The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander

'The Black Cauldron' could have taken me by surprise. Why you ask, well our old friend Walt Disney made a version of this book. Therefore, if you have seen the movie like the Disney movie Tinker Bell its not. I found Book 2 to be full of wonder and excitement beyond anything Mickey Mouse could deliver. Perhaps one of the most inspiring of all five books, 'The Black Cauldron' tests the companions (Taran, Eilonwy, Gurgi, and Fflewddur). Not only was their courage tested, but also their true virtue, for Taran and his companions were, given more than once, the chance to become evil doers. In the end, as Alexander puts it, you cannot always judge good and evil 'unmixed,' sometimes you must remember people for what they once were, and others for what they became. This is a retelling of the Mabinogion’s ‘Cauldron of Rebirth’ bringing to the young at heart a vivid way to introduce the Mabinogi. Paperback: 208 pages Rating: 5 Stars Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks (May 16, 2006) Review by Bill Tillman

The Mabinogion Tetralogy by Evangeline Walton

Fantastic telling of the four branches of the Mabinogion. One truly needs to read several versions before being comfortable with the four branches. This is my ultimate favorite among all books Mabinogi. In the forward Betty Ballantine tells the story of Evangeline Walton born in 1907 in Indianapolis Indiana as a blue baby and never enjoying good health. All her life she had to cope with silver nitrate treatments which left her with a blue complexion. She was thus home educated and was very much a recluse. In this atmosphere, she began a life long love affair with books, her early favorite authors being Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, L. Frank Baum, and Lord Dunsany. The worlds of fantasy, love and adventure were also her world. A love of ancient and medieval history as well as the high poets formed her. Along with these factors, writing became a lifelong habit and passion. Her direction was toward magic and fantasy and when mixed with her burgeoning imagination this led her to the Mabinogion with its heroic myths of ancient Welsh lore. Therefore, her ambition focused on this rich body of literature. The myths, with a matter-of-fact acceptance of magic in the everyday lives of humankind, together with the fierce, tempestuous stories of the early Cymru, the titanic imagery, the blending of gods and men - proved the lure of a lifetime. In 1936, Walton published the Forth Branch of the Mabinogion with a title of 'The Virgin and the Swine.' This in the Depression went largely unnoticed. In the early 1970's Ballantine Books found a copy of 'The Virgin and the Swine. .Having started a new line of adult fantasy books, they were more than eager to republish this book. The Library of Congress did not have an address for the author, the publisher was long defunct. Ballantine posted ads for any information about the author in hundreds of publications. Calling the republished book The Island of the Mighty it was already in its print run when the Library of Congress informed them that the copyright had been renewed but  they still had no address. A  publisher's nightmare! Then another author found a twenty-year-old address for Walton. She was living in Tucson Arizona, and was pleased to see her book back in print. She asked if Ballantine would like the manuscripts for the other three branches. Checking and revising her early work, Prince of Annwn, The Children of Llyr, and the Song of Rhiannon The Mabinogion Tetralogy was published to the delight of dedicated fans of the Ballantine adult fantasy series. Recognition of her immense writing talents followed rapidly in the mainstream media. The Saturday Review of Literature wrote of Walton: “Evangeline Walton stands with T. H. White and C. S. Lewis as not only the best fantasies of the twentieth century. . . they are great works of fiction. Walton succeeds in creating an imaginary world that we believe actually existed [their italics] in this world’s history.” So this is the one work you cannot live without if you love the tales of the Mabinogi. Paperback: 720 pages Publisher: Overlook TP (December 31, 2003) Rating: 5 Stars Review by Bill Tillman

