1st/ 13th January marks the tradition of the Calennig across parts of Wales and the Marches to celebrate and welcome in the New Year. This ancient custom of Calennig can trace it roots back to the middle ages and though still active in some areas of Wales today the custom has sadly almost died out.
Calennig is a Welsh word meaning "New Year celebration/gift", although it literally translates to "the first day of the month", deriving from the Latin word kalends. The English word "calendar" also has its root in this word. And yet ‘calennig’ in Welsh, rather than denoting New Year’s Day itself, or the custom associated with it, instead points to the fruit at its heart.
'Old New Year', Hen Galan, is traditionally celebrated on January 13th, Cwm Gwaun, a Welsh villages near Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, still celebrates Hen Galan. The tradition dates back to 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted.according to the Julian Calendar.Traditionally this day was more important than Christmas with a large meal of goose and plum pudding.
Although we associate Christmas Day as the traditional day for gifts, New Year’s Day was also often associated with gift giving. This was more often associated with the idea of First footing . Across Britain, the practise of ‘first-footing’, passing between neighbours with a new year greeting, was common practice – and superstitions held that the person you saw first on January 1st (or the 13th in the Gwaun valley) – carried a portent for the remainder of the year. It still survives albeit in a weakened form across England.
The practice of gift-giving during the Calennig celebrations is believed to have similarities with ancient Roman customs at the “kalends.” While Rome celebrated the first day of each month, the Welsh adapted this to focus on New Year’s Day, fostering a unique cultural tradition.
Calennig (New Year gift) was a popular New Year’s custom that brought joy and togetherness to communities in Wales.Calennig embodied the cultural essence of community and goodwill by promoting the exchange of well-wishes and small gifts to commence the New Year positively. This tradition underscored the value of social bonds and helped preserve Welsh cultural heritage.
In some parts of Wales, traditionally groups of children (usually boys) would set about the village from dawn until dusk on the first of January and would come to their neighbours doors singing rhymes and wishing the occupants a healthy and prosperous new year .in exchange for bread and cheese, sweets or money, while carrying a skewered apple/ Perllan pierced with three sticks and adorned with a sprig of box and hazelnuts, and represents the festive gift.
In his book Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (2001), Ronald Hutton describes ‘an apple or an orange, resting on three sticks like a tripod, smeared with flour, stuck with nuts, oats or wheat, topped with thyme or another fragrant herb, and held by a skewer.’
These peculiar-looking items were seen as emblems of good luck; they were also often put in windows of houses, or given as good luck presents, as a consequence.Some would also carry jugs of water, used to splash householders in a ritual that in common with so many new year traditions across the world with the intention to bring good luck to recipients.
Every village had its own version of verses and melodies, full of local flavour and improvisation. It required no organisation beyond the shared understanding that doors would open and voices were heard. Calennig depended on community, proximity and familiarity.
While the specific origins are hard to pin down, the practice has been documented in Welsh literature and passed down through generations, maintaining its charm and importance in Welsh culture.
Newport writer and teacher Fred Hando, in his book The Pleasant Land of Gwent, 1944 Hando quoted his friend, the author and mystic, Arthur Machen, who was then in his final years, recalling the Calenning tradition as it played out in his Caerleon boyhood in the 1860s and 1870s. ‘The town children got the biggest and bravest and gayest apple they could find in the loft,’ Machen recalled. ‘They put bits of gold leaf upon it. They stuck raisins into it. They inserted into the apple little sprigs of box, and they delicately slit the ends of hazelnuts, and so worked that the nuts appeared to grow from the ends of the holly leaves.’
As well as noting that the Calennig would then be ‘borne from house to house’ where ‘children got cakes and sweets’, he also says ‘these were wild days [with] small cups of ale’.
The decline of the tradition is as scantily documented as its rise, with one notable piece of evidence featuring in an archive of documents collected by a local historian of Ceredigion, the late Donald Davies. In Those Were The Days (1936) it is noted that: ‘Lately the carrying of an apple has been discontinued and only the recitation of brief verses or greetings and the collection of new pennies mark the custom in those districts where it has survived.’
Nevertheless following World War II, there was a renewed interest in Welsh folklore, including the Calennig tradition, leading to its documentation and the reinvigoration of New Year customs in rural communities.
A blend of holiday cheer and ancient blessings. Calennig is the children’s version of the scary but friendly Y Fari Lwyd (Grey Mare) a hobby-horse with a horse’s skull decorated with ribbons,where in some parts of Wales makes visits to homes around New Year. The Mari and its attendants traditionally engage in pwnco, a ritualized exchange of rhymes and challenges with the householders, before being granted entry. https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-tradition-of-mari-llwyd-y-fari-lwyd.html
These traditions not only connect the present with the past but also contribute to the vibrant tapestry of Wales’ cultural heritage. I find it rather sad that traditions like this are fading, the sign of our times I guess. Anyway Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! ❤️ Happy New Year ❤
This is Calennig, the song Welsh children sing to their neighbours’ doors on the first of January to bring luck and happiness . It translates as :
A Happy New Year to you
And to everyone in the house
This is my wish
a Happy New Year to you
Artist: Lizzie Spikes
