Rupert Owen reviewed Folklore of Wales by Anne Ross
Review of 'Folklore of Wales' on 'GoodReads'
3 stars
This coverage of the general Celtic folklore in relation to Welsh mythology and legend is not bad. It covers a wider than what probably would be possible scope of such folklore in the limitations of its length. Anne writes with a personal reference to much of her subject matter having visited the places she mentions and retelling the stories she is told by people she knows. The let down is the lack of consistent referencing throughout, possibly a publishing flaw, but I struggled to make note of where the material came from and some explanation of the original intention. The numeric referencing without text became obscure. Sometimes I didn't know whether Anne was paraphrasing a written text or writing verbatim. The only other issue I had with the book as a whole was that it is written like a dissertation and not an analysis, the need for an ambiguous conclusion …
This coverage of the general Celtic folklore in relation to Welsh mythology and legend is not bad. It covers a wider than what probably would be possible scope of such folklore in the limitations of its length. Anne writes with a personal reference to much of her subject matter having visited the places she mentions and retelling the stories she is told by people she knows. The let down is the lack of consistent referencing throughout, possibly a publishing flaw, but I struggled to make note of where the material came from and some explanation of the original intention. The numeric referencing without text became obscure. Sometimes I didn't know whether Anne was paraphrasing a written text or writing verbatim. The only other issue I had with the book as a whole was that it is written like a dissertation and not an analysis, the need for an ambiguous conclusion on partly contemporary views I felt unnecessary, indeed I felt there need not be a conclusion at all. The last niggling thing is that Anne writes that examples will follow or details will be mentioned further along and they are so minimal it might not have been worth telling the reader so.
However like a lot of contemporary writing on such things I feel it necessary to divine the source, but Anne reproduces lovely tales she has garnered from people she has spoken to, so perhaps at the end of the day, she upholds and contributes to the oral tradition that is the focus of the book in the first place.