Two Mid-Wales Writers Chat About Myth, Poetry And The Donald

In a thoroughly enjoyable year of interviews, which have given us three different takes on King Arthur by Celtic expert and author John Matthews, fellow storyteller Andy Harrop Smith and acclaimed poet, translator and children's writer Kevin Crossley Holland, I have also enjoyed my interview swap with my friend and fellow writer Sharon Tregenza and a fascinating chat with Marty Stewart, whose first two books are Riverkeep and The Sacrifice Box. But we end the year with a real treat, a wide-ranging chat with four time Tir Na nOg winning writer and fellow resident of glorious Mid Wales, Frances Thomas.

Now Frances is someone who my old editor Viv suggested that I should get in touch with several years ago and now I'm delighted to have finally done so. Recently it led us to a book swap where I got by far the better end of the deal in that I was able to enjoy over a weekend her first trilogy about the Welsh bard and mythic figure, Taliesin, one of my own great heroes. Among the many things i enjoyed was the way she brought together the two very contrasting versions of Taliesin and it was that which really prompted this chat.

So, Frances, first many thanks for agreeing to this chat and for responding so enthusiastically to my questions.

Thanks for asking me, Steve. I've really enjoyed doing it.

1. I’ve always been fascinated by the origins of someone’s art. It’s that first workbook and the glimmers of the ideas within that intrigue me. Recently I’ve read your Taliesin trilogy from the 90’s, which you very kindly provided in a rather uneven swap. After telling you how much I enjoyed it and ripped through the whole thing over a weekend, you told me it was all so long ago that you could hardly remember it. But do you remember its genesis and what intrigued you so much about the figure of Taliesin?

How it all started; well, I really can't remember. Except that I've always been fascinated by Welsh mythology, and when I first decided that I was going to try and finish a book (rather than making the endless false starts I'd done until them) I'd look for a Welsh theme. And Taliesin seemed an interesting subject - not so over-written as Arthur- there was a good deal of scope for me to make up my own story, combined with the scraps of legends; a known yet unknown figure if you like.

2. Now I’ve been fascinated by the figure of Taliesin for twenty years or so, but for me it’s always been more the Taliesin that wrote the mythological poems - multi-layered and full of meaning - and was said to be King Arthur’s bard – the one if you like who was present in The Spoils of Annwn or in the company of the Singing Head. You, on the other hand, in the second and third books in your trilogy in particular, chose to concentrate far more on the less mythic figure, the Taliesin who was court bard to Owain of Rheged and indeed Owain features significantly in your series. Why did you choose that version?

Although I love myth and magic, I find that when I'm writing, I want to write about people and their relationships and their connections with the world about them. And I want to find reality in the magical/mythical  elements.

3. Taking a massive leap forward to the past few years, you’ve been concentrating your attentions on Greek Myth with your Troy books. What do you think are the main differences in the mythology of your native land and that of classical mythology?

Our versions of Greek mythology have been much cleaned up and sanitised by countless retellings. And when you first read the Mabinogion, the stories can feel strange and rambling; you look hard into them to find the connections and structures you expect from modern tale-telling. (Probably the stories as we now know them have been worked on by their Christian scribes, so we don't find out too much about the pre-Christian deities who were there originally, which also  adds to the strangeness). You need to find your own way of reading them, and then they are suddenly full of  real people -loves, betrayals, friendships, cruelties, quests and disappointments, revenges  and triumphs. 

4. What is it, do you think, that myth has to offer not just the growing child, but the questing adult, and how well equipped are we as a society to provide that kind of nurturing?

Myths have an especial richness, in that they've been worked on over centuries by people trying to find answers to the basic questions of life - why are we here, what are we  supposed to be doing, how is it that things go wrong, how  can we do the right things, how do we relate to other people, why are some feelings - love, hate, revenge, excitement - so strong and so universal?  When we read them, we tread in all of those thousands and thousands of footsteps that have gone down that road before us. So for both adults and children there is a feeling both of strangeness and familiarity; we benefit from being exposed to them in so many ways. (This in spite of the publisher who rejected my 'Helen's Daughter' with 'These sorts of things don't sell' - well, I think they do, if children have the chance  to see them)

5. Would you say there have been distinct periods of writing in your career. Has happiness necessarily coincided with success?

I don't think I've ever been very successful - there have been periods when things seem to be going quite well, but then they're followed by disasters. Publishers are never very easy to work with, and most writers can't rely on the expectation of success. I found that out the hard way at the very start of my career when the second and third books in my Taliesin trilogy were turned down by the publisher of the first one.

