---
title: "12 Traditions in Wales and Where to See Them"
url: https://33travels.com/traditions-in-wales/
author: "Dr. Kofi Mensah"
published: 2026-10-13
updated: 2026-10-13
place: "Wales"
---

# 12 Traditions in Wales and Where to See Them

Wales keeps more of its old customs alive than most European countries its size, and it does so in a language that most visitors can’t pronounce. This guide covers twelve traditions in Wales that people still practice, with a plain note on what happens today, when, and how to say the Welsh words without embarrassing yourself.

## Table of Contents

- [Quick reference](#quick-reference)
- [National days](#national-days): St David’s Day, St Dwynwen’s Day
- [Music and language](#music-and-language): Eisteddfod, male voice choirs, Plygain
- [Folklore and seasonal customs](#folklore-and-seasonal-customs): Mari Lwyd, Calennig
- [Crafts and food](#crafts-and-food): love spoons, Welsh cakes, cawl
- [Symbols](#symbols): the dragon, the daffodil and the leek
- [Planning a trip around them](#planning-a-trip-around-them)

## Quick reference

| Tradition | When | Where it’s strongest |
| --- | --- | --- |
| St David’s Day | 1 March | Nationwide, parades in Cardiff |
| St Dwynwen’s Day | 25 January | Anglesey (Llanddwyn Island) |
| National Eisteddfod | First week of August | Rotates between north and south |
| Male voice choirs | Year-round | South Wales valleys |
| Plygain | Christmas to mid-January | Mid Wales churches and chapels |
| Mari Lwyd | Late December to January | South-east Wales, Vale of Glamorgan |
| Calennig | 1 January | Nationwide, mainly children |
| Love spoons | Year-round | Craft shops, St Fagans museum |
| Welsh cakes | Year-round | Every bakery and market |
| Cawl | Year-round, best in winter | Pubs and home kitchens |
| The red dragon | Year-round | Flags, rugby matches, castles |
| Daffodil and leek | March | St David’s Day |

## National days

![Detailed close-up of the Welsh flag featuring the iconic red dragon symbol.](https://33travels.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/welsh-flag.jpeg)

### 1. St David’s Day (Dydd Gŵyl Dewi)

Say it **DEETH gooil DEH-wee**. On 1 March, Wales celebrates its patron saint, a sixth-century monk who founded a monastery at what is now St Davids in Pembrokeshire. It is not a public holiday, which regularly annoys people, but schools hold concerts and children turn up in traditional dress: red flannel skirts and tall black hats for girls, and rugby shirts or waistcoats for boys.

Cardiff stages a parade through the city centre, and Welsh towns hang the flag from lampposts. The standard greeting is *Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus*, “happy St David’s Day.” For the saint himself, go to St Davids, Britain’s smallest city, and its cathedral.

### 2. St Dwynwen’s Day (Dydd Santes Dwynwen)

Say it **DOO-in-wen**. Wales has its own Valentine’s Day, on 25 January. Dwynwen was a fifth-century princess who, according to legend, prayed after a failed love affair and asked that true lovers be helped. She became the patron saint of Welsh lovers.

Cards and gifts are exchanged, and the day is far less commercial than 14 February. The place to visit is Llanddwyn Island off the coast of Anglesey, where the ruins of her church stand at the tip of a tidal peninsula. It is a bleak, lovely walk in January, so bring a windproof coat.

## Music and language

### 3. The Eisteddfod

Say it **eye-STETH-vod**. The Eisteddfod is a competitive festival of poetry, music and performance, run almost entirely in Welsh. [Britannica traces it](https://www.britannica.com/topic/eisteddfod) to a 1176 gathering held by Lord Rhys at Cardigan Castle, and the modern form dates from the 19th century.

The big one is the [National Eisteddfod](https://eisteddfod.wales/), held over a week in early August. It moves between north and south Wales each year, so check the location before you book anything. The ceremonies are the highlight: the Chairing of the Bard and the Crowning of the Bard are awarded for poetry, and the winner is revealed only when the herald calls the pseudonym they entered under. Hundreds of people stand in a pavilion in silence for the moment.

Two others are worth knowing. The Urdd Eisteddfod, in late May or early June, is the largest youth cultural festival in Europe. The Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in July brings choirs and dancers from around the world.

You don’t need Welsh. Most large events offer simultaneous translation headsets. If you’d like to deepen your understanding of the language, [our guide to Welsh dialects](https://33travels.com/dialects-in-wales/) explores regional variations and helps with pronunciation.

### 4. Male voice choirs

Welsh male voice choirs grew out of the industrial valleys of the 19th century, where mining and chapel life overlapped. Men finished a shift underground and rehearsed in chapel halls in the evening. Hymns, rugby anthems and Welsh folk songs form the core repertoire, and “Calon Lân” is the one you will hear most often.

The choirs are still active, though membership is aging. The Treorchy Male Choir in the Rhondda Valley is among the best known and regularly opens rehearsals to visitors. Many other choirs are happy to have an audience if you ask ahead.

### 5. Plygain

Say it **PLUH-gine**, with the vowel somewhere between “uh” and “ih.” A plygain is an early-morning carol service held around Christmas, traditionally before dawn. Singers, often family groups or small parties of three or four, stand up in turn and perform unaccompanied carols with no organ and no conductor.

The tradition survived longest in the former county of Montgomeryshire in mid Wales, and that is still the best region to experience it. Services take place in candlelit chapels and churches from Christmas through to mid-January, usually in the evening these days. Dates are posted locally, so ask at a tourist office or check parish notices.

