It was the Celtic bards who laid down the foundation of inner wisdom that has come down to us as Arthurian legend, passing their traditions to the Arthurian romancers of the 12th and 13th centuries. Thus the Celts provide an immediate bridge that leads to a very ancient world. Focusing on the Brythonic Celtic material and the "Taliesin" cult whose lineage preserved the mysteries through the Mabinogion and other texts, Awen: the Quest of the Celtic Mysteries reveals the sources of the British sacred tradition right back to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and, as some believe, further back still to even more ancient sources. Awen is a Welsh word often translated as "inspiration". However, in its fullness it has a much deeper meaning, an irradiation of the soul from paradisal origins. In the context of the Celtic folk-soul it casts the paradisal pattern by which the people and the land were harmonised. Through the aligned symbolism of the goddess, the sacred king and the stars, a compelling picture is built of a thriving mystery tradition which marries the constellations to the landscape, exploring as an example the interwoven five-fold and seven-fold stellar geometry of Moel ty Uchaf stone circle in North Wales, and the stellar alignments on the landscape of Cadair Idris.

Reptilian Aliens will destroy Humanity unless one Druidess can stop them. Emily Hester doesn’t know that she is a druid or that royal blood runs through her veins. When the Awen Order of Druids declares Emily their leader, her first instinct is to run away. She’s not a heroine and she doesn’t know magic, yet Druid prophecy insists only she can save Earth. Beset by inner demons and disastrous storms, Emily struggles to find the courage to claim her legacy. But will the merciless horde exterminate all humans, beginning with her? To find out, buy Awen Rising, the first book in the Awen trilogy. If you like original stories with imperfect heroines and creepy adversaries, you’ll love O. J. Barré’s pre-apocalyptic urban fantasy set in a magical world with explosive action, a rich cast of characters, and a fascinating plot. Buy Awen Rising today to be whisked away to the near-future with druids and dragons and nasty reptilian aliens with intellect and technology that rivals ours.

Awen Storm is the second book in the Awen trilogy.

Adult Urban Fantasy Science Fiction

A nameless young man finds himself wandering half-naked through the frozen wintry Bristol night, when he falls – or is he pushed…? – into the river and is washed out to sea. Arriving lost and exhausted upon a strange island enmisted, he comes to a fortress which holds a lithe, enchanted-but-broken, eternal youth in chains, who tries to kill him. It is only through sharing stories of his life that he is able to avert the youth's wrath at being disturbed, easing his traumatised heart by offering him something no other visitor to this dark place has ever given him: presence, and care. This unearthly mythical narrative becomes the poetic frame story by which Bruce, the nameless wanderer, unfolds his life story in fractured, allegorical and dreamlike ways. We move from migraines and his lived experience as a gay/queer person with ADHD, into visionary experiences that changed the course of his life, the ecstasies of true love, and expressions of his personal philosophies and spiritualities, as well as a curious catalogue of artworks he has created over the years as an artist. As this most unusual of autobiographies unfolds, we move deeper into Bruce's queer/neurodiverse, homoerotic/hyperactive inner world, gliding from one theme to another in a genre-baffling, lilting symphony of images, ultimately uncovering his one true mirror soul with all its fragilities, strengths and wonders. He must try to save his own life as well as the youth's, so they can escape this otherworldly prison together. At once melodious and magic, joyous and tragic, ‘Nine Nights Awake’ is not for the faint of heart: simultaneously riddlingly absurd, sexually graphic and brutally honest, its mythical wildness might well be the oddest and most eccentric memoir you are ever likely to read! ‘Nine Nights Awake’ is all at once, a kind of thematically arranged autobiography of an idiosyncratic inner life, with all its feelings, colours, dreams, armchair philosophies and psychological agilities; an epic poem grounded in fragments of Celtic and Germanic myth telling the story of a lost soul found; an ad-hoc set of narrative allegories from personal, gay/Queer, neurodiverse, contemporary and archetypal human life; an extensive artist’s talk enfolded into a dreaming fall and confinement; an intimate and winding conversation with the soul; a lengthy meditation upon the Medieval Welsh poem ‘Preiddeu Annwn’ attributed to Taliesin, which in turn liberates further personal musings on poetry itself; and a radically parallel series of multiple threads, sidenotes, sidetracks, circular narratives, premonitions, postmonitions and quirky references, misquotes, paraphrased song lyrics and other inspirations… all rolled into one!

All but forgotten now, the Great Storm of 26/27 November 1703 was the worst storm experienced in recorded history in the British Isles. Over 8000 people died and the losses of property and shipping were immense. Martin Brayne tells in vivid detail the story of this tragic and catastrophic event. While almost everyone knows something about those two classic disaster scenarios of the Stuart age, the Great Fire of 1666 and the Great Plague of the year before, hardly anyone knows the story of the Great Storm of 1703, the worst that has occurred in the British Isles. Winds and rain lashed the entire country and floods were reported almost everywhere. Famously, Henry Winstanley had the misfortune to be in the wooden lighthouse which he had designed on Eddystone Rocks of Plymouth on 26 November 1703. The lighthouse was destroyed and Winstanley died.

This book presents rich information on Romanian mythology and folklore, previously under-explored in Western scholarship, placing the source material within its historical context and drawing comparisons with European and Indo-European culture and mythological tradition. The author presents a detailed comparative study and argues that Romanian mythical motifs have roots in Indo-European heritage, by analyzing and comparing mythical motifs from the archaic cultures, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Sanskrit, and Persian, with written material and folkloric data that reflects the Indo-European culture. The book begins by outlining the history of the Getae-Dacians, beginning with Herodotus' description of their customs and beliefs in the supreme god Zamolxis, then moves to the Roman wars and the Romanization process, before turning to recent debates in linguistics and genetics regarding the provenance of a shared language, religion, and culture in Europe. The author then analyzes myth creation, its relation to rites, and its functions in society, before examining specific examples of motifs and themes from Romanian folk tales and songs. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of folklore studies, comparative mythology, linguistic anthropology, and European culture.