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Crwth, which literally denotes a swelling-out or hump, came to be a Welsh generic term for several small lyres beginning no later than the tenth century, and it probably was a reference to the hunch-backed appearance of the yoke, or upper frame, that prevailed all the way through the modern form.

The lyre is one of the three large, diverse groups within the string instrument, or chordophone, family. Lyres and zithers have strings whose planes are basically parallel to the soundboards. That sets both groups apart from harps, whose string planes are more or less perpendicular to the soundboards. Therefore both the autoharp and the harpsichord are zithers,not harps, and the Estonian talharpa and the Finnish jouhikantele are bowed lyres, not bowed harps.

Unlike zithers, many lyres have yokes to which the strings are attached near the instruments upper ends. Yokes can be either open or split. Some split-yoke lyres such as the crwth were equipped with fingerboards, while others such as the jouhikantele were not. Some open- and split-yoke lyres with and without fingerboards were bowed, while some were plucked. Others,such as the crwth, were played both ways.

Lyres of the crwth subclass prior to ca. 1500 were neither native nor unique to the British Isles. They were known on the European mainland by names like chrotta, rotta, rotte, and chorus. The last of those terms also sometimes denoted the bagpipe. In England the lyres sometimes were called by their Continental names. Chaucer, for example, mentioned play[ing] upon a rote in the prologue to Canterbury Tales. In addition to crwth, prominent British Insular terms were crowd(e) and crowth. In Ireland, members of the crwth subclass were sometimes termed crottach and cruit, although the latter

In sum, crwth, crowd, and related terms designated possibly numerous different instruments that often were in stylistic flux and whose lifetimes often overlapped each other over about 900 years.

Except for a few specimens representing the modern crwths immediate predecessor, only fragments of its ancestors survive. Reconstructions of earlier forms are based partly on those fragments and partly on written descriptions but mainly on paintings, drawings, carvings, and sculptures that have to be assessed carefully. For example, a drawing in a Durham Cathedral Library manuscript shows a twelfth-century lyre with drones. However, there is no evidence of drones being consistently associated with the crwth subclass over the next two hundred years. That leaves us to conclude that two tangential drones with four central strings were experimented with at least as early as around 1100, but were consistently present on newly-emerging crwths and crowds only from the middle to late fourteenth century.

The typical crythor, or crwth-player (or, in England, crowder or crowther), from before the early to middle fifteenth century was an itinerant, lower-order minstrel who supplied music at social functions, often on the estates of the landed gentry. British minstrelsy gradually died out over a period of about a hundred years, ca. 1380-1480, due to many of the minstrelsi nvolvement in civil unrest. The instruments of the minstrels, along with some of their practices and music, then were absorbed into the folk culture. Therefore, after around 1480, the crythorion, or crwth-players, were less and less often traveling minstrels and more and more often resident fiddlers for their home communities.

The second stage of the modern crwths life stretched from around 1600 to about 1730. During that time, there probably was at least one crwth and one crythor active in or near almost every Welsh village; and the crwth, its music, and dancing to its music were regular features at fairs, weddings, holiday events, and other festive gatherings.

One type of crwth music was used for competitive solo dancing. Each contestant in turn would enter the room or outdoor dancing area to a processional piece, often carrying a broom across his shoulders, and executing a stylized step that became more and more intricate. The musician then would change to a different piece to which the dancer performed his most ambitious steps, sometimes leaping over a tall, lighted candle, as referred to in the nursery rhyme Jack, Be Nimble. The music changed back to the processional for the dancers exit.

The second stage of the modern crwths life stretched from around 1600 to about 1730. During that time, there probably was at least one crwth and one crythor active in or near almost every Welsh village; and the crwth, its music, and dancing to its music were regular features at fairs, weddings, holiday events, and other festive gatherings.

The crwth also sometimes accompanied ballad singing, a common way of disseminating news in the days before widespread literacy. An example of a ballad tune is this variant of Diniweidrwydd, meaning innocence.

The modern crwth sometimes was played with the pibgorn, a capped-reed woodwind with a barrel made from the leg bone of a ram and a bell and a mouthpiece made from the shell of a cows horn. A capped reed is not held between the players lips. Instead, the player blows into a cap at the top of the barrel, and the reed is located at the base of the cap and vibrates as the airstream passes by it.

