Welsh Folk Tales

Dr. Eleanor Janega welcomes Russ Williams, author of 'Where the Folk? A Welsh Folklore Road Trip', to delve into the rich tapestry of Welsh folklore. From the medieval legends of King Arthur to mysterious saints, ghostly castles and even a killer ape, they explore why Wales is a hotbed for folklore. Russ discusses the unique oral storytelling tradition in Wales, its intriguing tales of heroes, monsters, and supernatural beings and how these stories reflect cultural and historical realities. Hear more Gone Medieval: Welsh Ghost Stories: https://open.spotify.com/episode/372E5Cie6GFr1Nv7CC6IOg?si=RCN2S9y7TUaetkCv_u-E7w Supernatural Medieval Ireland: https://open.spotify.com/episode/05WoMMJK9VMM7LiKp3QQ0w?si=uGFFlTqfRt23CcdwTLVKeA Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. It was edited by Amy Haddow. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:02Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gob-smacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were. And how we got here.

• 2:46Eleanor Janega?

  When we think about medieval folklore, Wales is one of those places that looms large. This is probably unsurprising, given that in some versions of the stories, King Arthur hails from Wales. And those stories ended up spreading to the continent, giving the country something of a reputation as a fantastic land. But it's not just Arthur and his men that call Wales home. The country positively bristles with tales of saints, ghosts, monsters, even pirates. And we still know where to track down the places where all these stories, theoretically, played out. To help us travel through this folkloric landscape, I'm joined by Russ Williams, the author of Where the Folk: A Welsh Folklore Road Trip,

• 3:32Eleanor Janega?

  to learn more about these stories and consider why Wales is such a hotbed for all things folklore. And more importantly, where we can walk in the footsteps of the fantastic ourselves.

• 3:44Eleanor Janega?

  Russ, welcome to Gone Medieval.

• 3:46Speaker 05

  Thank you, Eleanor. Well, I've seen you again, the second podcast I've done with you.

• 3:50Eleanor Janega?

  I will take you everywhere with me that I can, Russ. Thank you very much.

• 3:56Eleanor Janega?

  Russ, is there a particular reason that Wales is such a kind of epicenter for folklore? Is there something uniquely Welsh about telling stories like these?

• 4:08Speaker 05

  What I would say is if you look, if you compare Wales with Scotland and Ireland, for example, I think for many years, the Welsh, the sense of patriotism in Wales has always been centered around the language and the culture, I would say, more than political independence, like the other guys. So, you know, over the years, is one thing we've really held dear is that kind of traditional oral storytelling. You know, we hold literary events, that sort of thing. So I think, yeah, we've always put an effort in, I would say. In terms of being uniquely Welsh, in terms of the stories, what I've read is that we've got a lot in common with the Irish tales more than anyone else.

• 4:53Speaker 05

  Because if you look at later folktales, a lot of them, there's a moral behind the stories, right? Like a lot of folktales. But if you read the old Welsh tales, the medieval ones, the Mabinogia and what have you, they're just stories. You really got to read between the lines for any kind of sense of moral code or what have you. And that's what, one thing we've got in common with the Irish is that, is that a lot of the medieval tales, they were stories, but also based on history. So they were often used to explain past events, you know, previous wars, that kind of thing. So there's so much of a moral behind them. So we've got that, you know, that's a bit unique in terms of, you know, the later folktales, if you will.

• 5:33Speaker 05

  But I think what else has helped, if you can say helped, is all the invaders we've had over the years who brought their own stories with them. You know, so for such a small country who loves telling stories and keeping, you know, culture and all legends alive, and then it's just a cauldron of all these different cultures. And I think, yeah, that's, yeah, it makes for an interesting mix.

• 5:57Eleanor Janega?

  I think one of the best places to start when you are dealing with a subject as varied and fun as Welsh folklore is with the kind of pantheon that some people construct way, way back in the day. Is that something that the Welsh have? Is there a system of Welsh gods before Christianity?

• 6:19Speaker 05

  Yes, well, it's interesting. I grew up in Wales out at, you know, I can tell by my accent, I'm born and bred Welsh from a Welsh speaking area as well. So from a very young age, I've known about these stories. It's common knowledge, if you will, where I'm from, a lot of these tales. But not once did anyone mention Welsh gods, or we used to have gods. And whenever someone tells these stories, like the medieval, the Mabinogion from the medieval times, I'd never heard anyone refer to the characters as gods. They just call them by their names and they say they were princes or what have you. The only

• 6:57Speaker 05

  godlike figure, if you will, that's directly referred to in that sense is Aran, who's like the king of Anun, the Welsh underworld. Everyone else is pretty, you know, they come across as as human in the stories. However, a lot of people have done, you know, the study, look back at all these old Celtic deities, like you said, and they do share a lot of similarities in their in their names, for example. So I've made a little list here of some Welsh characters who have also, you know, some people theorize that they come from old Celtic deities. So you've got Aran, like I said, the king of the Anun, the Welsh

• 7:40Speaker 05

  underworld. They've got Dylann, Isildun, which he's a god of the sea. They've got Rhiannon, often seen riding a white horse. So a lot of people associate her with an old Celtic or Christian deity. They've got Taran, the god of thunder. Taran is the Welsh word for thunder. So there's a lot of similarities, right? I think when the tales are told, they don't refer to them as gods. But yes, there's a lot of theory. But a lot of the families tend to come from two gods. You've got, and they're both gods of the sea. You've got Dylann Isildun and Hyr.

• 8:16Speaker 05

  And if you, the Mabinogion, the tales are called, for example, Branwen Merchir, Branwen, the daughter of Here. So all these characters do derive from these two gods, if you want to call them that.

• 8:29Eleanor Janega?