## Folklore and seasonal customs

![Old dry skeleton of horse in museum against white walls with horns in daylight](https://33travels.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/horse-skull.jpeg)

### 6. Mari Lwyd

Say it **MAH-ri LOO-id**, roughly “grey mare.” A horse’s skull is mounted on a pole, decorated with ribbons and bells, and draped in a white sheet. A person hidden underneath works the jaw, which snaps shut on anyone who gets too close.

A group of singers carries the Mari Lwyd from house to house around midwinter and challenges the household to a *pwnco*, a battle of improvised rhyming verses. The house tries to keep the visitors out with clever verses of its own, and if the Mari wins, she is let in for food and drink. It is a wassailing custom, and the origins are unclear. Records suggest it was strongest in Glamorgan in the 19th century.

It nearly died out in the 20th century and has come back strongly. You can see it in processions in places like Llangynwyd and Chepstow, and the [St Fagans National Museum of History](https://museum.wales/stfagans/) near Cardiff has featured it during its winter programming.

### 7. Calennig

Say it **ka-LEN-nig**. The word means “New Year’s gift.” On 1 January, traditionally before noon, children go door to door singing a New Year verse and receive coins in return. The older version of the custom involved a decorated apple or orange on three sticks, studded with cloves, with a sprig of evergreen on top. Some villages still make them.

It is a smaller custom than the Mari Lwyd, and more intimate. You are unlikely to see it unless you’re staying in a rural village on New Year’s morning, but it’s one of the clearest examples of a custom that has survived without becoming a performance for tourists.

## Crafts and food

![Four wooden spoons with assorted dried herbs on a light background.](https://33travels.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/wooden-spoon.jpeg)

### 8. Love spoons

A love spoon is a carved wooden spoon given as a gift of affection, historically from a suitor to the person he hoped to court. The tradition is old, and the oldest dated Welsh example in the St Fagans collection is from 1667. The spoons are not meant for eating.

The designs carry meanings. A heart means love, a key means the giver offers his home, a wheel means he’ll work for the household, a bell means a wedding and a chain means commitment. Today they’re given at weddings, birthdays and on St Dwynwen’s Day, and you’ll find genuine hand-carved ones in craft shops across Wales. Look for a maker’s signature underneath, because mass-produced souvenirs are everywhere.

### 9. Welsh cakes (pice ar y maen)

Welsh cakes are small, round and flat, made from flour, butter, currants and a bit of sugar, and cooked on a bakestone or heavy griddle. Their Welsh name, *pice ar y maen*, means “cakes on the stone.” They’re eaten warm, usually with a dusting of caster sugar and with nothing else.

You will find them on every market stall and in nearly every bakery. They taste best fresh, so look for the ones being cooked in front of you. Cardiff Market has a stall that does exactly that.

### 10. Cawl

Say it **cowl**, as in “owl.” Cawl is the national stew: lamb or beef, potatoes, swede, carrots and leeks, simmered for hours. Traditionally the broth is served first, followed by the meat and vegetables, though most restaurants now serve everything together.

There’s no single recipe, and families argue about it. Some add bacon, some insist on lamb only. A bowl in a pub in January, with bread and a piece of cheese on the side, is the point of the dish.

## Symbols

### 11. The red dragon (Y Ddraig Goch)

Say it **uh THRYGE GOHKH**, with a throaty “ch” at the end. The red dragon is on the Welsh flag, and no other national flag in the UK uses a dragon. A medieval legend in the *Mabinogion* has a red dragon fighting a white one beneath Dinas Emrys in Snowdonia, with the red representing the Britons and the white representing the Saxons. Henry Tudor flew a red dragon at Bosworth in 1485, and the flag took its present form in 1959.

You’ll see it everywhere: on pubs, rugby shirts, castle ramparts and shop signs. For the full effect, watch a match at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

### 12. The daffodil and the leek

Wales has two national emblems, and the reason is a translation accident. The leek is the older one, linked to the legend that St David told Welsh soldiers to wear leeks in their caps to distinguish themselves from Saxons in battle. The daffodil is newer, and became popular in the 19th century. The Welsh word for leek is *cenhinen* and the Welsh word for daffodil is *cenhinen Pedr*, “Peter’s leek,” so the two were conflated.

On St David’s Day, people wear one or the other, and sometimes both. The daffodil is the easier choice.

## Planning a trip around them

Three events are worth building a trip around.

- **Late July to early August:** Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, then the National Eisteddfod. You can do both in two weeks.
- **Around 1 March:** St David’s Day in Cardiff or St Davids.
- **Late December to mid-January:** the Mari Lwyd, Plygain services and Calennig. This is the coldest and quietest part of the year, but it’s the best time for the customs that depend on small communities rather than crowds.

Things to keep in mind:

- Some events, especially Plygain and village Mari Lwyd visits, aren’t ticketed or advertised widely. Ask locally.
- The valleys of south Wales are the place for choirs, and mid Wales for Plygain. Mari Lwyd is stronger in the south-east, and the north is the heartland for the Welsh language and the Eisteddfod’s crowning ceremonies.
- You’ll hear far more Welsh in Gwynedd and Anglesey than in Cardiff, so don’t expect the same linguistic experience across the country.

Most traditions in Wales are not museum pieces. They’re run by volunteers, choirs, chapels and families, which means the dates shift and the details change. That’s what keeps them alive.