During the week-days of the wakes at Holyhead, as many musicians were
collected together as could be found in and around the town; and one of
them played till he was tired, when he was relieved by a fresh one; so
that there was music without cessation. To this music twenty young women
danced till they were tired; and who ever held out the longest gained the
prize of a complete suit of apparel; if it was not decided in one day,
the whole twenty commenced again on the following day, and so on to the
end of the wakes. This prize, like the “Suliau y Creiriau,” was left
sometimes undecided, as the girls would dance till they fainted, rather
than acknowledge a defeat. There was an old woman living in this parish
in 1826, and who was then nearly a hundred years of age, who, in her
youth, assisted in the performance of both the above customs. These
barbarous usages were suppressed by a pious Curate of Holyhead, of the
name of Ellis, about the year 1748.