Museum of Welsh Life

I was going mental staring at the walls. Thought a break from my dissertation and a reward for all the injections I’m suffering (had two more today) was in order.

The weather is utterly glorious here at the moment. So, I piled myself into the trusty ol' wagon and set off for the Museum of Welsh Life, which I’ve always wanted to go to but haven't managed thus far.

I had an absolutely lovely day and found a couple of very pagan things whilst ambling about. The first find was a maypole in the middle of a field!

Bit wonky, but definitely a maypole because it said so on the information board.

The second thing was a big ol' farm house. They find these buildings all over Wales, disassemble them, and bring them down here. Then they put them back together again! It's quite amazing. Anyway, this farm house was painted red:

The information read:

The red colour is traditional and considered useful in keeping evil spirits away from the house, as was the Rowan tree in the garden.

There are bits and bats in Marie Trevelyan's Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales but it was brilliant to see history up-close and personal like that. I especially like anything left intact from the 1500s.

There was also a reconstructed Celtic village:

They're reconstructing a church and painting original medieval artwork on it that was found underneath the plaster. It was like no church artwork I’d ever seen in my life:

I was really surprised by the variety of buildings. It's a wonderful place. I recommend it to anyone - on a sunny day :)

[NB 2013: At the time of writing, someone had made the entirety of Marie Trevelyan's Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales available free online. It may still be out there somewhere, but it is one of the greatest travesties of transience that particular website has gone.]