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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Jun 19, 2026  
It's #FolkloreFriday!!! 😁

The lake maidens of Welsh folklore are among the most quietly subversive figures in the entire tradition, and I don't think they get nearly enough credit for it.

The most complete story is that of Llyn y Fan Fach, the black lake in the Bannau Brycheiniog, where a young farmer encounters a woman of extraordinary beauty sitting on the water's surface. She agrees to marry him under precise conditions, three times stated, three blows without cause, and she returns to the lake. The blows come, as they always do in these stories, not from cruelty but from misunderstanding, from the vast distance between what a mortal considers reasonable and what she does. And she goes back. She takes her cattle, her gifts, everything she brought with her, and the lake closes over her as though she had never left it.

What strikes me most, returning to this story again and again, is that she is never a victim of it. She came on her own terms. She stated her conditions clearly. When they were broken, she enforced them, calmly and completely, and went home. The grief in the story belongs entirely to the mortal side of it. The lake maiden simply returned to where she had always, more fully, belonged.

Welsh water mythology understands something that a lot of folklore doesn't quite manage. That the otherworldly woman is not a prize or a tragedy. She is sovereign, and the water was always hers. 🌊

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

Aug 26, 2026  
Two standalones from the Story Hearth catalogue that sit inside the same understanding — that magic hides in the ordinary world and passes to its recipient through readiness rather than seeking.

Hiraeth — Ellis Clarke has carried an unnamed longing her entire life. A visit to Beddgelert and a meeting with Luke Maddox, a Guardian of Wales who is considerably more than he appears, begins to suggest the ache has always been for something specific. A paranormal romance steeped in Welsh mythology and the particular quality of belonging finally found.

What a Latte Books — A book appears in Laura's shop that has no right to exist. It keeps disappearing and returning. Its story mirrors her own life in ways that shouldn't be possible. A contemporary magical realism romance about following an enchantment you can't explain toward something you haven't let yourself want yet.

Both waiting for the reader who arrives at exactly the right moment.

Hiraeth — Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/Ec5xk / Universal: https://books2read.com/Hiraeth2021

What a Latte Books — Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/H3Yak / Universal: https://books2read.com/WhataLatteBooks

#Contemporary #MagicalRealism #Romance #Wales #BookLove #Bookish #Reading
      
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Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Jun 10, 2026  
Welsh lake mythology is some of the most quietly unsettling folklore I know, and I mean that with enormous affection.

The lakes of Wales, in the old tradition, are not passive landscape features. They are active, wilful, and possessed of long memories.

Llyn y Fan Fach gives up a woman of the Tylwyth Teg to a mortal man under precise and fragile conditions, and when those conditions are broken — three times, three causeless blows — she walks back into the water and takes everything she brought with her. The lake doesn't mourn. It simply closes over her again, as though she had never left.

Other lakes hide drowned villages beneath their surfaces, places that were swallowed for a transgression or simply because the water decided to reclaim what had always been its own. On still nights, the bells of those sunken churches are said to carry upward through the water.

There is a particular kind of mythological thinking at work here — one that understands landscape not as backdrop but as character, and water not as resource but as sovereign. The lake gives. The lake takes back. It was never yours to keep.

#WelshFolklore #FolkloreFantasy #TalesFromWales #StillWatersDeep #BetweenHillAndSea #IndieAuthor
      
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Merissa (14132 KP) rated Fire in the Rain (Wraidd Elfennol #4) in Books

Aug 27, 2020  
Fire in the Rain (Wraidd Elfennol #4)
Fire in the Rain (Wraidd Elfennol #4)
Morgan Sheppard | 2018 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
10.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Fire in the Rain is the fourth and final book in the Wraidd Elfennol series and brings this fantastical series to a fitting end.

Afon and Necia are a married couple, which makes a nice change, who have been together for five years. They are both Chosen to bring back the balance once more although Necia copes with it easier than Afon does.

Just the same as with Of Land and Sky, time has moved on and we meet the great-grandchildren of Bran and Shyla, Rhosyn and Opal. I love how past characters are brought into the story whilst each story stands by itself, although I would recommend reading them as a series as there is an overall story arc.

This book has a faster pace than the others but it is just as nail-biting in places. Packed full of emotions, this story deals with self-confidence and self-worth as well as other subjects.

This has been a full-on fantasy series that I have thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend to all fantasy lovers, especially if you have a love of Welsh mythology.

"The one thing that always remained true, no matter what other change occurred, was the love to be found within the silence of beats of the heart of Wraidd Elfennol."

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!