  I love that. It's very medieval because it's a fact of the matter that especially in the earlier medieval period, when we're establishing the great houses of Europe, everyone justifies the reason that they're king by saying they have some kind of fantastic ancestor. Something like, we are related to people who managed to flee from Troy, or in the case of the Merovingians down in what is now France, they're related to a sea monster. You know, like the Czech royal family, they are related to a fairy. And so it's nice to see that same tradition at work in folklore.

• 9:06Speaker 05

  Yes, I believe the Scotsies, I can't remember the name of the family, but there's a family up in Scotland who said that they were descendants of Selkies, or the other way around, you know, the Celtic mermaid-like beings. So yeah, so yeah, it does happen, yeah.

• 9:23Eleanor Janega?

  Well, you have hit on something already that I think we need to unpack. You've mentioned our, what is the Mabinogion? Because that is the root of where we get a lot of our Welsh folklore, and it, or at least the copies that we have, is medieval, right?

• 9:39Speaker 05

  Yes and no. So, so the Mabinogions, and for those who don't know, I think the Mabinogion, you know, they're like, they're the OG Welsh tales, if you want, you know, and they're great epic tales. And if you read, honestly, they're on par, I was, I might be biased because I'm Welsh, but they're on par with the Greek myths, I would say. You know, they're very full of drama and intricate relationships. You've got monsters there and gods, like we just mentioned. But for hundreds of years, they existed purely as or oral tales, right? And as we know, the trouble with oral tales is that they change with whoever tells them.

• 10:21Speaker 05

  I've been in a situation myself, when I'm doing a book event and you know, you've got a hundred people in front of you and you're telling this great tale and you forget a detail. So instead of standing there, you know, scratching your head, you you kind of swiftly move along or you change it. And then you think about it afterwards and go, oh God, that's not how it went. So you can imagine how many times that happened in those hundreds of years, you know? But most importantly, I said, we got a lot in common with the Irish. So during that time, a lot of these tales, they weren't really kept alive by the common people, if you will. So you had these bards who had, you know, they they were very close with the princes and lords. And it was their duty, they they called them Cymru Wiziad.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  So that'll be one, Cymru Wizyadon. And they would, their job was to keep these tales alive. But you can imagine, if you're a really good buddy with the the king or the prince, you've got to change the stories to make his family look good in them, right? You know, so so there was a lot of, yeah, so for hundreds of years, you had the the base tales, but they were very much, they nowhere near the original. And they weren't even written down then until, you know, the twelve hundreds. But they're not even the versions the most of us know about today. What we would not recognise in the eighteen hundreds, when Lady Charlotte Guest

• 11:45Speaker 05

  translated the Abinogion into English and Welsh, and which saw a huge influx of Victorians suddenly taking an interest in Celtic mythology. And they're the ones, it's so it's Charlotte Guest's translation really that we know. And a lot of experts will tell you that they're very different from the originals, whatever they might be.

• 12:07Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, Victorians love to do that. Victorians are always retelling King Arthur and taking all the sex out and stuff like that. They're, you know, that's what they love to do is find a, find an old story and denude it of all of the weird and trickeries.

• 12:23Speaker 05

  See, I'm glad you brought up King Arthur, because I was, I was thinking of him when I was saying all this. So yes, perfect example. So, so King Arthur in the old, so King Arthur is in the Mabinogion. As he, you know, you read it, it's not the King Arthur people will recognise today. You think of King Arthur today, you think very often, you've got St George's cross on the shield, you know, a very Christian figure, knight in shining armour and all this. But in the medieval, the medieval Arthur from these tales was a very different character. And if you read the tales, a lot of them essentially are about a bunch of men going around killing monsters, having sex with women and then getting drunk in the end, you know?

• 13:07Speaker 05

  And that was King Arthur and his, and his, yeah. And the original knight of the round table, if you will. So yeah, so a lot of stuff like, you know, cat, landslots, camelots, all this kind of stuff. Again, the Victorians came up with all that and they changed the character from this morally dubious warrior into the knight in shining armour.

• 13:31Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I think that that is quite interesting. When you look at the really old Arthurian tales from Wales, they're very funny. Because, you know, I always joke that a lot of them, especially the super early ones we have, it's just like an introduction of various characters. It's like, my name's King Arthur and I'm here to say I rule from Camelot in a serious way. And then they like go get drunk and you're like, okay, great story, guys. But I think that, that what it does is, it does exactly what you're saying, is it creates a base story that you can work from afterwards. And that is such an interesting and perfect thing for oral storytelling. It's like, well, here's, you know, the pizza base and you can put everything on top of that to create.

• 14:17Eleanor Janega?

  Your own adventure with these guys who, you know, these are essentially like superheroes, right? The knights of the round table, you can kind of do anything you want with them as characters. And, you know, the Welsh are the first to ever do it, baby.

• 14:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So, so you could, if you put it that, using that kind of analogy, you could think the Victorians may portray King Arthur as Superman, whereas in the Mabinogion, he's portrayed as more of a Batman character, if you will. You know, this kind of, oh, he's a hero, you know, he's a bit rough. Um, yeah. So, and like I said, you know, those tales, they were just stories about history. They weren't stories with a moral, you know, extensive morality behind them. There's only one, the second branch. So there's, there's four branches in the Mabinogion, right? The four big tales. And it's only the second one, it's about a

• 15:10Speaker 05

  war with the Irish. And that one, you know, is very much kind of perceived as a, as a story against, you know, the warning against the perils of war and how stupid it is and how we all just throw our lives away for the nobility, basically. But yeah, but all the others, you read them and you are kind of thinking, all right, what's the lesson here? You know, and, but yeah, and you're right, that's what people did with the tales. And the great thing with the Mabinogion is as well is no one can tell you that's not how it went. Cause like I said, they changed so much and then, you know, yeah. So, so you could do whatever you want with them. And, and people always do. You always, people roll their eyes these days where you say, oh, I'm going to write, you know, a modern

• 15:54Speaker 05

  version of the Mabinogion. And people, oh, it's been done so many times. But even the ones written down in the 1200s were modernized version of the, of the Mabinogion, you know?

