Welsh Journals

index of 28 sections and many subsections and occupying 47 pages will be invaluable. DAFYDD STEPHENS University Hospital of Wales. A.M. Allchin, Celtic Christianity, Fact or Fantasy? (Inaugural Lecture, University of Wales, Bangor, 1993) 23 pp. illus. A.M. Allchin, Pennant Melangell, Place of Pilgrimage. (Gwasg Santes Melangell, Pennant Melangell, 1994) 47 pp. illus. Although addressed to different audiences these two works are in many ways complementary and benefit from being read together. In recent years Allchin has explored deeply into the Celtic traditions and spirituality of Wales. He is well aware of the growing interest in and enthusiasm for all things Celtic, and in both of these works sounds a note of warning. That interest and enthusiasm can be, he says, 'frighteningly uncritical'. He is one of a number of scholars anxious to make available to the general reader the fruit of recent scholarship 'in a way which is responsible but not highly technical' as a corrective. Both of these short works contribute towards this. In common with Patrick Thomas, and in the cautious tradition of Gougaud, Allchin refutes romantic notions of a Celtic church providing a seedbed for ideas of democratic government within the Christian community, for feminism, or even contemporary ecological concerns. As he emphasises in Pennant Melangell, the closeness of many of the Celtic saints to the natural order and the animal kingdom is something parallelled in those who sought the desert right across the Christian world. He also stresses that 'love for creation and care for the animals came not just from a delight in the world of nature but from a sense that God's wisdom and God's love is at work in all things'. (Pennant, p.9) 'Greens' who might identify with Melangell and saints like her should not claim to stand in the Celtic tradition unless they see themselves, as they saw themselves, as servants of the living, loving God.