“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and
on earth peace among those whom he favors.” (Luke
2:14)
I guess every family has a Christmas tradition or two, and lots of these traditions may go back to the Old Country. My late dad was—as I am—very proud of the Griffiths family’s Welsh heritage. Every Advent, usually beginning with the day after Thanksgiving, the Old Man would put his Christmas music on the stereo and take over the kitchen to make Welsh cakes. If you’ve never eaten a Welsh cake, it’s kind of hard for me to describe them. They’re somewhere between a pancake and a scone. People in Wales eat them all year round, but my dad only made them at Christmas. He’d make them by the gross, give them away to neighbors and folks at church, and usually consume a large number of them himself. It was our family tradition, and, to me, whenever I eat a Welsh cake, it tastes like Christmas.
The Welsh have another tradition which is celebrated during the twelve days of Christmas. It’s the procession of the Mari Lwyd. Of all European Christmas traditions, I have to confess that this is one of the silliest. It involves putting the skull of a horse on a long stick (like a broom stick). The skull is then decorated with ribbons for a mane and colorful buttons or stones for eyes. The one who carries the Mari Lwyd is wrapped in a white sheet, and the whole thing takes on a weird—and rather grotesque—ghostly appearance. Revelers dress in fancy dress and process from house to house with the Mari Lwyd rather like the wassail tradition in next-door England. They knock on neighbor’s doors and request to be let in. The request is supposed to be made in verse or song. The neighbor always responds in the negative, traditionally with a rejoinder similar to, “Bugger off, you drunk fools, and take that bloody thing with you! You’re scaring the kiddies!” At which reply the revelers challenge the householder to a rhyming or musical contest, which the host always loses and must then invite the Mari Lwyd and its attendant buffoons into his or her house for food and drink. Hey. It’s Christmas, right?
This festive tradition is so bizarrely whimsical that only my ancestral people would’ve thought it up. The Mari Lwyd is first mentioned around 1800, but nobody seems to know how the tradition began and can’t even take a vague stab at why it did. Personally, I think two 18th century Welshman got drunk one night and one said, “Hey, Owen! Why don’t we put a horse skull on a pole and annoy our neighbors with it?” His boyo replied, “Brilliant, Ivor! Let’s do it!” That makes about as much sense as any other explanation, don’t you think? All I can say is every silly thing any of us has ever done must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time.
There’s a folk legend that says the Mari Lwyd (which translates as Grey Mare) was in foal in the stable in Bethlehem and was forced out of her comfortable straw-filled stall to make room for Mary and Joseph. She then had to wander around looking for a safe, welcome place to have her baby. The story is said to represent the forcing out of ancient pagan or Druid beliefs by Christianity.
I’m skeptical about such an explanation. Luckily, this is a folk ritual. As such, it can be modified, embellished, amended, and altered in any way a talented bard might wish to tell it. I therefore offer my own version of the Legend of the Mari Lwyd.
Once upon a time in the little town of Bethlehem Mari, a beautiful grey mare belonging to an innkeeper, was resting in the warm straw of her stall in a stable just outside the inn. She was carrying her third foal and was expectantly waiting to give birth. She looked forward to licking the wet off her baby and watching him—or maybe her—take those first tentative steps on spindly legs. It was night now and very quiet. All day the stable had been annoyingly alive with the comings and goings and noisy talking of the two-legged ones. So many travelers were coming to the inn, each looking to stable their donkey, horse, or ox. Some brought animals with which they would pay their taxes, and these sheep and goats were also crowded into the stable, bleating and braying and making no end of fuss which Mari, being an expectant mother, was not in any mood to hear.
But now it was night. A peaceful silence fell over the stable. A slice of moonshine shown in through the open door, and Mari could see it was a calm, cool evening. From where she lay, she could even make out a few stars shining through the opening. This would be a splendid night for her newest little one to be born. But I must wait, she thought. I don’t feel the little one is coming just yet. Perhaps I shall go to sleep.
But just as she was closing her eyes, she heard again the loud voices of the two-legged ones and saw the unnatural gleam of a lamplight heading into the stable. What now? Mari thought. Two two-legs were coming into the stable. They looked cold and tired. The male held the lantern and was shining it every which way as if searching for something. The other animals were soon awake and took to making all manner of disagreeable noises. The female seemed frightened.
Mari sensed something about the female—she was also in foal, and it seemed her birthing time would be very soon. It occurred to her that the male was searching for a place where his female might lie down and give birth. But there was no room. Every stall was filled.
Mari thought to herself, I’m certainly not going to give up my nice straw bed. This is MY stall and MY manger. But as she looked again at the frightened female, her heart began to soften. Poor two-leg, she thought. She’s so small and so weak. I’m much stronger than she is. When MY foal is born, he’ll be standing and walking and nuzzling me for milk that very hour. Her baby will be hairless and helpless. It will be cold, and she will need to wrap it in bands of cloth to keep it warm and keep its legs straight. It won’t be able to walk or even stand and will need all her attention.
So Mari made a decision. With great effort—for she had grown very large with this new foal—she hoisted herself up on her four hooves. She snorted and shook her grey head as she did so, which seemed to frighten the female two-leg even more. But Mari moved ever so slowly toward her, lowered her head, and nuzzled the female’s cheek as if to say, “I understand. Mother-to-mother.” Then Mari slowly made her way out of the stable and found a cool patch of grass by the side of the inn. She chewed a few blades before lying down. Later that night she heard the cries of the new little two-leg. She felt happy she’d been able to offer the baby a welcome.
We are all called to offer this baby a welcome—this baby who would grow up to remind us, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”
Perhaps at this time of the year when we think of Christ coming to us in such a helpless form, we are moved to inconvenience ourselves just a little more, and to remember that it is the place of the strong to protect and care for the weak. Christians have done so for centuries, and we do so still. It’s cold in Poland tonight, but the Polish people have decided to go without the Russian coal they’ve used to heat their homes in order that doing so might shorten the war and end the suffering of their Ukrainian neighbors.
On this night of all nights, we're asked to make room in our hearts and welcome this child—and all the children who are weak, cold, lonely, hungry, or afraid. And we can rejoice remembering that, as we welcome him, he also welcomes us. His home is always open to us, and we will always share something to eat and drink at his table.
O, Holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels their great glad tidings
tell.
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord, Emanuel.
Merry
Christmas
Nadolig Llawen.
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