<![CDATA[Sweyn's Ey Morris and Sword Dancers - Previous even…]]>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:48:27 +0000Weebly<![CDATA[maggie's swansea presentation]]>Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/maggies-swansea-presentation
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So, today some of us visited Maggie’s at Singleton Hospital, Swansea where we donated £648.82 which was the amount we collected during our performances of the traditional Gower Mummers Play & Crwmpyn John Play from the Swansea Valley during the Christmas period.
We offer big thanks to all the people who donated money to our collecting buckets, and to the pub landlords/ladies who gave permission for us to perform our play in their bars. A good charity benefitted from the donations and an old local Christmas tradition is kept going for another year!
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]]><![CDATA[The Gower Wassail]]>Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/the-gower-wassailOn Saturday 10thJanuary 2026 Sweyn’s Ey were invited to dance and perform the Gower Christmas Sport mumming play
at the Gower Heritage Centre Wassail. This annual event is always an enjoyable start to the year and it’s great to see lots of old friends gathered at the mill.

We were scheduled to perform at 15:55 and started on time! Richie cleared a space for us in front of the stage and we gave a very spirited performance of the Christmas Sport to a large and enthusiastic audience. Erin made her debut as King George
and was cheered to the rafters as she finally won the battle with the Valiant Knight. Claire took on the new part of Doctor’s
assistant and held Keith’s doctor’s bag in plain sight for him to extract his tools and accompanying puns – his jokes drew
audible laughter from the spectators!

Once the play was over we made a rapid change of costume and danced Banks of the Lee, Badby and Postman’s Knock,
Adderbury – again to huge applause from a smiling crowd. Our dancers were Alex D, Claire, Erin, Geoff, Keith, Nige and Zep;
Siân provided top-notch music, as usual.

We passed the bucket round for a final collection for Maggie’s this mumming season. When we had finished our set we were able to redeem more of the drinks vouchers provided and then join a parade of Mari Lwyds as they made their way to the orchard to awaken the apple trees for the new year.

Our very own Old Father Christmas, with his flashing staff, was asked to lead the parade, what an honour!
Most of us stayed on to see the bands and were joined by Becky and her friend Gareth. It was very cold but Claire shared her hot water bottle, which she topped up in the café when needed, so we managed to stay long enough to catch the last ever performance of The Balkaneers.
WASSAIL!
Post by Nigel, Pics by Claire & Becky.
]]><![CDATA[Sketty & Killay Mummers Tour]]>Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/sketty-killay-mummers-tour3529913The Gower Mummers Play, Sketty & Killay Tues 30th December

Last night was our final tour for 2025 of the Gower Mummers Play. We visited The Vivian at Sketty, where we were bought ale by a young guy who really enjoyed our play, and was keen for us to keep the old tradition alive. So good to get positive feedback like that. Means a lot! We moved on to the Village Inn at Killay where we encountered Chris (new guy who has joined our side) and his family. They enjoyed the play too, as more ale was bought by Chris’ dad, Mark! 

The last pub, The Railway, presents a snug area for the Valiant Knight & King George to enact their sword fight, but it has the benefit of comfy carpet for the valiant Knight to ‘die’ upon!

We ended the 2025 Mummers Tour, singing a few songs with Nige singing I’ll Drink One, and Paul singing a Welsh sea shanty Hob a Derri Dando, with local singer Hermione Wild joining us singing The Wild Rover and playing her fiddle along with Sian, Di, and Keith. 

Sweyns Ey Morris always collect for charity when performing the old Gower Mummers Play, & the Crwmpyn John Play which we performed at the beginning of our tour season. This year we have collected a total of £546 for Maggies Swansea Cancer Charity so we would like to say a huge ‘Thank You’ to all the landlords/ladies who allowed us to perform in their pubs, and to all their customers who donated money to our collecting buckets.

Now we can put our feet up, enjoy a beer or a glass of wine before our next outing at the Gower Wassail on Sat 10th January, being held at the Gower Heritage Centre at Parkmill.

The cast for the Play: Narrator Nigel Haworth, Old Father Xmas Alistair Dixon, Beelzebub Di Clark, Valiant Knight Alex Heney, King George Paul Tarrant, Ten Pound Doctor Keith Lascelles.

Here are some photos of last night’s tour, taken by Andrea.

]]><![CDATA[South Gower, Mummers Play]]>Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/south-gower-mummers-playThe Gower Christmas Sport, Gower Tues 23rd December

Well that’s it for now, we can put our feet up, temporarily, and enjoy Christmas! Last night we visited five pubs in southern Gower, performing the old Gower Mummers Play also known as the Christmas Sport. We started at the Beaufort at Kittle before moving on to the Valley Hotel and Joiners Arms nearby. The Gower Inn followed and the King Arthur provided a great crowded, cosy place to conclude the tour. 

