Welsh Journals

SHORT NOTICES John Cule, The Wreath on the Crown, the Story of Sarah Jacob, the Welsh Fasting Girl (Gomerian Press, Llandysul, 1967. Pp. 143. 18s). Students of medicine and of human psychology will find much in this short, elegantly-produced study of the frightening two-year fast and eventual death of a child near Pencader in 1870, an event which first attracted attention as a miracle and then as a scandal. Not so much a 'Grecian tragedy' (the author's words), but a story by Guy de Maupassant, with nasty suggestions of peasant cunning and credulity, and bewildered doctors and country magistrates. The drama might have been heightened by a rather more concise treatment, and it is unfortunate that the author expects historians to turn for detailed source-references to Dr. Robert Fowler's Complete History of the Case of the Welsh Fasting-Girl Sarah Jacob, published back in 1871. PRYS MORGAN Swansea A new publication that will be of value to students of Welsh history is British Archaeological Abstracts, first published by the Council for British Archaeology in the autumn of 1967 and designed to provide summaries of published articles, together with bibliographical information. The first full issue was due to appear in April 1968. The Editors have received review copies of the following journals: Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, Vol. XXII, parts 1-3 (1966-67); Ceredigion, Vol. V, nos. 2 (1965) and 3 (1966); Journal of the Historical Society of the Church in Wales, Vols. XVI (1966) and XVII (1967); Journal of the Merionethshire Historical and Record Society, Vol. V, parts 2 (1966) and 3 (1967); The Pembrokeshire Historian, no. 2 (1966) Transactions of the Denbighshire Historical Society, Vol. XV (1966) and XVI (1967). They regret that pressure on space has precluded these being reviewed in the present number, but hope that it may be possible to review them in the near future.