Book Review: 'Where the Folk – A Welsh Folklore Road Trip'
Dive into 'Where the Folk' and explore Welsh legends through an entertaining and personal journey during lockdown and beyond
Like most of us worldwide in 2020, we were inside, trying our best to manage families and believing we’d be done soon. But it didn’t take long for author Russ Williams to indulge the five-mile travel barrier instituted by the Welsh government. And so begins Where the Folk – A Welsh Folklore Road Trip.
Williams’ tales are not some campfire ghost stories. Rather, they have sprung up from curiosity and well, just wanting to get outside. If you’re working from home near Cardiff (Caerdydd), why not fire up ‘the Griff,’ (his named red Fiesta) and begin the road trips that fuel this generational mythos?
Each chapter is a scenario unto itself and provides a roadmap (as restrictions ease, and Williams travels further out) to modern-day place names that bring out quirky tales. Fables that travel back to the early 1900s provide fodder for a climb up Garth Hill, as Williams returns to Cardiff to contemplate gathering it together for a blog.
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain | ‘930 Feet' (HD) - Hugh Grant/©Miramax/YouTube
Caerphilly Castle (Castell Caerffili) provides a haunting interlude during a lunch break with tales of ghosts and banshees. The Green Lady of the Castle can reach out encased in ivy and shake your hand before disappearing into thin air or the ‘Hag of the Mist,’ (Gwrach-y-Rhibyn), the harbinger of doom that cries out incessantly over the loss of loved ones. One appreciates the wry humor that Williams infuses into the narrative, as he balances lore with real life.
Williams finds amusement in keeping with traditions (as spoken) at Llancaiach Fawr Manor; hiking up grassy, muddy knolls to Pennard Castle, asking locals where the ruins are located (near a golf course), and delving into the mysterious ‘Maiden’s Lake’ (Llyn-y-Forwyn) in Ferndale enchanted by the well-known lore that bodies of water as tears were “between our world and the supernatural Otherworld in Wales.”
Llyn-y-Forwyn, Ferndale/Credit: © Russ Williams
Vampire furniture? Williams goes on the hunt and ends up at St. Illtyd's Church in Llantwit Major. At a stop in Llantrisant, talk turns to the legendary Dr. William Price and then the origin (whether true or not ) of the infamous “flicking the V” or by its better-known name “the two-finger salute,” brought about by the longbowmen fighting in the English army, during the 1416 Battle of Agincourt. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. Who the folk knows?
Dr. William Price/Credit: Llantrisant Town Trust
Very impressively, Williams also lists Joseph Campbell’s Seventeen Stages of the Hero’s Journey or ‘monomyth’ while discovering the wonders of Caerleon, and his lighthearted yet determined curiosity to find the alleged resting place of King Arthur leads to an insightful conversation with US historian Sarah Woodbury.
As a willing learner and inquisitive researcher, Williams strings together the fables of long ago from The Four Branches of the Mabinogi (Pedair Cainc Y Mabinogi) to Stevie Nicks and by this time he is crossing the threshold, as he puts it, to travel west, elated that he now has a publishing deal.
The author’s further adventures are detailed, sometimes dark, sometimes in contemplation at what is unearthed: sea creatures, bats, apes, a Welsh Loch Ness monster (Afanc), and Welsh ancestors caught up in a dancing mania!
“Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do.”
Perhaps out of all the chronicles, the life of St. David is the most real for the Welsh. As the Patron Saint of Wales and by extension those of Welsh descent, his overall arc has been hard to detail, given that he was born in an era where most tales were through oral history. However, he is celebrated every March 1st with traditional parades, daffodils, and leeks and by the greeting “Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus.”
Williams recounts the latter half of his travails with his partner Sophie and then with his family and close friends, which adds a twist to the road trips, as they are bathed in fond memories of his youth. It’s also those ones that you really hadn’t planned out, but are nonetheless fascinating and occasionally… heartwarming.
Where the Folk – A Welsh Folklore Road Trip by Russ Williams is published September 19 by Calon. It’s available in Wales from these bookshops (siopau llyfrau), in the UK at Waterstones and Barnes & Noble, and for pre-order in the US at Amazon.
Oh I so want to read this now. I wish I had bandwidth for non-Fab pleasure reading this fall. But my own pandemic project run amuck is occupying my pleasure reading bandwidth.
This is on my wishlist. Thank you!