Occasionally the crwth was also played in ensemble with the harp, or telyn. An example of crwth, telyn, and pibgorn playing together is my arrangement of The Fox, a reel based on a ballad tune.

Slightly overlapping the middle period of the modern crwths lifetime was the third and final one, beginning around 1720 and continuing until the mid-nineteenth century when, according to oral accounts, the last of the old players died.

During that time, dancing and ballad-singing fell out of favor due to the evangelical movement, which condemned so-called worldly pastimes.The religious movement reached the height of its intensity between ca. 1730 and 1740. That decade was followed over the next hundred years by recurrent episodes of zealotry. During each of those events, crwths, playing cards, and other so-called implements of the devil were discarded and often chopped to pieces and burned en masse in village squares. Only a fraction of traditional Welsh music was written down by musically literate auditors, only some of those records found their ways into print, and editors of publications often corrected folk music according to academic rules and models.

Regarding performance technique, older men traditionally taught the younger men and boys without benefit of methods, books or written collections of etudes or other pieces. Sorry, ladies, but crwth playing was not gender-neutral. In fact, Meredith Morris, in 1920, reported an old Welsh belief that a girl or woman playing the crwth would cause the dead to rise from their graves and wander around the village or countryside. The only contemporaneous written descriptions we have of the playing of the modern crwth are more poetic, picturesque, or travelogue-like than technically precise. Most were written late in the instruments lifetime by non-performers from outside the indigenous culture.

Reconstructive efforts from before the middle to late twentieth century suffered from the investigators almost exclusive orientation toward academic music, models, and methods in the days before modern ethnomusicology. Those investigators also were unaware of evidence that has since been found, analyzed, and integrated into newer assessments of the crwth, its music, its ancestry, and its social function. Finally, few lengthy studies from before the 1970s addressed the crwth alone but rather either ignored it or treated it as an inconsequential, primitive figure in the history of string instruments.

Lets now consider the modern crwth from a post-1960s perspective. That instrument, henceforth called simply the crwth unless the need for clarity dictates otherwise, has four strings over a flat, fretless fingerboard. Those strings are stopped by the players left fingers and normally are bowed. Two other strings are drawn off to the observers left side of the fingerboard and function as unstopped drones plucked by the players left thumb.

There are two reported tunings of the crwths strings, both from very late in its life. The more widely publicized tuning is one in which the bowed strings are tuned in octaves separated by major seconds. That tuning was reported by Edward Jones, in his Musical and Poetical Relicks [ sic] of the Welsh Bards, published in 1784, after a description in National Library of Wales Manuscript 168.C.

In 1800, William Bingley published A Tour Round North Wales, in which he reported a tuning of the bowed strings in octaves separated by fifths,. That report often has been either dismissed out of hand or described as an unusual tuning, due largely to the way in which most investigators have simply passed along Joness report, both uncritically and sometimes without citation of source, thereby fostering the idea that the tuning of the bowed strings in octaves separated by seconds was much more commonly used than the tuning described by Bingley, when, in fact, there originally was only one record of each tuning.

My experiments in 1972 repeatedly bore out earlier declarations of the impracticality of tuning the highest string to B above the treble staff. However, accurate identification of individual tones without mechanical assistance requires perfect pitch, which even most trained musicians do not have. I suspect that Bingley had at least reasonably good relative pitch, heard the intervals fairly accurately, observed that the highest string was tuned quite high, and then either estimated the individual pitches incorrectly or simply notated the intervals arbitrarily to create a visually balanced illustration on the page.

The tuning that I use for the bowed strings is based on Bingleys report, but with pitches at lower levels to allow the tuning of the highest, or rightmost, string. I further suspect that Bingley erred in his notation of the pitches of the drones after mistaking the interval of a fourth above the drones for a fifth. Fifths and fourths are easily confused with each other, especially when other fifths, other fourths, and also octaves are being heard at the same time and in the same key. Raising the pitch of the drones a step each allows them to function as parts of both tonic and dominant chords. It also matches Joness report of drones tuned a fourth below the lower pair of bowed strings. Finally, with regard to tuning, we must recall that the crwth as a folk instrument was subjected to more variation of technique than was acceptable for academic instruments. Therefore, it is very possible, if not likely, that the tunings reported by Jones and Bingley were only two of perhaps several that commonly were used by different performers.

