British Goblins - Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions. British Goblins does a good job at its stated purpose - collecting and loosely categorizing Welsh Folklore of every category, ranging from the reasons behind certain customs and superstitions of daily life, to descriptions and associated stories of various faeries, goblins, and giants, to descriptions of apparitions and the view of the afterlife, to more fantastic things, like dragons, standing stones, and magic wells and stones. Although a somewhat anecdotal approach is taken, the author has in fact preserved a good deal of information that might have otherwise been lost.
"Welsh Folk-Lore a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales" by Elias Owen is a collection of stories, aphorisms, charms and advice gathered by pastors, historians, folklorists, and local residents in Wales. The pagan religions, magic, and mysteries that shroud the country and its culture are on full display in this text and allow people to learn how everything from a cat to a goblin can find its way into Welsh lore.
The four stories that make up the Mabinogi, along with three additional tales from the same tradition, form this collection and compose the core of the ancient Welsh mythological cycle. Included are only those stories that have remained unadulterated by the influence of the French Arthurian romances, providing a rare, authentic selection of the finest works in medieval Celtic literature. This landmark edition translated by Patrick K. Ford is a literary achievement of the highest order.
Examining how we interpret Welshness today, this volume brings together fourteen essays covering a full range of representations of Welsh mythology, folklore, and ritual in popular culture. Topics covered include the twentieth-century fantasy fiction of Evangeline Walton, the Welsh presence in the films of Walt Disney, Welshness in folk music, video games, and postmodern literature. Together, these interdisciplinary essays explore the ways that Welsh motifs have proliferated in this age of cultural cross-pollination, spreading worldwide the myths of one small British nation.
A collection of 83 short fairy tales, including; The Lady of the Lake; Arthur in the Cave; The Curse of Pantannas; The Drowning of the Bottom Hundred; Elidyr's Sojurn in Fairy-Land; Rhys and Llywelyn; Lowri Dafydd Earns a Purse of Gold; The Llanfabon Changeling; Why the Red Dragon is the Emblem of Wales; Llyn Cwm Llwch; The Adventures of Three Farmers; Cadwaladr and His Goat; The Fairy Wife; Einion and the Lady of the Greenwood; The Green Isles of the Ocean; March's Ears; The Fairy Harp; Guto Bach and the Fairies; Ianto's Chase; The Stray Cow, and many more.
This book, a selection of folk tales, true tales, tall tales, myths, gossip, legends and memories, celebrates and honours unique Welsh stories. Some are well known, others from forgotten manuscripts or out-of-print volumes, and some are contemporary oral tales. They reflect the diverse tradition of storytelling, and the many meanings of 'chwedlau'. If someone says, 'Chwedl Cymraeg?' they are asking, 'Do you speak Welsh?' and 'Do you tell a tale in Welsh?' Here is the root of storytelling, or 'chwedleua', in Wales. It is part of conversation. This book, one to linger over and to treasure, keeps these ancient tales alive by retelling them for a new audience.
A little-known lecture by Lévi-Strauss is the inspiration for this work. In this lecture, he intuitively suggested that in medieval Europe there once existed a set of myths, centred on the grail, which are structurally the opposite of the goatsucker myths that he famously analyzed in his mythologiques series. This work uses Lévi-Strauss' inspirational lecture as a launchpad for an exploration of a group of related medieval Welsh myths, two of which have been briefly considered previously by Lévi-Strauss himself. The root of the methodological approach this book employs throughout is the Structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss; however, it has been modified to incorporate the suggestions of later neo-Structuralists. This analysis tool is applied to a group of myths, which have become conveniently--if somewhat erroneously--known as the Mabinogion. The name Mabinogion appears as part of a colophon at the end of one of the myth of Pwyll and it was later adopted first by Pugh (1835), and then by Lady Charlotte Guest (1838) as a title for their now famous translations of Welsh mythology. Consequently, the title has stuck to describe the material that is contained within their translations and, while it is a somewhat inaccurate way to describe the myths, it has the virtues of being both a succinct and widely recognised signifier. The term has come to signify eight myths, or perhaps more accurately eight groups of myths, which are all present in the late fourteenth-century manuscript Llyfr Coch Hergest (The Red Book of Hergest), and all but one of which can be found in the slightly earlier Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch (The White Book of Rhydderch). As such, the Mabinogion is the key collection of medieval Welsh mythology and an important source for early Arthurian material. Although Structuralism and the Mabinogion have attracted a good deal of attention from the academic world, there has been never been a sustained attempt to follow Levi-Strauss' intuitive insights with a methodical Structuralist analysis of this material. In the year of Lévi-Strauss' centenary celebrations, this work is the first sustained attempt to follow his intuitive suggestions about several Mabinogion myths with a detailed Structuralist analysis of the Mabinogion. This work is therefore a unique anthropological presentation and analysis of the Mabinogion, which argues for a radical, new interpretation of these myths in light of the existence of a central system of interlocking symbols that has the Grail at its heart. Through the analysis, the book reveals a logical organizational principle that underlies a body of material that has previously been viewed as disparate and confusing. This underlying structure is demonstrated to be, as Lévi-Strauss suggested it may, the opposite of that which Lévi-Strauss himself uncovered in the Americas. The revelation of this new form of underlying structure leads to a rethinking of some important aspects of Structuralism, including the Canonical formula, at the same time as acting as a tribute to the farsightedness of Lévi-Strauss. This book makes important contributions to the fields of Arthurian studies, anthropology, Celtic studies, cultural studies, medieval studies, mythology and religious studies.
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
Enjoy Wales's rich heritage of myth and fairy tales, re-told for young readers. From magical Welsh dragons that destroy a castle night after night, to a princess made out of flowers and a fairy changeling bother, this book includes traditional favourites and classic myths and legends from Welsh folklore.
