Wales, a country nestled within the west of the British Isles, is a land steeped in history, mythology and legends.
Arguably descendants of the Beaker people who settled in southern low-land Britain at the beginning of the third millennium B.C.E, with some claiming ancestry to those Neolithic tribes who first came the isles tens of thousands of years ago the Welsh are an ancient people. In fact, the Welsh language, which has its roots in those early times, can still be heard across Wales, be it in farmers markets of Builth Wells or the streets of Cardiff, to this day. Though, whilst Wales has retained a distinct culture to that of the rest of the U.K it has nevertheless changed dramatically over the course of its long history - and not always as a result of internal factors.
From the arrival of Roman missionaries who brought Christianity to the use of the Welsh Knot by the British Government during the late nineteenth century to eradicate the Welsh language, the Welsh are a people who have adapted to change whilst at the same time successfully preserving elements of their ancient heritage. Interestingly however, such preservation has occurred not through war (the last unsuccessful Welsh revolt being led by Owain Glyndwr in the early fifteenth century), but art; and one modern Welsh artist who works hard to present and subsequently preserve Welsh history and culture in the twenty-first century is Meinir Mathias.
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