Advent 3 Canon

I am more than occasionally of a mind to reach into my ancestral Welshness. One of these moods overtook me when at Caernarfon Castle last year and I duly purchased a copy of The Mabinogion from the gift shop. An English translation you understand - I'm not even remotely equipped to read it in Welsh. The translation is by Sioned Davies. I will quote from the translator's own Introduction and you will get a flavour of what this collection of twelve tales is about:

Brothers transformed into animals of both sexes who bring forth children: dead men thrown into a cauldron who rise the next day; a woman created out of flowers, transformed into an owl for infidelity; a king turned into a wild boar for his sins - these are just some of the magical stories that together make up the Mabinogion.

These stories hark back to an ancient oral tradition. The constant couplings and killings can be a tad wearying when read - I suspect the whole thing would be a load more fun if delivered in the voice of, say, Richard Burton or, here's an idea, Tom Jones. If you liked the film Excalibur with its atmosphere of dark magic, then you will get something out of The Mabinogion.  

 

 

  

Croeso

And lo did it come to pass that the English were let back into Wales, there to visit the properties they own and in respect of which they dutifully pay inflated Council Tax charges. One of the little commented upon effects of Coronavirus has been that this virus has achieved what Plaid Cymru have so signally failed to achieve and Wales has stood lonely and peopled mainly by the Welsh. Now I know that those two preceding sentences exaggerate the position a little but there is a kernel of truth in there and so it was lovely to be able to be back in the land of my fathers, for all its botherations a beautiful place. The cares fell off my shoulders (what cares you prat, you don't even work - yes but I feel things insensibly) as I pulled back the blinds in Casa Piggy Cymraeg (as the country estate will henceforth be known) and saw the magnificence of the ocean. I love Ynys Mon. While I think about it a large shout out to our neighbour NH who kept an eye on things while we were banned from visiting.

Big Fat Pig was very virtuous on this visit (of the flying variety, just two nights) - yesterday morning he donned his lycra and his Oakleys and meandered at what passes for running pace around Benllech before heading off up the A5025 and getting all the way to Moelfre, whence he returned and satisfied the aim of a ninety minute excursion. This morning, before a breakfast of toast and honey, he headed towards Red Wharf Bay in a half hour burst of energy. All very gratifying especially since BFP stayed off the booze despite the siren call of the bottles stashed in the utility. This is the age of the diminishing Pig.

The Pig tends to favour easier reading when at Casa Piggy Cymraeg, thus did he pull from the shelf Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy - a discarded hospital library copy liberated from a dusty bookshop shelf for a princely one pound. Clancy is by way of the Pig's guilty literary secret. The writing is sometimes risible but boy does Clancy do plots and the Pig has to say that he found it easier going than the Thomas Hardy that continues to vex him back here at the main Casa Piggy.

One mild disappointment  - last night I watched Withnail and I, a film about which people rave. Perhaps its moment has long since passed and the trope of men behaving badly has exhausted itself. I found it mildly amusing but, sorry, not a thing of cinematic genius. Oh well, what do I know? 63/100.