Snowdonia Folk Tales

by Eric Maddern

The old kingdom of Gwynedd – the mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia), Ynys (Anglesey) and the Llyˆn Peninsula – may be the most mythic landscape in Britain. The ancient Druids and from it sprang the tales of Blessed Bran who protected the land, wizards who made a Woman of Flowers, and Merlin the dragon whisperer whose prophecy echoes still. The poet Taliesin walked these hills, Welsh bards told stories of Arthur by these hearths and saints made pilgrimages along these paths. From these hidden nooks the Tylwyth Teg (Fair Folk) emerged to tease the people, and through these mountain passes rode Llywelyn the Great and Owain Glyndwˆ r, living lives that would be spun into legend.Storyteller and singer Eric Maddern has gathered these old tales here and breathed fresh life into them.

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2015

Reviews

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this is one of the books that I bought as a souvenir of my 2022 trip to England and Wales! Though we never made it up to Snowdonia (the train up the mountain wasn’t running, so we didn’t really feel like driving some more), I love folk tales and thought this would make a good souvenir of our day trip to Conwy.

As expected, I really enjoyed this book! One nice thing about folklore collections that are specific to a particular area (e.g. Forgotten Yorkshire Folk and Fairy Tales) is that you get to read lots of new stories and Snowdonia Folk Tales were no different. I knew some of the Arthurian legends, though I didn’t know they were from Wales, but most of the stories were new to me. The book is divided into the following sections:

Mythic roots: druids, dragons, and Taliesin
Legends of Arthur
The Lives of the Saints
The Tylwyth Teg: stories about the fairies
Folk Tales
Historic Legends
All the sections come with an introduction, which I felt really helped to place things in context. Most of the stories seem fairly old too – there is only one new story, and that is based on archaeological evidence and speculation about the Lindow Man, the preserved body found in the peat bog, and I found that to be an interesting take on what could have happened.

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that there were some issues with the typesetting – certain words had odd spaces between them and that looks pretty bad visually. It doesn’t affect the content, but it seems to be a strange error.

Overall, I really like this book and it’s going to be a great addition to my small collection of books on fairy and folk tales from different places. Plus, it’s a nice trip souvenir for me too!

This review was first posted at Eustea Reads

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was really disappointing. I took it on a trip to Snowdonia but ended up having to force myself to finish it weeks after my return. The writing is poor ("this happened, then this happened, then he said this, and she did that") and the illustrations are awful - in my opinion, detracting from the text.

[Daniel Whelan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a great many books on Welsh myth and folklore, and consider this the best of them.

[Sue Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iive in Wales and this is one of the more interesting books on folklore I've read.

[Csenge · Rating 5 out of 5]

It shows that the book has been written by a storyteller. The language is eloquent but not literary; the stories are well chosen and told in an entertaining way. I enjoyed all the additional historical, cultural, and linguistic information included in the book. It was a great journey through the Welsh landscape steeped in legends, folktales, and mythology.