1.
Tristan and Iseult
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It has become an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with many variations. The tragic story is of the love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult. While the details of the story differ from one author to another, there are two main traditions of the Tristan legend. The early tradition comprised the French romances of two poets from the half of the twelfth century, Thomas of Britain and Béroul. Later traditions come from the Prose Tristan, which was different from the earlier tales written by Thomas. The Prose Tristan became the medieval tale of Tristan and Iseult that would provide the background for the writings of Sir Thomas Malory, the English author. The story and character of Tristan vary from poet to poet, even the spelling of his name varies a great deal, although Tristan is the most popular spelling. Most versions of the Tristan story follow the general outline. After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, Tristan goes to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult for his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, along the way, they ingest a love potion which causes the pair to fall madly in love. In the courtly version, the effects last a lifetime, in the common versions. In some versions, they ingest the potion accidentally, in others, the potions maker instructs Iseult to share it with Mark, although Iseult marries Mark, she and Tristan are forced by the potion to seek one another as lovers. While the typical noble Arthurian character would be shamed by such an act, the kings advisors repeatedly endeavour to have the pair tried for adultery, but the couple continually use trickery to preserve their façade of innocence. In Bérouls version, the love potion eventually wears off, as with the Arthur-Lancelot-Guinevere love triangle, Tristan, King Mark, and Iseult all hold love for each other. Tristan honors, respects, and loves King Mark as his mentor and adopted father, Iseult is grateful that Mark is kind to her, but every night, each has horrible dreams about the future. Tristans uncle eventually learns of the affair and seeks to entrap his nephew, also present is the endangerment of a fragile kingdom, the cessation of war between Ireland and Cornwall. Mark acquires what seems proof of their guilt and resolves to punish them, Tristan by hanging and Iseult by burning at the stake, Tristan escapes on his way to the gallows. He makes a leap from a chapel and rescues Iseult. The lovers escape into the forest of Morrois and take shelter there until discovered by Mark and they make peace with Mark after Tristans agreement to return Iseult to Mark and leave the country
2.
Christopher Williams (Welsh artist)
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Christopher David Williams was a Welsh artist. Williams was born in Maesteg, Wales and his father Evan Williams intended him to be a doctor, but he disliked the idea. A visit to the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 1892 and he left the Gallery with a firm decision that he would be an artist. He studied first in Neath at the towns Technical Institute in 1892 and 1893 under Mr. Kerr, from 1893 he spent three years at the Royal College of Art and then studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1896 until 1901. In 1902, his Paolo and Francesca was hung in the Royal Academy and these were the first of 18 paintings by Williams exhibited there. He also exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters until 1930, in 1911, Williams received a commission from King George V to work on a commemorative painting of the Investiture of Edward, Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle. As well as attending the ceremony, he visited Buckingham Palace and he completed two versions of this painting. Among his portraits were those of David Lloyd George, Sir John Williams, Sir John Rhys, Sir Henry Jones, Sir John Morris Jones, Dr Stanton Coit, Sir Frederick Mills and he painted the first of three portraits of Lloyd George in the summer of 1911. Lloyd George described him as one of the most gifted artists Wales has produced, during the First World War, he painted the Welsh Charge at Mametz Wood, now in Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Williams painted three scenes from the Mabinogion, ceridwen and Branwen are in the collection of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. Blodeuwedd is at the Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Williams painted many landscapes in Wales, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, Morocco and Holland. Amongst his landscapes is The Red Dress at the National Museum of Wales and he had a great love for humanity and deep sympathy with the downtrodden and oppressed. Shortly before his death in 1934, he presented to the Salvation Army a large picture of the Thames Embankment scene at night which he called Why, Williams married Emily Appleyard and together they had two sons, Gwyn and Ivor. Evan Gwyn Williams was an astronomer and his son was the artist Ivor Williams. He was the brother-in-law of fellow artist Fred Appleyard, in 1973, an exhibition was organised on the centenary of Williams birth at the National Museum of Wales, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Maesteg Town Hall. A major retrospective exhibition of his took place from July to September 2012 at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. A version of this exhibition toured to the Gwynedd Museum and Art Gallery, Branwen The subject is from the Mabinogion. The beautiful Branwen was a sister of the King of Britain and she died in Anglesey, and Branwen looked towards Ireland and towards the Island of the Mighty, to see if she could descry them
3.
Harlech
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Harlech is a town and seaside resort in Gwynedd, within the historic boundaries of Merionethshire in northwest Wales. Lying on Tremadog Bay and within the Snowdonia National Park, it has a population of 1,447, the town is in the unitary authority of Gwynedd which was formed in 1996. From 1974 to 1996 it was in the Meirionydd District of the 1974 County of Gwynedd, the town is best known for the landmark Harlech Castle, begun in 1283 by Edward I of England, captured by Owain Glyndŵr, and later the stronghold of Henry Tudor. The castle was next to the sea, but geological processes have changed the shape of the coastline. The town has developed, with housing estates on the flat low town area and hillside properties in the high town around the shopping street, church. The two areas are linked by a steep and winding road called Twtil, the exact derivation of the name Harlech is unclear. Some mostly older sources claim that it derives from Arddlech, i. e. ardd + llech, more recent sources tend to go for a simpler derivation from the two Welsh words hardd and llech. As late as the 19th century some texts referred to Harddlech and Harddlech Castle and this name appears in the mid-19th century translation of the Mabinogion, And one afternoon he was at Harddlech in Ardudwy, at a court of his. And they were seated upon the rock of Harddlech overlooking the sea, contemporary documents from the time of the Mabinogion do not mention Harlech, referring only to Llywelyn building his castle at Ardudwy. An electoral ward in the name exists. This stretches to include Talsarnau Community, the population of the ward taken at the 2011 census was 1,997. The towns railway station is served by the Cambrian Coast Line and it also contains Ffordd Pen Llech, a street which descends the rock spur to the north of the castle, and has the steepest signed gradient on a public road in the United Kingdom. Ysgol Ardudwy is the county school for children between the ages of 11–16. Ysgol Tanycastell is the primary school for children between the ages of 3–11. The town is also the home of Waless only long-term adult residential college, Coleg Harlech, theatr Harlech is located on the Coleg Harlech campus and stages a varied selection of plays, music, and films throughout the year. Other attractions in Harlech include its beach backed with sand dunes and the famous Royal Saint Davids Golf Club, the Rhinogydd range of mountains rises to the east. A World War II-era fighter aircraft was found on Harlech beach in 2007, the discovery of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning has been described as one of the most important WWII finds in recent history. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery is not divulging the location of the U. S. Army Air Forces plane, known as the Maid of Harlech
4.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
5.
