Welsh costume and recipes - notes intended to help with school projects.

This picture (taken in 1913) depicts a young lady wearing the popular concept of 19th Century Welsh costume. The hat, made of black felt, has a high crown and wide brim, and is worn over a lace cap. This young lady wears a red flannel shawl over a crisp white blouse. The skirt is full and made of wool with a black and white check pattern. Grown up ladies would have worn a full length skirt, and a white starched apron. Proper Welsh ladies always wore black woollen stockings and black shoes. A basket, made from willow withies would often be carried.

 (More detailed information on costume and the Welsh hat)

We also have a Welsh flag in colour and a Welsh flag line drawing suitable for colouring. If you have a printer connected to your computer, choose "print" from your browser menu for a hard copy. If you need further details about Wales, go to the Language, Currency

and Statistics page.

What's for tea?

Welsh Rarebit. Put two large tablespoons of beer into a saucepan. Add a tablespoon of butter, 4 ounces of Cheddar cheese, season with salt and pepper and add a pinch of mustard powder. Stir ingredients over a low heat until thoroughly hot (but not boiling). Pour the mixture onto slices of well buttered, freshly made toast. Brown lightly for a few moments under the grill.

 Bara Brith (Speckled Bread). Ingredients: one pound white flour, 4 teaspoons dried yeast, 8 fluid ounces of milk, 2 ounces of brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 ounces butter or margarine, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon mixed spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice), 12 ounces mixed dried fruit (sultanas, dates, etc).

 Warm the milk in a saucepan until it is hand-hot, pour it into a bowl. Whisk in one teaspoon of brown sugar, whisk in dried yeast, then leave in a warm place for 15 minutes. Sift flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and stir in the rest of the brown sugar. Mix in the butter / margarine, stir in the mixed spice then pour in the beaten egg. Add the frothed yeast and mix to a dough. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 5 minutes). Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with a cloth. Leave in a warm place to rise until it has doubled in size (about one and a half hours).

 After the dough has risen, knock it down to get the air out and knead in the fruit. Shape the dough and place it in a greased loaf tin. Cover with a cloth and leave in a warm place to rise again (about 30 minutes).

Bake in a pre-heated oven (gas mark 5, 375 degrees F, or 190 degrees Celsius). After 30 minutes, cover the top of the loaf with kitchen foil to prevent it over-browning, and continue to bake for a further 30 minutes. Turn the loaf out, cool it on a wire rack and brush the top with honey. Slice thinly and serve buttered.

  Data Wales Index Page

Traditional Welsh CostumeMs. C. Stevens of the Museum of Welsh Life, (to be found at St. Fagans, near Cardiff) contributes the following:

"The popular image of Welsh "national" dress, of a woman in a red cloak and tall black hat, is one which has developed as a result of various influences which arose in the nineteenth century.

The costume regarded as national dress is based on clothing worn by Welsh countrywomen during the early nineteenth century, namely a striped flannel petticoat, worn under a flannel open-fronted bedgown, with an apron, shawl and kerchief or cap. The hats generally worn were the same as hats worn by men at the period. The tall "chimney" hat did not appear until the late 1840's and seems to be based on an amalgamation of men's top hats and a form of high hat worn during the 1790 - 1820 period in country areas.

Lady Llanover, the wife of an ironmaster in Gwent, was very influential in encouraging the wearing of "national dress", both in her own home and at eisteddfodau. She considered it important to encourage the use of the Welsh language and the wearing of an identifiable Welsh costume. She succeeded in her aim mainly because people felt that their national identity was under threat and the wearing of a national costume was one way to declare that identity.

 A further influence was the work of artists producing prints for the rising tourist trade, which had the effect of popularising the idea of a Welsh costume, and later the work of photographers who produced postcards in their thousands, contributing to the stereotyping of one style of costume, as opposed to the various styles which were worn earlier in the century."

