Celtic Source

This video is in answer to two questions sent in from The Taliesin Tradition course:  - what is the bardic craft of classical Welsh poetry?  - what evidence is there for human to animal transformations in Celtic art?   You can follow The Taliesin Tradition course (as well as several others) with a subscription to the website:   https://celticsource.online/courses-page/  Ne...

Concluding this short series on Welsh Arthurian poems we take a look at the broader use of the 'enchanted fortress' motif and see how it's used to evoke several different themes, both sociological and mythological.

Continuing with this short series on Welsh Arthurian poems, this talk takes a look at Preideu Annwfyn (The Spoils of Annwfn), one of the better known poems from the medieval Book of Taliesin. Like many other Taliesin poems from this period, it is a strange, ambiguous and multilayered text, and although many commentators have attempted to pin its ultimate meaning down, it remains a largely mysterio...

'The Discourse of Arthur and the Eagle' is a 12th century Welsh poem that was very popular in the Welsh oral and written tradition. Even though it's a poem about Christian learning, it also draws on a far more pagan mythology.

When we compare Welsh folktales about giant witches and their stone cairns to stories about the Cailleach of Ireland and Scotland, we find some very interesting similarities.

In recent decades, several authors on Celtic myth and spirituality have been  accused of misrepresented the cultural history of Wales. But what of Welsh scholars? Are they also misrepresenting Welsh history, intentionally obscuring pagan influences?

In this last in the series on Welsh folklore, we look at the peculiar phenomena of the Giant's Beard and what it could have stood for in the ancient past.

A very frequently asked question amongst modern druids is what (if anything), can be taken from the work of Iolo Morganwg, the founding father of modern druidry and notorious forger of ‘ancient’ texts? The answer may surprise you.

This neolithic tomb on Ynys Môn isn't the only cairn to be named after a giant witch . . .

What happened to the Celtic gods of Iron Age Europe? Where are they in later Celtic folklore?

Peniarth 118, a Welsh manuscript written in 1600, describes many of the traditional giants and witches of Wales. It also confirms that King Arthur and his knights had a very long relationship with these monstrous, otherworldly figures.

The Witch can often be a cartoonish character in folklore, not just in Wales but across the world. But there is also a mythological quality to the witch as an embodiment of death.

The witch transformed into a hare is an old folk tale found across many parts of Europe. In Wales, the story appears to have a connection to Saint Melangell, the protector of ŵyn Melangell ('Melangell's lambs'), the traditional Welsh name for hares.

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.

Celtic myths are symbolic, so we need to interpret them to draw out their wisdom. As a result, it's probably worth asking if interpretation was ever a part of the Celtic storytelling tradition?

Connecting the different incarnations of Brigid, from Iron Age goddess to early Christian saint.

The different versions of Taliesin's folk tale give us clues as to where the animal-transformation chase scene may have taken place. Following some interesting clues in the Welsh landscape, here's one possible location . . .​

The Book of Taliesin is one of the great treasures of Welsh culture, but who wrote it? In truth, it's an impossible question to answer, but there are some very interesting theories about who composed some of the most famous poems in the manuscript . . .

The Book of Taliesin is one of the primary medieval sources for the Taliesin myth. But what does it actually contain?

The Welsh Bardic Triads ('Trioedd Ynys Prydein') provide an index to the oral storytelling tradition of medieval Wales. They were used by bards across the centuries not only to help them remember the vast network of traditional myth and lore, but also to present a distinct vision of the ancient past.​

Most Celtic scholars would rightly point out that the correct answer to this question is an emphatic no. Yet there is a more nuanced story that can be told.

How did Taliesin transform his patron through the bardic power of myth?

There are some distinct similarities between the Welsh Tale of Taliesin and the Irish story of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, in particular the very ancient concept of a magical elixir.

In the Taliesin myth, awen plays a central role in creating symbolic reality. This leads naturally on to an  outline of some of the symbolic meanings that can be found in the great mythic cauldron of the Celts.

 'Otherworld' is probably a misleading term when thinking of the Irish sidh or Welsh Annwfn , as there is a subtle but important difference between these ancient concepts.