Lets now consider the crwths other principal parts. All strings connected to a wooden tailpiece that was fastened to an end-button by a gut retainer. The strings also were drawn across a bridge whose upper edge was only slightly curved. The slight curvature allowed both the bowing of all four strings over the fingerboard at once and the bowing of groups of two adjacent strings.

Ill now demonstrate the normal plucking and bowing of the strings, the bowing of only two strings at once, and the plucking of strings over the fingerboard.

The crwth bridge has three legs. The long leg on the observers left goes through the corresponding sound-hole, rests against the inside of the back of the resonator, and conducts vibration from the strings directly to the back of the instrument, thus acting as a sound-post. It also takes some of the downward pressure off the flat soundboard, which is not as strong as the convex soundboards of the violin and its kin.

The body of the crwth, including its neck, was carved and chiseled from a solid block of either maple or European sycamore. The soundboard and fingerboard were separate pieces.

The crwth had no separate sound-post and no bass-bar, and playing it above first position was difficult and quite possibly never done. For those reasons, the crwth lacked the power of tone; the expressive range; the three-to four-octave melodic range; and the rich, almost vocalistic, timbre of a well-made violin, viola, cello, or double-bass.However, due to its flat fingerboard and nearly flat bridge, the crwth could function as a self-contained, harmonizing string ensemble more easily than individual orchestral bowed string instruments can. Also, the crwth was potentially much more agile melodically than earlier investigators gave it credit for being. In fact, when one uses the tuning in octaves and fifths, the crwth has nearly the same first-position melodic range that the violin, viola, and cello have. This is shown in the following rendition of the hornpipe Nos Galan, meaning New Years Eve but better known today as Deck the Hall.

The crwth was tuned by turning either pegs or wrest pins installed frontally near the top of the yoke. One seventeenth-century drawing shows T-shaped pegs. Surviving pre-1850 crwths and most copies and reconstructions are equipped with metal harp wrest pins that are turned with tuning keys. To the best of my knowledge, no pre-1850 crwth bows survive, although there are numerous reconstructions. Written descriptions, icons, and the history of the bow all point toward different bow designs employed in connection with both the modern crwth and its forebears.

By the end of the modern crwths life, two common bow designs were those involving 1) the Medieval curved stick with the hair drawn across most of its arc; and 2) the pike-nosed bow with frog, which appeared around 1620 and, by 1680, was equipped with various devices for adjusting the tension of the hair. Some icons showing late pre-modern crwths reveal that a third bow featured a straight stick with hair drawn between a nearly squared-off tip and a block mounted part-way along the stick. What could have been the short-nosed bow mentioned by Gruffydd ap Dafydd ap Howell is represented by a sculpture on a beam in the roof of the nave in St. Marys Church, Shrewsbury.

Written reports, literary references, and old sayings about the crwth point toward preference for an abrasive tone and the loudest possible dynamic level in performance. Therefore it is almost certain that the bow was pressed hard against the strings, and probably drawn diagonally across them near the bridge, most if not all of the time. Diagonal bowing with heavy tracking near the bridge would have produced the desired sound and also could account, at least in part, for the sloping bridge that appears to have been a consistent feature of the fully-developed modern crwth. Ill now illustrate the preferred sound, with the bow at an angle across the strings, by playing the jig Ceiliog y Rheddyn.

Although a loud, abrasive tone was usually preferred, the crwth was capable of some differences in both dynamics and timbre. Ill now illustrate those differences with another jig called Ffarwel, Ned Puw, a variant of a ballad tune by the same name. The original ballad tells how Ned Puw ventured into a haunted cave and was never seen again. Note the echo effect, suggestive of a cave, on the repetition of musical phrases.

