Three signs of wisdom:
Patience;
Memory;
Foresight.
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This collection brings together ancient texts for the first time, in a unique combination of timeless wisdom and sublime poetry inspired by the natural world. Texts are chosen from proverbial lists of Threes (or ‘Triads’) found in Irish manuscripts, and from the poems of The Red Book of Hergest (the Mabinogion manuscript). Translations include thirty Irish Threes and three longer Welsh sequences, Bagla6c bydin (translated as ‘Close-set’), Gna6t (translated as ‘Usual’) and Eiry mynyd (translated as ‘Snow on the fells’). The Afterword looks at the nature of Celtic poetry and art, and tackles the vexed question of the Celts in British and Irish history.