Mothers Night
Historian Bede wrote of
Mothers Night in the year 725. In his book 'De temporum ratione' he
described it as -
“began the year on the
8th kalends of
January when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night,
which we hold so sacred they used to call by the heathen word
Modranecht, that is, Mothers Night, because (we suspect) of the
ceremonies they enacted all that night”
It was the Germanic areas,
Gaul, Italy, Spain and as far as Scotland that commemorated Mothers
Night. Its roots were in the beliefs of the mother goddess, votive
stones and altars set up to worship them. It honoured, for example
the old Germanic Winter goddess, Holda. It was the night the year was
born, when mothers who were-in spirit were remembered and asked for
protection, healing, luck and wellbeing. When all children were in
bed, their mother or grandmother would commit them to the protection
of a goddess, ancestor or the female ancestral deities known as
Disir. In Anglo Saxon times it was celebrated on Christmas Eve but
its true date is the eve of the Winter Solstice and pagans still
perform rituals for Mothers Night to this day.
Plygain
The origins of this Welsh
early morning church service are probably pre reformation. The time
of Plygain was in between dawn and eight on Christmas morning with
High Mass at nine or ten o clock. People would stay up all night or
get up very early to attend their parish church. Originally the
service was only for men but later women took part as well. Carols
would be sung, though they were banned by the Puritans.
A journal by Mrs Thrale of
Duffryn, Clwyd written in 1774 shows the tradition didn’t die out
as she describes singing and dancing to the harp until Plygain. Time
was also spent playing outside by torchlight then when the men went
off to church the women busied themselves decorating the house and
making toffee.
There was of course no
lighting in the church so people attended with candles. There, after
prayers and a sermon, groups of carollers took over with no carol
being sung more than once.
By the mid 1800s special
Plygain candles were being made. With so many candles illuminating
the congregation and the church itself it was only a matter of time
before accidents happened and in 1770 one parish's Plygain was stopped
after a man set fire to another parishioner's head. In 1812, the
service was banned at St Thomas's Church, Neath due to the 'indecent
behaviour of the persons attending there'
The Plygain tradition is
still carried on today in Wales.
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