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

The tale of Taran, assistant pig keeper, has been entertaining young readers for generations. Set in the mythical land of Prydain (which bears a more than passing resemblance to Wales), Lloyd Alexander's book draws together the elements of the hero's journey from unformed boy to courageous young man. Taran grumbles with frustration at home in the hamlet Caer Dallben; he yearns to go into battle like his hero, Prince Gwydion. Before the story is over, he has met his hero and fought the evil leader who threatens the peace of Prydain: the Horned King. What brings the tale of Taran to life is Alexander's skillful use of humor, and the way he personalizes the mythology he has so clearly studied. Taran isn't a stick figure; in fact, the author makes a point of mocking him just at the moments when he's acting the most highhanded and heroic. When he and the young girl Eilonwy flee the castle of the wicked queen Achren, Taran emotes, "'Spiral Castle has brought me only grief; I have no wish to see it again.' 'What has it brought the rest of us?' Eilonway asked. 'You make it sound as though we were just sitting around having a splendid time while you moan and take on.'" By the end, Alexander has spun a rousing hero's tale and created a compelling coming-of-age story. Readers will sigh with relief when they realize The Book of Three is only the first of the chronicles of Prydain. Paperback: 190 pages Rating: 5 Stars Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks (May 16, 2006) Review by Bill Tillman

The Mabinogion by Gwyn Jones

Not all Mabinogion's are created equal. This version has not only the four branches, but the Four Independent Tales, The Three Romances. Result? None are done as well as could be leaving much to be desired. Redemption, that it is in clear English and readable. Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history--these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as the Mabinogion. Set in dual realms of the forests and valleys of Wales and the shadowy otherworld, the tales are filled by a dreamlike atmosphere. They tell of Gwydion the shape-shifter, who can create a woman out of flowers; of Math the magician whose feet must lie in the lap of a virgin; of hanging a pregnant mouse and hunting a magical boar. Dragons, witches, and giants live alongside kings and heroes, and quests of honor, revenge, and love are set against the backdrop of a country struggling to retain its independence. King Arthur's court provides the backdrop to tales such as "How Culhwch Won Olwen", in which a young man must complete many tasks before he can marry a giant's daughter. The work is divided into 11 disparate tales. Only the four of the first sections are explicitly "Branches of the Mabinogi," or stories of a youth. The youth is, according to a tradition followed by Gwyn Jones in her introduction, is Pryderi, the son of a Welsh King, Pwyll.   Paperback: 272 pages Rating: 3 & a half Stars. Review by Bill Tillman

