Llanerch Press

J.Romilly Allen's style is clear and concise, and his drawings help to give the reader an impression of what the ornament looked like when the stones were newly carved. The subject matter of this book formed the first two of the Rhind lectures in Archaeology for 1885. The complete series of Allen's lectures was originally published in a much larger work entitled Early Christian Symbolism in Great Britain and Ireland before the thirteenth century. The present paperback is a facsimile of lectures .......

View Book

The Reilig Odhrain on the holy island of Iona is the most ancient graveyard in all Scotland. A centuries-old tradition claims it to be the burial ground of some sixty kings, Macbeth and Kenneth mac-Alpin amongst them, but tradition is one thing and history all too often another. So how many kings are buried on lona and who are they? John Marsden has written a number of books on the early history of Scotland and Northumbria. In this Iona Book of the Dead he sets out to identify all those kings - .......

View Book

A Middle Irish Wonder Tale.
The famous Irish tale known as "The Vision of MacConglinne" is taken from the huge vellum codex known as the Leabhar Breac, or Speckled Book, now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, by which it was first published in facsimile in 1876.

View Book

The Voyage of Bran Son of Febal to the Land of the Living, an old Irish saga, was first edited, with a translation, notes and glossary, by Kuno Meyer, and published by David Nutt, London, 1895. It is here reprinted as a facsimile of that edition. The original edition was bound together with a very long essay by Alfred Nutt "upon the Irish vision of the happy otherworld and the Celtic doctrine of rebirth." This essay has not been included as it would have made this reprint too costly.

View Book

THE WATER OF LIFE:
SPRINGS AND WELLS OF MAINLAND BRITAIN
A new approach to the subject, offering
fresh insights into matters like Celtic well chapels, early hermit sites, and the significance of church wells. Using the gazetteer method and with a wealth of interpretative material the authors trace the development of the well-cult from its prehistoric beginnings,through Christian history, and into modern times.

View Book

There are two Arthurs. The Arthur of history is known from early Welsh poems, and he is probably the leader of the combined British resistance whom Gildas credits with having checked the advance of the Saxons for a time. The other Arthur is a king of medieval romance.

The Quest of the Grail represents the apogee of the adventures of the Arthurian cycle. Although a Christian story, it has older Celtic connections; thus Percival can be related with the Welsh hero Peredur, and the Grail, itself .......

View Book

From the great half-timbered halls of the east to the humble thatched cottages of the west, Wales has a remarkably rich heritage. Every area of the Principality has unique building traditions, details of which are celebrated here in this study of folk culture. Researched by field survey in the 1930s, The Welsh House captures building traditions that had died centuries before in other parts of Britain. As well as recording the traditional cottages and farmsteads of Wales, this work demonstrates t.......

View Book

This is a facsimile reprint of a work by Whitley Stokes first published by Williams and Norgate, London, Edinburgh and Oxford, in 1862, containing Cormac's Glossary, Codex A, O'Davoren's Glossary and a Glossary to the Calendar of Oingus the Culdee.

View Book

First Series

View Book

Second Series

View Book

Third Series ( Stories and Folklore ) William Bottrell collected his material on the legends folktales and folklore of West Cornwall during the second half of the nineteenth century, long before radio and television, at a time when the art of story telling was very much alive. As one might expect, there are many tales of encounters with the "little people" reminding us of the Celtic roots of the Cornish tradition. Other tales tell of witches, changlings, and a magician-alchemist, and there are a.......

View Book

Set of all three titles

View Book

Thomas Jeffrey Llewelyn Prichard (1790-1862) may be described as the author of the first Welsh novel, The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti, the first edition of which appeared in 1828. Revised and enlarged editions came out in 1839 and 1873. The present facsimile is of a revised and enlarged edition published by W. Nicholson and Sons, with neither date nor mention of the author's name on the title page. The adventures of Twm Shon Catti are said to have been based on incidents in the lif.......

View Book

The "Vita Gildae," written by a monk of the monastery of Ruys in Brittany, is the longer, and more ancient of the two lives. It is presented with an introduction, notes, and an English translation by Professor Williams. The second life, by Caradoc of Llancarfan, is shorter, and ignores the time spent by Gildas in Brittany. However it includes some Arthurian episodes which are more akin to the historical Arthur of bardic tradition than to the later mediaeval romances. The two lives together are a.......

View Book

Elias Owen's essay on the folk-tales and legends of North Wales won first prize at the National Eisteddfod for 1887. It was published in revised and enlarged form in 1896, and this paperback is a facsimile of that edition. In his preface the writer states that he is chiefly indebted to the aged inhabitants of Wales, for his information. Such information is less readily available in modern times due to the loss of oral tradition and the rise of mass media, and this is why this folklore book has b.......

View Book

Of interest to scholars, students and Welsh-learners, Henry Halford Vaughan's comprehensive collection, which has long been out of print, is here reprinted in paperback form.

View Book