The Earth Goddess

 

With acknowledgement to Hugh on the Preseli 360 Facebook page, here is a rather fine drone image of the Earth Goddess profile which so many people see from lower down, at ground level......

WHS bestsellers -- things are not quite what they seem.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-62736615

This is why you should never believe what you read in the WHS in-store hype -- and in the media -- about "bestsellers".   It's all a con. The label has nothing at all to do with recorded sales. Waterstones is more honest. But Amazon is just as bad, and even more exploitive than WHS, and it has an additional trick up its sleeve. It has so many book categories that if you publish a book on the car parks of Surrey, it will probably reach the number one best-selling position in the category entitled "Car Parks of Surrey." Bingo! If you are an author, you have a best-seller on your hands, even if you just sell 50 copies......... the world of publishing has gone mad. The ones who lose out are the small publishers like myself, who do not have the available funds to pay WHS or the other chains for prominent sales positions in their stores.

The Demetian Dialect and Martha's private diary

This is a very interesting and quite detailed article in the Journal of the Pembrokeshire Historical Society.  It's written by Gwenllian Awbery, who has worked a lot in the past on the strength and distribution of the Welsh language in Wales.  I'm not entirely sure when this was published.........

 https://www.pembrokeshirehistoricalsociety.co.uk/glossary-demetian-dialect-william-meredith-morris-cwm-gwaun-part-i/

Note that sometimes we see the spelling "Dimetian" and sometimes "Demetian" -- but you will see from the article that the dialect was quite widely used, and it is not at all beyond the bounds of the possible that a lady such as Martha might have used it as her "private language"..........

Rebecca Riots, Ceffyl Pren and the age of innocence

 

I have just been reading about the Carmarthen celebration (on May 1st) of the Rebecca Riots, in a somewhat strange artistic event in which three men dressed up as "female" rioters -- without a blackened face in sight.

This was in contrast to the 2014 celebrations in Efailwen:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-27375757

Eight years ago, the BBC website covered the event, and published photos of men dressed in female garb, and with blackened faces and white linen bonnets.  That was fine, and was a pretty good representation of what went on in the Rebecca Riots and the Ceffyl Pren tradition that pre-dated the riots and continued for some time afterwards. It needs to be emphasised that the blackened faces had absolutely nothing to do with racism or racial stereotyping, and everything to do with hiding identities.  All of the rioters must have been familiar with the idea that (like chimney sweeps) black-faced men emerging from the west Wales coal mines at the end of their shifts were none too easy to recognize -- and so the tradition of blackening faces went along with the costumes and the straw hair, the bonnets and the aprons to ensure that bystanders could not put names to faces.  And it worked -- very few rioters were ever brought to justice.  

I can fully understand why the word "nigger" has effectively been banned from the English language, and why people on radio and TV nowadays refer obliquely to "the n-word" instead.  There is great sensitivity out there, and political correctness is everything -- while at the same time there is greater and greater tolerance of verbal obscenities, with swearing now so commonplace that it has become more than a little sickening........

Strange old world.

Up on the Mountain

 

Credit: Bancyreithin holiday cottage & vintage caravan

Nineteenth century industrialisation in Pembrokeshire

A lot was going on in Pembrokeshire in the first part of the Nineteenth Century, when Martha Morgan was in her prime.  Plas Ingli and the estate, and Martha's life, were not much affected by the process of industrialisation, but now and then its effects appear in the stories.

Wilmot Gwynne, when he appears on the scene, has made his fortune in the copper industry of the Swansea area, and of course the theme of "Guardian Angel" is all to do with the voracious appetite of the iron industry monster -- which comes too close to home for comfort.......

Anyway, fascinating short summaries and great photographic illustrations are contained on this web site.  Well worth a browse........

 http://industrialgwent.co.uk/w-b12-pembroke/index.htm#porthgain

We are climbing Angel Mountain

I came across this rather splendid album from singer Rhys Williams, featuring Angel Mountain in the title and main track.  A great voice -- and his diction is excellent.  I hope the record becomes a great success for him........

 https://justlistentothis.co.uk/reviews/rhys-williams-climbing-angel-mountain/

You can also find the tracks on Spotify, by putting "We are climbing Angel Mountain" into the search box.

The recordings were made in 2016 and 2017.

Here is Rhys's web site:

http://www.rhyswilliamsmusic.com