The Mabinogi by Patrick K. Ford

Patrick Ford has given us a college level version of the Mabinogion with a great many notes explaining the background and hard parts of the translation. A very worthwhile version to have in your library. First, "The Four Branches of the Mabinogi," from which the collective title was derived, consisting of "Pwyll, Prince of Dyved," Branwen Daughter of Llyr," "Manawydan Son of Llyr," and "Math Son of Mathonwy." These begin with a story about the conception and birth of Pwyll's son, Pryderi, whose death is one of the early events in the "Fourth Branch," and concern a variety of heroes, and what are clearly rationalized gods. (Evangeline Walton turned each of the "Four Branches" into a novel; and other writers have done versions of one or another of them.) Second, there are two "native tales," "The Dream of Maxen Wledig" and "The Story of Lludd and Lleuelys," about Roman ("historical") and pre-Roman ("mythical") Britain as imagined by the medieval Welsh. The 'Lludd" text, as we have it, actually belongs to the "Chronicle" tradition launched by Geoffrey of Monmouth's supposed translation from an "ancient British book." (Which, if any part of it ever had any existence, was NOT the "Mabinogion.") The name of Lludd seems to be Welsh variant of a Celtic divine name, "Nuada" in Irish, "Nodens" in old British inscriptions, and "Nudd" in other Welsh sources; the variation seems to be due to assimilation to his epithet, Llaw Eraint, "Silver Hand," which is explained in the Irish tale of how the physician of the Gods made new hand for Nuada Argatlam." (H.P. Lovecraft picked up "Nodens" for the Cthulhu Mythos, a use which is unrelated; but Tolkien, whose hero Beren also lost a hand, actually wrote an early article on the Nodens inscriptions, and the apparent offerings of metal hands.) He may be behind King Lud, the supposed eponym of London. As Ford points out, Lleuellys, usually given as Llevellys, and also modernized as Llefellys, clearly should be read as Lleu-ellys, and recognized as a version of the god Lugh: the name Lleu is also used for a character in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. "Maxen," in which a Roman Emperor seeks as his wife a princess seen in a dream, seems to reflect an even more garbled version of a story known to Geoffrey, compounding several real people, including Helen, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. She was, in a medieval confusion compounding an honest mistake with local patriotism, believed to be British, and identified with "Elen of the Hosts." Ford drops this, as it seems to contain a rather high proportion of medieval hagiography and romance, and a very low proportion of archaic Welsh tradition. Third are two Arthurian stories in native Welsh mode. "Culhwch and Olwen," is an elaborate quest, dragging in, at least by name, most of the gods and heroes traceable in Welsh material, and some of their Irish cousins into the bargain, mostly as part of Arthur's court. "The Dream of Rhonabwy" is a visionary encounter with Arthur and his warriors (and anything else I could say would probably be controversial); a fascinating text, which, after a very grittily realistic opening, almost boasts of its authentically dreamlike obscurity. It breaks off in a manner most modern readers will find unsatisfactory -- and its arbitrary nature may have been part of the point. Ford does not include it; a pity, but it is probably the least readable part of the collection. Fourthly however Ford does not translate the three "Romances," "Owain" (otherwise known as "The Lady of the Fountain"), "Peredur son of Evrawc," and "Gereint the Son of Erbin," the first and last of which are clearly versions of Chretien de Troyes' Old French Arthurian Romances, "Yvain" and "Erec," while the second is related in a more complex manner to his unfinished and problematic "Perceval le Gallois." These seem to illustrate Celtic materials going out into wider European society, and then flowing back into Wales to enrich (and confuse) the native heroic and mythic tradition with ideas of chivalry. The version of "Taliesin," based, as noted earlier, on the text Ford had re-edited from manuscripts, is restored to its two-story version, as "The Tale of Gwion Bach" and "The Tale of Taliesin," and includes reliable versions of the poems attributed to the variously-reborn hero. Again, there was a real Taliesin, a dark-age Bard, according to Welsh tradition; but these poems, like the stories, are pretty much independent of anything he may have actually composed. But they *may* reflect some very archaic ideas about the magical nature of poetry, which were old when the real Taliesin was alive. Ford included as an appendix a translation of the notoriously difficult "Cad Goddeu," or "Battle of the Trees." Ford doesn't claim to understand its "real meaning," if any, only what it actually says, and it is very nice to have it. Paperback: 205 pages Rating: 4 Stars Review by Bill Tillman

Tales From The Mabinogion - Gwyn Thomas / Kevin Crossley-Holland

This could be called an illustrated Readers Digest of the Mabinogion. At 88 pages including illustrations, which are excellent, this is a small work. Some branches of the Mabinogion are done well if briefly, others are lacking. This collection of medieval Welsh tales was selected from the Mabinogion myth cycle. They serve as great examples of the old stories of the Celtic Gods who lived on the Island of the Mighty before the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons came. These gods were pushed into mythic status by the coming of Christianity and they live on in these tales. With vibrant Welsh names like Branwen, Bendigeidfran, and Cigfa, these male and female heroes of yesteryear encounter beautiful enchantresses, powerful kings of the underworld, and the magical cauldron of rebirth. These are powerful tales of an ancient time when giants roamed the earth and magic was afoot. They rely on familiar folk tale archetypes, but have distinctly Celtic elements that make them unique. The book was originally written for adults, and it includes stunning illustrations that include an artistically rendered nude image of a woman, but the tales themselves are accessible to readers and listeners of all ages. This book would be a good addition to any folk tale collection. Purchase here:- Tales From The Mabinogion Paperback: 88 pages Rating: 5 Stars Review by Bill Tillman

