Welsh Folk Customs (Paperback). This item is unavailable.Welsh Folk Customs (Paperback)

A seminal Welsh folk traditions study illuminates social life, customs, and seasonal rituals.

Seminal work on the folk traditions of Wales by a widely acknowledged expert in the field. The book includes not only folk customs but also other aspects of the social life and culture of Wales, organised under the following headings: The Christmas Season; Candlemas and the Movable Festivals; May and Midsummer; Harvest and Winter’s Eve; Birth, Marriage and Death.

With 16pp of photos, and written by the Curator of what was then known as the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagans, this book was first published in 1959 as a guide to items in the Museum’s collection relating to folklore and folk custom. Further editions followed in 1968, 1974, 1987 and 1994, but it has been out of print for many years.

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 authority on traditional Welsh customs. He was one of the leading figures in the development of folk life as an academic discipline across the UK, and the recipient of honorary fellowships by the Folklore Society and Aberystwyth and Bangor universities in Wales. In addition to his two seminal volumes on folk traditions, he published many articles (in Welsh and English) on ethnology-related subjects. His contribution to the field is immense and enduring.