St Knut's Day and the Mari Lwyd

Today is celebrated as St Knut's Day in Sweden and Finland – you can find out more about it here.

When I was reading about it earlier today, it struck me that the bits of the celebrations involving the Finnish character Nuuttipukki are very similar to the Mari Lwyd folk custom found in South Wales. When I worked in Cardiff in the second half of the 90s, this was still performed in Llangynwyd, and maybe a few more villages in the Maesteg area, but I don't know whether that's still the case.

Does that suggest that both have their roots in a pre-Christian ritual, perhaps connected to the middle of winter? I'm not sure, really, but at first glance that seems the most likely explanation.

Happy St David's Day

To mark St David's Day, Wales has got a new national poet – Ifor ap Glyn. You can read more about it here.

And (you knew this was coming, didn't you?), I'm going to mark the day by reading some of the work of my favourite Welsh poet, RS Thomas.

It's not difficult to find his poems all over the internet (although better still, buy the Collected Poems and Later Collected Poems), but to get you started, here's Lore.

Top 10 books of rural Wales

The Guardian had this interesting list yesterday. It includes three personal favourites - The Owl Service, Bruce Chatwin's On The Black Hill (and the writer here neatly encapsulates what makes it such a fine book), and of course RS Thomas's Collected Poems.

As with any list, though, there are bound to be controversial omissions and inclusions. Nothing by Raymond Williams, for example. Anyone got any other suggestions for what might have been included?