The Ninth Wave by Russell Celyn Jones – A Review

"You cannot be a true Mabinogi fan without reading this book" The Ninth Wave is a retelling of ‘Pwyll, Lord of Dyfed’ from the First Branch of the Mabinogion. Jones paints a world in the future where planet earth is out of oil. The horse is the preferred mode of transportation, sailing ships rule the seas and centralized governments have failed. Cars, trucks & vans are all roadside relics many of which are now inhabited. Wales is ruled by cantrefs (like our counties), which are inherited or won by conquest. While this Mad Max setting is intriguing, it seems slightly unpolished or needing more thought and attention to detail to make it work. However, there is enough here to make an interesting tale as long suspend your disbelief and ignore the awkward parts of it. When Pwyll drives, his mint condition saved and stored Bentley convertible on a tour of sacrifice while using its last tank of gas. The climax being to drive into a lake on another Lord’s property as a peace offering, yes that is what I said! (Here my lip trembles) I got out my hanky, well I will spare the details just saying it ended up wet and snotty. I have sat on this review for some time now, hoping to gain a more unbiased view of the work. In rereading the original tale of Pwyll, you find a young Lord who meets the Lord of the Otherworld. He swaps places with him for a year and a day including total shape shift of bodies. Slays (only a human can kill a god) the only competing Lord of that realm. Kills the suitor of the woman he wants to marry, has a son, son is kidnapped, wife is blamed and punished. Son is restored as a teenager and Pwyll rules happily ever after. Briefly an awkward paced fast then slow tale, deserving more space for a retelling. Jones by the nature of the assignment follows the same path but does not take enough space to fully develop the tale, as should be. The old tales involved a ‘Geis’ a magical binding or prohibition laid upon central character of the tale. Geis are behind the mythological tales in folklore, but now writers do not use Geis. A Geis would place a hero into legend, but now we must build a mighty saga to do the same. Considering that, Seren wants only novella length tales this is still a fine story. By explaining the limitations set for the task and then having my wife read the book her experience was thus. Struggled through the first half of the book not being a fantasy or science fiction reader, and then enjoyed the slower paced second half. There are pleasant surprises such as the return of the surfing son with a talent for leadership. The landscape of desolation will give you the shivers. You cannot be a true Mabinogi fan without reading this book. Buy the book HERE Review by Bill Tillman

'White Ravens' by Owen Sheers - A Review

First impression, a Wizard of Wales, a storyteller with a subtle pen for a wand, 'White Ravens' is a must read. Owen Sheers has a rare talent. Like the Florida gator, he is both ancient and today. The Second Branch of the Mabinogion contains the story of ‘Brânwen, Daughter of Llyr’. Sheers requested this tale because of its impact upon his own life. If you have not read The Mabinogion, I urge you to read this novella first. It will deepen your appreciation and widen your view of the art and skill of the Bards of old, as well as Owen Sheers. The author begins by drawing the reader into a modern day Welsh tale of tragedy and high adventure involving a family who raise sheep. Rhian is watching the sunrise as it turns the Thames gold. On a bench by the Tower of London, she recalls her life, at age six her father abandons the family. Ten years later her mother dies leaving her to run the household with Dewi and Sion her brothers to do the sheep farming. The third tragedy comes about six years later. Due to a Foot and Mouth breakout, the sheep are shot. Dewi and Sion get involved in sheep napping (pun intended), steeling a hundred head at a time and butchering them while on the way to London to sell on the black market. All goes well until the driver comes down sick. This book should become a N.Y. Times bestseller, Seren publishing house of Wales and author Owen Sheers gets a big thumbs up. Seren publishers commissioned ten Welsh writers to do some retelling of the national treasure 'The Mabinogion'. Theme: keep these old tales at the heart of a new story. The tale of Rhian and her brothers is complex and compelling. However, when she meets an old man with a cane on the park bench he tells her another tale. This is a tale about a WWII Irish soldier named Matthew O’Connell. Wounded in Italy Matthew is given an assignment to go to a remote farm in Wales to pick up six raven chicks. The mission is Top Secret as ordered by Prime Minister Churchill. While waiting for the chicks to mature for traveling Matthew falls in love with Brânwen, sister of the farmer Ben. A whirlwind affair ending with a wedding two weeks later, a returning brother Evan from the war casts a black cloud on the couple that night. After returning the chicks to London Matthew and his bride leave for Ireland and his farm home on the coast below Dublin. Farm life is terrible for both as Matthew’s family hate the British and his Welsh wife. Matthew turns sullen and Brânwen sends a message to Ben about how terrible life is. Ben and Evan show up one night to rescue Brânwen. Evan shoots Matthew and knocks their two year old son into the fire. Later Matthew recovers from the shot, saved by his pocket watch. By the time he contacts Ben in Wales Brânwen has died of a broken heart. But with a stroke of genius, Sheers redeems both the young woman and the old man in a surprise ending. In addition to these tales, Seren includes a synopsis of the original tale from The Mabinogion. Also an afterword by the author at the back of the book is inspiring. Branwen, Daughter of Llyr English text here More information about the Tower of London ravens here. Buy 'White Ravens' here. Review by Bill Tillman

