Somewhat isolated by a rugged, mountainous terrain, the Welsh have retained more of the culture of their Celtic forebears than have either the Scots or the English. A strong feeling of national solidarity exists in Wales, and a nationalist revival has received some political support, to the point that representatives of the Welsh Nationalist Party (Plaid Cymru) serve in the House of Commons in London.
The Welsh are well known for their love of singing, and their hymns and folk songs are widely known throughout the world. Music plays a large part in the annual festival, the Royal National Eisteddfod, at which Welsh poetry and Welsh folk arts are also featured. The Royal National Eisteddfod is held each year in a different locality, and Welsh natives and those of Welsh descent from all over the world attend. The International Musical Eisteddfod is also held annually in Llangollen. The international opera star Bryn Terfel got his start at eisteddfods. Other popular singers from Wales include Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, and Charlotte Church.
The Welsh literary tradition is one of the oldest and richest in Europe, dating back more than 1,000 years to the bards—Celtic poets who composed, recited, and sang long epics. The most notable of the early Welsh bardic poets were Taliesin and Aneirin. Aneirin wrote Y Gododdin in about ad 600, a long poem describing the ill-fated efforts of a group of British warriors to recapture a fortress from the Saxons. The Mabinogion, composed between the mid-11th and late 13th centuries, is a collection of 11 prose stories and one of the most important works of early medieval European literature. The best known of the 20th-century Welsh-born poets are Dylan Thomas, R. S. Thomas, and Roald Dahl, though they wrote in English.