The modern crwths immediate forebear was customarily held at either the shoulder or the chest, in some cases supported by a neck-strap. That holding method, which is shown in a panel on what probably was part of a cupboard at Cotehele Manor, in Cornwall, indicates that at least some of the earliest modern crwths were held in the same way. Holding at the shoulder could reflect the influence of the bowed rebec, which, like the pre-modern crwth, was an instrument of the lower-order, itinerant minstrels. Although I am a violinist, I have found it difficult to hold and play the modern crwth at the shoulder. Both that method and holding at the chest cause problems with plucking the drones. Holding at the shoulder is also made difficult by the modern crwths straight-across, or squared-off, lower end. The rounded lower end of the modern crwths parent form makes the shoulder position more comfortable and practical, allowing the player to make small adjustments more easily.

Crwths and crowds of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries sometimes were held at the neck or shoulder, with the top of the instrument pointing downward, as represented in the 1397 misericord carving in Worcester Cathedral. It is unclear whether or not they also were sometimes held upright on the players laps at that time. A painting from around 1400, on an interior wall of the chapter house at Westminster Abbey, shows a musician holding his instrument upright against his left knee, but he is shown preparing to play, not actually playing.

I have found the most workable holding for the modern crwth to be the modified upright position that you have seen me using today. This method, which may have emerged late in the instruments lifetime, would explain the disappearance of the earlier, rounded lower end that would not have been needed for holding it that way. Also, by allowing the crwth to roll from side to side, the rounded lower end could have been a disadvantage to one using this cross-torso hold.

Still another change distinguishing the modern crwth from its predecessors is the apparent relocation of the pegs or wrest-pins. Rear-mounted devices, which icons suggest were present on some earlier instruments, are workable while tuning with the bow if the crwth is held up with its lower end at the chest or shoulder. However, frontal tuners work better if the crwth is held either with the upper end on or near the players lap, as shown in the Worcester sculpture, or facing away from the player, either vertically or obliquely upright, with the lower end on the lap. A cross-torso hold also would have worked nicely with the diagonal bow travel and sloping bridge that together enabled production of the abrasive tone. A vertical upright hold does not work as well with diagonal bowing, because it forces an awkward, uncomfortable bow stroke. It also forces a backward bending of the left wrist, which in turn adversely affects finger action. The cross-torso position allows the wrist to be straight and relaxed and the fingers to move smoothly, and the sloping bridge facilitates diagonal bowing with a more natural stroke. In addition, the holding position in combination with the tuning in octaves and fifths lets both melodic and harmonizing notes fall easily and naturally under the fingers.For these reasons, I almost always use the upright cross-torso hold, although I occasionally hold the crwth both at the chest with a strap and, as now, at the shoulder.

A workable variation combining the seated cross-torso hold with the strap-assisted hold is a standing cross-torso hold with a neck-strap. That position, which I have used with some success allows the player to move around while providing some advantages of the seated cross-torso position, although not the same high degree of stability.

Ill now touch on the most important points concerning the modern crwths place in the history of the string family. Middle Eastern instruments with independent fingerboards emerged as far back as ca. 3000-2500 BCE. Their descendants became the ancestors of the lute, the rebec, the mandolin, the guitar, the viol, and the violin. The incurved resonator was an invention that emerged for either aesthetic or acoustical reasons, not to aid bowing. Around the seventh or eighth century of the Common Era, the bow was developed in the Middle East and applied to some independent fingerboard lyres. Within two centuries, both those instruments and the bow had entered Europe.

The emergence of native European lyres, harps, and zithers paralleled Middle Eastern developments. The Greco-Roman kithara, lyra, and testudo are examples of ancient European lyres that experienced a revival in Carolingian civilization and later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.. Like the evolution of Middle Eastern lyres, the emergence and later revival of the European lyres of classical antiquity were separate lines of development from that leading to the crwth.

Other lyres appeared to the north of Greece and Rome from the early Middle Ages until past the tenth century. Developments often were experimental and followed numerous disparate lines, not all of which survived.

From their earliest appearance in Europe, ca. 900, the bow and fingerboard was applied to some native yoke lyres. Thus emerged the European bowed fingerboard lyre with yoke.

We can conclude, from both literary references and icons, that a distinct crwth subclass began emerging from the earlier European lyres in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The following two hundred years, from which more evidence has survived, saw experimentation with bows, fingerboards, numbers of strings, bridge design and placement, other structural features, and probably playing methods. Those events paralleled, but were separate from, those that produced the viol and later the violin and its kin.

