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Myriah Williams

@myriahwilliams.bsky.social

330 followers 180 following 150 posts

Celticist and erstwhile cake baker

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · Mar 20

In the 16th-17th c. the Black Book of Carmarthen was shared widely among poets & scholars. They made annotations & copies (& occasionally complaints!) before passing the book on.

Celebrating my work on this hasn’t felt right, but books & learning enrich our lives, then as now. Protect education.

Image of an open book in front of a book shelf. The book is Studia Celtica 58 (2024) and it is open to the title page of the article “The Black Book of Carmarthen and its Owners” with an abstract below the title and attribution.

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Adrián Maldonado @archaeonado.bsky.social · 11h

Publication alert! An all-too-rare collab with Prof Stephen Driscoll, updating his chapter for the venerable old Archaeology of Britain textbook in its shiny new 3rd edition. A snapshot of current work on early medieval Scotland and Wales. Put it on your reading lists!
doi.org/10.4324/9780...

Early medieval Celtic Britain | 12 | v3 | The early historic period |

The vacuum created by the collapse of the Roman province of Britannia created a vortex of movement which would shape the centuries to come. Some Roman citizens

doi.org

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Joshua Byron Smith @joshuabyronsmith.bsky.social · 4h

Join us for CSANA's Fall online lecture:
Nicholas Wolf, "A Peak Diasporic Gaeldom? Estimating Levels of Irish Speaking among the Postfamine American Irish"

Thursday, October 30th, at 2:00 EST / 6:00 BST.

Registration and description below

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

the “dark” ages vs the “information age”

A rectangle sub-divided into four rectangles in a meme format. The upper left says “medieval” opposite the upper right which consists of a manuscript opening (The Lichfield Gospels, pp. 140-141); the lower left says “‘mid’ evil” opposite the lower right which is a screenshot of the ‘AI Overview’ that appears at the top of many Google searches.

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Jake Berg @jacobsberg.bsky.social · 2d

Cool cool
📜📚

Libraries Can’t Get Their Loaned Books Back Because of Trump’s Tariffs

Libraries have shared their collections internationally for decades. Trump’s tariffs are throwing that system into chaos and can ‘hinder academic progress.’

www.404media.co

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Matthew Holford @matthewholford.bsky.social · 8d

Next Wednesday 8th October, 12.30-1.30: Jiří Vnouček on "A Tale of Two Parchments" - insular and continental parchment preparation.
In person: @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Weston Library, Lecture Theatre
Or livestreamed.
Free: book here visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/oct25/...

A tale of two parchments

In this talk, Dr. Jiří Vnouček discusses differences in species choice and membrane preparation of 'Insular' and 'Continental' parchment used for book-making in the early Middle Ages.

visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

Please do!

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

the “dark” ages vs the “information age”

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Brian Soucek @brsoucek.bsky.social · 4d

Strong statement today from UC's Academic Senate:

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City Nolan @ndhapple.bsky.social · 5d

Dean of the UC Berkeley Law School has seen the Trump Administration’s “compact” for universities to receive preferable consideration for federal funding and says it amounts to First Amendment violations in blistering op-ed — www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

www.nytimes.com

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Boze the Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 6d

Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 6d

🎶 It’s a fragmentary
textual history
lacuna matata 🎶

Reposted by Myriah Williams

Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures @mediumaevum.bsky.social · 7d

SSMLL are delighted to announce the opening of our Call for Papers for the 2026 Day Conference, Medieval Wales, which will be held at Cardiff University 25-26 April, 2026.

Proposals should be submitted to Dr David Callander ([email protected]) by 30 November.

Cardiff University and the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature are pleased to announce a multi-disciplinary conference on medieval Wales, to be held at Cardiff University on the 25th and 26th of April 2026. The conference will provide a space for discussion and collaboration between scholars of all disciplinary backgrounds interested in medieval Wales. The conference programme will include the Medium Ævum annual lecture, which will be delivered by Professor Helen Fulton (University of Bristol). The Henry Loyn Memorial Lecture will be held on the evening of the 24th of April, and will be delivered by Professor John Hines (Cardiff University).

We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations representing any specialization that sheds light on medieval Wales. We shall particularly welcome papers that discuss encounters between different languages and traditions and their consequences. Proposals are welcome from speakers at all career stages and papers can be delivered in English or Welsh. Proposals should include a title and an abstract (100–200 words) and should be submitted to Dr David Callander (callanderd@cardiff.ac.uk) by 30 November.

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Scoil an Léinn Cheiltigh OMN | School of Celtic Studies MU @ceilteachomn.bsky.social · 6d

*Widame (Proto-Celtic “we found out”), a conference for postgraduate scholars in Celtic Studies, will take place November 7th & 8th 2025 in 1.33 IONTAS in @maynoothuniversity.ie.

Conference schedule and registration is available here: buff.ly/b3GjydF

Register by the 10th of October 2025.

Bilingual information regarding the *Widame conference, 7-8 November in Maynooth University. Register by October 10th.

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

🎶 When there are gaps in your text
and there’s none else to check
that’s lacunae 🎶

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Cambridge Digital Library @camdiglib.bsky.social · 7d

...And you thought you were stretched too thin!
😬
cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DD-0...

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

🎶 When there are gaps in your text
and there’s none else to check
that’s lacunae 🎶

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 8d

Yes, there’s also O’Laughlin’s Journeys on the Edges: The Celtic Tradition, if you haven’t already come across it. (Also from 2000)

Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 8d

Ha, mine too really but I felt I should give the caveat!

Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 9d

Donald Meek’s The Quest for Celtic Christianity might be what you’re looking for. It was published in 2000 (by The Handsel Press) so there might be more recent alternatives, but it should fit the bill.

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 12d

A uo penn bit pont
“He who is a leader, let him be a bridge”

If you see this post a bridge

NLW Peniarth MS 4, fol. 10r. Image of a segment of the second column on the manuscript page, showing several lines of Middle Welsh text from the Second Branch of the Mabinogi. A large initial B is decorated with red, the beginning of the name Bendigeiduran. The text around the name has been lightly blurred.

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Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 12d

Is the Book of Kells Pictish?
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

New research may rewrite origins of the Book of Kells, says academic

Exclusive: Author challenges assumption monks on Iona created manuscript, instead positing its origins are Pictish

www.theguardian.com

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 13d

Thanks for checking! Too bad there aren’t more witnesses but still interesting.

Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 13d

I’d always thought of the swineherds when reading Culhwch and Olwen, given that one of the impossible tasks is to get two oxen who were in fact Pictish princes turned into oxen for their sins. That might rather be playing with king-turned-pig Twrch Trwyth though.

Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 13d

I hadn’t really clocked before that the swineherds were dragons before turning into worms and falling from the sky - into bodies of water no less. That’s interesting. Odd though that the swineherds’ names as dragons aren’t in the subsequent list, do you know if any version of the text includes that?

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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 15d

Fall Semester, 2025

A large stuffed bear in a blue tee shirt lays flat on its back in front of a green gate (Sather Gate) at UC Berkeley.

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