• 16:04Eleanor Janega?

  I really enjoyed some of the Arthuriana that you pull into your book because in particular, I thought that the way you talked about one story is hilarious. You know, you've got, you've got this knight of the round table, a real, a real superhero knight, and he's just trying to retire into obscurity. And then he gets pulled back in for one last job when the pirates attack. And I think it's so funny because it's just such a almost modern way of telling a story, you know, how we set up like jewel heist movies and things like that. Um, could you tell us a little bit about that story?

• 16:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, you're right. I think I do. I refer. I think I compare him to Stephen Segal in the in the story. You know, those actually, they're always like retired, aren't they? Coming out of retirement or a day before retiring. They've got to be the hero again. So, yeah, so that Saint Govan is we referring to there. And interesting, in the stories, there's no mention of Kinatha at all, but a lot of people since then have kind of perceived him to have been Gawain, one of Kinatha's fellow knights, who retired and, you know, built this chapel in the cliffs in South Wales.

• 17:21Speaker 05

  Honestly, guys, if you just do a Google after this, Saint Govans in Wales, it's it looks like something from a fantasy film. It's this stone chapel kind of built into the side of this of these steep cliffs. And you go the waves crashing against it and all this. And, yeah, so in the story, there's pirates come to it. There's two stories, actually. So the first one, some pirates attack him and he hides in that one. But and God opens up the cliff for him and he squeaks, squeezes himself inside and hides from them. And then he made a bell then called the bell rock,

• 18:04Speaker 05

  which he would sound to warn the locals if the pirates returned. But then there's another story, which supposedly, I think it was told like 200 years later, about the pirates, they did come back to steal the bell rock, which they did. Govan prays to God for help and a little troop of angels come down and fight off the pirates with him. So, yes, so that's a, like I say, a very, yeah, one of the Christian, you know, I think I mentioned before, there's a lot of stories about saints in Wales, particularly from the 6th century.

• 18:37Eleanor Janega?

  Well, that's kind of the other pantheon or like group of superheroes that's happening at the time, right? On the one hand, you've got anyone from the round table you can bring in to have a cool story. But the Welsh are coming hard with the very cool patron saint stories as well. You've got all of these great saints doing really interesting things that we don't see in other places.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Yes, and what I, you know, I think in the previous podcast I've done with you, you asked me, Russ, how do you differentiate between folk tales and religious tales? And it was such, it's a question, it's stuck with me since. And I told my friends about it and I was like, God, how would you, how would you answer that? You know, and so it is true. So you go, so let's put Saint David's, let's talk about him to start then. So Saint David is patron saint of Wales, but he's the only Welsh saint, I believe, who was officially recognised as a saint by the Roman, you know, the Roman Catholic Church, by Rome and all that.

• 19:43Speaker 05

  So all the others, they weren't, yeah, you won't find them, you know, in the pantheon of European saints, if you will. So it's only these stories that have kept their memories alive, really. Like you said, the, you know, previously, what's the difference between a folk tale and a religious tale? And so Saint David's, his stories are considered religious tales, you know, the miracles he performed. Whereas the Welsh patron saints of, for example, Santist Dwi'nwen, her story is considered more folklore. So yeah, it's a very fascinating topic, you know, saints and where they sit within folk tales.

• 20:24Speaker 05

  Have you got a take on it, Eleanor, after, after our discussion last time?

• 20:29Eleanor Janega?

  Girl, that's a good question. That, that's a good question. I suppose it's kind of difficult to say, because especially in the earlier medieval period, when saints come along, oftentimes the church is just like happy to have them here. If you've made a local saint, they're like, yep, that's great, fantastic, we will take them. Because what that does is it reaffirms Christianity in that area. And, you know, especially if the people have been recently converted to Christianity. If you say you've got a saint, they're like, yep, that's fine. And this starts falling down in the later medieval period when the church is a lot more of a juggernaut.

• 21:10Eleanor Janega?

  And they are going to say, hmm, I don't really know if this sounds like a miracle. I don't know if that really works. So there's almost this time limit in terms of getting your local saints in, where if you can get them recognised really early on, the church will say that's fine. But if, you know, you're hanging out in rural Wales and you have your own saint and they don't get... Kind of brought to the attention of Rome early enough, they very well may just slip away.

• 21:38Speaker 05

  Right, yeah.

• 21:38Eleanor Janega?

  But I think also it sometimes has to do with the miracles they perform and what they do. So I mean, so for the record, can you tell us a little bit about what Saint David gets up to that the church would probably be happy about?

• 21:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think the the main story of people associate with Saint David is when he raised the hill, you know, out of nowhere in order to stand up on it to to to spread the word, if you will. So that's in a village called Chandewi Brevi, down south. So there is a, you know, an exciting, the most exciting story, I, in my opinion, about Saint David is the story of his birth. So his mother, Saint Non, there's a lot of, it's a very controversial story, if you will, and there's, again, there's different versions, but the main one people go for is that Saint David was the product of rape.

• 22:35Speaker 05

  And his mother, when she gave birth to him, you know, it was a very painful birth and she kind of, you know, is held on to a rock like a boulder whilst just doing it. And it says, you can see a handprint still there today. Other people argue that he was the son of a saint and that she wasn't raped and just kind of didn't want the fact out there that she was actively having sex. So who knows, there's a lot of controversy there. And then the story of when he was a young boy, yes, you know, a local priest, if you will, kind of said, oh, yes, I think there's a prophecy here that he's gonna be a huge

• 23:17Speaker 05

  saint, you know, like, yeah, so from a very young age, he was prophesied to be a huge influence in the religious world. So, yeah, so they're the main stories then. Like you said, with the other saints, a lot of them, you know, you've got eight, like Saint Gove and angels fighting pirates, Santa Stuino and the patron saint of love. She, you know, her dad wants her to marry a guy she doesn't love, so she prays to God and, you know, an angel gives her three wishes. There's another tale about Saint Turog, who fight off against like a satanic cult,

• 23:57Speaker 05

  if you will, and he eats this magic mushroom that turns him into a giant and all sorts. Yeah, so there's all sorts of really exciting tales. I would say more exciting than the Saint David story, but you know, damn, personally. But like I said, it's his story that is recognised as a religious one.

