{"product_id":"the-truth-behind-welsh-myths-and-legends","title":"The Truth Behind Welsh Myths and Legends","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Truth Behind Welsh Myths and Legends: Fear, Folklore and Everyday Belief in Medieval Wales\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eWales is small. Its mythology is enormous. This book sets out to explain why.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eWhile England and Scotland were burning suspected witches by the hundred, Wales largely did not. Simon A. Williams argues the reason was not tolerance but the Tylwyth Teg, the Fair Family, and a wider system of supernatural belief that already did the work a witch trial was meant to do. Every fairy encounter, every cursing well, every death omen functioned as social technology: a way of enforcing behaviour, explaining misfortune, and controlling a community without ever needing a courtroom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe book moves through the figures that shaped everyday belief in medieval Wales. Rhiannon, falsely accused and never broken, endures as one of the most quietly devastating stories in the Mabinogion. The Plentyn-newid, the changeling child, gave grieving parents a framework for a transformation medicine could not explain. Beneath Cardigan Bay lies the drowned kingdom of Cantre'r Gwaelod, its church bells said to still ring beneath the waves, a myth that recent archaeology has connected to genuine submerged evidence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThis is not a collection of quaint stories for children. It is an argument that Welsh mythology was functional: a set of beliefs that ordinary people used to make sense of illness, injustice, and the unpredictable world around them, and to hold their neighbours to account without appealing to a court that rarely served them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback | \u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Histories and Castles | \u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e Simon A. Williams | \u003cstrong\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/strong\u003e English\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Amazon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58578049794380,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1028\/3869\/8316\/files\/Truth_Behind_Welsh_Myths_and_Legends_Cover.jpg?v=1787746670","url":"https:\/\/historiesandcastles.com\/products\/the-truth-behind-welsh-myths-and-legends","provider":"Histories and Castles","version":"1.0","type":"link"}