Mae Mari Lwyd Yma!

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I turned up at the Clock Tower just before 6pm on a wet and windy evening - but soon the musicians started to appear. Thomasin and the Speedgums were there, and someone with a violin, and a clarinet, and a chap with a stringed instrument I couldn't identify - not a guitar, and I don't think it was a mandolin? Justin had wrapped his guitar in a plastic bag, and found that he could play through the bag!
And along came Mari Lwyd, snapping the jaws of the horse's skull, wrapped in a white sheet.
We were given song sheets. There I am in the background, singing in Welsh! Catherine Kramer took the photo:

I said to her later that this was the Welshest thing I'd ever done in Hay!*

There was a song for when the Mari Lwyd arrives at the door of a house - or pub - demanding beer. There was Calon Lan and Sospan Fach, and a couple of hymns (the words Iesu and Calvari were a dead give away, and I also recognised some of the tunes).
We sang at the Clock Tower first, then headed for the Three Tuns, where we sang three songs, took a break for drinks, and then gathered round the piano to sing some of the hymns.
Then it was onwards to Tomatitos, but first we stopped outside the Bookshop Cinema, where Haydn was working behind the bar, so he could come out and listen to us sing (and join in!). Haydn is running Welsh classes at the Three Tuns, and he has about thirty people interested so far. I'd like to learn Welsh properly, but at the moment it would take more time and effort than I am able to commit to.
We sang three songs at Tomatitos, and then headed to Kilverts - where there was only one person in the bar! We soon filled it, and sang, and bought beer - the Wadworths Swordfish is infused with rum, so perfect for a wet and windy night (the name refers to the biplane, not an actual fish). There was much conversation in Welsh, some of which I understood, and I found myself explaining the Mari Lwyd tradition to a visitor from London, who had come with a lady from Abergavenny (I think it was). There was also a lady there who wanted to join a choir - she'd recently moved to Hay, and wanted something to take her out of the house in the evenings, so I pointed her in the direction of Catherine Kramer.
The whole evening was brilliant fun, and I hope they do it again next year - I'll take my tambourine along! Catherine also said something about organising some singing for St David's Day, but she wasn't sure about a venue for it.

*It's not the Welshest thing I've ever done - that would be a trip to Corwen in North Wales with the Welsh chapel from Rhosllanerchrugog that my gran belonged to (she didn't speak Welsh, but loved the singing). It was the first time I'd been to an event which was entirely in Welsh, and I knew that I was privileged to be there, because it was something that most English people in the 1970s would never have experienced.