Highlight of the evening had to be where the Valiant Knight was just about to enter the crowded bar of the King Arthur and realised he had left his sword in the car park outside! This left the Narrator and Mother Christmas having to fill in an awkward silence with some comic banter! Valiant Knight was more than a little breathless when he swiftly returned, sword in hand and King George had no trouble dispatching him, but then again he had been doing that all evening with consummate ease!

Our performances concluded with our Mummers Song and Christmas tunes expertly played by Sian Musgrave and Keith.

We would like to thank all the landlords/ladies for allowing us to perform this old Gower Christmas custom in their pubs. Believe it or not, the Gower Mummers Play has been performed for nearly 200 years with several Gower villages having their own version of it.

We also thank all the people who generously donated the sum of £274 to our charity buckets. All the money we collect, when performing the Play, is donated to Maggies Swansea Cancer Charity.

The Cast: The Narrator Nigel Haworth, Old Mother Christmas Alison Haworth, Valiant Knight Geoff Wildman, King George Paul Tarrant, Ten Pound Doctor, Keith Lascelles

The photos were taken by Sian.
]]><![CDATA[Gower Mummers, Mumbles]]>Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/gower-mummers-mumbles​The Gower Mummers Play or The Christmas Sport, Mumbles Thurs 18th December

The first tour this year of The Gower Mummers Play, or Christmas Sport as it was known, kicked off in a fairly quiet Mumbles on a rainy evening with us visiting The Waterloo Stores, The Victoria, and Harry’s Bar aka Mumbales. We were to visit The George but couldn’t perform there this year.

The Play followed its usual form with a procession of random folk like The Narrator, Father Christmas and Belzebub, calling a Valiant Soldier in to make boast that he would fight King George, whereupon King George enters and the two have a mock sword fight resulting in the demise of Valiant Soldier, who then is miraculously revived by a Doctor who is clearly qualified in the field of medicine by virtue of him being travelled far and wide and wearing a top hat! The hat was passed around and we sang a song with our skilled musicians, Sian, Keith & Di playing a mix of festive tunes to everyone’s delight and conclude events at each pub we performed in.

We collected for Maggies Swansea Cancer Charity £90.26 which we hope to add to when we next parade the Mummers Play on Tues 23rd around the south Gower area. We all had good fun performing the play and thank all the Landlord’s/Ladies for letting us perform and to all their customers contributing to our collecting buckets.

The Cast: Narrator Ken Bond, Father Christmas Di Clark, Beelzebub Alex Heney, Valiant Soldier Geoff Wildman, King George Paul Tarrant, The Doctor Nigel Howarth.

Below are a selection of pics superbly taken by Sian, Rebecca and Claire of the evening’s performance.
]]><![CDATA[Crwmpyn John]]>Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/crwmpyn-johnCrwmpyn John Mummers Play Tour

We visited pubs in the Swansea Valley on Thursday night 11th December, performing the Crwmpyn John play which was traditionally performed in Ynysmeudwy and Ystalyfera from the start of the C20th. Local children used to venture into the pubs frequented by local coal miners working at Tarreni Colliery and others, performed the play and received pennies for their acting. They would do this from Halloween to Bonfire Night. The play was performed traditionally, by local children until the early 1960s, and then the good people of the Valley Folk Club in Pontardawe carried on the performance from the 70s until the 1980s but they shifted performance to the run in to Christmas. We have been performing the play since the early 1990s, therefore keeping this old tradition very much alive.

We visited The Millers, Ynystawe, The Butchers, Alltwen, The Chameleon, Ystradgynlais, and the Wern Fawr in Ystalyfera. We were warmly welcomed in all the pubs and audiences enjoyed the antics of Crwmpyn John, King John, Robin Hood, Dr Brown and Jingle In! We collected a total of £86 for Maggies Cancer Charity.
Sian Musgrave and Keith played Christmassy tunes at the end of each performance. Zepur Agop, Erin & Sian took photos and Geoff Wildman provided moral support throughout the evening! Di Clark joined us for our last performance at the Wern Fawr to play music.

The Cast: Crwmpyn John Nigel Haworth, King John Paul Tarrant, Robin Hood Alex Heney, Doctor Brown Keith Lascelles, Jingle In Erin Rickard.
Big Thanks to the Landlords & Ladies, and all who watched and contributed to our buckets!
]]><![CDATA[Cardiff Ale]]>Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/cardiff-ale4591213The Cardiff Morris - Y Morys Caerdydd Ale Fri 28/11/25

We met up with old friends at the Cardiff Morris Ale last night, which was hosted in Penarth. Apart from Cardiff & ourselves, there were sides from Carreg Las Morris, Full Moon Morris, ISCA, & White Hart. 

