#welshfolklore — Public Fediverse posts

Elemental fantasy. Fairytale retellings. Folklore romance. Paranormal romance. Historical fiction. Contemporary romance.

Different genres, different landscapes, the same question running through all of it.

What does love cost, and is it worth paying? Welsh mythology has always known the answer. 🌿

#WelshFolklore #IndieAuthor #BookQuestion #Bookish #Reading

Good morning, lovely people! It's the start of a new week. Do you believe in this idea, that the stories we're drawn to tend to reflect something back at us that we might not have found any other way? And that what we choose to read says rather a lot about who we are and who we're becoming?

Have a Magnificent Monday. Take care and stay safe. 💙

#BookQuote #Reading #Bookish #BookLove #WelshFolklore

It's #FolkloreFriday 🐱 The cat in Celtic mythology was a threshold creature — moving between worlds, watching things no one else could see, belonging to the Otherworld in ways that sitting by a human fire never quite changed. The Cath Palug of Welsh legend began as a kitten and became something that required a hero to face. The folklore was never surprised by any of this.

#FolkloreFriday #WelshFolklore #TalesFromWales #Reading #Books

Midweek question, and I want honest answers.

If you could step inside any fictional world for a week — any book, film, series, anything — which would you choose?

There's one rule. You have to stay for the full week, whatever the world decides to throw at you. No stepping out early if the dragon shows up or the Otherworld starts behaving strangely. 🌿📖

#FolkloreFantasy #WelshFolklore #Bookish #BookWorldQuestion #Reading #ReadingCommunity

Good morning, everyone! Libraries are one of those things that are so easy to take for granted until you stop and think about what they actually represent. All that accumulated knowledge, stories, and imagination just sitting there freely available to anyone who walks through the door. It's really quite remarkable when you consider it properly.

Have a Terrific Tuesday. Take care and stay safe. 💙

#BookQuote #Bookish #Reading #WelshFolklore #MythAndMoonlight

Two Story Hearth doors worth knowing about.

The Discord is a warm community for readers, lore-lovers, and writers — Welsh myth, book chat, folklore rabbit holes, and seasonal content. Quiet lurking entirely welcome. 🌿

The Payhip store holds the full catalogue, with a free novella via the newsletter.

Discord: https://discord.gg/gQfzqBRNns
Payhip: https://payhip.com/MorganSheppard
Free novella: https://morgansheppard.wixsite.com/morgansheppardauthor/newsletter

#WelshFolklore #FolkloreFantasy #IndieAuthor #Reading #Bookish #TalesFromWales

Good morning, everyone! It's one of the quieter gifts that reading gives you, that sudden recognition that someone else already found the words for something you thought was entirely your own. And that the feeling you've been carrying has been carried before and survived.

Have a Terrific Tuesday. Take care and stay safe. 💙

#BookQuote #Bookish #Reading #MythAndMoonlight #WelshFolklore

Good morning, lovely people! June is almost done, and the year is properly in its long golden stretch now. There's something about this particular point in summer that always makes reading feel like exactly the right thing to be doing with whatever quiet time you can find.

Have a Magnificent Monday. Take care and stay safe. 💙

#BookQuote #Reading #Bookish #WheelOfTheYear #WelshFolklore

Good morning, lovely people! The solstice has just turned, and the light is extraordinary right now, long and golden and unhurried. Even though the wheel has begun its slow shift back, it doesn't feel like a loss so much as the year settling fully into itself.

Have a Magnificent Monday. Take care and stay safe. 💙

#BookQuote #WheelOfTheYear #LunarWitch #WelshFolklore #Reading

The lake maidens of Welsh folklore didn't stay because they were asked. They came under their own terms, loved on their own terms, and left the same way. The water always called them back eventually. And it was never a tragedy to them. 🌊

#FolkloreFriday #TalesFromWales #WelshFolklore #WelshMythology #Reading #Bookish #IndieAuthor

Good afternoon, my lovelies! It's a quiet but persistent idea that, even through the dark months, something is held on to and kept safe. Standing in a garden in mid-June, with everything in full flower, it's not hard to believe it's true.

Have a Wonderful Wednesday. Take care and stay safe. 💙

#BookQuote #LunarWitch #WelshFolklore #Reading #Bookish

Good evening, lovely people! Books have a way of showing up for you that very few other things can match. They're always there when you need them, never asking anything back. Monday feels like a good day to remember just how much that's worth.

