with a poker, while Judy brushed the ground, house walls, and windows, with a broom. The householders had to make Punch promise that he would not touch their fireplace before he entered the building, otherwise it was the local custom that before he left he would rake out the fire with his poker. Once inside, the entertainment continued with the Mari running around neighing and snapping its jaws, creating havoc, frightening children and (perhaps even adults) while the Leader pretended to try to restrain it. The Merryman played music and entertained the householders.〔 Peate believed that in recorded examples from Glamorganshire it was apparent that the Mari Lwyd custom had become "indistinguishable" from the practice of wassailing, although added that there were still some examples of wassailing that did not involve the Mari Lwyd. He added that links between Mari Lwyd and wassailing were also apparent from recorded examples in other part of Wales, thus opining that Mari Lwyd represented a variant of the wider wassailing custom that was found throughout Britain. Hoodening was part of a wider "hooded animal" tradition that the folklorist E. C. Cawte identified as existing in different forms in various parts of Britain. Features common to these customs were the use of a hobby horse, the performance at Christmas time, a song or spoken statement requesting payment, and the use of a team who included a man dressed in women's clothing. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mari Lwyd」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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