• 24:16Eleanor Janega?

  Well, maybe that's it though. Maybe that's the difference.

• 24:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, they were too surreal.

• 24:23Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, like the more exciting it is, the more big and adventurous and swashbuckling it is, the less able the church are to figure out what to do with it. They're like, oh no, this is too much of a miracle. That's too big, actually. You've got to bring it down a little bit. But you know, Saint David, that's like nice and staid, you know, you know exactly what you're getting out of that, so.

• 24:45Speaker 05

  But I was honestly, I was so hesitant to even include the saints in the story. I mean, a part of me, when I was writing up, right, what stories am I going to cover? Santa's doing when and Saint David were immediately were there. But then I was thinking, like you said, right, well, what's the difference with religious stories and a folk tale then? And I was a bit wary of people kind of saying, how dare you? But so far, touch wood, yeah, no one's complained.

• 25:16Eleanor Janega?

  Well, okay, one of the other big groups of people that show up all the time in the stories are pirates, which is something that I think is really interesting because I think people don't necessarily associate piracy with the pre-modern era. You know, we think pirates and we think, you know, in the Malacca Strait or in the Caribbean or something like that. But these Welsh stories are constantly on the lookout for pirates and we've got saints getting involved, we've got monks getting involved, we've got members of the Round Table getting involved. It just seems you can't move for pirates in folklore Wales.

• 25:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think that's a testament, as I mentioned earlier, all the lovely invaders we've had over the years. When you think about it, the Irish would raid the Welsh coastline a lot. You know, they settled a couple of places, they settled along the coast as well. It's only settled, there's nothing there today, but the name of the hill would be Bryn Gwyddel or something like that, the Irishman's Hill. You know, that kind of thing. And then you had the Vikings as well. So yeah, I see that there was a lot of raiding going on along the Welsh coast over the years. So yeah, I think people did live in constant fear, I would say, you know, who's gonna come over the horizon today, you know?

• 26:36Speaker 05

  So yeah, maybe they were looking for the heroes who would, you know, keep them safe from them.

• 26:41Eleanor Janega?

  So can you tell us a little bit about one of the more boring characters, I guess, who manages to get himself into a pickle with pirates? Because there is an actual monk who is able to pull off a heist against pirates, as it were. You know, you don't have to be a member of the round table, you can also, you know, fend them off if you just pray.

• 27:07Speaker 05

  Maybe that's where the theory of, oh, surely this guy couldn't be a monk came from. You know, he was probably a retired knight or something. But saying that, you know, it's not him doing much of the fighting, is it? You know, he prayed to God, didn't he? And, you know, a troop of angels came down to help him. Same with Turog, who fought the satanic cult. You know, he asked God for help and he was given, it was either a mushroom or a fruit, the story changes. But he was given something to transform it into something else. Same with Sansa Druin when she prayed to God and an angel came down. So all these knights, you know, they come across as heroic knights, yes, but ultimately, I think all of them ultimately asked for a helping hand, right?

• 27:52Eleanor Janega?

  I think that we see this, though, especially across Europe in some tales about saints. So, for example, the Czech saint, Saint Wenceslas, no, I will never stop talking about Czech things. Sorry, everybody. One of his miracles is that he is being forced to kind of fight a battle that he doesn't want to do. And so he manages to challenge the other general to just a duel between the two of them. But then the other general sees that there's angels behind him and so decides that this is not a guy to tangle with because he's got angels on his side, right? And we see even in the conquests of the Russians into Central Asia,

• 28:32Eleanor Janega?

  they will have miracles where the banner of Saint Michael that they have calls Saint Michael down from the sky and helps them fight their way through Tartar hordes and things, right? So this is something that really exists in the Christian imagination of this idea that you can kind of call God for a direct intercession from angels. And it just seems the Welsh are some of the most likely to do it. You know, they're just like, yeah, all of our saints, all of the time, we're going for it.

• 29:00Speaker 05

  But it's interesting, though, you know, you say this. And if you look at other stories outside Christianity, think of the Greek myths, right? All those hero, can you think of a hero who wasn't a demigod or received the help of the gods? You know, pretty much most of them were asked for help or were told by the gods, you've got to do this and I'm going to help you out. And I think there is, have you ever read Joseph Campbell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces?

• 29:31Eleanor Janega?

  Yes, yes.

• 29:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, so that's, so you're well aware of that. So for those who don't know, Joseph Campbell looked at all the religions and mythologies from all different cultures and so many of them had so much in common. And he came up with the 17 stages of the hero's journey, right? So you've got the hero in a Barrier or boring situation, warning for adventure, and then he gets the call and so on. And one of those steps is always help from the divine, if you will, you know, someone who gives, gives the hero the sword he needs to defeat them. So yes, it's a common theme. We, you know, it's not just the Christians. So you think, yeah, I'd say it's a common throughout.

• 30:19Eleanor Janega?

  Well, one of the things that is also really common in Welsh folk stories probably has to do with the fact that the Welsh are facing all of these invasion threats, right? You know, you either have pirates coming and raiding one way or another, or if it's not them, it's the bloody Normans, isn't it? Right? And so as a result, Wales has a lot of castles. And so we've got so many great folklore tales that center on castles.

