_Merry-Lwyd._--My attention has been called to an inquiry in No. 11. p.
173., as to the origin and etymology of the Merry-Lwyd, still kept up in
Wales.
I believe that all these mummings may be traced to the disguisings which
formed so popular an amusement in the Middle Ages, and that the name
applied in Wales to this remnant of our ancient pastimes is nothing more
than a compound of our English adjective "merry" and a corruption of the
Latin word "Ludi," which these masquings were formerly termed.
Strutt, in his _Sports and Pastimes_, Book iii. chap. 13., speaks of
Christmas Spectacles in the time of Edward III., as known by the name of
Ludi; and in Warton's _History of English Poetry_, it is said of these
representations that "by the ridiculous and exaggerated oddity of the
Vizors, and by the singularity and splendour of the dresses, every thing
was out of nature and propriety." In Strutt's 16th Plate, specimens will
be found of the whimsical habit and attire in which the mummers were
wont to appear.
My impression that the Merry-Lwyd was by no means a diversion
exclusively Welsh is corroborated by the fact noticed in your Number of
the 23rd of Feb., of its being found to exist in Cheshire. And we know
that many ancient customs lingered in the principality long after they
fell into disuse in England.