Celtic Source

The story of Llyn y Fan Fach is one of the most famous Welsh fairy tales, and one of the best known examples of a Fairy Bride legend. But what does it mean and what folk beliefs could be behind it?

The Fairy Rings, Cylchoedd y Tylwyth Teg, are a common feature of Welsh fairy tales, especially those concerning the disappearance of mortals taken up in the fairy dances. But where do the mortals go and how do some of them manage to come back?

The Welsh storytelling tradition contains what we could call teaching tales, the most famous being The Four Branches of the Mabinogi. But for how long did this tradition persist? Can we find late signs of it in folk tales about the Tylwyth Teg?

Changelings - fairy children exchanged for human infants - are part of several folk traditions across Europe. In Wales, they are the Plant Cyfnewid. What is the origin of this belief?

The Tylwyth Teg (Welsh Fair Folk) have many attributes that connect them to the earlier supernatural beings of the Mabinogi, attributes that also persisted into the modern era.

The modern folklore regarding Gwyn ap Nudd depicts him as a psychopomp, hunting the souls of the dead with his magical hounds on Calan Gaeaf. But how certain are we that this depiction isn't a modern evolution of Gwyn's myth?

This is the first in a series of talks on Welsh folklore. Gwyn ap Nudd is one of the clearest examples of a Welsh folk character who has remained largely unchanged during the last millennia. We begin with his exploits as a mischievous spirit bothering travellers out in the wilds.

In this last talk on Peredur and the Three Romances of The Mabinogion, we take a look at one of the more overlooked elements in the famous Grail procession scene, and find that the Bleeding Lance is best understood in the context of Celtic myth, where its meaning becomes clear.

This is a question that arises quite often on the courses, and in this last episode of Series 2 I've compiled two answers I gave recently to this quite complex question.

The Mabinogion tale of Peredur contains a version of the famous grail scene that so fascinated medieval audiences across Europe. But in a Welsh context, this scene has several other meanings, just as profound and just as pertinent to the study of Celtic storytelling.