Boggarts, Trolls and Tylwyth Teg

Boggarts, Trolls and Tylwyth Teg gathers folk tales about hidden people and lost lands, placing Welsh traditions alongside stories from further afield. The Grimms’ Quiet Folk, Māori Patupaiarehe and the Welsh Tylwyth Teg appear as unseen communities with their own languages, movements and customs.

The book’s lost places range from coral castles beneath the sea and ancient forests inhabited by spirits to flooded valleys and mountain swamps where trolls are said to lurk. It begins with Plant Rhys Ddwfn, a utopian world associated with the west Welsh coast, then follows stories preserved through migration, dreams and memory. Peter Stevenson presents these traditions as vivid accounts shaped by landscape, displacement and the persistence of oral storytelling.