I couldn’t agree more with @Deborah-SSi about this Mari Lwyd that has appeared in Canton, Cardiff. If one were to try to aim for a supposed 100% “authenticity” based on an imagined time when such things were done ‘correctly’, there would hardly be any traditions left in Britain at all, never mind any ‘revivals’. Traditions have always changed, adapted and been ‘revived’ according to changing times.
I was actually largely brought up around Canton - in fact I was born in a house five minutes walk from the Mochyn Du a good many years ago (I am 11 months younger than David Bowie!). I in fact went to Canton High School (now Chapter Arts) and moved with it out to Fairwater. My grandparents were old Kaardiffians going back to the 19th century. The prospect of anything like the Mari Lwyd happening in this (or probably any) part of Cardiff in those days would have been UNTHINKABLE, hardly anyone would have even known what it was. The kids at school used to laugh at anyone who showed any interest in wider Welsh culture.
So I think the appearance of the Mari in Canton is absolutely FANTASTIC - if it can appear here then there are no ‘no-go’ areas in the whole of Wales. Some of the credit is no doubt due to Trac Cymru, who are doing much to spread the tradition of the Mari as an integral part of Welsh cultural life, taking it into schools etc. http://www.trac-cymru.org/en/our-work/mari-lwyd
I would share concerns about ‘Disneyfication’ and trivialisation about much of our public life - one has only to turn on the TV any evening to see that - but this revival and the many others like it that are happening in Wales, as well as their ‘wassailing’ counterparts in England which are now spreading from their southwest redoubt to parts that never had them before, are a welcome antidote to such trivialisation. No two ‘traditions’ will be completely alike, but then they never were, completely, even the first time round.