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Trama e riassunto di I folletti britannici: folclore gallese, mitologia delle fate, leggende e tradizioni
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About 8 h 20 min to read.A chi è rivolto
For readers who love folklore, fairy tales, Celtic myth and the lore of Wales, or who enjoy tales told with a Victorian outsider's curiosity.
Che cos’è questo libro
British Goblins is a book of Welsh folklore by Wirt Sikes, an American writer who served as United States consul at Cardiff. It came out in 1880. Sikes lived among the Welsh for several years and listened to the tales that were still told in farms, villages and mining towns. He gathered them, set them beside older Welsh writing, and added his own comments on where they came from.
The book is a tour of an unseen Wales. You meet the fair family called the Tylwyth Teg, the maidens who live under lakes, the ghostly lights that warn of death, the hounds that hunt through the night sky, and the little miners who knock inside the rock. You also hear how people explained their world before schools and newspapers reached every valley. Let us begin with the fairies, who sit at the heart of the whole book.
In questo riassunto
- 1An American collects the tales of WalesFree
- 2The Tylwyth Teg are the fair family
- 3Lake maidens and their human husbands
- 4Spirits of the mine, the hill and the water
- 5Death omens and the spirit world
- 6Bards, Arthur and how the lore has lasted
Punto chiave 1 di 6
An American collects the tales of Wales
Wirt Sikes came to Wales as a diplomat, not as a scholar. He was posted to Cardiff in the 1870s, and he used his time there to travel and to talk. He wrote another book about the country, Rambles and Studies in Old South Wales, and British Goblins grew out of the same curiosity. In it he sets down what he heard from country people and what he found in Welsh books and journals.
His method is that of a collector. He tells a tale, notes where it was told, and often compares it with a similar story from Ireland, Scotland, Brittany or elsewhere in Europe. This gives the book a wide frame. The reader sees that Welsh legends are one branch of a much larger tree of Celtic belief.
Sikes also has a view about why such stories matter. He treats them as a record of how ordinary people once thought, and he writes with warmth rather than scorn. He can be sharply critical, especially of cruel beliefs about changelings. He says these tales deserve respect as remnants of ancient mythology, even when belief gives way to science.
That sense of a vanishing world runs through the book. Many stories are given as things told by grandparents or by old people in remote parishes. That gives the collection both its charm and its urgency.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of I folletti britannici: folclore gallese, mitologia delle fate, leggende e tradizioni
About 8 h 20 min to read.Questions about I folletti britannici: folclore gallese, mitologia delle fate, leggende e tradizioni
What is British Goblins about?
It is a collection of Welsh folklore. It covers fairies, lake maidens, mine spirits, ghostly lights, death omens, witches and legends of Arthur and the bards, drawn from country stories and older Welsh writing.
Who are the Tylwyth Teg?
The Tylwyth Teg, meaning the fair family, are the main fairy people of Welsh tradition. They are beautiful, musical and unpredictable, and they may reward or punish the humans they meet.
What is a corpse candle in Welsh folklore?
A corpse candle, or canwyll corph, is a small light said to travel from a house toward the churchyard. People took it as a warning that a death would soon happen in that place.
When was British Goblins written and is it true?
Wirt Sikes published it in 1880. The stories are folklore, not history, but they record what Welsh people believed and told in the Victorian age and earlier.
Is British Goblins hard to read?
It is not hard. The prose is clear, and the tales are short. The book is easy to read in small portions.