 In her list for further reading, Ms. Stevens mentions:

Augusta Hall, Lady Llanover, - "On the Advantages resulting from the Preservation of the Welsh Language and the National Costume of Wales" (1834)

and we might add: Ken Etheridge - "Welsh Costume, in the 18th and 19th century". This small book,

published in 1977 by Christopher Davies (Publishers) Ltd. of Swansea, contains many prints and drawings from national archives. Many published and unpublished literary sources are also carefully noted. The ISBN reference for this book is: 0 7154 0411 3

 The Welsh hat

  Did Welsh women really wear the high crowned black hat that often appears in pictures which purport to portray historic Welsh costume? The answer is yes, but this must be qualified. It seems to the writer that 19th. century romanticism  gave the tall hat an importance that it did not really deserve. The drawing above is based on a carving in Llanvetherine church near Abergavenny in south Wales and is thought to represent the wife of a vicar who died in 1621. This is, however, a

very rare example and I found no further instances of such headgear in a fairly comprehensive survey of Welsh memorial church brasses. In fact, the women portrayed in these memorials are more likely to be wearing a hat which resembles the American Stetson!

  The following extracts (all culled from "Letters from Wales" edited by Joan Abse, Seren, 2000) demonstrate that the tall hat was a common sight in the first half of the 19th. century, at least in north and mid Wales. 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, writing from Aberystwyth in 1839. "I cannot say that I have seen much worth the trouble of the journey, always excepting the Welsh-women's hats which look very comical to an English eye, being in truth men's hats, beavers, with the brim a little broad, and tied under the chin with a black ribband. Some faces look very pretty in them." 

Charles Greville, writing from north Wales in1841. "It has an odd effect to see the women with their high-crowned, round hats on in church; the dress is not unbecoming." And later: "The women, in point of costume, have no resemblance to English women. Besides the round hats which they almost all wear. and which, though not unbecoming, give them a peculiar air, a great many of them though not all of them, wear a sort of sandal on their feet ... "

Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing from north Wales in 1854. (Hawthorne made several visits to north Wales during his stint as American Consul in Liverpool). "Many of the Welsh women, particularly the elder ones, wear black beaver hats, high crowned and almost precisely like men's. It makes them look ugly and witch-like. Welsh is still the prevalent language ... "

  But can we assume that such hats had remained in fashion since the 17th. century? This seems unlikely. In 1834, Augusta Hall, Lady Llanover, won a prize for an essay on the "advantages of preserving the language and dress of Wales" at the National Eisteddfod in Cardiff. Although of English parentage, Lady Llanover had become an ardent supporter of Welsh traditions and customs. Servants at her estate in south Wales were issued with her concept of a Welsh costume and she invented (and published) a series of costumes which were supposed to be typical of the various Welsh counties. Her aim was to revive the Welsh flannel industry but there seems little doubt that she succeeded in skewing our concept of Welsh costume. (Unwittingly, she also succeeded in skewing, for many years, our understanding of Welsh history by becoming a patron of the antiquarian and manuscript forger Iolo Morganwg - but that's another story!)

  In his wonderful little book "The South Wales Squires" (published in 1926) Herbert M. Vaughan observed rather acidly: "Like many aliens of a fanatical nature, Lady Llanover ruthlessly inflicted her new fad on all and sundry. As the countryside around Llanover was wholly anglicized, she met this difficulty by importing a number of monoglot Welsh-speaking Methodists from North Cardiganshire, and their pastor with them: a step that naturally did not please the local vicar, with whom her ladyship speedily fell out". (For another viewpoint see Helen Forder's Lady Llanofer >)

See also a note on Welsh costume from the Museum of Welsh Life.    

The Welsh Flag

    The Welsh flag has two equal horizontal stripes, white above green, and a large red dragon passant. The dragon standard was perhaps first seen in Britain in the shape of the "draco" a standard carried by the cohorts of the Roman legion. The Romans appear to have been inspired by the dragon standard carried by their Dacian and Parthian enemies and had adopted this device by the third century. Carl Lofmark (see below) argues that the dragon of the cohort was more familiar to the British than was the eagle standard of the legions. As Roman legions withdrew at the end of the fourth century and the British were left alone to face Saxon attacks, the dragon would have been a natural symbol for those who wished to preserve their Romanised way of life against the barbarian invader.