By ca. 1400, the two-plus-four string configuration, and probably the bridge with one long leg, were present on at least some members of the crwth subclass, even though older designs were still around.

The final events setting the modern crwth apart from its parent form evidently began about 1500, and they may have continued for some time after that. Those events, not necessarily in the order here named, were: the likely movement of the tuning devices from the back to the front; the squaring-off of the previously rounded lower end that may have prompted Gruffydd ap Dafydd ap Howell to mention a wheel-like front; the standardization of the slightly wider, sloping bridge; the transition from a quasi-academic minstrels instrument to a true folk instrument; the initial building of the new crwths dance and ballad music repertoire around a core of minstrels music; and the confinement of the new instrument to Wales.Although it is hard to be certain on all points, the Cotehele sculpture seems to show most of the final structural changes.

The last part of this presentation will address, through three stories with musical examples, the place of the crythor, or crwth player, in traditional Welsh culture from the early through the final years of the modern instrument. Each story is a variant of a popular folktale.

RHYS CRYTHOR:

In the early sixteenth century, when the modern crwth was replacing its parent form, there lived a curious character now known only as Rhys Crythor, that is, Rhys the crwth player. He was an outstanding performer and the winner of the crwth competition at the 1525 Eisteddfod. Rhys was both eccentric and short-tempered. One day, he rode into town with both the mane and the tail of his horse clipped extremely short. While he was prepared for the people to laugh at him, he was surprised and angered when they laughed at his horse. Later that afternoon, he noticed that the town stable was unattended, so he went inside and located the horses of several of the towns leading citizens. Shortly thereafter, the owners of the horses walked into the stable and were horrified at what they saw. Each horse had its cheeks deeply slashed from the corners of its mouth to the bases of its ears.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Rhys laughed hysterically, wiping his knife on the front of his shirt. Yes, my horse is a funny sight, indeed. Look, even your horses are laughing at him!

THE OLD CRYTHOR:

It was commonly believed that some crythorion had supernatural powers. One such person was an old man who was active during the seventeenth century. He would often appear at a fair in Pembrokeshire during an afternoon, disappear as surreptitiously as he had come, and then be seen in Cardiganshire that same evening. Such rapid travel was unheard of in the days when traveling a distance of only ten to fifteen miles usually took all day or all night. With his long, white, flowing hair and beard, the old man looked like the ghost of some ancient Celtic sage. He often sang, to the accompaniment of his crwth, eerie songs in which he predicted peoples misfortunes. His most chilling prophecy, delivered at a wedding feast, was also his last:

This is my song of final farewell,
For after I have finished and departed,
You shall see me no more;
And your rejoicing for these young people is premature,
For I see nothing but dreadful tragedy for them
And much grief for their friends and loved ones,
And that before the next setting of the sun.

The next morning, the young bride was found strangled to death in her bed. Her husband was suspected of the horrible deed but was never found, and the old crythor was never seen again.

JAMES GREEN:

During the early to middle nineteenth century, there lived near Bron y Garth a certain James Green, who died in 1855 and was, according to oral accounts, the last of the old crwth players. Once, when he was walking into town to play at a dance, Green found himself face-to-face with an irate bull that had strayed from someones pasture. With the bull in hot pursuit, Green retreated up a tree and seated himself on a limb. The furious bull tossed its head and stamped its feet below. To pass the time until the bull left, Green began to fiddle, whereupon the bull gave a terrified snort, turned, and ran.

Stop! cried Green. Ill change the tune! - but the bull soon disappeared around a bend in the road. Ill close now with a quotation from Meredith Morris and one more tune:

To have lived beyond [this time] would not have been good for the health of the last of the crythorion, and it was well that he slumbered and slept. May his shade be mightily comforted when the zephyr playeth upon the crwth of the old yew tree.

