Cambrian Chronicles

• August 17, 2021 to present

This is one of many YouTube suggestions I get any time I hop on. And like many YouTube suggestions it’s one of many I initially ignore. Sometimes I ignore them because they’re clearly nothing I want. Sometimes I ignore them because I don’t have enough time to check them out either by viewing them or seeing if they are legit. And in this case by legit I mean whether the person is presenting fiction or conspiracy theory.

I get a lot of videos about secret history or conspiracies to hide this or that. The focus of Cambrian Chronicles is Welsh history and considering how little I know about Welsh history I was not eager to check it out. But suffering from insomnia I decided to watch a video to relax. Even if I thought it was complete nonsense it would pass the time until I was less wound up. 

I must say if you find any channel on YouTube purporting to be about history do some of your own digging. Don’t just take them at their word because there are plenty of hucksters out there who present utter garbage just to get views and make a buck. If you’re attempting to actually learn something often you’ll waste your time. As for me I like history documentaries especially about something I know little about.

The presentation of Cambrian Chronicles is nothing sophisticated. It is straightforward and more of a slideshow with good accompanying music. Not complaining or anything like that. In fact that relatively bare-bones presentation gives it a veneer of authenticity that some flashier presentations lack because, well, they’re flashy. It becomes more of an intelligent conversation.

I liked what I saw and wanted to watch more but before I got my brain potentially filled with crap I took a few mental notes and a few actual notes and decided to dig into the discussion as best as I could to see if this individual was way off base or close to on target. I really expected to be completely disappointed to find out that this engaging presentation was pure bunk. After I did my digging there was nothing I could really find that the guy was wrong on. I was impressed. I viewed another video and did the same thing again as fast as I could. Again nothing seemed off base or pulled out of his butthole. 

What’s impressive is how generally murky Welsh history is. I’ve always understood there were periods of Medieval history in Europe that were murky if not largely blank because of the time period. Welsh history seems to be heavy on that. But what is known and what can be gleaned is absolutely fascinating. And in a conversational style or even that of a casual classroom conversation the gentleman narrator does a fantastic job of giving the viewer an understanding of Welsh history. He makes it accessible to a person from anywhere really with certain bits here and there-especially in the older videos-that are clearly aimed at someone familiar with Wales. 

These never get too long. 20 minutes or so is where they max out with some being much less than that, but they are packed with information as well as a bit of entertainment value that makes them go down smoothly and create a channel that is quite bingeable.

Despite how good these are there aren’t very many. Based on what there is it would seem that is because compiling something on Welsh history is not easy. It’s complicated and convoluted. And that’s what you can easily find. History was lost or just never recorded

This is something that there should be more of on social media. Well thought out and well-presented informative content. This is how you educate someone. You don’t razzle-dazzle them. You explain to them. You make it so that a five-year-old could get it and aside from the pronunciations a five-year-old can get this.

Cambrian Chronicles is just fantastic. If anything, you will become hooked from your first video and go through everything here rather quickly only to be disappointed that there’s no more new stuff available that day. And that’s the only shortcoming. Having said that I think you should give this a look. It’s well worth your time.

Follow the link to their YouTube channel here!