I may be being pedantic but November is Tachwedd, not Tashwedd!!
Sâmae Henddraig,
Its a joke, a play on the word âtashâ for moustache, and refers to a charity event where men are sponsored to grow a moustache during the month of November.
Hwyl,
Stu
Tashwedd is the Welsh version of Movember, as in moustache-wedd 
I think the Welsh name works better as well. 
Sorry folks, I suddenly thought it might be that, but as mwstas doesnât end in âshâ or âsiâ, I was rather confused. I realise now it was a wenglish joke, a very mixed up bilingual joke and I suspect an object lesson in the problems of mixing languages without being really clear what is going on. Maybe the title âTash-Tachweddâ might have worked? Or am I just being incredibly thick and pedantic as well?
from Jackie
Neither of those. Just a reflection perhaps that some like their language straight, and others are ok with mixed drinks, as it were. 
(Mineâs a peint, BTWâŚ).
Itâs all good, as our American friends say.
WeellâŚ
Both the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru and the Geiriadur yr Academi give âmwstashâ as an alternative spelling of âmwstasâ, so I think we can be pedantic and enjoy the pun on this one
Owch!! Grovel!! Grovel muchly!! It didnât even occur to me to look up spellings!! I just presumed pronouncing it that way was Wenglish!! I retire from all discussions on spelling, linguistics, unless someone wants to tell me why the chap derived from the legend of St. Nicholas is called Sion Corn? Is that a different chap altogether really?
from Jackie
Sion Corn is literally âChimney Pot Johnâ. We use Sion or Sioni a lot in Welsh to denote an âun-known personâ, like"Sioni bob ochr" - John on every side, or someone who supports everyone and no-one, or âsioni winwnsâ, the onion seller on his bike, etc. So Sion Corn is just âthe bloke who comes down the chimneyâ!
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Anyone got any idea whether that just arose because English people started going on about someone bringing presents down the chimney or if this is an idea going way back? I mean, we were Christian during the time we were in the Roman Empire. We may or may not have had some sort of Nadolig festival. Wasnât it Constantine who held a Synod to decide things like that? I suspect the chimney idea had nothing to do with St. Nicholas, so Sion Corn could pre-date Santa!
Chimneys werenât invented until late medieval times. I learned that at Sain Ffagan!
That said, it would have been easier to get into a building via the smoke-hole in the days before chimneys. I heard a tale from a friend just the other day that when people used to keep pigs inside (in a longhouse, animals would be at one end, people at the other), there would be a danger of wolves climbing in through the roof. Hence the story of the three little pigs.
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although pretty much thought of as one-and-the-same these days, Father Christmas and Santa Claus were not the same person.
Santa Claus is derived from Saint Nicholas, a 4th century saint. In one of the legends associated with him, he did throw a purse of coins âdown a chimneyâ - although of course that may be a later version of the story anyway.
Father Christmas, or at least the personification of christmas first appears in English literature in the 15th century - no mention of chimneys in that reference, but at least chimneys would have been around!
I always thought that the chimney thing was to explain why he hadnât arrived through a door or window, it being the only other way in, and of course the whole celebration as we know it today was very much boosted in the Victorian era when fireplaces and chimneys were far more commonplace in buildings than they are now.
I do like Iestynâs explanation - thereâs definitely a whiff of typical understated Welsh humour in âthe bloke who comes down the chimneyâ !
I thought it was a recent idea, to do with, as you say, the idea of him coming down the chimney at Christmas.
However, there is an intriguing quote in the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru-
â1923 - J. Glyn Davies: Cerddi Huw Puw xxv, The history of Sion Corn is unknown to me any further back than my fatherâs dialogues with him in the seventies. He had some mysterious interest in getting off to bed early, and a more rational habit of making presents at Christmas, as a Welsh Santa Claus. I do not know whether my father found him in Edern, his mothers home, or invented him. Anyhow, Sion Corn has done untruthful and amiable service for two generations.â
Perhaps there was a song about him in âCerddi Huw Puwâ, a very popular song book for children?
If so, it seems, reading between the lines, that Sion Corn was [as above] a rather âbenevolentâ bogeyman type figure living up the chimney, little known, perhaps even simply a family tradition, until made more popular by a song in âCerddi Huw Puwâ.
Thatâs just a guess though.
âin getting children off to bed earlyâ that should read.
I couldnât find a way to quote the GPC, so had to type it!
And I seem to have missed out the bit of the quote which caught my eye! âHe was a benevolent spook, living up the chimney in comfortable appartments.â should appear before âHe had some mysterious interestâŚâ
Has SiĂ´n Corn (the real one) been CRB checked; and have the requisite safety certificates? Heâs visiting children after allâŚ
Worried of Tunbridge Wells.
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I donât know if there are any others who might find all this interesting but will not find it because we are still labelled âTachweddâ despite being well into Rhagfyr. Does anyone know how to add âSion Cornâ to the âsubjectâ header of all the posts about him? Oh, & thanks, I was interested in the song book and may look it up!
Jackie
Anffodus, bydd SiĂ´n Corn yn rhedeg yn hwyr eleniâŚ
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Oh Diolch yn fawr iawn!! and I love the picture of poor Sion Corn!!
I had a thought: Round houses had a very nice spot for corvidae to nest at the top where the smoke percolated out. The smoke would have helped free the birds of parasites and kept the eggs and chicks warm. When we invented chimneys, I guess the birds chose to try nesting on those. It may be a myth, but I understand that corvidae like shiny objects & take them to their nests. The sudden appearance of âslippagesâ underneath, in the form of shiny objects dropping from the round house roof, or down the chimney, may have led to an association between Sion yn y corn and presents below!!! Nadolig llawen am Jackie.
I have just found out that the birds which nest in chimneys are Jackdaws. So this member of family corvidae is, quite literally âJack yn y cornâ!!!