The Origins of Samhain: The Celtic Festival That Became Halloween and What the Sources Actually Say
Samhain is the oldest ancestor of Halloween, and almost everything that most people believe about it is either oversimplified, invented, […]
Celtic Mythology
The Welsh Arthur: The Warrior Chieftain Who Existed Before the Round Table
Arthur in Welsh mythology is not the Arthur most people know. He is not the courtly king presiding over a
Culhwch and Olwen: The Earliest Arthurian Story Ever Written and the Thirty-Nine Impossible Tasks
Culhwch and Olwen is the oldest Arthurian narrative in any language. It predates Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, which
Arianrhod and Lleu Llaw Gyffes: The Mother’s Curse, the Three Impossible Conditions, and the Son Made From Flowers
The Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi is the strangest story in Welsh mythology and one of the most mythologically dense
Branwen, Daughter of Llŷr: The Welsh Myth About a Marriage That Destroyed Two Islands
The Second Branch of the Mabinogi is the most devastating story in Welsh mythology. It begins with a marriage and
The Mabinogion: What It Actually Is, What It Contains, and Why It Is the Most Important Text in Welsh Mythology
The Mabinogion is not a single text. It is a collection of eleven medieval Welsh tales, drawn from two manuscript
Oisín and Tír na nÓg: The Land of Eternal Youth and the Warrior Poet Who Came Back to a World That Had Moved On Without Him
Oisín was the son of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the greatest poet of the Fianna, the warrior band his father
The Salmon of Knowledge: How Fionn Mac Cumhaill Gained All the Wisdom in the World by Burning His Thumb
The Salmon of Knowledge is the most elegantly structured story in the Fenian Cycle, and one of the most perfectly
The Children of Lir: The Four Siblings Turned Into Swans for Nine Hundred Years and the Story That Has Never Left Ireland
The Children of Lir is one of the Three Sorrows of Irish mythology, and it is the one that has
Deirdre of the Sorrows: The Most Tragic Love Story in Irish Mythology and the Woman Whose Fate Was Sealed Before She Was Born
Before Deirdre was born, a druid heard her cry in her mother’s womb and prophesied that she would be the