DR. J. MARSHALL (JACK) BEVIL is a retired string music educator, a musicologist, and a composer. He holds the degrees M.Mus and Ph.D, both in musicology, from the University of North Texas, with dual specializations in oral-aural traditions, especially those of Celtic Britain and the Celtic diaspora (particularly the American Southern Uplands), and British national music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from Sullivan through Vaughan Williams. In addition to his teaching, research scholarship, and composition, he also acts on occasion as a forensic musicologist, or consultant and expert witness in copyright and intellectual property disputes. His masters thesis, The Welsh Crwth, Its History, and Its Genealogy, involved three years of research and writing, including the summer of 1972, which he spent in Britain. Although completed in 1973, that document and its companion sound recording, which together ultimately reached dissertation proportions, remain standard reference material on the crwth. Since completing his masters and terminal degrees, Dr. Bevil has made presentations on the crwth, including both broadcasts and a paper read at a chapter meeting of the American Musicological Society.

Online links of possible interest include:
http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/cth01.html.htm - thesis abstract
http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/disab.html.htm - dissertation
abstract
http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/pubpr.html.htm - list of
publications and presentations
http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/tnc02.html.htm - post-doctoral
investigation, question of music played during the Titanic disaster
http://home.earthlink.net/~llywarch/ku2009.html - post-doctoral
investigation, linguistic basis of British national musical style, ca. 1870-
1920
www.scoreexchange.com - compositions online (under Browse / B

Passing this on--this is a wonderful gymanfa, if anyone is interested. You can also stop and see the old Welsh slate cottages that are being restored just down the road from the church. Visit their website http://home.comcast.net/~rbaskwil/chapel.html for more info and photos if the charming church! Delta is just across the border from Cardiff, MD, and about an hour north of Baltimore.******************************************************************This is the weekend of the Gymanfa Ganu in Delta, PA, on Sunday, October 9! The Gymanfa begins at 2:30 p.m. at Rehoboth Welsh Church, 1029 Atom Road in Delta. Margaret Daniel is coming from Aberporth, North Wales, to be our director. Ms. Daniel is well known in Wales for her work with various choirs, including Cor Bro Nest, which has won many major awards. She was made a member of the Welsh Gorsedd at this summer's National Eisteddfod in Wrexham, Wales. Guest soloist for the Gymanfa is harpist Meghan Gwyer from Washington, DC. Rehoboth Welsh Choir under the direction of David Tramontana will also offer musical selections.As an added entertainment a Noson Lawen (Merry Evening) will be held at Ferranti's Italian Ristorante on Main Street in Delta on Saturday evening, October 8 from 5:30 p.m. to 9-ish. A buffet meal will be accompanied by music and "open mike" opportunities for anyone who has a song or story to share. The cost is $15 per person, exclusive of beverages. If you plan to attend, please call Karen Conley at 717-786-9375.See you at Rehoboth on Sunday! Come ready to sing!Hwyl fawr (With enthusiasm!)Dic Baskwill

Gyl SWIGEN Festival is pleased to announce the line up of bands & artists very generously donating their time & support to perform at our all day charity music event in aid of Shelter Cymru & Oxjam Cardiff taking place on Saturday 22nd October 2011.

Hosted in the beautiful Grade II listed Ebenezer Chapel , Gyl SWIGEN Festival (Bubble Festival, in Welsh) will showcase 20+ Welsh or Wales-based artists/bands (as well as a few from farther afield) performing on 2 stages throughout the day & night. The acoustic stage will feature solo & acoustic artists, as well as open mic slots (with a small donation) for any local musicians who'd like to perform on the day.

Expect, then, a delightfully eclectic array of laptop pop, folktronica, chillwave, burnt-out indie pop, contemporary folk, show tunes, Broadway-style indie-folk, psychedelic folk rock, avant garde noiseniks & melodic doom rock. Not to mention the arts & craft stalls, cake stalls, book stalls + hot/cold food & beverages served all day.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PDF FOR FULL LINE UP & MORE DETAILS

Gyl SWIGEN Festival, Saturday October 22nd 2011, Ebenezer Chapel, Charles Street, Cardiff.
Doors = Midday 11pm. Main Stage 1pm 11pm (last band). Acoustic Stage = 2pm 9pm (last band). Admission = 6 (waged), 5 (unwaged / advance / discount).

I recently recalled the C13th century Mabinigion story of the 'Lady of the Lake', centred in the Brecon Beacons.

This remote Carmarthenshire spot hasnow been listed by 'Lonely Planet' as one of the top one thousand places in the world to visit and the lake is listed as one of the top ten most unusual lakes. (I don't think it was anything to do with my blog).

