I was born and bred in one of the mining Valleys of South Wales. The echoes of a long distant past were then just whispers on the wind, yet for those with eyes to see, history was still writ large on the landscape. The first of the Rhiannon books gave me the opportunity to visit the hill-forts, gold mines, and mystical lakes built or used by my fore-parents.
So in my own small way I follow in the footsteps of the Bards of old. The Bards, the story-tellers, who recited the history and beliefs of their tribe, and kept history alive. I have tried to draw on what remains of that history. I hope you may get some small pleasure from this web site and perhaps the book(s).
It has been a huge pleasure to research the book and to visit the places described. In its writing many books and articles have been read over a long period of time and the more important ones are listed in the reading list. I have also tried to provide a brief background to Wales, to the Druids, and to the Celts.
The Celts of two-three thousand years of history are lost in time. Much of what we know comes from Greek and Roman writings, which were often heavily biased. The Celts trusted little or nothing of their religion to writing, for reasons which we can only conjecture.
Traditionally historians have unfortunately placed a huge emphasis on written texts and their accuracy has rarely been questioned until quite recently. Thus because the Celts had little or no written language, because there was an implicit acceptance of the historical accuracy of what their "enemies" said about them, they have received a "bad press."