• 30:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. And you know, when I was writing the book, I kind of sat back after finishing it. And I was like, this is just a tour of Welsh castles.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  So many, because my friends was that. So they would ask me, oh, what, Russ, what's your next book? You know, and they were throwing me ideas like, I'll do a tour of the castles. And I was like, I covered all the big ones in this, you know, in the first book. I mean, ultimately, I don't know why, but I could theorize, right? So for me, these castles, they would have been the focal points of every town, right? The life would have centered around these, these places. Also, whoever lived inside, more often than not, would, would have been an invader, right? Someone ruling over you. So there's always a sense of awe and mystery, you know, who, who lies behind those walls? What are they like? And

• 31:40Speaker 05

  also, they kind of attracted to tragedy, right? And deaths, all the battles that happen around these castles. So a lot of people lost their lives in or around castles. Yeah. So I, I would say that is why. Have, have you got a theory yourself?

• 31:56Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that that you're bang on there is that, you know, now we tend to see castles as a bit romantic, but really they are fundamentally, harbages of violence, right? You know, they're, they're here because they're reminding you who's in charge. They also are there to

• 32:13Eleanor Janega?

  Maybe protect people in case there is violence that breaks out. So I think they are kind of blood soaked. You know, it's not just some romantic palace where people go and have fun. These are created out of the blood, sweat and tears of the local community. But as a result, you get some nice, kind of creepy folktales out of this.

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• 35:22Speaker 03

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• 35:53Eleanor Janega?

  Can you tell us all a little bit about the ghosts at Caifily? Because they very much represent this idea of death or violence being foretold in a place like this.

• 36:07Speaker 05

  Yes, I will tell you about Caifily, but I do want to tell you, do you remember the story with the ghost of the ape? The ghost of the killer ape? So I gotta tell you about that one.

• 36:19Eleanor Janega?

  Yes.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  But yeah, let's do Caifily first. I want to say-

• 36:22Eleanor Janega?

  Go, go.

• 36:24Speaker 05

  Another pattern you will see, sticky wood castles as well, right? So you've got a rainbow of, you know, different colored female ghosts that haunt these castles. So in Caifily is the green lady of Caifily. In Canavon, you've got the white lady there, Kastehkork, the white lady there.

• 36:46Speaker 05

  A lot of these castles, yeah, I've got, there's a red lady somewhere as well. And so the story in Caithily, again, yes, it was a love triangle that went horribly wrong. So the Norman lord ruled at the time, he was a bit of a, you know, he was typical Norman. He was all about conquest, right, and power, not, not much. There's so much affection, I would imagine, whereas his wife was, we would call her woke these days, if you will, you know, but she enjoyed having fun, didn't look down at down at people. And then one day a prince visited the castle and she fell in love and they started an affair.

• 37:30Speaker 05

  And then a local monk grasped, you know, kind of grasped them up, you know, told the Norman lord about them. And the prince hung the monk from a tree as punishment, just before he himself was then killed. Now, at the time, the lady was over in France when this happened. And yet, her spirit is said to haunt the castle of Caithily. But, and that, and that happens in another couple of castles as well. Very often, the ghost would have died somewhere else, but they was, but they came back here. So, yeah, so that's, that's an interesting one. And she's a friendly ghost as well. She's very popular, you know, people, there are people who claim to have seen her.

• 38:15Speaker 05

  And they all said that she smiled or kind of stepped aside to let him through a door, you know, she's, she's not a scary ghost at all. But one scary ghost, another one from a castle, like I said, the killer ape. So down south, you've got Carrow Castle, and the story goes there in the 1700s. The patron of the castle, someone bought him a monkey, a barbary ape as a gift. Now, the guy, he wasn't a very nice guy at all. He'd keep this monkey in a cage and kind of prod him and throw things at him and tease him. So I bet the ape couldn't wait to get out and get his hands on him. And what happened, his son fell in love with a local peasant girl and he wasn't happy about it. So the-

• 39:01Speaker 05

  Girl's father went over to the castle to try and talk things out, but the guy released the ape on him instead. But the ape attacked him, not the other guy, and he ran off. Now, the servants didn't rush to help him.

• 39:14Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, good boy.

• 39:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. So they went up the next morning, there was the lord dead in a pool of blood and the ape was nowhere to be, to be found. But people have said then that on a dark, stormy night, you can hear the ape shrieking, you know, down the castle, the corridors of the castle. So that one really stood out for me. You don't get a lot of stories about, you know, killer apes, do you?

• 39:41Eleanor Janega?

  No, they, I mean ordinarily not the ghost that I expect. Although, I mean, I guess there's rumours in the Tower of London that there's a ghost bear from when there was a zoo. But I, I think in both of these instances, it's really quite interesting who the ghost is at these castles. Because like you say, you know, you would expect now, when we tell stories, for the ghost to sort of be the person who was killed. That's usually how we do it. Not like your girlfriend who was away at the time. She's not going to come back to haunt you. You know, it would be the guy who got killed by the monkey, not the monkey that did it. So it, it's interesting because you have a real different sensibility about how ghost stories work at the time.

• 40:24Speaker 05

  Yes, that is interesting. I, I've never actually considered that. But what, but one useful thing with folktales, of course, is that women had very weak hearts back in the day, right? So all these girlfriends who were away, yeah, they, they all died of a broken heart, you know? So yeah, it's not like they lived, you know, retired elsewhere and then returned. No, yeah, they did die in the stories, but always a broken heart.

• 40:54Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, bless them. It's so sad, but.

• 40:57Speaker 05

  I say, just on the subject of, you know, people dying from a broken heart, what I found a lot of Welsh tales, women tend to die of a broken heart. Men tend to spend their days roaming the hills, going insane, whenever, you know, if their lovers die. That happens a lot in Welsh tales. Yeah.

• 41:18Eleanor Janega?

  Well, you've got a lot of hills to roam. If you're gonna go, you know, slowly mad, I think the place to do it is with a view. So you can't fault Wales on that one, right?