Mabinogion Quiz

So you think you know the Mabinogion? Here is a ten question quiz compiled by Americymru's resident Mabinogion meister Bill Tillman to test your knowledge. The Mabinogion is the theme of this year's Left Coast Eisteddfod in Portland Oregon which will include readings from works by the authors of 'Stories From The New Mabinogion' commissioned by leading Welsh publishing house 'Seren'. There will also be a special showing of the 2003 S4C movie 'Y Mabinogi/Otherworld'. Left Coast Eisteddfod Events Night of The Living Bards Last Bard Standing

What Have The Welsh Ever Done For Us? (Plough and Harrow Website)

A very pertinent question. Here is a list of Wales most glorious achievements in the fields of sport, cuisine and elsewhere. This is an excerpt from a much larger site which can be found at the links below. We make no apologies for reproducing this. Nowhere in the Mabinnogion does it say that the Welsh can not laugh at themselves and anyone with a sense of humour cannot fail to appreciate the deliciously self-deprecating wit of the Amazing Welsh Landlord.

The Amazing Welsh Landlord Site by Mr Brett Tremble.

What have the Welsh ever done for us?!? - (A showcase of Celtic Achievement)

Western civilization has achieved many great feats throughout it's long and turbulent history. Humanity has, through perseverance and courage, conquered the unthinkable and tamed the unspeakable. The great thinkers of history have explained and rationalized the complex world around them, whilst inventors have pushed technology and innovation to the limits of the possible. This, however, is not their story. This page is instead a thorough and in-depth look at the dizzy pinnacles of Celtic achievement that is Welsh invention. Without further ado, the Amazing Welsh Landlord Amazing PROUDLY presents

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In the short tale 'the Dream of Rhonabwy', The Mabinogion tells us of a dark time long, long ago, when the earth was young and savage, and fierce hordes of runt like corgis roamed it's desolate surface, wantonly nipping the ankles of passing sheep, in a quite gruesome and bloodthirsty manner. Luckily for the people of Wales, the legendary St Illtyd was at hand to banish the corgis to the Isle of Man, or as some sources have put it, patiently house train them with a good choke chain and a large box of choc drops. All hail the mighty dog lord of the rain sodden valleys, the canine king of South Wales. The corgi is one third dog, one third ferret and one third draught excluder, but almost 100% contemptible. From a rugged land of tough unforgiving hills and bleak forbidding crags, comes not a fearsome beast as fierce as the the landscape that formed it, but instead an utterly useless animal more in danger of scraping its bedraggled little arse upon the ground as it walks, than it is of turning into a spontaneous and voracious killing machine. A Carmarthenshire corgi may be distinguished from a Pembrokeshire corgi by the size of its tail and its general level of drunkeness and inebriation.

