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The Customs and Traditions of Wales

The Customs and Traditions of Wales

With an Introduction by Emma Lile

Author(s): Trefor M. Owen

Paperback - £10.99

Language: English

Genre(s): Welsh and Celtic Studies

Series: Pocket Guides

April 2016 · 192pages · 198x129mm

·Paperback - 9781783168255
· eBook - epub - 9781783168279
· eBook - mobi - 9781783168286
· eBook - pdf - 9781783168262

About The Book

Trefor M. Owen’s seminal work educates, enlightens and entertains with a far-reaching yet accessible text, which paints a colourful and comprehensive portrait of a nation’s rich folk culture. The Customs and Traditions of Wales is an illuminating and engrossing insight into a subject that continues to unfold and develop in contemporary life. Despite an increasingly globalised society that has transformed local communities, folk customs are still practised and enjoyed the world over as people combine modern-day and historical rituals and embrace opportunities to learn about their past, and Owen’s influential study has maintained its relevance as customs change and evolve.

Endorsements

`This guide is certainly pocket-sized, but the depth and breadth of its contents are quite remarkable, and equal to what is often found in a much bulkier tome.' Lore and Language `... Trefor M. Owen has admirably succeeded in introducing his reader to a wealth of information on the social history, customs and traditions of Wales.' Rural Wales

‘Bando and cnapan, folk dancing and the Mari Lwyd – to us, entertaining leftovers from the Welsh past; but as this marvellous little book shows, actually the social glue which held communities together and from which we could learn much.’
–Dr Eurwyn Wiliam, The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales

‘When first published, this study by Trefor M. Owen was perhaps the most distinguished and substantial work on the daily life and traditional customs of pre-industrial Wales. It still remains an indispensable volume for anyone interested in the subject. The thorough and comprehensive updating of this re-published classic will make Owen’s impeccable scholarship and humanistic approach to the study of traditional Welsh life available to a new generation of readers.’
-Dr Juliette Wood, Cardiff University

About the Author(s)

Trefor M. Owen

Trefor M. Owen (1926–2015), former curator at the Welsh Folk Museum (now St Fagans National History Museum) and president of the Society for Folk Life Studies, was an eminent ethnologist and anthropologist and a highly respected and widely acknowledged authority on Welsh traditional customs. Author of the classic study Welsh Folk Customs and one of the founders of the Ethnology and Folk Life section of the University of Wales’s Guild of Graduates, Owen lectured frequently throughout Wales and in Europe on diverse ethnological issues and was one of the leading figures in the development of folk life as an academic discipline across the United Kingdom. He was recipient of honorary fellowships by the Folklore Society, Aberystwyth and Bangor universities and, in addition to his two seminal volumes on folk traditions, published many Welsh and English articles on ethnology-related subjects. His contribution to the field is immense and enduring, and this reissue of his 1991 text will ensure that new generations of readers are able to continue to enjoy this fascinating, informative and influential work.