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ClareR (6256 KP) rated Brigid in Books

Feb 26, 2026  
Brigid
Brigid
Kim Curran | 2026 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
All of my favourite things in one book: historical fiction, fantasy, myth, retellings, Ireland and nuns!! What more could I want!!

Brigid is the daughter of a slave and a chieftain, and she narrowly escapes marriage to a man she doesn’t want, when a goddess hears her prayers. She helps her from this point on, and this is where the blurring between goddess/ paganism and catholicism starts - in a good way.

Brigid builds her sisterhood, cloaks it in religion and makes a safe haven for women in what would have been a brutal time for them. One of my favourite themes, found family, is prominent in this, along with sisterhood and religious politics.

I’m off to find The Morrigan, and I’m hoping that Kim Curran will continue to introduce us to the Irish folklore that I know far too little about.
  
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ClareR (6256 KP) rated Sorrow Spring in Books

Jun 9, 2025  
Sorrow Spring
Sorrow Spring
Olivia Isaac-Henry | 2024 | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Sorrow Spring is a slow to start gothic thriller - but it’s worth persevering with!

There’s a lot of scene setting: it’s 1978, and Rina has been unceremoniously left at her Aunt Agatha’s house by her mother. She has no more contact with her mother after this.
2019, and Rina’s niece, Cate, is searching for her aunt as her father is seriously ill and wants to see his sister for the last time.
But as Cate finds out more about her aunt, the more sinister are her findings and the more unfriendly the people she encounters.
There’s some ancient folklore, sketchy traditions and a rather interesting ending.
I listened to this on audiobook (Xigxag), which probably helped along the bits that tended to drag (1978 was a very talkative time), but all in all, this was a good read/ listen!
  
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Morgan Sheppard (1037 KP) created a post

Sep 25, 2026  
It's #FolkloreFriday 🍂

This week’s focus explores the traditions of the autumn equinox in Wales. Known traditionally as the balance of the year (Cydbwysedd y Flwyddyn), this moment of equal day and night was treated as a vital ecological and spiritual boundary; it marked the definitive end of summer and the opening of the winter gates.

Welsh folklore surrounding this period is deeply tied to the completion of the harvest and the gathering of the hedgerows; harming the final fruits of the wild after this threshold was often considered a violation of the land's right to enter its winter rest. The old ways understood that the earth requires a season of darkness to regenerate; by honouring this equilibrium, we acknowledge that our own lives require periods of quiet stillness to remain fertile. 🌾

#FolkloreFriday #WelshFolklore #TalesFromWales
     
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Morgan Sheppard (1037 KP) created a post

Sep 4, 2026  
It's #FolkloreFriday 🦢

This week's folklore focus explores the swan in Welsh tradition. The swan is a consistently liminal creature; it belongs to the water and the air, the mortal world and the Otherworld simultaneously. Welsh swans are rarely simply birds in the old stories; they are transformed beings wearing the shape of a swan, the boundary between the person and the bird growing genuinely uncertain over time.

The protective folk belief surrounding them reflects how seriously the tradition took that liminality. Harming a swan was considered deeply unlucky, as the bird was understood to be under divine protection; something that moves between worlds deserves more than ordinary treatment.

The last quarter moon arrives today alongside a turning season. Both are creatures of the between-space, asking for a different kind of attention. 🦢

#FolkloreFriday #WelshFolklore #TalesFromWales