The Irish in Wales
The Irish, Welsh, and Scots all have a Celtic ancestry, but they settled their respective regions before the Roman conquest of Britain. There is an amazing amount of debate as to the origin of the Celts: were they Phoenician? stocky and dark? tall and blonde? as culturally cohesive as the label suggests? The standard theory is that the Celts were an Indo-European group that gradually migrated across Europe and Asia, with an identifiable, distinct culture by 750 BC. As a group, they were well-known to the Greeks and Romans. http://archaeology.suite101.com/article.cfm/archaeology_and_the_celts The Celts had arrived in Britain and Ireland by 400 BC, super-imposing upon whatever native peoples were already there. The Celts in these regions, then, were on the fringes of Celtic culture, not their heart, which was centered in Northern Europe, particularly in what is now Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Read more…
The Dream of Welsh Independence
On December 11th, 1282, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was killed amidst the conflict with Edward I. Less than a year later, his brother, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, was hung, drawn, and quartered and dragged throught he streets of Shrewsbury–as final payment for what Edward perceived as the ultimate betrayal. The two men had been as close as brothers, once, and ended in epic hatred. In further retribution, Edward took all the signs of office–the true cross, the scepter, the crown–of the throne of Wales for himself. And he made sure his son, Edward II, was born at Caernarfon Castle (in 1284), so that Edward could name him the Prince of Wales. The heir to throne of England has been called the Prince of Wales ever since. It has been 731 years since 1282. Is that too long a time to remember this? Has Read more…
Mt. Snowdon
Mt. Snowdon, or Yr Wyddfa in Welsh, is the largest mountain in Wales, at 3560 feet and one of the wettest, receiving upwards of 180 inches of precipitation (from the picture, not just rain). It is a focal point of much of the culture of Gwynedd in the Dark Ages. In the Welsh version of the Arthurian tales, Arthur sleeps in a cave in the mountain, to one day rise again and lead his people to victory against their enemies. ‘Snowdon’ comes from the Saxon words ‘snow dun’, meaning ‘snowy hill’, but the Welsh word ‘Yr Wyddfa’ means ‘the tomb’. Cadair Idris, a southern mountain in the Snowdonia range, translates to “Arthur’s Chair”, while Dinas Emrys, where Myrddin prophecied about the red and white dragons, rests on Snowdon’s south-western flank. Some modern pagans have a theory about ‘ley’ lines: hypothetical Read more…
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