Wales? Any folks here welsh or familiar with it?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Heyas, I'm beginning serious work on a period fantasy/horror novel that at least begins in Wales. Granted, it's around the 1800's, but looking for anyone who knows the history or area well that might be able to help me with some background research.

[GrlumpTheElder]

I'm a quater welsh, have family out there and know some background stuff. Fire away, I'll try to be of use :smallbiggrin:

[Dihan]

I am Welsh and I live in Wales so I qualify. I'm not too brushed up on history but I can try my best.

[BisectedBrioche]

I'm 1/16 Welsh and I live in Wales. Most of what I know is political history though.

[Mr. Moon]

I have Welsh ancestors.
I think.
Somewhere in there.
Dunno anything about the place, though. But this thread should prove interesting.
I shall watch it.
*peeeeeeer*

[Deth Muncher]

http://www.legendarypokemon.net/images/dp_artwork/321.png
That's what you meant, right?

[Bhu]

I've seen a great many B movie actresses and nude models of Welsh descent. Me likee.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Heh, well, I'm wanting it to begin in Fforest Fawr, the main character having a 'summer estate' within a day's ride or less of the area.

Wanting some period info on how things were like around that era, and especially any myths and legends of the area, particularly those relating to nymphs.

It's to begin with a lost child managing to open one of the 'forgotten doors' into a realm nearby Man's where fey creatures still exist. Reality is many layers deep, 'like a flower petal, but man fled to the surface, closed the doors, and sealed themselves off'. A nymph rescues him and leads him back out, but the child is smitten by the memory and spends his life trying to find a way back in. He manages to do so years later and when she refuses to stay with him in his manor he addicts her to a drug so that she won't use one of the 'doors' to escape him.

The man, because of his memories of her, becomes a philocalist, or beauty addict. Think OCD for aesthetics. She is his crowning piece of art.

Don't think I'll have him be based in Wales however. Thinking he brings her to America, but still working on the details of that.

[MountainKing]

The premise sounds pretty similar to Pan's Labyrinth. I rather like that, sir. Any chance you have some manner of keeping tabs on said developing literature? I am intrigued. :smallsmile:

[The Vorpal Tribble]

The premise sounds pretty similar to Pan's Labyrinth. I rather like that, sir.
In what way?

If you mean by my mention of 'surface' I didn't mean underground/above ground. More metaphysical or fractal thinking. I had this image just come to mind once. Imagine if our existence was like a piece of flattened origami. An insect could crawl over it, and that'd be our world. But what if you knew what flap to pull up? You could then have a sort of 'bubble' reality completely connected to ours but unreachable. What if this flap led to other flaps? If you fold/unfold it just right, you can gain access to other layers of reality. All still part of this one, all connected, but utterly invisible.

Man slowly began to fold down the flaps, saying this is how we want things shaped, this is the way we want things to be. Thus entire realities were covered over and forgotten.

The heroine will seem somewhat magic, but all it is is basically knowing what flap to open in what sequence for what affect.

I read something very like this written by another poster here for a game. Called it 'the Hedge affect' or somesuch. Push through the leaves at the right spot, perhaps only in the right time of year, and you are in a new land. You can go to the edges of this land and peek back out into the normal world. From the outside it's no bigger than a hedge. From within it can be an entire world. Then from that world you can reach other realms.

Basically all of reality is folded in on itself, like the origami.

The nymph will explain it like this by taking a closed rose. But she'll then touch it here, another there, until what seemed a small bug is a large bloom and explain how each petal is a new world.

At the end of the book, after being ensnared by him for decades, he finally grows tired of her. She then crawls under a rose thicket in an enormous garden he made for her to die. As she does so she begins unfolding the roses, and they turn a dark purplish color like her eyes. She then fades away...