The ancient poets Aneirin and Taliesin use the Welsh word for dragon "draig" in the sense of "warrior" or "leader" and this usage remained to the Middle Ages. In the Historia Brittonum (ascribed to Nennius) of around 800 A.D. the dragon is seen as a symbol of national independence in the story of the red dragon battling with the white dragon of the Saxon enemy. 

At the time of the Norman invasion of England in 1066, the dragon symbol seems to have been used by both sides. The Bayeux tapestry shows king Harold close to a dragon standard as he falls and the dragon also appears on the pennant of one of duke William's messengers. (There is a drawing of this on our page about pedigrees and coats of arms in Wales.) 

Despite its occasional use by other figures famous in Welsh history, the red dragon became the symbol of the Welsh nation through its adoption by the Tudor ancestors of king Henry VII. Edmund and Jasper Tudor had a dragon as crest and supporter to the arms granted them by Henry VI. When Henry Tudor faced king Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 his battle standards numbered three. One of these carried the arms of St. George of England, one the arms of the house of Beaufort and on one was a "Red ffyry dragon peyntid upon white and Grene Sarcenet".  It is held that this dragon banner represented Henry Tudor's claim to be a true representative of the ancient kings of Britain and served as his tribute to the Welsh people who had made his victory

possible.  

Several people have written to Data Wales about variations in the way the dragon is rendered. They have noticed several variations on the Web and wonder, not surprisingly, which one is correct. I took up this matter with Rouge Dragon Pursuivant at the College of Arms in London. This gentleman, whose office was created by Henry VII soon after the Battle of Bosworth Field, reminds us  that mythical creatures have always been drawn in a variety of styles. It appears that there is no "standard" Welsh dragon, modern renderings must be based on historic precedents but a degree of variation is inevitable. The dragon on the flag must, however, face to the left, be sited centrally and cover equal parts of the white and green panels.  

 The daffodil and the leek are also famous emblems of Wales. The Wales Tourist Board produced the following notes: 

"On the evidence of Shakespeare, the leek was the recognised emblem of his day, and there is written evidence that it became the Welsh emblem considerably earlier. Entries in the household accounts of the Tudor Kings include payments for leeks worn by the household guards on St. David's Day. According to one legend, the leek is linked to St. David because he ordered his soldiers to wear them on their helmets when they fought a victorious battle against the pagan Saxons in a field full of leeks. It was more likely, however, that the leek was linked with St. David and adopted as a national symbol because of its importance to the national diet in days of old, particularly in Lent." 

 "The crest of three ostrich plumes and the motto of "Ich Dien" were adopted by the Black Prince at the Battle of Crecy. The feathers and motto were suggested by the decorations of the King of Bohemia who led the cavalry charges against the English." 

For a good summary of references to the dragon in ancient literature and notes on the red dragon of Wales, see the book by Carl Lofmark - A History of the Red Dragon, 1995, ISBN 0-86381-317-8.

Some of the crests in the pedigree

of the Morgans of Tredegar.

Pedigrees and

Coats of Arms

in Wales.

Why was the pedigree so important?

The Welsh have long been well known for their interest in pedigrees and many reasons have been advanced to explain this. Wales was never a "kingdom" in the normal sense. Power lay in the hands of a variable number of princes, the scions of ancient families which had won power over areas large and small, by force of arms. To judge by the written evidence which survives from soon after the Norman French conquest of England in 1066 and the attempted subjugation of Wales, these Welsh princes were bold and ferocious adversaries. The records show that violence and sudden death were their constant companions. Duke William of Normandy had invaded in the belief that his own ancestry entitled him to the English crown and the Welsh invoked their pedigrees in the constant

struggle for power in their own lands. For some years after the invasion and the imposition of the Marcher Lords the Welsh princes were just as likely to be fighting their cousins as their Norman enemies. Their bards (the poets of the princes) had the duty of reciting pedigrees and were qualified for this task by their rigorous and extended training. Dr. Michael Siddons (Wales Herald Extraordinary) has observed that the the bards added heraldry to their repertoire in the 15th. century and retained this duty until the work was taken over by gentlemen-antiquarians in the early 17th. century.