Have a Magnificent Monday. Take care and stay safe. 💙

#BookQuote #Reading #Bookish #WelshFolklore #MythAndMoonlight

Banshees

A banshee (Bean si in Modern Irish & ben side, in Old Irish, meaning “woman of the fairy mound,” or “fairy woman”) is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member. She usually does this by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening. Keening is a traditional form of vocal lament for the dead in the Gaelic Celtic tradition. This is known to have taken place in Ireland & Scotland.

Banshees are strongly associated with specific Irish families. The belief is that the banshee is a family spirit attached to a particular lineage. Her mournful wail/cry is heard only by family members as a warning of an imminent death.

Another of the banshee characteristics is their unwavering attachment to certain Gaelic families such as the O’Neills, O’Brians, O’Connors, O’Grady, & Kavanaghs, among others. Some traditions hold that the banshee is the ghost. This is perhaps a mother of a famous poet/singer from the family who died tragically. In this sense, she’s an ancestral spirit tied to the bloodline & the land.

She appears or is heard only to mourn & warn the family of an impending death. Often before anyone has received news of it. This direct, specific role makes her an inherently familiar guardian or omen for that clan/family.

They aren’t family pets, the banshees presence is a known, if terrifying, part of the family’s history & destiny, linking her fate to theirs across generations.

A banshee is an autonomous entity, a powerful fairy-woman (bean sidhe) or ghost, isn’t under the control of any living person.

Sometimes she has long streaming hair, which she may be seen combing, with some legends specifying she can only be keen while combing her hair. She wears a gray cloak over a green dress. Her eyes are red from continual weeping. She’s sometimes dressed in white with red hair & a ghastly complexion.

In Ireland & parts of Scotland, a traditional part of mourning is the keening woman (bean chaointe), who wails a lament. This keening woman may be a professional, in some cases. The best Keeners would be in high demand.

Irish legends talks about a lament being sung by a fairy woman, or banshee. She would sing it when a family member died or was about to die. Even if the person had died far away & news of their death hasn’t come yet. In those cases, her wailing would be the 1st warning the household had of the death.

The banshee is also a predictor of death. If someone is about to enter a situation where it’s unlikely they’ll come out alive, she’ll warn people by screaming/wailing. This gives rise to the banshee also being known as a wailing woman. The banshee was also linked with the death coach. The banshee is said to either summon the death coach with her keening or travel in tandem with it.

When several banshees show up at 1 time, it usually indicates the death of someone holy or great. The story sometimes tells that the woman (though called a fairy) was a ghost. She’s often a specific murdered woman, or a man who passed away in childbirth.

In some parts of Leinster, she’s referred to as the bean chaointe or ban nigheachain (“little washerwoman”) or nigheag na h-ath (“little washer at the ford”). She’s seen washing bloodstained clothes or armor of those who are about to die.

In Welsh folklore, there’s also a similar being known as the cyhyraeth. The cyhyraeth gives a disembodied moaning voice before the person’s passing.

Some sources suggest that the banshees Laments only the descendants of pure Milesian stock of Ireland. The Milesians were the final race to settle in Ireland. The original belief appears to be associated with a number of ancient Irish families. According to tradition, a banshee wouldn’t lament or visit someone of Saxon or Norman descent or those who came to Ireland later.

Most, not all, of the last names associated with banshees have the “O” or “Mc/Mac” prefix. That means people with the last names of Goidelic origin. This means a family native to the Insular Celtic lands. Rather than those of the Norse, Anglo-Saxon, or Norman.

There are some exceptions to the banshee lore. A banshee may lament a person who’s been gifted with music & song.

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#AngloSaxon #BanNigheachain #Banshees #BeanChaointe #BeanNighe #BeanSi #beanSidhe #BenSide #Celtic #Cyhyraeth #DeathCoach #Gaelic #Goidelic #InsularCeltic #Ireland #IrishFolklore #Kavanaghs #keening #KeeningWoman #Milesian #ModernIrish #Norman #Norse #OBrians #OConnors #OGrady #ONeills #OldIrish #Poet #Saxon #Scotland #ScottishFolklore #Singer #WelshFolklore

This is what I found in Hay On Wye yesterday. 2 very rare books by WJ Gruffydd, and a rather lovely spider brooch.

#Welshfolklore
#WelshMyth
#Cyfarwydd
#Mabinogi
#Rhiannon
#Sovereignty
#Druidry
#WelshPaganism

Going down the rabbit hole about the Welsh Triads. Organizing random mythical things in threes is one of the most delightful storytelling systems I know.

#Wales #folklore #mythology #folktales #WelshFolklore #storytelling