The man begins forcing other women to his manor to be paraded about, and each one of his mistresses hears a whispering from the garden. They follow it to the rose bush... and the next morning their eyes are purple. As he grows tired of them they disappear. Then one night all the women he wronged appear except the nymph. They have become nymphs as well. They take him in the night and bring him to the bush which grabs him up. His screams fill the night as he is torn and ripped apart and then taken into the fey realm forever where under certain circumstances death is only an inconvencience.

Thus everyone finds out why the name of the book is The Indigo Rose.


Any chance you have some manner of keeping tabs on said developing literature? I am intrigued. :smallsmile:
I'll see what I can do. Still very much in the info gathering phase.

[Dihan]

Well the equivalent of a Welsh fairy would be "Tylwyth Teg" (basically means "Fair Folk"). Their king was believed to be Gwyn ap Nudd who was the ruler of Annwn (a world of eternal youth, health and happiness). They're mischievous and capable of both good and evil. They could reward a household for doing something or they could kidnap a child (particularly one that is similar in appearance to them) and replace them with a changeling.

Pretty much standard fairy stuff.

[IonDragon]

Sorry guys, I have to. Mostly because of the jokes thread.
WHAAAAAALES! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhub4ExmVQg)

[Allan Surgite]

I'm a Welshman, and I could ask a cousin of mine to help you out, since he's quite well-versed in the topic. He's named after a Welsh poet, iirc. I could try and help you out, but I'm not too well-versed in Welsh history.

[Stadge]

Sounds like a great concept to me, good luck with it.

I'm sorry to say that my area of Welsh knowlege is a good 1000 years too early for your purposes. Let me know if you want any history within your history though (if that makes sense), and I'll see what I can do.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Their king was believed to be Gwyn ap Nudd who was the ruler of Annwn (a world of eternal youth, health and happiness).

Which is where my original screen name, Gwyn ap Nud, came from.


I'm descended from quite a few famous Welshmen, and, though I've only just recently been within sight of Wales, I have a great interest in it's history. I can probably help you there some.

[BisectedBrioche]

Which is where my original screen name, Gwyn ap Nud, came from.


I'm descended from quite a few famous Welshmen, and, though I've only just recently been within sight of Wales, I have a great interest in it's history. I can probably help you there some.

Both of them? :smalltongue:

[Coidzor]

Curlykitgirl is welsh. Knows all about it. Though I think she's recently fled the place for good. Or just to nom on Thufir.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Both of them? :smalltongue:

I can't remember which ones, they're on my mum's stupidly huge family tree thing she made.


The funny thing is, my mum is doing all this geneological stuff, but none of these people are HER ancestors. Her ancestors all come from the Ukraine, there are no records past 1880-ish. And we're lucky to get even that. It's my dad's side that we can trace back to Anglo-saxon, Germanic times.

[Mercenary Pen]

Curlykitgirl is welsh. Knows all about it. Though I think she's recently fled the place for good. Or just to nom on Thufir.

Thought Curlykitgirl was from Cornwall, not Wales? Oh well, I could very easily be mistaken there...

Quick note to Vorpal Tribble, make certain you don't neglect the geography... as well as the forests Wales has a disproportionate number of mountains when compared with England.

[Coidzor]

Thought Curlykitgirl was from Cornwall, not Wales? Oh well, I could very easily be mistaken there...

2 days... Was starting to get worried no one would point that out.

The mountains are one of the main reasons why the welsh are the welsh, IIRC, and not... the weird mutt of german, viking, and briton that is the English.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

2 days... Was starting to get worried no one would point that out.

The mountains are one of the main reasons why the welsh are the welsh, IIRC, and not... the weird mutt of german, viking, and briton that is the English.

Wales has very pretty landscapes. Forest and hills and really cute stubby mountains. :)

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Oh yeah, researching the geography was first thing. That's the easy part, it doesn't change much :smallwink:

I'm Welsh from my Grandfather Craig's side. German/Welsh/English/Cherokee.