Also important in this context is the fact that for most of recorded time, the Welsh did not subscribe to the notion of primogeniture (the inheritance of a father's estate by his oldest child). In Wales, land would be shared between surviving children (gavelkind). This custom encouraged dispute and the pedigree took its place with the sword and the spear in the armoury of the ambitious. Even as late as the eighteenth century the English were prone to joke about the reverence the Welsh gentry class showed for their pedigrees. No doubt the point of the joke was often that the Welshman, however long his pedigree, would be relatively poor by English standards. The Welsh, on the other hand, could afford to adopt a slightly supercilious air since they tended to see their English equivalents as mere upstarts. After all, most of the grand families of England could be regarded as of Norman French or at best of Anglo Saxon origin whereas the Welsh traced their own roots back to the ancients who inhabited Britain at the time of the Roman invasion, around 2000 years ago. 

Coats of Arms.

The Norman French knights who invaded England in 1066 carried devices on their shields. Examples of these can be seen in the Bayeaux Tapestry which was made soon after the invasion. The drawing shows "Duke William's messengers" from the tapestry - notice that the shield in the foreground carries the device of the dragon (in its early serpentine form).  

Heraldic bearings that became hereditary began to appear in the second half of the 12th century. The first great seal of King Richard I (reigned 1189 - 1199) show him mounted and carrying a shield emblazoned with a symbol of valour, the rampant lion. In his second seal, the shield carries a depiction of the three lions (passant gardant) which were to remain in the royal arms. 

In time, heraldic symbols came to be painted on the sleeveless surcoats worn over armour and the term "coat of arms" appeared. Early records of the arms associated with particular families include the seals of the hundred barons who signed and sealed a letter to Pope Boniface VIII in 1301, and the documents called Rolls of Arms which commemorate knights attending battles and tournaments at around the same time.  

Welsh examples. 

In the St. George Roll, Howell ap Rees (sic) bore, gules, a chevron between three spur-rowells argent. Sir Uryan (sic) de St. Pierre bore, at the first Dunstable tournament 1308, argent, a bend sable, a label (3) gules - of five points.

Howell ap Meredith (H. III Roll) bore, paly (6) or and azure on a fess gules three mullets argent. (Mullet seems to be from the French "Molette", meaning the rowell of a spur.)

Lord Rhys, who had become the King's Justiciar of south Wales in 1171 bore, gules, a lion rampant and a bordure engrailed or a crescent for difference.

In time, and as heraldry developed, those entitled to bear arms were proud to display "achievements". These took the form of a shield shape sometimes bearing dozens of pictures of the arms of families related to them by marriage (see our note on a Morgan pedigree of 1612).

 

The leek and the daffodil - both emblems of Wales. They share the Welsh name Ceninen.

   

The leek is known to have been displayed as a Welsh emblem in 1536 and in Henry V, Shakespeare acknowledged this as an ancient custom. One legend tells of a battle between the Welsh and the Saxons fought in a field of leeks. At some time in the past, the leek was an important part of the diet but it is not commonly eaten today. It is delicious when part of the traditional leek and potato soup. 

The daffodil has no such claim to literary and historical distinction. It has become the more favoured emblem of late, however, since some people find that it makes a more attractive buttonhole on St. David's day . Daffodils and new-born lambs herald the summer in Wales.

Welsh Lamb.  

Is it any wonder that Welsh lamb is considered the best in the world when sheep are raised in a landscape like this?

At the beginning of April new born lambs herald the approach of fine weather in Wales. Wales is a country of small farms and sheep rearing is an age old tradition.

These shots were taken on farmland surrounding Penhow Castle in the county of Monmouthshire (Gwent), South Wales. In case you are interested we have a picture of the farmer's sheepdog here. These dogs are used on farms almost exclusively and have a reputation for high intelligence.

The Welsh Flag