#Welsh #LoveSpoons AKA Dad's First #WoodCarving Project

My Dad has been trying some new crafts lately, among them wood carving. The photo at the top of this post is his first ever wood carving project, which he gave to me when I went for my visit to Wales at the start of January. It's a Welsh love spoon.

For those who don't know, here's some information on what one is, and its history:

Welsh lovespoons are hand made wooden spoons that are made from one piece of wood and designed and decorated according to the carver’s imagination.

Love Spoons in the Past
Originally made by young men during the long winter nights or by young men on long sea voyages, they were carved to express that young man’s intentions towards a particular girl. A love spoon would be given to a girl as an indication that he wished to court her. A girl may have received lovespoons from several suitors and these would be displayed on the wall of her home.

The tradition of carving lovespoons is thought to have been derived from the making of culinary spoons and the giving of a spoon became symbolic with the expression of the wish to “feed” or support the object of the prospective suitor’s desire. It was a short step to decorating such a spoon and to investing it with symbols of the suitor’s hopes and wishes. Such a spoon would then have had no practical use and would have been regarded as an ornamental gift albeit vested with meaning.

The earliest surviving lovespoon dating from around 1667 is at the National Museum of Wales at St. Fagans near Cardiff but Welsh lovespoons are known to have been made by the menfolk of Wales before this date.

The practice of making and giving lovespoons by prospective suitors was common in Wales throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries but the custom became less popular towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. There has been a revival of the custom over the last 40 or so years and many people today make love spoons on a commercial basis for customers to utilise for the commemoration of special events in their lives or in the lives of their loved ones.

~Above information taken from this Welsh love spoons site.