Ethan Mckenzie's Reviews > British Goblins: Welsh Folk Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions

British Goblins, written in 1880, does a good job at its stated purpose- collecting and loosely categorizing Welsh Folklore of every category, ranging from the reasons behind certain customs and superstitions of daily life, to descriptions and associated stories of various faeries, goblins, and giants, to descriptions of apparitions and the view of the afterlife, to more fantastic things, like dragons, standing stones, and magic wells and stones.

It stays away from sneering at the superstitions-most of the time- but some of this has to be expected in the era. Mr. Sikes also does a decent enough job tying in how changing Christian beliefs intermixed with native folklore, and occasionally remarking on similar customs(often very unusual ones) that are present almost everywhere in the world.

The reason I removed one star, is simply that it isn't really insightful enough to impress much, and often turns to Greek predecessors in mythological archetypes with little reason I can see, and treats them as unassailably "obvious." Something, which, I think stems from older models of cultural progress that are entirely too focused on Rome and Greece.

If it's important- I got this in digital format from Forgotten Books.