I am obsessed with things Celtic; therefore, I like St. Patrick's Day. This kind of thinking is typical of American descendants of Irish people. In Ireland, St. P's is a religious holiday. In America, it's a celebration of rockin' Irish roots and cheesy green decorations. My personal obsession with the Celts began around fifth grade with Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series and Lloyd Alexander's Book of Three , etc. Richard Llewellyn's How Green was my Valley helped the obsession right along. Those were Welsh Celts, and I wanted to be Welsh. I loved the sounds of those Celtic words (I studied Susan's pronunciation guide in the back of The Grey King ), the landscape, the names, the folklore, the musical/poetical traditions...blah, blah, blah. I wasn't excited about the coal mining. I fell in love with the name Bronwen. I wanted to be a bard: Me, in my fifth-grade dreams. Alas, no Welsh ancestry in these v...