Gwyl Mabsant

Next Monday is the 15th of August. The saint’s day for St Mary of our local parish church (thanks to Fr John Davis for confirming this date as there are 3 or 4 other dates during the year, but this one supports my story!)

In the past times, the locals relied on special days throughout the year to determine the village calendar. These included: Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, Mayday (and the other quarter days), and then the farming calendar of ploughing, seed sowing and harvest

Added to this was the celebration of the local church saint’s day. In Wales this was always called Gwyl Mabsant, and in villages up and down the land, called for a celebration

I don’t believe that there are any written records of Gwyl Mabsant in Whitchurch, but we’d love to hear if you know anything?

Summer was always a special time, especially prior to harvest as it was a quieter time; time for a village holiday!

In really ancient times villages held Revels, particularly during the Tudor period, and these were wild events. There are suggestions that Whitchurch was no different. When the Revels morphed into Gwyl Mabsant, who can tell; perhaps they continued with both!

Saint’s day celebrations varied from village to village, but usually included feasting, drinking, singing, dancing, playing silly games (and even more drinking!). we know that it was not unusual for these celebrations to last 2 or even 3 days

Where would Gwyl Mabsant have been held in the village? In the fields around the old church, or perhaps on the common

We know little about Gwyl Mabsant in the village, but we do have a record of one event in 1741. John Wesley, the famous preacher was staying overnight in Whitchurch and was invited to the celebration. It’s hard to imagine what this pious English-speaking preacher made of the partying by the Welsh-speaking locals

But, in his journals he wrote about it. When he addressed a large group of people in the Shire Hall in Cardiff in October that year, he was preaching on ‘God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his son’. But he went on to say “there having been a feast in the town that day, I believed it needful to add a few words upon intemperance: and while I was saying “as for you drunkards, you have no part in this life; you should abide in death; you choose death and hell”

At that point he was heckled. A man cried out vehemently “I am one; and thither I am going”. John Wesley went on to say “But I trust God at that hour began to show him and others a more excellent way”

It’s safe to say that John Wesley was not impressed with how we Whitchurch folk celebrated our local saint’s day!

We don’t know when the Gwyl Mabsant celebrations might have finished, but probably in the 19th century waned with the coming of industrialisation and chapel growth

What is clear though, is our current Whitchurch Festival with games and booths on the common is a lingering aftermath of an ancient celebration. The photograph below shows a tug-of-war competition in 1985. Such competitions were typical of Gwyl Mabsant celebrations. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that there was an annual ‘Grog Trot’ in the village, but that too has finished

May be, thought could be given to changing the summer festival to the 15th August (even if as a first step). What do you think?

PS
Thanks to Fr John Davis for the dates of St Mary, to George Craig for the sobering information on John Wesley and to Steve Nicholas (again) for the use of the photograph

 

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