Yeah Ok I Guess I'll Reblog This

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

This post from a couple months ago that I think mirrors my thoughts on this pretty well

Post title: We*digoon is Purposeful in his Silence

and a little extra

Post title: YouTuber We*digoon Dismisses Others Religious Based Trauma as ‘Overreaction’ (before mentioning his own traumatic religious experience)

so uhh... (apology info)

TL;DR: I was being a dick on twitter, the allegations on both the BBU devs and Blackgryph0n were false, and I sincerely apologize for my actions and I will better myself as a person here on out. (please read. or don't, i can't tell you what to do.)

HI! :D if you don't know, some false rumors were spread on twitter about the Billie Bust Up devs and the VA for Barnaby recently. Now, beforehand, I did not know this. This drama lead me into a sour streak where I would admittedly harass people and just say nasty things about the wonderful people behind this game. :(

I will say this now; WHAT I DID WAS WRONG. Instead of being patient, waiting for both sides to come out to listen to both sides, or even asking for updates on the drama, I lashed out on others, said nasty things, and this lead me in a wrong path of taking a break/cooling down before properly apologizing. I should have apologized first before taking the break, honestly. I DO NOT CONDONE MY ACTIONS, PLEASE DO NOT HARASS PEOPLE WHO ARE IN A CONTROVERSY/DRAMA AND WAIT TO HEAR BOTH SIDES BEFORE FORMING YOUR OPINION.

To the lovely devs at Billie Bust Up;

I apologize for calling you guys all those awful things and harassing your fans. I was heated in the moment of the drama which was on my part. I won't blame my mental health or mental illness for my behavior, since this was a failure to have critical, logical thinking on my part. I understand if you guys won't forgive me, and that is okay. I understand that feeling. I wish the best for you, and when your game comes out for Xbox, I will purchase a copy of the game to support your guys wonderful and creative endeavors of diversity. /gen /srs

To BlackGryph0n himself;

I apologize for not hearing your side of the story when it came out. I had only heard of your side a few days ago (I wanna say 2 or 3 days) and I feel really bad for harassing your fans as well. I had believed the false rumors, and I am the one at fault. I had lacked patience or critical thinking at the time and I was in the wrong for doing that. I hope the best for your career, your mental health, and you and your wife.

To the people I had harassed and to the rest of the Billie Bust Up Comunity;

I sincerely apologize for what I had said. It was a dick move of me to say the things I had said, since it was impulsive and rude of me to do so. This controversy, and my reaction to it, had left a stain on the community, and I wish to clean up that stain. I will take time to learn to grow and improve so that this community may be a more welcoming place, to fans new and old, and to the wonderful people behind the game.

if you wish to contact me further, you can either DM me here, on twitter @/anonymousegeek, or contact me on discord (anonymousegeekakabatty)

I just wanna know why you don't seen to like Scott Cawthon, I tend to stay far away from drama so I ligetatmently have no clue.

He is a republican who donated money Trump and Mitch McConnell

Always glad to see these posts here on tumblr. Makes me sick to see some people continue to ride Scott's dick.

The Internet: Don't give money to stuff JK Rowling is involved with or you're directly giving money to her to allow her to keep doing her bigotry.... ALSO if you so much as BREATHE the name Harry Potter, you are a transphobe, a bigot, AND an antisemite.

Also the Internet: omg im gonna see the FNAF movie a million times in theatres i cant wait yaaay 😌✨

My opinion about the Illymation versus Think before you sleep drama

I think this drama is stupid as fuck. Like I feel so bad for illymation. Like imagine this from her perspective like 1 day you Make a video about how kids shouldn't be going into drastic diets because of how they feel about their body. And then some random ass Conservative Youtuber makes a whole ass video about how your indoctrinating children and that you're trying to make people fat. And because of that random ass conservative Youtuber, you're getting harassed by his fans. you get so much harassment That you have to turn off your comments on that video you made. And then After a while of this, you decide to respond Like an adult By making a post on Tumblr Telling your fans not to watch the video and to just report it. And then Out of nowhere. Conservative Youtuber decides to make a 32 minute video Pissing and shitting himself over the fact you dare to make a tumblr Comment Telling people not to watch the video. And in that video he directly tells his fans that you're cyber bullying him And you're trying to censor him and you're trying to censor people with disagreeing opinions. Which makes the harassment much worse. And you're just stuck in limbo not being able to do much about it because if you try to say anything again he's gonna make another video about you which will create more harassment. I want to become an alcoholic cuz of hearing this whole situation. I cannot imagine what it would be like being her in this situation. if By any chance illymation is reading this I just have to say I am so sorry that a Whiny conservative Manchild Is doing this to you. I don't know how to end this sooooooo um byeeeee

I wanted to make a backstory for the time I found this in pokemon Violet XD

Very glad to see people who also see the vision

Was it just me, or did Cassian and Mon Mothma have... good chemistry?

LOSER LMAO

Title of Reddit post: "Turkey Toms chat rips him apart after he casually admits to cheating on his girlfriend"

Turkey Tom fans in shambles that their favorite bigoted white boy isn't faithful to his loved ones??? Who would've fucking thought lmao

Sorry I thought your post was claiming that Netflix designed Cosmo ✌️

the Electric State (2025) concept art. Courtesy of How The Electric State filmmakers built the character of Cosmo (Netflix Tudum)