Here’s another view of the horse skull I drew yesterday evening at the little Zoology Museum at Swansea University’s Wallace Building. The Mari Lwyd (Grey Mare) tradition in South Wales centres around a horse skull, which is made into a lifesize puppet and decorated with flowers, bells and ribbons. It’s paraded around on the night of Hen Galan – the Old New Year – as part of a ritual that goes back thousands of years to the ancient Celtic horse goddess Epona, also know as Rhiannon in Wales.
This is quite interesting. The only reference I’ve ever encountered to Rhiannon was the song of the same name by Fleetwood Mac back in the 70’s. It’s full of bird references but no horses…Wonder how they came up with that title?
Oh yes, a lovely song. It’s a very popular girl’s name in Wales so maybe one of the British band members came up with the name?