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Feeling nervous? Unable to adequately express your undying and unwavering affection for that special someone in your life? Well don't despair, for there's surely no more truly inarticulate way to show that you truly care than by presenting your loved one with a clumsily carved and particularly shoddy piece of cutlery. Yes, the lovespoon. The Welsh have taken the most precious and purest form of human emotion and refined it into an oversized soup stirrer, for which the world collectively and wholeheartedly thanks them. Hurrah! The charming, and sadly pointless tradition of giving and receiving wooden spoons as a substitute for public displays of emotion, is believed to date from the middle ages, when the Welsh would habitually lose in every major sporting tournament there was, and thereby accumulated over time an extremely large collection of particularly useless wooden spoons. As the Welsh sportsmen would sat dejectedly in their dressing rooms after their various contests, listening glumly to the noises of joy emanating from the opposing teams room down the corridor, they would nervously whittle away at their chunky oaken spoons, afterwards presenting them to their sweethearts upon their return. This was partly to express their affection and also partly to explain their three week absence spent habitually bathing with other large, sweaty, hairy men. This charming tradition of total sporting ineptitude is still carried on today by the Welsh sports teams of every discipline, in honour it is said of Saint Denzil, considered by some scholars to be the first true manager of the Welsh rugby team sometime around 1274, and also the man credited by scholars of introducing the concept of the dining table to the people of Swansea.

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LAVABREAD - Mmmmmm, yummy yummy! Seaweed! The fruit of the sea, gift from Neptune's bountiful larder, provision from Poseidon's plenty. Quite the most perfect accompaniment to boiled pig's lungs and leeks. Bywd blasus indeed. If you've never seen silage up close, or if you have ever wondered what grass looks like after it has passed through the second stomach of a Welsh dairy cow, laverbread is undoubtedly the dish for you. Quite frankly, even the most myopic of ground sucking fish wouldn't eat this mulched up maritime muck. Laverbread? Well, if this is your idea of bread, you really need to consider changing your baker as a matter of some urgency (prior to notifying the relevant authorities), and believe me, absolutely nothing about a volcano suggests the green squelchy fetid smelling pulp presented as a digestible foodstuff. Apart that is, from the possible contents of your underwear if you stand too close to a major volcanic eruption after consuming a large sack of high fibre bran liberally mixed with broad beans, mackerel and stilton. Lavabread is that rare and singularly amazing example of a food that tastes as foul and rancid as it looks. And boyo, it sure looks pretty damn disgusting.(Actually, if the truth be known, I quite like lavabread, but only some sick and twisted individual would actually go and put such information on their web site for all to see).

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THE WELSH DRESSER - Hurrah! An amazing leap forward in interior design, a cupboard turned completely inside out for all those particularly house proud people who value the decorative qualities of their cheap, chipped and highly stained crockery above all of their assorted expensive ornaments and trinkets, accumulated from all around the world at great expense. In any other country of the world, this piece of furniture might possibly be a bookcase, a depository of knowledge and wisdom, an outpost of reference and learning in a desert of ignorance. Here in Wales though, it is the mighty plate that is held to be sacred and revered. To this very day, the Welsh dresser remains as an inside out cupboard festooned with garish crockery as a sober reminder to us all of the twelth century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey famously survived a bleak three months sometime around 1148, trapped inside a cupboard with nothing to eat but commemorative plates marking the reopening of the Ffestiniog slate mines after the North Wales scrofula epidemic of the 1121. It was of course traditional in many parts of Wales to break the plates frequently whilst drunkenly 'dusting', a tradition exported to Greece by Dai the Greek in 1498 and now extremely popular in that warmer Mediterranean clime.

