Received the fourth and fifth chapters of Will Parker's Mabinogi book, on Manawydan and Math respectively. His treatment of the wasteland theme in the third branch adds a great deal of depth and poignancy to it a reading of it. Haven't yet read Math but its my favourite of the four branches. Will is now writing the last chapter, which looks at the subsequent influence of the Mabinogi. Then we need to get the book down to size.

I have just mirrored this block at the new Yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bardic-press-celtic-myth.

There is also an announcements list for Bardic Press, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bardic-press

On the non-Celtic side, I was working on two contracts today. One for Stevan Davies' The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom, and the second for a book that I don't want to mention until the contract is signed. Steve's book should be coming out in October. It contains the entire text of his influential Gospel of Thomas book, plus an additional essay and an entirely new 50 page introduction.

Saunders Lewis, who is still little known in the world of English speaking literature, was a Welsh nationalist, a dramatist and critic who wrote in the Welsh language. I saw an excellent English language production of his play Blodeuwedd, translated as The Woman of Flowers by Sion Eirian, and performed by the Actors Theatre Company, some ten years ago. An English language production of Siwan appeared on radio a couple of years after that, also translated by Sion, with Sian Phillips in the lead role. Siwan and Blodeuwedd form a pair, with some parallellism in their subject matter. Siwan, translated by Joseph Clancy (who also did a version of Blodeuwedd) as The King of England's Daughter, looks the adultery of Llywelyn's wife Siwan (joan) with Gwilym Brewis, and Llywelyn's discovery of this and his reconciliation with his wife; Blodeuwedd is concerned with the mythical Blodeuwedd's adultery with Gronw Pebyr and Lleu's revenge. Both are superb verse dramas.

Blodeuwedd is based on the story from Math Fab Mathonwy, the fourth branch of the Mabinogi. But I hadn't realised that Lewis had written plays on each of the four branches. I knew that he wrote an untranslated play on Branwen, but he also covered the first and third branches in comedies respectively entitled Gan Bwyll and Eisteddfod Bodran. Unfortunately, neither of these have been translated into English. But they are available in Welsh as DRAMÂU SAUNDERS LEWIS in two volumes. Joseph Clancy produced four volumes of translations of Saunders Lewis' dramas, while Siwan, Blodeuwedd and Brad are available in Presenting Saunders Lewis, compiled by Alun R. Jones and Gwyn Thomas. (Brad was set in World War II and had the distinction of having been broadcast in the Welsh language play on BBC radio with Richard Burton in the principal role (Burton spoke Welsh as his first language.)

There's not a huge amount of material on the web concerning Saunders Lewis. Sound clips of Saunders Lewis, and of Richard Burton in Brad (Treason) available here:

Forgot to mention that Mary also has a blog that covers current news stories on Celtic archeology and related items.

Mary Jones of Philadelphia has had a site containing Welsh and Irish texts for a number of years. It has grown and matured over that time, and she has added a number of texts over the last few months. It seems to have various names, including Tuesday Morning, Dragonfield and Ty^'r Beirdd. (Mary adopted my correction to the latter title with exceedingly good grace.) She has put a awful lot of Welsh fragments up there, things that would otherwise take a lot of hunting down.

Among her latest additions are the story of Arthur and Kaledvwlch, and bardic triads from Peniarth 20, neither of which I had seen before. Mary's site gives a much fuller picture of the kind of material that contributed to the Welsh tradition. Her Irish collection is probably the fullest on the web too.