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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Jul 17, 2026  
It's #FolkloreFriday 🐱

This week's folklore Friday explores the cat in Celtic and Welsh mythology — a creature the tradition never quite trusted to be simply domestic.

The Cath Palug of Welsh legend began as an ordinary kitten and grew into a creature of monstrous destructive power, which reflects something the broader Celtic tradition understood instinctively about cats. They were threshold guardians, Otherworld creatures that chose to sit beside human fires without ever fully relinquishing where they'd come from. They watched things invisible to everyone else. They knew things by means that didn't bear close examination.

The Celtic animal month of the Cat is running alongside the tree month of Holly right now — both of them quietly liminal, both of them more formidable than they first appear.

#FolkloreFriday #WelshFolklore #CelticMythology #TalesFromWales
      
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Jun 5, 2026  
Happy Folklore Friday! 🌸

Today's figure is one of the most complex and compelling in all of Welsh mythology. Blodeuwedd, whose name means flower face, was created from the blossoms of oak, broom, and meadowsweet by the magicians Math and Gwydion to serve as a wife for Lleu Llaw Gyffes, a man whose mother had cursed him never to take a human woman.

She was never asked. She was made, and given, and expected to be content.

What happened next depends on how you read her. She took a lover, Gronw Pebr, and together they plotted Lleu's death. The plan nearly succeeded. When it failed, Gwydion transformed her into an owl as punishment, condemned to fly only at night, shunned by all other birds. 🦉

Welsh mythology doesn't really give us villains. It gives us people, and Blodeuwedd is perhaps the clearest example of that. She was created without consent to fulfil a function, and she refused it. Whether that reads as betrayal or defiance says rather a lot about the reader.

She's stayed with me for years, and I suspect she always will.

#FolkloreFriday #TalesFromWales #WelshFolklore #FolkloreFantasy #MythAndMoonlight
      
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Merissa (14132 KP) rated Celtic Maidens in Books

Dec 17, 2018  
CM
Celtic Maidens
Ceri Norman | 2010
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I was given this book by a friend who knows of my love of "fantasy" books and folklore / mythology. This was an absolutely magnificent read that draws you in from the first page and keeps you guessing until the end. Exceedingly well written with characters you can associate with. I have to admit that my favourite part of the book is actually the location of Wales and therefore the folklore given is Welsh. It make such a refreshing change to read about Wales' history and not just Ireland.

Would highly recommend it to simply everyone!!!
  
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Jul 20, 2026  
Annwn — the Welsh Otherworld — is one of the most distinctive and most frequently misread concepts in Welsh mythology, and it runs through a significant portion of my catalogue.

It isn't an underworld in any conventional sense. It's a realm of plenty and beauty existing alongside the mortal world, ruled by Arawn, pressing against lakes and hills and liminal thresholds where the boundary between the two has worn thin. The first branch of the Mabinogion gives us a year inside it, through Pwyll's eyes, and what he finds is a functioning court with its own honour, its own rules, its own sovereignty.

It's the Otherworld that shapes the Brodyr Alarch series, the Between Hill and Sea world, and the broader mythological texture of almost everything I write. A realm that doesn't need the mortal world to define itself against. One that simply is, and waits.

#WelshFolklore #FolkloreFantasy #WelshMythology
      
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Oct 28, 2025  
✨ Cursed to dance. Destined for more. ✨

Princess Tesni is bound by a spell that forces her to dance every night in the Otherworld. But is she only a prize to be claimed, or can love set her free?

👑 Prince Brenin dares to follow her into the shadows… answering riddles, facing gods, and risking his heart.

🌙 Slippers and Songs — a spellbinding retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, infused with Welsh mythology.

💭 If you were cursed to do one thing every night for eternity, what would it be?

#Fantasy #Romance #WelshGods #BrodyrAlarch1 #BrothersGrimm #FairytaleRetelling
https://books2read.com/SlippersandSongs
      
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Dec 4, 2025  
As December deepens and the world feels touched by a little extra magic, Slippers and Songs is the perfect tale to slip into. ❄✨

Princess Tesni is trapped in a moonlit curse that forces her to dance through the night, while Prince Brenin follows her into the Otherworld—answering riddles, uncovering secrets, and quietly falling for the woman she is beyond the enchantment.

If you followed shimmering footprints into a frost-kissed forest, where would you hope they lead?

Discover this Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling infused with Welsh mythology: https://books2read.com/SlippersandSongs

#SlippersAndSongs #YuleReading #WinterMagic #FantasyLovers #WelshMythology #BookishWinter #FairytaleRetelling #TwelveDancingPrincesses #BrodyrAlarch1
      
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Jul 3, 2026  
It's #FolkloreFriday 🌿

Today is the Festival of Ceridwen, and there's no better day to sit with one of the most complex and compelling figures in all of Welsh mythology.

Ceridwen is a goddess of transformation, the keeper of the cauldron of Awen, and the divine inspiration that flows through poets and storytellers. She brewed her cauldron for a year and a day, intending the gift of Awen for her son, and when three drops fell instead onto the tongue of Gwion Bach, the boy who'd been set to stir it, she pursued him through a cascade of transformations that ended with her consuming him and, eventually, giving birth to him again as Taliesin, the greatest of the Welsh bards.

What I find most remarkable about Ceridwen is that she resists easy categorisation. She's been called a witch, a goddess, a crone, and a mother. She's all of those things and none of them entirely. She acts from grief, ambition, and something that looks like fury. She creates, accidentally and then deliberately, the very thing she was trying to keep for someone else. The Awen escapes her and becomes something larger than she intended, which is perhaps the most honest thing mythology has ever said about inspiration.

On her festival day, it feels right to acknowledge what she represents for anyone who makes things. The cauldron doesn't always give what we expect. Sometimes it gives what the work needs instead. 🌿

#FolkloreFriday #WelshFolklore #TalesFromWales #MythAndMoonlight #WelshMythology
      
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Aug 14, 2026  
It's #FolkloreFriday 🌿

This week's folklore focus — the hazel in Welsh and Celtic mythology, and why its symbolism is more coherent and more interesting than it might first appear.

Nine hazel trees overhang the sacred pool at the source of wisdom. Their nuts fall into the water and feed the salmon that carries knowledge upstream. The bubbles rising where the nuts fell are called the bubbles of mystic inspiration. The hazel is the origin point of the whole chain — without it, the pool is empty, and the salmon has nothing to carry.

The same tree was used for water-divining across the Celtic and Welsh traditions, its forked branches sensitive to water beneath the surface. The tree that feeds hidden wisdom also finds hidden water. The associations are consistent, pointing toward the same quality — a sensitivity to what lies beneath ordinary perception.

The Celtic tree month of Hazel runs now through August, and this week feels like exactly the right time to sit with what the tradition understood about it.

#FolkloreFriday #WelshFolklore #CelticMythology
      
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Dec 22, 2025  
❄️ As December draws in and the world turns quiet, Sealed with a Curse invites you into a kingdom shaped by loss, grief, and the dangerous touch of divine magic.

Once, Selene walked the halls of Melthkior as a companion to its Princes. Now, she endures their cruelty as a swan herder—alone but for her beloved swans and the kindness of the kitchen folk. When the gods intervene and a terrible curse strikes the six Princes, Selene faces an impossible choice: help those who hurt her… or leave them to their fate.

A haunting, emotional fairytale retelling woven with Welsh mythology, perfect for reflective winter reading. 🦢✨

https://books2read.com/SealedwithaCurse

#DecemberReading #WinterFantasy #SealedWithACurse #FairytaleRetelling #MythicFantasy #BookishWinter