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WELSH 'RABBIT' - Rabbit?!? I don't care what basic and tenuous grasp you may have upon the fundamentals of natural history, what rudimentary sense of botany you possess, or indeed what fragile concept you hold of reality itself, this limp and lifeless piece of cuisine is quite clearly nothing more than cheese on toast. For the rest of the world this is a quick and convenient snack, but, quite bizarrely, for the Welsh nation this soggy looking piece of stale bread is both an acclaimed national dish and an entire sub species of rodent. History is unclear as to the origins of the Welsh rarebit, but writings attributed to Taliesin, writing in about 538AD, suggests a charming myth which goes a long way to explaining the enduring popularity of the cherished dish. Apparently, on the eve of the omenous battle of Ystrad Tywi, Pwyll Prince of Dyfed swore to his favourite son Pryderi that he would cook wild rabbit for all of his mighty and fearsome troops. Sadly, Pwyll was near incapacitated with alcohol and couldn't even remember what a rabbit looked like, let alone attempt to catch one of the swift footed beasts. Pwyll, resourceful as the deep gold mines of Gwynedd, instead grabbed hold of a large pile of stale bread, pulled some rancid sweaty cheese out of his provisions sack and served it to his glorious and indefatigable army, shouting to one and all that it was rabbit and they would bloody well enjoy it as well. Luckily for the sagacious Prince Pwyll, his brave soldiers were even more drunk and incoherent than he was and failed to notice the devious deception. The next day over 80% of them were massacred in battle. History, it is said, is full of these lessons.

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As many foreign tourists have noted over the years, in Wales the railway platforms are exceedingly and unfeasibly long. It's not however the fact the trains are long, in fact there's precious few trains about of any length about these days. No, the reason the platforms are so staggeringly long is that wonderful enigma that is the Welsh language. A language that over half the people in your own country don't understand, now that's a always a good idea to induce a healthy sense of community and collective identity. Welsh is a mother tongue that allows for alienation and intolerance, especially, it may be noted, to other Welsh people. As every mid Welsh 'crafty Cardi' will gladly tell you, the northerners are all inbred Gogs and talk funny, whilst the southerners are slack jawed Taffs and talk even funnier. Just please don't dare ask the rest of Wales what it thinks about the denizens of Mid Wales whilst in polite company, because most surely the phrases 'redneck', 'incest' and 'sheep' liberally interspersed with ear shattering expletives will crop up with frightening consistency. Short on vowels and long on syllables, the Welsh language was long thought to be dying a terrible and lonely death in the upstairs room of a run down pub somewhere near Aberaeron. Welsh managed to avoid it's linguistic demise though and stubbornly lingered on like some vile insipid virus, dwelling and breeding inside the black and evil corrupted hearts of highly inept folk singers and druids of dubious distinction. The Welsh language is ideal for poets inexplicably obsessed with composing long, turgid, waffling ballads in obscure sixth century decasyllabic metre, but is extremely impractical for asking for anything so rudimentary as road directions or the time of day. Welsh is now traditionally spoken only when English people are thought to be present. NB. Beware anyone who tells you that there are no swear words in Welsh. One only has to observe a crowd of drunk Welshmen watching the Welsh national rugby side lose 98-0 to the Chile 2nd XI to recognize the complete and total fallacy of this foolish statement.

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THE LEEK - Allium porum. Originally worn by the Welsh whilst in the midst of battle, in order to distinguish them from all the many other people who were not wearing root vegetables on their heads. This masterstroke of military genius was incisive as it was cunning, and even to this day the mighty armies of Togo still march with carrots tied from each ear, whilst the foot soldiers of Bhutan keep a tin of mushroom soup secreted in their left breast pocket. The dangerous and consuming obsession with wearing allium over the need to actually win a battle, may suggest why the Welsh have been an occupied nation for all but one Wednesday afternoon in 576 for their entire shameful history. Had Owen Glyndwr not spent months searching for the fabled Golden Onion of Gwynedd, then maybe the large Saxon army foolishly armed only with bloody great swords would not have so easily defeated the crack Dyfed shallot regiment in just twenty minutes. What would history have been if the Welsh had stuck with the daffodil as a national emblem instead of an essential ingredient of soup? Perhaps we may never care.

