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Sikes, Wirt.
British Goblins: Welsh Folklore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions.
Publisher: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London;
Date of Publication: 1880
Stock Code: 12954
Second Edition. Octavo, pp., xvi, 412, 32 of publisher’s advertisements. Engraved frontispiece and engraved vignettes throughout by by T. H. Thomas. Publisher’s chocolate-brown cloth, vignette of a man embracing a ghost in gilt to upper board, title gilt to spine; navy blue endpapers. Corners lightly bumped, light scuff to lower board approximately 3cm, very slight wear to upper joint, head and tail of spine slightly lightly creased, spine slightly cocked. Very occasional, light scattered foxing affecting first and final gatherings. Overall a very good copy. A wide-ranging and ambitious study of Welsh folklore. Subjects of chapters include: ‘The Realm of the Faerie’, ‘The Spirit-World’, ‘Quaint Old Customs’, and ‘Bells, Wells, Stones, and Dragons’. Sykes drew both from written sources, including the Mabinogion, Gerald of Wales, and the 1780 ‘Apparition of Spirits in Wales’, and from contemporary oral accounts. The scholar and ‘father of American folklore’ Richard Dorson described this book ‘as the most substantial book of Welsh legendary history in English’. £950.00