Sister then married a feller from Mexico who isn't actually mexican but pure Spanish. Carrying on the fine American mutt tradition :smalltongue:

[Archonic Energy]

i've been to Cardiff...

does that count?

[Coidzor]

Sister then married a feller from Mexico who isn't actually mexican but pure Spanish. Carrying on the fine American mutt tradition :smalltongue:

You mean isn't Meztizo. :smalltongue:

[TheThan]

I went whale watching before does that count?

[Vaynor]

What if you've been whale watching but didn't see any whales?

[TheThan]

What if you've been whale watching but didn't see any whales?

That's what we call a failure. Anyway yes, I did see some whale, but no welsh I'm afraid.

[Eldpollard]

Well I'm moving to Wales in September for university in Aberystwyth. I would be of no help whatsoever.
Actually! I just remembered that I have a book about British folklore from the 60s (the book's from the 60s, the folklore is a lot older). Let me have a look and I'll quote you some bits.

[Eldpollard]

A huge one that seems close to Fforest Fawr is The Fairy Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach. And I found a rather helpful post online about it. http://faerie-law.blogspot.com/2009/06/faerie-lady-of-llyn-y-fan.html

EDIT: If you're really bothered http://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780340165973/Folklore-Myths-Legends-Britain-Readers-0340165979/plp that's the book I'm looking at. It's an absolutely brilliant book about folklore. That site seems to have it fairly cheaply, even for US postage.

EDIT EDIT: Also, if it's the 1800's there was a wizard active in Wales in that area called Dr John Harries of Cwrtycadno. People believed he could cast out evil spirts, cure diseases, charm away pain, find missing objects, tell the future and overcome witchcraft. He died in 1839. There's still a stone circle near where he lived.

[Nameless]

Heyas, I'm beginning serious work on a period fantasy/horror novel that at least begins in Wales. Granted, it's around the 1800's, but looking for anyone who knows the history or area well that might be able to help me with some background research.

Wikipedia is your friend. :D

[nihilism]

my short trip to wales around 2 years ago informed me of 2 things:

absolutely awesome incredible fog

castles are literally everywhere and they can also be unbelievable huge

carnovan castle is so big it blows the mind its also very complex and confusing (on purpose)

1800s wales would be a great setting for a horror/fantasy story

may i ask what your novel is about?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

1800s wales would be a great setting for a horror/fantasy story

may i ask what your novel is about?
I wrote a bit about it earlier in the thread to give an idea. The message for it will basically be you can try to possess beauty, but in the forcing it becomes something else.

Basically I plan on writing quite a few books all across history about how fey and magical creatures exist, all right under our noses, we just don't know where to look.

They'll tie in loosely here and there. The Indigo Rose will be the first, though possibly not the earliest in era.


The Indigo Rose (early 1800's)
Boy discovers nymph and he is infatuated through his whole life. Kidnaps her, enslaves her, and tries to force her to become as a jewel to his collection. She goes about unlocking various 'doors' in the city, thinking that if this man is what human kind may become then they are stagnating with the rest of reality closing to them. Eventually she crawls into a rose bush to die and allows it to soak up her essence. Within its tangles she opens up a gateway to her realm and gives the mistresses he takes after her a chance for retribution. In her realm they are transformed into nymphs and take him to be killed by the rose and his spirit held captive for eternity in the land.

Family Roots
Alabama/Georgia border, about 20 years before the American Civil War, a forest is cleared out to start a plantation. An iron fence is built around a section of it, and that spring a dryad awakes and sees her forest decimated. She jumps over the fence from he tree and can't get back, the iron keeping her from reaching it. Being taken for one of the slaves (being dark skinned like her tree) she is forced to work. She never ages, and the young boy that found her wounded by the fence eventually falls in love with her decades later and they have a family. She then begins to age, as her essence went into the children she finds out, no longer needing her tree.

