Celtic spirituality emphasizes the human virtues of kindness, generosity, a welcome for strangers and travellers, gentleness, and magnanimity. It is not dogmatic and, being rural, recognizes all creation – domestic animals, plants, and environmental care – as part of a religious way of life. The bishop himself lived in a monastic community close to his people. The evil spirits the Druids had conjured up to keep the people in submission were replaced by a strong belief in the power of the Trinity, which surrounded the Celts and kept them safe from harm.

Prayers have been discovered that have been in use for centuries – prayers of welcome, for birth and death, for kindling the fire in the morning and banking it up at night… Whatever is part and parcel of daily life is part and parcel of practising a faith that had brought light and hope into darkened places centuries before.

There are a few documents that date back to the earliest days. Most of what is contained in this book was written many years after the lives chronicled by the writers had passed into history and myth. Yet the reality lives on and is finding new life in a world that longs for community, simplicity, and a way of life that treats daily life and the environment not as an optional extra but as integral to a genuine life of the spirit.