The two barrels of ale were very good indeed and ensured no one dehydrated. The curries supplied by a local Indian restaurant were plentiful and simply superb, and there was tons of cheese for dessert!

Following the meal, various people sang songs with Cardiff’s Morwen & Tamar singing The Cuckoo’s Nest and our own Squire Ben performing The Pirate Song, and Jonathan Baker doing an incredible sea shanty featuring lyrics about the evolution of the Internet, complete with the sound effects of dial up modems!

One of the joys of the Cardiff Ale is the Tombola, and this year’s certainly delivered some ‘interesting’ items that will potentially help address people’s problems on what to give family & loved ones for Christmas, although in my own case the tin of Spam I won might prove difficult to pass on!

We performed Rigs of Doom, Bampton as our show dance, and fairly got stuck into the massed dancing, doing long forgotten gems like Queen’s Delight Bucknell, William & Nancy Bledington and Trunkles from Wheatley, amongst the usual, familiar dances from, Bampton, and Lichfield.

Most from the side drove back to Swansea, although Keith, Jonathan Baker & Paul opted for sleep deprivation by staying at the local Scout hut!

Those who attended were, musoes Sian, Kevin & Roger, dancers Alison B, Alison H, Alex, Ben, Claire, Di, Jonathan, Keith, Margaret, Nigel, Paul & Zep.

A really great evening, which was very well hosted by our good pals from Cardiff! 
]]><![CDATA[Sweyns ey taster evening]]>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/sweyns-ey-taster-eveningSweyn’s Ey Taster Evening.
Well that was good! We held our Taster evening last night and saw five new people eager to learn what we do. Out of the 5 who came along, four people (Rebecca, Steph, Al, and Chris) have returned for subsequent practices and we picked up Louis recently who is already a dancer, coming from a Swiss Morris side! Here’s a few pics from last night of a very busy practice hall of lots of folk having fun! Things are looking great.
]]><![CDATA[Gower heritage centre]]>Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/gower-heritage-centreGower Heritage Centre- Cider Making for Our 60th Anniversary Weekend in 2026

It’s always a complete delight to dance at the Gower Heritage Centre, however this year we have been in such demand that nearly every request made we’ve had to turn down, already having something else in the diary.  But on Saturday we made a Very Special Exception and piled down to The Mill for a spot of dancing – and cider making!

Sweyn’s Ey is unbelievably excited to be celebrating their 60th birthday next year – yes that’s right, the side has been going for sixty whole years (who’d have thunk it)  – and the fantastic Mr Richie Saunders has agreed to make a special cider on our behalf, to drink on the Big Day.

This last week saw various members of the side swinging by the Heritage Centre at different times to drop off their contribution of apples for the cause, which were washed on Friday and pre-chopped ready for the pressing on Saturday.  Each of us that wanted to then donned a heavy-duty apron and scary-looking gloves, and had a go at filling a ‘cheese’ with pulp.  Lowen, my son, got to press the magic button that started the squeezing of the press, whilst we all stood by and watched the lovely fresh juice pouring out.  Some of us glugged a bit of it immediately, whilst others grabbed a pint (or three..) of last year’s vintage from the Heritage Centre shop.

At some point we even got to do some dancing!  With the brook coming up higher and higher at a rate of knots in response to the heavy rain that fell all morning, we danced under cover in the main courtyard with an engaged and fun bunch of visitors and locals.  We even got a few people up for our standard ‘volunteer’ dance (Brighton Camp, Adderbury), and there were fun tunes played by some of our musos in the break.  I’ll leave it to someone else to list the rest of the dances we did, as the time flew by and I cannot remember a thing!

Massive thanks to Richie and all at the Gower Heritage Centre for hosting us, making us cider and generally just being fabulous cheerleaders for Sweyn’s Ey.  We really appreciate all support keeping this traditional practice alive, and we were particularly grateful to Sylvie who kept bringing out batch after batch of homemade Welsh cakes throughout.  They certainly gave us energy to keep on jumpin’.  Yum.

Look out for our Birthday Bash weekend in early June next year, as we’ll be dancing across Gower over a whole weekend, alongside several other sides.  And come see us sometime before then – possibly our next public outing will be back at the Heritage Centre in January, blessing some of the very trees that contributed to our cider!
Post by Di Clark Pics by Erin & Claire.
]]><![CDATA[Bridgend Town Centre Sat 13/9/25]]>Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.sweynsey.co.uk/previous-evenhellip/bridgend-town-centre-sat-13925​Bridgend Town Centre, Saturday 13th September 2025

Today we danced in Bridgend Town Centre, which looked hardly unlikely earlier on due to intense rain showers. The sun came out and we danced to the good people of the Town who stood and watched us. Photos taken by Claire & Alex H. show how it all went.
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