It was here thata young farmer saw a beautiful womanemergingfrom a lake and, not unnaturally, fell in love with her instantly.

This was no ordinary goddess, though.She agreed to marry him but warned that if he struck her three times, however lightly, she would return to the lake.

The lady had three sons in quick succession and each time, for various reasons, her husband gave her a light tap.The third tap saw her returning to the lake with her cattle.

Her sons were devastated, but she appeared to the eldest and taught him herbal lore, which he passed on to his brothers. Eventually, thesons became famous for their healing powers and known as 'The Physicians of Myddfai'.

Another way to read the story is to see the lady as a study in neurosis. Her behaviour is dramaric and hysterical. Obviously, sheseeks attention.

If you would like to read what I have said about this aspect of the legend, you will find it on my blog:

Gillian Morgan Books

If you were at the WCE and you missed it or you just want photos of the work that was there, including Jen Delyth's amazing and gorgeous egg tempera piece, Lorin Morgan-Richards' book is now out on Amazon -

A Welsh Alphabet Over 30 artistic interpretations of Welsh mythology and legend set to the poetic work of author Lorin Morgan-Richards. Includes a special preface and notes throughout the book by Welsh storyteller Peter Anthony Freeman and artist contributions by Jen Delyth, Monica Richards, Casey Ruic, Frankie Babylon, John Charles, Gina Turcios (rabbit), Phresha Le Vandale, David Richardson, Adrien Burke, Spinestealer, Nicole Josephian, Kelly McCartin, Gaabriel Becket, Nicolas Caesar, Rick Dienzo Blanco, Meiling Chen, Nichola Hope, Chris Mann, Andrea Gutierrez, Calan Ree, Kimberly Wlassak, Sarah Hope, Jo Mazelis, Rochelle Shelly Rosenkild, Michele Witchipoo, Lorin Morgan-Richards, Xavier Lopez Jr., Rhys Jones, Liam O'Connor, Jeremy Cross, and Jason Shepherd.

Get it now!

We are pleased to announce today that the winner of the West Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition for this year ( 2011 ) is Nancy E. Wright. You can read the poem here:- Remembering Fengdu . Our judge Peter Thabit Jones ' adjudication can be found below, Llongyfarchiadau/Congratulations to Nancy E. Wright and many thanks to all our contestants for your excellent submissions. Details of the 2012 online poetry competition can be found further down the page .

Adjudication by Peter Thabit Jones

WINNER: Remembering Fengdu by Nancy E. Wright

RUNNER-UP: An Anatomy by Maude Larke

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

Mumbles by Dianne E. Selden

Hidden by Cynthia Baculi-Condez

Mayflies In A Jar by Meilani Rita

Blood Lust by Gillian Morgan

Eric by Peter Lewis

Adjudicator: Peter Thabit Jones

2012 West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition

The K Factor is making all the difference for a Llanelli business which is bucking the recession by expanding into a new showroom.

Komplete Interiors is run by Kathy Bowen - and the K puts the kick into a business which has expanded to employ three members of staff.

The latest expansion sees Komplete Interiors moving into a new showroom at Unit D on the Bynea Industrial Estate, Llanelli.

This is a business where we can honestly say we will be raising the curtain on a new era, Kathy smiled.

With the recession and all the doom and gloom about, its nice to have some positive news for Llanelli a business expanding to meet the challenges of the future.

The Komplete Interiors business started in April 2006, with Kathy working on her own, offering painting, decorating and soft furnishings.

The decorating really took off and it has taken a few years to establish the company where soft furnishings are concerned. As the designing and soft furnishings part of the business has grown, I've had to take on staff, said Kathy.

I've now come to the point where I feel it's necessary to have a showroom so that customers can see the range and quality of my work. I've opened accounts with various fabric companies, enabling me to offer a unique range of fabrics found nowhere else in Llanelli. I will also be stocking wallpapers unique to this area.

The showroom will also have samples of flooring (carpets, laminate, vinyl, real wood flooring), lighting and artwork. The artwork is unique and cannot be bought in other shops in the area.

As well as maintaining our very high standards and cost-effective solutions for domestic and commercial decorating, Komplete Interiors now offers the Komplete package, from simple decoration through to a total makeover.

