Casgliadau Arlein

A ceramic sculpture of a creature with a bull or horse-like head with horns and a rough-hewn mouth. The shoulders and torso have human proportions. The right arm is bent and holds a wren house, with it's gable-end door open and a small bird sitting on the top right. The torso of the piece has evenly pierced holes throughout the ceramic surface to create texture. The piece is inspired by the Hunting of the Wren - Hela'r Dryw, a Welsh folk treadition with consists of the hunt, capture and then parading of a wren.

This ceramic sculpture depicts a creature with a bull or horse-like head with horns and a rough-hewn mouth. The torso of the piece has evenly pierced holes throughout the ceramic surface to create texture. The right arm is bent and holds a wren house, with it's gable-end door open and a small bird sitting on top of it.

The piece is inspired by the Hunting of the Wren - Hela'r Dryw, a Welsh folk treadition with consists of the hunt, capture and then parading of a wren. There are wren houses in the Social and Cultural History collection at St Fagans National Museum of History. Legends suggest that the wren was sacred to the Druids and they kept the bird in cages for divinatory purposes. The folklore of the wren appears across Celtic cummunities and is preserved in songs and traditions in Wales, Brittanny, the Isle of Man, Essex and Ireland.