Red Hearts and Roses?: Welsh Valentine Songs and Poems

Red Hearts and Roses? paints a vivid picture of Saint Valentine, known in Wales as Sant Ffolant. This book focuses on the Welsh poetry written over the centuries on the feast day of Saint Valentine in mid-February. Rhiannon Ifans presents sixty-nine poems from manuscripts held at various libraries and personal collections of unpublished poems. Ifans also provides English translations of those poems, some musical accompaniments, and photographs of a collection of six ornately printed Valentines from the late nineteenth century sent by a hopeful lover. A lively introduction to the little-known Welsh Saint Valentine’s Day poems, this book will benefit historians, social scientists, and linguists.

Rhiannon Ifans is Dyson Fellow in the Faculty of Humanities and Performing Arts, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She is also an award-winning children’s author, General Secretary of the Welsh Folk Song Society, organizer of the Society’s annual conference, and editor of the annual journal Canu Gwerin (Folk Song).