Guide

Welsh Legends

Books on Welsh and Celtic legends, history and archaeology

The World of King Arthur

Welsh and Celtic legends, history and archaeology

Many of the earliest Welsh poems are epics written in the South of Scotland and North of England in the centuries following the collapse of Roman rule. In those days Old Welsh was spoken in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Strathclyde and Cumbria. The most famous is the Gododdin, thought to have been written by Aneirin and telling the story of a disastrous atack on the Angles at Catraeth (Catterick) by a British warband based in Edinburgh.

Tales such as Why the Red Dragon is the Emblem of Wales attempt to explain the events of the post-Roman period.

Later legends show Breton influence and incorporate the elements of courtly love, Arthurian tales and pageantry. Other tales incorporate fairies and the supernatural and relate them to features of the landscape. For example the legend of the 'Meddygon Myddfai' relates that a farmer in the parish of Myddfai, Carmarthenshire, having bought some lambs in a neighbouring fair, led them to graze near Llyn y Fan Fach, on the Black Mountains. Whenever he visited these lambs three beautiful damsels appeared to him from the lake, on whose shores they often made excursions. Sometimes he pursued and tried to catch them, but always failed; the enchanting nymphs ran before him ... read more about the Meddygon Myddfai legend.

The Tale of Elidurus is another typical story of an earthling joining the fairy people dating from the twelfth-century.

Pergrin and the Mermaiden takes contact between man and mermaid as its theme.

Gelert: The Martyred Hound is one of the best-known (and saddest) of Welsh tales.

The Devil's Bridge is another tale connected with a placename.