The Cadi Ha is a traditional dance usually perfomed in two parts.
The origins for the dance may lie in the pre- Christian past.
It is a sessonal celebration sweeping away the winter and celebrating the summer.
The Cadi Ha is a man dressed as a woman and usually accompanied by
by the Mari Lwyd - a horse's skull on a pole, which was a symbol of fertility and the Bili or the Fool. These days a substitue is used for a horses skull. The Cadi Ha symbolises the good and pure of the summer over the dark and 'evil' spirits of winter.
The festival is still performed in Flintshire, north Wales.
The Reverend Peter Roberts of Llanarmon D.Cin Denbighshir, in his Cambrian Popular Antiquities, 1815, described a dance by nine men, decorated with ribbons and small bells. These were accompanied by a Fool and a man dressed as a woman called Megan.
The celebration is still popular in Flintshire though it has died out in many parts of Wales.
The origins for the dance may lie in the pre- Christian past.
It is a sessonal celebration sweeping away the winter and celebrating the summer.
The Cadi Ha is a man dressed as a woman and usually accompanied by
by the Mari Lwyd - a horse's skull on a pole, which was a symbol of fertility and the Bili or the Fool. These days a substitue is used for a horses skull. The Cadi Ha symbolises the good and pure of the summer over the dark and 'evil' spirits of winter.
The festival is still performed in Flintshire, north Wales.
The Reverend Peter Roberts of Llanarmon D.Cin Denbighshir, in his Cambrian Popular Antiquities, 1815, described a dance by nine men, decorated with ribbons and small bells. These were accompanied by a Fool and a man dressed as a woman called Megan.
The celebration is still popular in Flintshire though it has died out in many parts of Wales.