Help a doggie live.

My friends and followers. I don’t usually do this but this is something close to my heart. My amazing friend Saigh Kym Lambert owner of Shadow of the Hooded Crow website needs our help. She has a beautiful dog, Gleann, who needs life saving surgery and she needs to raise money to get that done. She has some amazing perks that she is offering for donations, as well as a shop you can by stuff from and an auction going on for those who love Linda Hamilton, The Terminator years. So let me tell you a little about these perks.

1. The fund raiser:

Gleann’s Surgery Fundraiser  

Perk 01:  Saigh says, “This is a voucher for a reduction in the cost of workshops, in person (which may not happen at all if no venue can be found) or online. Due to the focus on trying to save Gleann, the planning for these workshops has been put on hold, so they may not happen until LATE 2017 now…and to be perfectly frank, far longer if we do lose him after all this, it will take me more time to recover. 

The reduction will be for $5 LESS than the donation, due to the fees. It is also retroactive, so if you have donate $10 or more and are interested you can take this. 

If you choose this option, I will send you an email acknowledging this and you need to keep it safe. At the time of registration you can send a copy of the email with your registration (or if it is a real life venue and you register in person you can use a print version). I will also keep a list of email addresses and I will send a mailing out.”

Perk 02: A Celtic Knot Embroidered bag if you donate 100 dollars. Only 1 available.

Felt bag by Gaiam, messenger type, long strap, wood toggle closure, zipper pocket under flap.

If outside of the US, please know if there are any shipping restrictions. They will ship anywhere they can but they will ask you for the shipping costs.

Perk 03: Pictish Horse Pendant if you donate 100 dollars or more. Only 1 available.

Appears to be by Rainnea when they were making such things. Pewter. No chain/cord, mesh bag.

If outside of the US, please know if there are any shipping restrictions. The will ship anywhere they can and add on the shipping costs.

Perk 04: Wolf head pendant/charm if you donate 100 dollars or more. Only 1 available.

Silver or silver plated, yes it’s tarnished, sorry, comes with velvet like pouch but no cord or chain. Wolf “bites” the chain. Black stone. 

If outside of the US, please know if there are any shipping restrictions. The will ship anywhere they can and add on the shipping costs.

Perk 04: Lady With A Mead Cup if you donate 500 dollars. Only 1 available.

Four Court Press, 2007 hardcover edition. Like new, barely touched. Which is all she’ll say about her feelings for this book. Well, okay, she also feels her dog should be richly awarded for keeping this book in such condition because it would have flown across the room many times if she hadn’t been worried about scaring him. So to release another copy back into the world she expects a good donation. More than she is asking would be appreciated. Remember you’re helping us save a dog and getting a book in return, not buying a book! 

If outside of the US, please know if there are any shipping restrictions. The will ship anywhere they can and add on the shipping costs.

2. The Auction at The Terminator Fans website

If you are a fan of Linda Hamilton, the Terminator years then please go and bid on the items available.

Item 01: A signed autograph of Linda Hamilton

Item 02: 3 McFarlane Sarah Connor Varient Figures BOXED!

3. The shops: 

Nurturing Strength 

Dún Sgáthan

Sarah Conner Charm School

If you buy anything from these shops you will be helping the funding for the operation.

PLEASE, PLEASE help if you can or bid on the items. And please, please share this wide and far.

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Welsh Folk Customs

Author: Trefor M. Owen

Publisher: Gomer Press

Published: First edition 1959, this edition 1994

ISBN: 0863833470

Pages: 197 including a selected bibliography and index, and 16 black and white plates.

Review:

I bought this book for my research and it was such a delight to read. The text talks about the customs of the Welsh people, both calendrical and social. 

It has five chapters about the Christmas season, Candlemas and the moveable feasts, May and Midsummer, the harvest and winter eve, and finally birth, marriage and death.

I learned a lot from this book but what I loved most about it was how the author presented the material. You know what was considered a “new” custom and what might have been a remanent of ancient times. Highly recommended.

Celtic From the West 3

Full Title: Celtic From the West 3 – Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages: Questions of Shared Language

Editors: John T. Koch and Barry Cunliffe in collaboration with Kerri Cleary and Catriona D. Gibson

Published: 2016

Publisher: Oxbow Books, Oxford

Pages: 539 including Index

Synopsis: The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. Celts ) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Age. The impetus for this book is to explore from the perspectives of three disciplines archaeology, genetics, and linguistics the background in later European prehistory to these developments. There is a traditional scenario, according to which, Celtic speech and the associated group identity came in to being during the Early Iron Age in the north Alpine zone and then rapidly spread across central and western Europe. This idea of Celtogenesis remains deeply entrenched in scholarly and popular thought. But it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with recent discoveries pointing towards origins in the deeper past. It should no longer be taken for granted that Atlantic Europe during the 2nd and 3rd millennia BC were pre-Celtic or even pre-Indo-European. The explorations in Celtic from the West 3 are drawn together in this spirit, continuing two earlier volumes in the influential series.”

Review: Celtic From the West 3 is the result of an interdisciplinary research project about shared language in Atlantic Europe during the Metal Ages. This study took place between 2013 – 2016. The Atlantic Europe during the Metal Ages project had two main aims: (1) gathering and interpreting archaeological evidence for inter-regional connections in Atlantic Europe during the Copper and Bronze Ages c. 2900 – 800; (2) gathering Ancient Celtic written evidence relevant to the reconstruction of Proto-Celtic.

The book is divided into three parts: Archaeology, made up of ten essays; Genetics, made up of two essays; and Linguistics, made up of four essays and two ancillary studies. The essays 1-16 are reflections of presentations given in the forum called “Ancient Britons, Wales, and Europe – New Research in Genetics, Archaeology, and Linguistics”, the forum called “New Light on the Ancient West – Recent work in Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics on Late Prehistory and Protohistory”, and the workshop and forum called “Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages – Questions of Shared language”.

Each essay has footnotes and an extensive bibliography to expand ones research and reading, and to be honest these resources must be looked at to get the complete picture. The essays themselves have a lot of good information but to be honest I finished the book thinking so was it Celtic from the West or East? It could be that I just couldn’t grasp all that was being said. I definitely could have missed something while reading because this book has a LOT of information in it. Like I said though, I was still left wondering East or West.

Archaeologically speaking I learned a lot about the Bell Beaker material culture in the Atlantic. I could almost see a place where it might have been “Celtic from the West” but it was vague feeling and not something that I could point too and say THIS.

The two essays on genetics were mildly interesting and I will confess I was confused a lot in some places. Besides, genetics is the last this I would look at when it comes to the Celts (if I ever do consider looking at it.)

This brings us to the linguistic portion of the book and this was the part of the book that I found the most interesting. I did feel like they kind of when on a tangent in some cases like the essay that compared the Celtic languages to Arabic (and found similarities!). But to me the most informative essays in the linguistic section are J.P. Mallory’s Archaeology and Language Shift in Atlantic Europe because of the general hypothesis he put forward as to how a language shift can happen without a big influx of people which can show up in the archaeological record and the two ancillary studies which look at the Celtic language and where it may have come from. One of the ancillary studies says it could be in Italy citing the Leptonic language as being the oldest known Celtic language and the second supports the view that the Celtic language came via the more accepted hypothesis by archaeologists which is the Hallstatt/La Téne area.

I’m still giving this book a thumbs up simply for the shear amount of information it presents in the archaeological and linguistic sections which is enough to make it worth buying.