Starling
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Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The name Sturnidae comes from the Latin word for starling, sturnus, many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many African species are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent plumage. Starlings are native to Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as northern Australia, the starling species familiar to most people in Europe and North America is the common starling, and throughout much of Asia and the Pacific, the common myna is indeed common. Starlings have strong feet, their flight is strong and direct and their preferred habitat is fairly open country, and they eat insects and fruit. Several species live around human habitation and are effectively omnivores, plumage of many species is typically dark with a metallic sheen. Most species nest in holes and lay blue or white eggs, starlings have diverse and complex vocalizations and have been known to embed sounds from their surroundings into their own calls, including car alarms and human speech patterns. The birds can recognize individuals by their calls and are currently the subject of research into the evolution of human language. The shortest-bodied species is Kenricks starling, at 15 centimetres, but the species is Abbotts starling. The largest starling, going on standard measurements and perhaps weight, is the Nias hill myna and this species can measure up to 36 cm and, in domestication they can weigh up to 400 g. Rivalling the prior species in bulk if not dimensions, the mynas of the genus Mino are also large, especially the yellow-faced and long-tailed mynas. The longest species in the family is the white-necked myna, which can measure up to 50 cm, there is less sexual dimorphism in plumage, however, with only 25 species showing such differences between the two sexes. The plumage of the starling is often brightly coloured due to iridescence, some species of Asian starling have crests or erectile feathers on the crest. Other ornamentation includes elongated tail feathers and brightly coloured bare areas on the face and these colours can be derived from pigments, or, as in the Bali starling, structural colour, caused by light scattering off parallel collagen fibres. The irises of many species are red and yellow, although those of birds are much darker. Starlings inhabit a range of habitats from the Arctic Circle to the Equator. In fact the only habitat they do not typically occupy is the driest sandy deserts, the family is naturally absent from the Americas and from large parts of Australia but is present over the majority of Europe, Africa and Asia. The genus Aplonis has also spread widely across the islands of the Pacific reaching Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia and it is also a species of this genus that is the only starling found in northern Australia. Asian species are most common in forests,39 species found in Asia are predominantly forest birds as opposed to 24 found in more open or human modified environments
6.
Irish Sea
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The Irish Sea, separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St Georges Channel, anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man. The sea is occasionally, but rarely, referred to as the Manx Sea, the sea is of significant economic importance to regional trade, shipping and transport, fishing, and power generation in the form of wind power and nuclear power plants. Annual traffic between Great Britain and Ireland amounts to over 12 million passengers and 17 million tonnes of traded goods, the Irish Sea has undergone a series of dramatic changes over the last 20,000 years as the last glacial period ended and was replaced by warmer conditions. At the height of the glaciation the central part of the sea was probably a long freshwater lake. As the ice retreated 10,000 years ago the lake reconnected to the sea, becoming brackish, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Irish Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limit of the Scottish Seas, a line joining St. Davids Head to Carnsore Point. It is connected to the North Atlantic at both its northern and southern ends, to the north, the connection is through the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland and the Malin Sea. The southern end is linked to the Atlantic through the St Georges Channel between south eastern Ireland and Pembrokeshire in Wales, and the Celtic Sea. The Irish Sea is composed of a channel about 300 km long and 30–50 km wide on its western side. The western channels depth ranges from 80 metres up to 275 m in the Beauforts Dyke in the North Channel, the main embayments – Cardigan Bay in the south and the waters to the east of the Isle of Man – are less than 50 m deep. The Sea has a water volume of 2,430 km3, 80% of which is to the west of the Isle of Man. The largest sandbanks are the Bahama and King William Banks to the east and north of the Isle of Man, the Irish Sea, at its greatest width, is 200 km and narrows to 75 km. Unlike Great Britain, Ireland has no tunnel or bridge connection to continental Europe, thus the vast majority of heavy goods trade is done by sea. The Port of Liverpool handles 32 million tonnes of cargo and 734 thousand passengers a year, Holyhead port handles most of the passenger traffic from Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ports, as well as 3.3 million tonnes of freight. Ports in the Republic handle 3,600,000 travellers crossing the sea each year and this has been steadily dropping for a number of years, probably as a result of low cost airlines. There is also a connection between Liverpool and Belfast via the Isle of Man or direct from Birkenhead, the worlds largest car ferry, Ulysses, is operated by Irish Ferries on the Dublin Port–Holyhead route, Stena Line also operates between Britain and Ireland. The Port of Barrow-in-Furness, despite being one of Britains largest shipbuilding centres, a ferry crossing used to run between Swansea and Cork, but given the geographical limits defined above, this route crosses the Celtic Sea rather than the Irish Sea