• 41:28Speaker 05

  No, exactly. And a common one that's kind of linked to that kind of narrative. There's a few mountains in Wales where it's said that if you spend the night camping on top of them, you're gonna wake up in the morning either a really talented poet or totally insane. You could go either way. And honestly, there's so many mountains, yeah, with that story in Wales. And I don't know where it came from.

• 41:55Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, I like this. It's what a gamble. You know, you can either change your life and become a generational changing artist or ruin your life. Although, having said that, I guess if we think now about remuneration for poets, maybe that's the same thing. Oh, all right, all right. But you also have in these Welsh stories, figures that we would be kind of familiar with, I think, especially as you've already mentioned in Irish folklore, because you have at some castles, figures who kind of fill the same role as the banshee do in Ireland, right? Like, there are these ghosts that are floating around having a shriek, and if you hear them,

• 42:36Eleanor Janega?

  you die, right? And this is a kind of castle-based banshee economy going on.

• 42:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. And we've got different versions as well. It's not like, oh, yeah, we've got a Welsh version of the banshee. We've got several versions of the banshee, you know? So the main one would be the Cheraith. And I think it's come from, so Cher is the Welsh word for muscle or flesh. So I think the name means something like the, you know, the bean or flesh, that kind of thing. But interestingly, they don't actually look like anything. They're just disembodied voices who...

• 43:13Speaker 05

  Call out, I think they call out to someone, uh, you know, be- before they die to Welsh people. But they would, they would even call out if the Welsh person was on the other side of the planet. The, the, all these Currice would kind of reach out and call out to their, their names that they were about to die. Then, then you've got Canwych Corf, which is the, the corpse candle, I believe that translates into. And well, these, and these are associated with Saint David, funnily enough. So a lot of people thought these candles were him in spirit, weren't after he died. And what these would do, you would literally just have a, a floating candle appear out of nowhere.

• 43:56Speaker 05

  And if you followed it, it would stop at the place where a local person was about to die. And also the colour of the candle, I believe, would indicate who or how, you know? I don't know the colour code, so for example, you get a, a red candle, that would mean you were gonna die. Or a blue one would mean your partner was gonna die, whatever. And another one, Grach, Grach a Ribbin, now she's an interesting one. She appears, she's a witch basically, who appears all over Wales, but there's all kinds of different stories about her. And she also haunts Caerfily Castle.

• 44:36Speaker 05

  There's a story that she came out of the swamp in the seventeen hundreds and kind of fled into the castle where the locals, you know, tried to catch her and stuff, and she's still in there. And she's the same, so she, she would warn people who were about to die as well. She also had a mean streak, she would actually take people's lives as well. But it's really weird, a lot of people thought that she wouldn't hurt kids. But what she did do to kids, there's a story that she would suck their blood in the night. So if your kid was ill, a lot of people back in the day would say, oh, Grach a Ribbin got her, got him last night, you know? Um, and there's even a, a Welsh saying, uh, if you refer to someone who's, who's a, well, an ugly woman in particular.

• 45:20Speaker 05

  You'd say, oh, you know, she's as ugly as the Grach a Ribbin. It's not really used these days, but yes, certainly if you go back recent history, yeah, it was, it was a common saying.

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• 47:00Eleanor Janega?

  I find that those characters really interesting because they combine so many folkloric details, you know? So, things that we would expect to see from vampire stories from Central Europe with this kind of local swamp characteristic, I guess? Like, she tends to be associated with various wetlands in Wales, right? It's like, this is something that comes out of the bog for your kids very specifically.

• 47:28Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, that is true. And, because she had another name for herself, Hag of the Mist as well. So she was also associated coming out of the fog as well. So that was another association.

• 47:41Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, that's my drag name, you know?

• 47:46Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I think that, but these things are so evocative because it really gives you a context for the stories that Welsh people are telling. You know, it kind of makes sense in a pre-modern world, if you're living by real wet areas, you know, that there is a concern or worry that the vapors from swamps, or you know, even just the chill you can get in really murky air is going to make people ill. And so, kind of creating a character around this gives you a way of talking about this kind of ongoing, low-lying worry about what

• 48:28Eleanor Janega?

  your environmental conditions are, right? You can put a name to it. You can turn that into a monster to kind of discuss what the landscape is doing. And I find that really interesting.

• 48:41Speaker 05

  Yes, one of the things in my mind going, when I started writing my book, I was thinking, ah, it'd be awesome to find out where these stories came from, you know, and and you got the usual, yeah, and it's a combination. Folk tales were used, like you just said, to explain things that people couldn't understand, right, about the environment. Also, you could use, you know, the scaring kids away, you know, if you tell your kids, don't go into the swamp, or the witch will get you. It also helps a lot of, you know, prevents a lot of kids from drowning in the swamp, right? So, yeah, you can imagine, so they were used, it was a tool. They was used to explain things, to scare kids from going to stupid places. Yes, they're used for all sorts.

• 49:25Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and I think that that is one of the things that really strikes me about your book is just the way that these stories are really embedded in the landscape and how you can relate to the countryside of Wales through

• 49:40Eleanor Janega?

  All of these various stories, you know, you've got mountains that you sleep on top of where you become a poet. You've got bogs that are going to take the life of your children. You've got castles that have these people in them who have made these terrible decisions based on violence. And it's all still impacting everyone. So I think that this is such a really interesting and fruitful thing to look at because this is an instance where we still have these medieval traditions really hanging out and people still are aware of these stories. Whereas in a lot of the rest of Europe, you know, maybe you know about Joan of Arc and that's about it, right?

• 50:21Eleanor Janega?