Whether you need curtains, cushions, upholstery, wallpaper or flooring, Komplete Interiors offers quality, design and style. I am able to offer everything from consultation to measuring and fitting, all backed up by many years experience and expertise. Komplete Interiors is a one-stop shop for all your decorating and soft furnishing needs.

Kathy will be stocking goods from celebrated names such as Clarke and Clarke and Hallis Hudson.

Her recent design and furnish projects include work at The Diplomat Hotel and the Taylors Steak House at The Hope and Anchor in Burry Port.

The showroom will be opening on Friday, October 14. Opening hours will be 11am-4pm, Monday to Friday and 9am-12noon on Saturdays.

Kathy Bowen at the new Komplete Interiors showroom at Unit D, Bynea Industrial Estate, Bynea, Llanelli, SA14 9SA.

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http://www.kompleteinteriors.co.uk

We are pleased to announce today that the winner of the West Coast Eisteddfod Short Story Competition for this year ( 2011 ) is Gaynor Madoc Leonard. You can read the story here:- The Last Cottage . Our judge Lloyd Jones ' adjudication can be found below, Llongyfarchiadau/Congratulations to Gaynor Madoc Leonard and many thanks to all our contestants for your excellent submissions. Details of the 2012 online short story competition can be found further down the page .

Adjudication by Lloyd Jones

2012 West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition

In Welsh, a tooth is a 'dant' and the meaning of the word 'dandelion' translates to'the lion's tooth', thus providing us withpoetic licence and cross cultural polination.

Bared teeth can be menacing, butthe word 'toothsome' suggests something else, something tasty, to get yourteeth into.

Problems arise when you have no teeth. During the eighteenth century, the better off started consuming more sugar, to the detriment of their teeth.

At one time,it was the fashion to have one's teeth out as a twenty first birthday present. The effects of this were not only cosmetic: minusteeth gums shrink, cheeks cave in but,essentially,you cannot enjoy your food.

I had a tooth extracted this week, a molar that had sprung an abscess over the weekend, so my thoughts turned to dentistry.

I retain a long-ago imageof some elder of the parish enjoying a pippin, part of which was shredded by his moustache and fell likesnow onto his lap. (Fascinating to watch when you are a child). The remarkable thing about this act,unremarkable otherwise, was he had enoughteethto bite into an apple at eighty. What joy!

Contrast this now, if you will, with a fortyish womanwho slices an apple (with a fruit knife!) before eating it.I'll tell you something and I'm not budging, there is nothing that makes you look moredecrepit than slicing fruit before eating it. Why? It looks as though you have no teeth or that you cannot find a good dentist.

It is said that George Washington suffered from wearing a pair of wooden dentures. He may have suffered, but his dentures were probably made of ivory or mother of pearl but not wood. They were held in place by silken threads and he was unable to use histeeth to eat.

Advances in orthodontics were slow until this century, thoughthe developmentof false teeth wasglobal. Even four thousand five hundred years ago, people were making dentures in Mexico. A team of archaeologists therebelieve they have discovered theremains of a body fitted with false teeth.

In 700 BC, the Etruscans in northern Italy, fashioned teeth from ivory and bone, held together by gold bridgework. Unfortunately, the skill disappeared.

The Japanese, in 1538, made stridesin fashioning false teeth but it was not until 1774 that porcelain teeth became more common.

So desperate was the need for dentures that fallen soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars had their teeth removed to be recycled.Teeth taken fromslain soldiers in the battlefields of the American Civil War were shipped to Europe and sold.('Why should death rob life of fourpence?' as Falstaff said).

The good news is, I'm out of pain and eating again andI've plenty ofteeth left to enjoy my food.

We were very proud and pleased this year ,to be able to offer as part of our fund raising prize draw, a collection of original artwork by Swansea artist and illustrator Jeff Phillips . The draw was held in Oberon's Welsh Pirate Bar at the West Coast Eisteddfod on Sunday afternoon and Peter Freeman picked the lucky winner.

And the winner is.?.....AmeriCymru member Wild Canary . You can congratulate her on her AmeriCymru page here .

A thousand diolch's to Jeff for donating these superb illustrations to the cause and llongyfarchiadau to Wild Canary.