Rat-A-Tat
A Blues singer from New Orleans, descendant of the liaison between the dryad and slave, marries a Cherokee man in the music industry from the South Carolina reserve. The father is cursed by a Lllyhma, or fey spirit of poverty and ill fortune while his son is young. Mother commits suicide, father goes mad, and son has to care for him while also surviving the streets. Finds out he can see things, things that no one else can. He can use his music to open the 'doors', and discovers that locations of musical significance are one of the few places fey and magical creatures still exist outside of their own special realms. Or, it might be said, they are still connected. He moves to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue this discovery and finds it is nothing like folks think it is. Alley wolves prowl the rooftops, Alatessa's (angels that allowed themselves to fall to directly aid mankind) sing in bars, and elegies, the spirits of musicians still walk the streets (listen to Midnight In Montgomery by Alan Jackson).

That God Never Saw
Loosely based on the above books, this takes place in the near future, a guy who was conceived and born in a 'forgotten place'. A flap of reality that shouldn't exist. Think almost like a realm of the Vestiges. He crawls out as a child and is found and raised in an orphanage. He finds out that almost no one ever notices him unless he raises a fuss. Discovers he can see angels and demons and similar but they can't see him, and he instinctively makes holy figures nervous without them knowing why. This enrages him and after accidentally killing a priest finds he has near superhuman strength and endurance compared to most. Its as if the fact no higher power has noticed him that he must take care of himself. He lives nearly 200 years, seemingly immortal. Very dark, depressing book, with a surprise happy ending.

[BisectedBrioche]

I wrote a bit about it earlier in the thread to give an idea. The message for it will basically be you can try to possess beauty, but in the forcing it becomes something else.

Basically I plan on writing quite a few books all across history about how fey and magical creatures exist, all right under our noses, we just don't know where to look.

They'll tie in loosely here and there. The Indigo Rose will be the first, though possibly not the earliest in era.


The Indigo Rose (early 1800's)
Boy discovers nymph and he is infatuated through his whole life. Kidnaps her, enslaves her, and tries to force her to become as a jewel to his collection. She goes about unlocking various 'doors' in the city, thinking that if this man is what human kind may become then they are stagnating with the rest of reality closing to them. Eventually she crawls into a rose bush to die and allows it to soak up her essence. Within its tangles she opens up a gateway to her realm and gives the mistresses he takes after her a chance for retribution. In her realm they are transformed into nymphs and take him to be killed by the rose and his spirit held captive for eternity in the land.

Family Roots
Alabama/Georgia border, about 20 years before the American Civil War, a forest is cleared out to start a plantation. An iron fence is built around a section of it, and that spring a dryad awakes and sees her forest decimated. She jumps over the fence from he tree and can't get back, the iron keeping her from reaching it. Being taken for one of the slaves (being dark skinned like her tree) she is forced to work. She never ages, and the young boy that found her wounded by the fence eventually falls in love with her decades later and they have a family. She then begins to age, as her essence went into the children she finds out, no longer needing her tree.

Rat-A-Tat
A Blues singer from New Orleans, descendant of the liaison between the dryad and slave, marries a Cherokee man in the music industry from the South Carolina reserve. The father is cursed by a Lllyhma, or fey spirit of poverty and ill fortune while his son is young. Mother commits suicide, father goes mad, and son has to care for him while also surviving the streets. Finds out he can see things, things that no one else can. He can use his music to open the 'doors', and discovers that locations of musical significance are one of the few places fey and magical creatures still exist outside of their own special realms. Or, it might be said, they are still connected. He moves to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue this discovery and finds it is nothing like folks think it is. Alley wolves prowl the rooftops, Alatessa's (angels that allowed themselves to fall to directly aid mankind) sing in bars, and elegies, the spirits of musicians still walk the streets (listen to Midnight In Montgomery by Alan Jackson).