  These are story upon story that are still affecting the way we just talk about Wales itself.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yes, absolutely. And what's interesting, you know, when you mentioned then about, you know, it's still going on and people kind of look at, you know, these, who are these people in the castle? And I kind of thought, I want to say now you often tell, tell people, so they'll ask me, Russ, what's the future for folktales? You know, should we keep them alive and all this? And my answers, people might disagree, but my answer is folktales are here and there's always new ones coming up, right? But we call them urban legends these days. And if you think of it like that, think how many urban legends and myths there are about the ruling, well, we see the ruling classes of today, right?

• 51:09Speaker 05

  You've got theories, there's theories of the royal family are a bunch of alien lizards, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, there's also, there was that rumor going around in 2020 that Lady Gaga and other celebrities were drinking the blood of children in order to keep alive, you know, and having these cannibal sex parties and all sorts. So, yeah, so we're still doing it today. We're coming up with these mad stories about the people, yeah, the people above us who we can see.

• 51:41Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I think that that's a really good point because there does happen to be a tendency, I think, to look at folklore as something that is dead or particularly is a product of the past, right? You know, you look at it and you're like, oh, of course, there's a bunch of stories from the medieval period because, well, you know how people were then? They were particularly superstitious. They had a lot of terrible things going on that they're trying to reckon with. But the same is true now. I think that this is a way that people really, people really use stories to explain the world around them. And you get these amazing glimpses of the past through the ones that get recorded in folktales,

• 52:23Eleanor Janega?

  which are excellent. But it's not like they desire to do this to tell these stories cuts off at the medieval period. We're still doing it now.

• 52:30Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, 100%, and what's interesting as well is that we're not only just making stuff up. So I'm gonna give you a specific example, right? So a lot of, you know, when you say, right, where did these tales come from? And I was thinking, right, for example, there's a Welsh lake monster called a Avang who drowns villages, right? Avang is literally the Welsh word for beaver, you know? And there were beavers in Wales in medieval times, who were the flooded land, you know? So you kind of, you can kind of go wild and say, all right, where did these things come from? So a modern example, I think in the 60s in America, you might know who I'm talking about, but I can't remember the character's

• 53:14Speaker 05

  name, right? So there was an urban legend about a disfigured ghost or a demon who was roaming the streets in this town in America, somewhere in the 60s. I can't remember his name. I'm gonna make something out, like Crooked Pete or whatever, right? They're like, oh, don't go out in the night because Crooked Pete will get you, you know? And they was, and they found out, you know, a few years later, the crooked Pete was real. There was a deformed person living in the area who would only go for walks in the night to avoid, you know, people staring at him in the day and stuff. And people had seen him about and had said, oh my God, I saw this hideous thing, you know?

• 53:58Speaker 05

  And this was the sixties, so it's, it's not, and it, so again, this story and people coming up with their own theories. Who is this ghost? You know, is he, was, was he that local, you know, is he, was he the Freddy Krueger? Is he that local paedophile who we killed twenty years ago? You know, all these wild theories. And no, he was just an actual real person. So yes, it happens, still happens, you know, in modern times.

• 54:25Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, a real person who does, and you can see why he's not coming out in the day. If you're gonna make stories like that up about him at night, come on, like, poor guy.

• 54:33Speaker 05

  And, you know, there's his creepy pastas these days, right? So someone will literally write a story, like, there's a factory in my hometown. And if I was to write a blog post saying, oh, there's a ghost in this factory. This is the ghost origin story, right? And then as soon as that's out there, some people generally perceive that as a real thing, you know? And people, and then you've got local teenagers daring each other, they'd go into the factory, you know? And, and, and a legend is born, basically. So, yeah, so they are still here, but they spread differently, right? Because we tend to read, look at stuff online or watch TV more these days than sit around a fire telling stories.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  But we're still doing the same thing.

• 55:20Eleanor Janega?

  I think that this is a really interesting point too, because I suppose there's also kind of a question when you're looking at folk tales about places in Wales where you're like, well, to what extent is this almost a form of? Tourism encouragement, right? Because you've got all of these beautiful castles or wonderful, there's a Tudor house that's very much seen as haunted, right? And we know that's a draw for people now. You know, people like scaring themselves. And if they hear a story like, oh, beautiful Tudor house, it's haunted, then suddenly you've got yet another reason to visit. You know, maybe you want to prove the ghost isn't there, or maybe you want to have a kind of creepy encounter.

• 56:02Eleanor Janega?

  So it gives you this extra frisson on top of just having a historical experience. You can have a folkloric experience.

• 56:12Speaker 05

  Yes, one of the points I often make with people when they ask me that question, why should we keep the, why are these tales important?

• 56:22Speaker 05

  Even if you could give them the most, you know, boring, black and white, practical, selfish reason, it's good for the economy. So the two villages in Wales that come to mind, Bath Gellert and Devil's Bridge. So they were just, you know, until the 17, 1800s, they were just normal, you know, poor villages with maybe one pub and a farm, that kind of thing. And what both of those places did was they took two landlords, basically, who wanted to make money and outright said, how can we draw the tourists in? And they brought back stories they'd heard in Europe about, you know,

• 57:03Speaker 05

  the matter dog who was killed, you know, for protecting the kid, you know, it was a mistake. And then the devil who builds a bridge for a woman and is tricked. And she throws a, gets a dog to walk across. So the devil takes his soul instead of hers. But yes, so they were literally taken. I heard this great story from Europe, let's say it happened here and bring the tourists in. And those two places, even today, you've got coaches full of tourists going there to take photos of the dog's grave and the dog was never even there. So that mansion you mentioned is Llan Gaiach Fawr Manor, it's called. And I've got sad news for you earlier, it closed down over Christmas.

• 57:44Eleanor Janega?

  No.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  I know, I know. So for those who don't know about the place, there's this man, huge mansion in the countryside. And there's a lot of ghost stories associated with the place. And it was like something from The Shining. They literally built the mansion on top of an old Celtic settlement. You know, like, yeah. So and they used to run ghost tours. And what they did, it was a living museum. So the staff would always stay in character and dress up. And yeah, it was a great experience. I went there. It was hilarious. It was still in Covid. So they, you know, they still had hand sanitizers out and stuff. And the guy on the way in was like, oh, hello, my lord, you know, please cleanse thy hands on the way in. And all this, you know.

