Welsh folklore

Y Tylwyth Teg illustration

Welsh folklore is the collective term for the folklore of the Welsh people. It encompasses topics related to Welsh mythology, folk tales, customs, and oral tradition.

Welsh folklore is related to Irish and Scottish folklore due to its Celtic traditions, and to English folklore, it also shares similarities with Breton and Cornish folklore due to shared history

Sources

There are many examples of folk literary traditions in Nennius' book Historia Brittonum, written around the start of the 9th century. There are scattered motifs of Middle Welsh prose, and many references can also be found in the works of the bards: for example in some of Taliesin's works and in that of the Poets of the Princes.

It is only comparatively recently that the Welsh folk tales were collected and published. There are English language volumes such as The Cambrian Popular Antiquities by Peter Roberts (1815). One of the first Welsh language books is Ystên Sioned ("Janet's Pitcher", 1882), but this was preceded by a number of articles in Welsh language magazines. Y Genhinen ("The Leek") was established to promote studies of folk literature and to safeguard the traditions of Wales.

See also

• Welsh Mythology

Further reading

• Juliette M. Wood (1988). "Classifying Folk Narrative Using the Type/Motif Method: A Case-Study on Welsh Material". In: Folk Life, 27:1, pp. 95-103. DOI: 10.1179/flk.1988.27.1.95