That God Never Saw
Loosely based on the above books, this takes place in the near future, a guy who was conceived and born in a 'forgotten place'. A flap of reality that shouldn't exist. Think almost like a realm of the Vestiges. He crawls out as a child and is found and raised in an orphanage. He finds out that almost no one ever notices him unless he raises a fuss. Discovers he can see angels and demons and similar but they can't see him, and he instinctively makes holy figures nervous without them knowing why. This enrages him and after accidentally killing a priest finds he has near superhuman strength and endurance compared to most. Its as if the fact no higher power has noticed him that he must take care of himself. He lives nearly 200 years, seemingly immortal. Very dark, depressing book, with a surprise happy ending.

They all sound quite interesting. Good luck. :smallbiggrin:

[Flame of Anor]

my short trip to wales around 2 years ago informed me of 2 things:

absolutely awesome incredible fog

castles are literally everywhere and they can also be unbelievable huge

carnovan castle is so big it blows the mind its also very complex and confusing (on purpose)


No one expects the Welsh Inquisition! Their two weapons are fog, castles, and-- Their three weapons are...

(also, isn't it spelled Caernarfon?)

I'm slightly Welsh, but I don't know lots about it. I can tell you that Y Ddraig Goch means The Red Dragon, though.

[thompur]

The only thing I know about Welsh is that it's spelled Luxury Yacht, but it's pronounced Throat Warbler Mangrove.:smalltongue:

[Mx.Silver]

I'm not sure how much help I can be here. On the one hand, I lived in North Wales for over a decade and as such am reasonably familiar with that neck of the woods. Unfortunately, your books seem more set in the south which I haven't visited much, nor am I that up on Welsh folklore or history (beyond the English conquest anyway).

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Anything anyone wants to send my way would be appreciated.

Nymphs in this series I've decided can cause blindness. What happens is they have special ducts at the corner of their eyes, sort of like a secondary set of tear ducts. When they are under a lot of stress they cry scented tears that is basically concentrated pheromones.

Male creatures, in this case the villain, are swept with desire so strong that the deadly blood pressure rise can cause heart attacks, brain damage, or in his case, blindness.

Thus when he tries to capture her the first time she releases the tears and he no longer can see the beautiful things. His perception of beauty is now restricted to hearing, smelling, tasting. That's when he begins becoming a glutton, so that by the end of the book he has gone from lean and beautiful in his own right to gross.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Well, due to job scarcity, and a need to eat while I planned, these books were put on a temporary hiatus.

Getting back into them now.

It's kind of spooky how much I was writing coincides with tales I've already read. For example, the boy falling asleep in the woods to awaken to fairies already happened in the exact part of the woods I was going to base my story in. Every heard of the Boy and the Golden Ball? Yeah, that's where it originated.

I'm actually going to pay a small homage to it.

Also using the Lady of the Lake lore that says she bore three sons to this man and they became the Physicians of Myddfai. The main character of this story is going to be a direct male descendant of them from hundreds of years ago. In fact, his father is a wealthy doctor.

As such, this boy will be a watered down faerie creature himself, explaining his ability to open one of the doors to the realm without help. He also peruses his father's notes and histories of his family. There he finds the drug that will work on the nymph and bind her to him that one of the original physicians of legend knew of.

On the eve of Beltane (may day) he makes an anklet of bluebells for her and him, beginning the ritual of binding so he can take the nymph to town for the festival to be paraded upon his wagon.

Their last drink that night, he slips a concentration of Opium and Elecampane (also known as elfwort) into her elderberry wine (known to be able to even intoxicate the fey). Elfwort is said to bring on menstruation, and nymphs are fertility spirits, so he binds her that way permanently, not just for the one day.

So now he has her, what might be a place where a wealthy artisan might be found in Wales? It'd be a city or town known for being idyllic as this fellow is OCD with aesthetics. He wouldn't live in an 'ugly' town.

Also looking for common customs, names, places that I might reference to to add that bit of ethnicity to it for realism's sake.