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THE VERB 'TO WELSH' - Let us first turn to the dictionary for this particular innovation of the Welsh nation. "TO WELSH: Decamp without paying. Evade an obligation. Fail to carry out a promise. Fail to honour an obligation". Take any popular example of the gangster or crime film genre. What is the most scathing andcharacter ruining insult that can possibly be hurled at an individual in one of these films? Did he murder his mother for the price of a cup of tea? Did he burn down an orphanage for the sake of a five dollar a week extortion racket? Or maybe he laid waste to an entire east side ghetto area after an extended drink and drugs binge? NO! If you want to destroy a gangster's reputation and make him a complete and total outcast amongst his peers, simply accuse him of WELSHING! No respectable murdering gangland psychopath would dare show his pock marked alcohol ravaged face in public again after such a fine and devastating insult. The Welsh reputation for duplicity, calumny, deceit, lying, slander, malice, dishonour, unreliability, falsehood and cunning is quite quite legendary in almost every single corner of the world. Welshing has in fact been a popular pastime since recorded time began. One only has to glance at the Black Book of Carmarthen for the treasured ancient records of Welsh duplicity, in particular the charming tale of how the fledgling Welsh nation secretly sold the entire kingdom of Cornwall into many years of forced slavery over a disputed game of cards and an unreturned lawnmower, that the Welsh had borrowed from the Romans several years earlier.

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Okay, so the Welsh didn't actually invent sheep, but they have over the years refined the rudimentary concept of the sheep to astonishing and frightening new heights. After indulging in an escalating ovine development race with New Zealand and Australia for much of the 1970's and 80's, economic necsessity has demanded that the Welsh sheep programme be largely abandoned. Rumours still persist though of a Welsh super sheep hidden deep inside the hills of Snowdonia. The current wisdom is that this gigantic mega sheep will be brought out from its underground silo during a time of national security and that the the bounty of its succulent chops will be distributed freely amongst the people of Wales. The problem of finding a suitable location for the massive mint sauce lake needed to sustain such an ambitious project has still not been resolved. It may be worth at this point mentioning the obvious dark cloud of bestiality which darkens any discussion about the Welsh and sheep. Whilst those people dwelling in the sparsely populated urban areas of Wales may resent the implication from outsiders that they spend even the minutest amounts of time socializing with farmyard beasts, the many millions of rural country dwellers positively revel in the notoriety and infamy that their exploits have justifiably earned them. And please don't worry about telling any lewd sheep related jokes whilst in the company of a Welsh person. The odds are that the slavering gibbering locals have not only heard the few scant and badly structured jokes that you may already know, but are also armed with at least five thousand more anecdotes, each joke progressively more pornographic and displaying more intimate and graphic knowledge about a sheep's gynaecology than any mortal not planning a future in advanced veterinary surgery need ever EVER know. Those wishing to know more about this particular subject area may like to refer to Dylan Thomas's plaintive and elegiac poem'Do not go gentle into that good sheep'.

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The druids, despite many modern popular misconceptions, are not the direct descendants from the ancient priests of legend, passing unseen through measured history along an unbroken gossamer thread of mystery and intrigue. The druids are in fact no more than a Victorian approximation of ancient myth in the same sort of manner that a mock Tudor Sainsbury's supermarket faithfully represents the ideals and theology of Henry VIII. The druids disappeared from society sometime around the 13th century because, as Dafydd ap Gwilym so memorably put it, 'it was all a bit silly'. The druidic code was later revived around 1848 as an attempt to revive ancient codes of conduct and also to provide a ready and legal excuse to get away from one's wife and run around a rain sodden field with blankets over one's head whilst interfering with virgins and committing obscure arcane rites with goats and chickens. Later, when the Welsh chapels lost their grip on the community, alcoholbecame more freely available and pubs freely absorbed the various blanket wearers, virgins and livestock. Today's druidicial acolytes are mainly accountants, dentists, lawyers, chartered surveyors, road protestors and soap stars. Druidism exists solely to support the echelons of Welsh society considered too good to hang about socializing in seedy pubs, but still not thought quite good enough to join the freemasons.

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