The early medieval manuscripts of Ireland and Britain contain tantalizing clues about the cosmology, religion and mythology of native Celtic cultures, despite censorship and revision by Christian redactors. Focusing on the latest research and translations, the author provides fresh insight into the beliefs and practices of the Iron Age inhabitants of Ireland, Britain and Gaul. Chapters cover creation and cosmogony, the deities of the Gaels, feminine power in narrative sources, druidic belief, priestesses and magical rites.

This volume includes "Nations in Tune: the Influence of Irish music on the Breton Musical Record" by Yann Bevant; "Ethnicity, Geography, and the Passage of Dominion in the Mabinogi and Brut Y Brenhinedd" by Christina Chance; "Rejecting Mother's Blessing: the Absence of the Fairy in the Welsh Search for National Identity" by Adam Coward; "Gwalarn: An Attempt to Renew Breton literature" by Gwendal Denez; "At the Crossroads: World War One and the Shifting Roles of Men and Women in Breton Ballad Song Practice" by Natalie Franz; "Apocryphal Sanctity in the Lives of Irish Saints" by Maire Johnson; " 'An Dialog wtre Arzur Roe d'an Bretounet ha Guynglaff' and Its Connections with the Arthurian tradition" by Herve Le Bihan; "A Walk on the Wild Side: Women, Men and Madness" by Edyta Lehmann; "The Early Establishment of Celtic Studies in North American Universities" by Michael Linkletter; " 'The Marshalled Fence of Battle of All the Men of Earth' A Reading of C Chulainn's First Recension r astrad" by Elizabeth Moore; "Dreams of Medieval Scottish Nationhood: The Epic Case of William Wallace" by Kylie Murray; " 'Some of You Will Curse Her' Women's Fiction During the Irish-language Revival" by Riona Nic Congail; "Dating Peredur: New Light on Old Problems" by Natalia I. Petrovskaia; " 'From the Shame You Have Done' Comparing the stories of Blodeuedd and Bl thnait" by Sarah Pfannenschmidt; " 'And There was a Fourth son Llefelys' Narrative Structure and Variation in Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys" by Kelly Ann Randell; and "Fabricating Celts: How Iron Age Iberians became Indo-Europeanized during the Franco Regime" by Aaron Alzola Romero and Eduardo Sanchez-Moreno.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Celtic mythology and religion, encompassing numerous aspects of ritual and belief. Topics include the presence of the Celtic Otherworld and its inhabitants, cosmology and sacred cycles, wisdom texts, mythological symbolism, folklore and legends, and an appreciation of the natural world. Evidence is drawn from the archaeology of sacred sites, ethnographic accounts of the ancient Celts and their beliefs, medieval manuscripts, poetic and visionary literature, and early modern accounts of folk healers and seers. New translations of poems, prayers, inscriptions and songs from the early period (Gaulish, Old Irish and Middle Welsh) as well as the folklore tradition (Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton and Manx) complement the text. Information of this kind has never before been collected as a compendium of the indigenous wisdom of the Celtic-speaking peoples, whose traditions have endured in various forms for almost three thousand years.

One of the most enduring tropes of modern Irish history is the MOPE thesis, the idea that the Irish were the Most Oppressed People Ever. Political oppression, forced emigration and endemic poverty have been central to the historiography of nineteenth-century Ireland. This volume problematises the assumption of generalised misery and suggests the many different, and often surprising, ways in which Irish people sought out, expressed and wrote about happiness. Bringing together an international group of established and emerging scholars, this volume considers the emerging field of the history of emotion and what a history of happiness in Ireland might look like. During the nineteenth century the concept of happiness denoted a degree of luck or good fortune, but equally was associated with the positive feelings produced from living a good and moral life. Happiness could be found in achieving wealth, fame or political success, but also in the relief of lulling a crying baby to sleep. Reading happiness in historical context indicates more than a simple expression of contentment. In personal correspondence, diaries and novels, the expression of happiness was laden with the expectations of audience and author and informed by cultural ideas about what one could or should be happy about. This volume explores how the idea of happiness shaped social, literary, architectural and aesthetic aspirations across the century. CONTRIBUTORS: Ian d'Alton, Shannon Devlin, Anne Dolan, Simon Gallaher, Paul Huddie, Kerron Ó Luain, David McCready, Ciara Thompson, Andrew Tierney, Kristina Varade, Mai Yatani

considers seals from medieval Wales and neighbouring England (the Borders) the market goes beyond Wales ground-breaking treatment of seals as historical documents Has a multidisciplinary scope, covering Art history, Cultural history, Celtic Studies and medieval history uses sigillographic evidence to provide important new insights into the history of medieval Wales and the English border counties