• 58:33Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, it was hilarious. But they were also running on skeleton staff because of Covid. So then like you'd have the same guy with a different hat, playing a different character. You know, I had a great time. But unfortunately, you see, there's a huge housing crisis in Wales at the moment, unfortunately. I I work for a homelessness prevention charity. And yes, homelessness numbers, well, in the UK in general, are really high at the moment. So the local council said, well, look, we can either, you know, put money towards housing people or keep the haunted mansion, you know, if it's one or the other. So they.

• 59:13Speaker 05

  So I wouldn't disagree with them, but whether, you know, they actually use the money is yet to be seen, isn't it? But but it's a sad day nonetheless.

• 59:22Eleanor Janega?

  Well, one of the things that you've just mentioned here, I think, is really interesting as well, you know, because the dog saint, right? And the original continental dog saint is Saint Guinefort. And he's meant to be French. The story is that there is a knight who has a very good greyhound. And he's asleep in bed one day and he hears a tussle downstairs. And he comes down to see that the crib containing his baby, the cradle containing his baby, has been knocked over. And he sees the greyhound covered. And blood and he assumes the greyhound has snapped and killed the baby. But really what happened was that a python had come in, you know, in France, a normal thing.

• 1:00:05Eleanor Janega?

  And that the greyhound had killed the python, but before the knight realizes this, he cuts off the dog's head. But then they realize actually the dog had saved the baby. Everybody feels very bad. And the local people begin to worship the greyhound as a saint. And all of this is found out when the church is kind of going door to door and saying, hi, guys, do you have any local saints that are worth venerating? And they're like, yeah, of course, Saint Guinevere. And then they tell the story and the church is like, what? You can't have a dog as a saint, right? And that, that kind of like gets into exactly what we're talking about is that you can have these folkloric things that people really cling on to where they're like, of course, a

• 1:00:47Eleanor Janega?

  dog is capable of being a saint. A very good dog is a very good boy indeed. But the church is like, I'm sorry, we have like a kind of low bar right now in terms of what a saint is. But it has to be a person. It can't just be a dog you liked. But what folklore enables you to do is keep telling these stories, keep bringing people into them, you know, doing new iterations. And I mean, what's the difference between Welsh people importing this story of a dog? And, you know, people importing tales of King Arthur from Wales into England? Fundamentally, what is the difference? I ask you.

• 1:01:27Speaker 05

  Well, and you're quite right. And, you know, you would normally, people would expect the Welshman to be outraged by such a question.

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  But, but what I often tell people is one thing I learned writing my book and learning about all these folktales was that a lot of them aren't Welsh, you know, and and that I see this as the beauty of folktales. All right. So what I find great about them is a lot of these tales are taken from other places, right? And altered in order to fit different cultures, yeah? But they all follow the same narrative and teach us the same morals and what have you. But what's great, and again, going back to Joseph Campbell, again, he saw similarities all over the place as well. And I think what it does, it it it kind of reinforces the

• 1:02:20Speaker 05

  fact that these are just stories you tell to the people around you, and they're nothing to do with your country or your culture, right? And they're very individual. Because if you look at them, all the narratives, they're about someone trying to find love or make their parents proud, right? Or they lost a loved one, they go into war, things that happen to normal, everyday people, you know, and the mistakes they make are the mistakes you could make. All right. It it might not be a monster that you that you come across in real life, but it would be a similar decision, you know? And so again, and I love that about these tales. So I've always said, when people ask me, who is Kinnaz

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  or English or Welsh? Because the Cornish, Rosé is Cornish. For me, it doesn't matter because Kinnaz is whoever you want him to be, right? So you're right, there isn't a difference. I think we've we've always done it. And to be honest, I think it's great. And I and I would hate for people to stick, you know, a Welsh flag in something and say, oh, we came up with this, you know, because more more so, it's a testament of hu- human history, how we've all integrated over the years. Well, or or invaded each other, either or.

• 1:03:36Eleanor Janega?

  Well, Russ, I just think that absolutely is kind of the story of why folklore is so important. Because even if we see that traditions are borrowed, or we see that there are kind of competing tales in different valleys, something like that. One of the things that I think it really does for us is it tells us about the imaginations and the conditions of people in the medieval world, and how they are explaining the things around them. Because it's such a human desire to tell a tale, to normalize what it is that you're

• 1:04:17Eleanor Janega?

  going through, or explain that to other people, or say why you don't kind of like that castle that your entire village life has to be centered around. These are ways of voicing

• 1:04:31Eleanor Janega?

  Realities, even if they are rooted in things that seem fantastic. And I'm so excited about your work because it helps keep those medieval stories going, which is my favorite thing.

• 1:04:41Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, well, thank you very much. And you know what's bizarre as well is that I've never been one to tell, you know, I'm not a storyteller, if you will, I've never told, oh, I would love to go tell a story to a crowd, but since I've released this book, I am now part of the oral storytelling tradition. You know, I'm going around book events all over Wales to audiences of, you know, 100 people, telling them these stories. So, yes, it's ironic, you asked me, do the Welsh still do this? And yeah, well, speaking for myself, I do.

• 1:05:15Eleanor Janega?

  You know, and thank God for that. You're making the world a better place, Russ.

• 1:05:20Speaker 05

  Oh, God. We'll go half way.

• 1:05:23Eleanor Janega?

  Well, thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for letting us know about the alternative ways of looking at history in Wales.

• 1:05:33Speaker 05

  So, thanks for having me, Alan. That was very interesting. Thank you.

• 1:05:38Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks once again to Russ Williams and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent series, Meet the Normans, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 1:07:00Speaker 03

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