Cylchgronau Cymru

of each century. Thus in the 1790s lolo Morganwg was dreaming up the Gorsedd here in Wales, in the 1890s Renan, Yeats and Fiona Macleod were wallowing in Celtic twilightery, while in the 1990s 'New Agers' will enthusiastically swallow any nonsense, provided it has a Celtic tag (something similar happened in the 1690s, 1590s and even the 1490s, strangely enough). This wise fastidiousness helps Gougaud to steer clear of the idea of a homogeneous 'Celtic Church' stretching from Brittany to Iona which is so much in vogue sixty years after his book was written. As Wendy Davies and (most recently and entertainingly) Gavin White have pointed out such a church never existed. There was just, as in the title of Gougaud's work, 'Christianity in Celtic Lands.' And (as one deeply engaged in the struggle for survival of one of the remain- ing Celtic languages and its unique religious heritage) I cannot resist making the point that a Celtic land is a land where a Celtic language is spoken a presupposition which is at the heart of Gougaud's book and which underlines the folly of the present fashion for labelling all sorts of improbable things from inappropriate places as 'Celtic Christian'. PATRICK THOMAS Brechfa E.R. Henken, The Welsh Saints: A study in patterned lives (Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer, 1991) pp. 212, ISBN 0-85991-317-1 £ 39.50 This book complements Elissa Henken's earlier book Traditions of the Welsh Saints in which she concentrated on each of the Welsh Saints, describing aspects of their lives and the miracles associated with them, as derived primarily from the Vitae and early poetic references to them. In this book she draws together the different traditions associated with a variety of the saints and also draws parallels between these and certain traditions associated with Old Testament characters, but more particularly with those found in