by JoHarrington
Are you Welsh, or have Cymric ancestry? Or merely a song in your heart and a longing for those old, dark, rugged mountains?
Then it may inflame your Celtic heart to learn about how romance happens in the Land of our Fathers. It was not a ring that was passed over then (for what good is a ring in the coal-mines and iron works?), but something much better yet.
Your cariad was given the Llwyau Caru; and, if it was good enough, you got her.
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Carving a spoon is as practical as it is romantic. It takes time and energy to produce, but it says so much. The choice of wood reveals his knowledge and sound judgement, as he walked the forest finding it. The craftsmanship displays his skill with the implication that he will never be out of work. The utensil indicates that there will always be food on the table.
For the young lady, being offered a love spoon was like being handed a resume from a hopeful applicant. The position? Just that of her suitor with aspirations to one day being her husband. That gesture was more than merely, 'I love you'; it was 'I really want to be with you'.
There could be competition here. Whom did she choose? The youth who presented her with a sloppy, worm-ridden twig, fashioned in five minutes with his penknife into a spoon? Or the lovestruck soul, who had spent hours carefully selecting his wood, then whittling it into exquisite decoration? One was an opportunist. The other already had her deep within his heart.
Welsh girls prayed that the right boy would create the right spoon. If he did, and she accepted it, then it could be the start of their whole lives together. They would be 'spooning', which is 'courting' in other cultures. In her mind, she could probably already hear the church bells ringing.
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Nobody knows precisely how long the Welsh have been carving love spoons. It is a tradition which seems to have been around forever.
St Fagan's National History Museum, in Cardiff, has a huge collection of these llwyau caru (spoons of love). They span the centuries with the oldest in the collection dating from 1667.
Neither the man who carved it nor the lady who received it could have foreseen the future of that spoon. He had presented her with something that, 400 years later, all of the museum's visitors would still view to know the important message - he loved her very, very much.
Each spoon in the St Fagan's Oriel Gallery collection is as unique as its crafter, designed with just one girl in mind. He would have looked to the things that she loved - her favorite flower - or icons symbolic of her town or faith. These would all have been represented in the carving and so no two spoons were the same.
Some symbols became universal and these are still reproduced by Welsh craftsmen today. They are:
What would be carved on your llwyau caru?
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 "Photo: Welsh Love Spoon")
Travel anywhere in Wales today and you will encounter a plethora of love spoons to buy as souvenirs. There are whole shops devoted to them and their wares have come a long way from their roots as an invitation to courtship. People buy them as house-warming gifts, friendship tokens, to present in congratulations for a new child or a graduation, or simply as something pretty to hang in the home.
For the true romantics, this may be seen as the dilution of a beautiful tradition. The love spoon hasn't been produced, from wood to completion, by a man desperate for the love of his beau. But then times change and so do the expectations of their women. In the 21st century, it may not be the skill wrought by his hands that counts, but the depth of his wallet.
The more ornate the love spoon, the more expensive its retail price. Yet some of these have more than recovered their original outlay. As investments for the future, they could well be a savvy choice.
In 2006, Christie's auctioned an 18th century Welsh love spoon for £3,600 ($6,851). During the same month, a 19th century beechwood love spoon passed hands for £5,400 ($10,276). A glance through their back catalog shows that such things are not unusual.
Yet both of those spoons would have been freely made from materials lying on some Welsh ground. It was the time, skill and will that mattered then.
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Comments
I see these all the time, in shops in Wales, and some are so exquisitely done. You just stare at them going, "How did they manage that?!"
They are so beautiful! It takes a real talent to create something like this!
You only need the one! But you'll have perfected it by Valentine's Day. :)
No worries, I started widdling away at my desk already, I figure I can get 20 spoons made before I have to move my all in one for safety :) Speakers may fall though... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it... :) oh wait, my desk is made of all glass and metal.... new plan.
Nice one! And I hope to see a photograph of your spoon in the near future too!
haha, man those spoons are really cool, you may get a book sale from me *smiles*
I'm keeping going until you whittle your own love spoon. I'm sure Mrs Usher will be charmed, even if it does look like a sick dolphin. :)
we could just keep going, I say something cleaver, you respond, I respond, you respond, (then you delete the whole game and restore your page to normal hhahahah)
No problem.
thanks