But happiness comes from writing - when I'm writing, I'm perfectly absorbed in my writing world and perfectly happy. That's what a writer should look for and enjoy rather than 'success' which is transient and unreliable.

6. How important is the home and the landscape you live in, do you think, to the life of a writer? I’m thinking particularly of that fascinating and almost indefinable Welsh word hiraeth, that I’ve mentioned in a previous blog. Is that longing a part of what you write or what makes you write?

I love living in mid-Wales, which as you know, is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I love being able to look out of my window every morning and see the light and the colours, different and gorgeous every day. I'm less mobile than I was, for various reasons, so the joys of sight are especially blessed. But I'm also - and this might sound paradoxical - a Londoner at heart, since I lived there for more years than I have lived in Wales- and I feel 'hiraeth' for London when I'm in Wales.

But looking back over my stories, I don't think I write about either; I try to bring to life the landscapes of the places I write about, even if I don't know them well. I  remember when I was a child I always believed that Rosemary Sutcliff must have been a great traveller, as she wrote about places so vividly; and I found out later that she was so disabled, she must have travelled very little and with great difficulty. It's imagination that does the trick.

7. And apart from skills, in this day and age its tolerance and understanding that seem increasingly to be going. On one of your blogs, you wonder what Donald Trump’s favourite poem might be, and the actual answer turns out to be fascinating. Can you tell us about that.

I don't suppose the Donald has ever really read a poem in his life, but he quotes as his 'favourite poem' the words of a song called 'Snake' originally sung by black soul singer Al Wilson in 1968. It's about a woman who out of compassion takes home and nurtures a wounded snake, which, when healed, turns round and bites her. Before she dies, the snake sneers 'You knew I was a snake when you found me.' For snake, of course, read Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants generally.  In spite of objections by Wilson's family, Trump continues to quote it.

8. Now poetry is important to you – not just your own, but clearly other people’s. This has led to you publishing two rather extraordinary books of poetry. Can you tell us the thinking behind that?

I love reading poetry and I try to write it, though I don't think I'm very good. My two 'poetry' books, A  Bracelet of Bright Hair, and Dancing In The Chequered Shade, are basically journals in which I about the events of my day, and try to match a poem to it. Some of the poems are by me, but mostly they're by real poets. Readers have told me that they've found the books helpful and inspiring. Certainly they were very enjoyable to write.

9.Two years or so ago I did a wonderful six week course on Mental Health in Literature with Future Learn and co-tutored by Doctor Jonathan Bate and Professor Paula Byrne, (now Lord and Lady Bate). Among the many wonderful things covered was the therapeutic nature of poetry and I was able to give first hand experience of how wonderfully it worked for Rosie, who was quite ill at the time, on one of my blogs. I also learned how very different an experience it was to read a poem out loud when Jonathan gave us the task of doing this with On Westminster Bridge – admittedly after we’d heard Sir Ian McKellen have a stab at it! Do you think there’s any particular way of approaching poetry that’s more effective for you?

10, I think good poetry can make you a better person if you give it your full attention. I don't think it would work on Trump though. Remember Auden's marvellous poem on the death of a tyrant; 'the poetry he wrote was easy to understand...'  I don't think there's a better or worse way of approaching poetry; just give it your full attention and then watch out for those poems that suddenly grab you by the throat. I remember how Donne's love poems did this for me when I first read them as a teenager.

11. Let’s move back to the present and your Girls of Troy series. How did that fascination with classical mythology finally bear fruit and what made you tackle it in this way?

I realized that there were also figures half-hidden on the margins of the well-known Greek legends just asking to be let out, and these figures were mostly women and girls; and I suddenly found them clamoring to tell me their stories. When I found that Helen of Troy had a daughter, Hermione, I knew I had to find out her story. Then I discovered that Achilles had a son, Pyrrhus, and that Hermione and Pyrrhus had a relationship. How could I resist such a beginning? This became 'Helen's Daughter' the first volume in the trilogy. Then I knew I had to write about the actual battle for Troy, so I give this story to a slave girl who witnesses it all, in The Burning Towers.. Finally, the story has to be finished off by writing about the murder of Agamemnon and the subsequent revenge taken by his children Electra and Orestes. For a long while I tried to find ways of telling this using a voice other than Electra's; but finally I realized that she had to tell her story herself. This became the final volume, The Silver Handled Knife.

12. Rosie and I are currently listening to Anton Lesser narrating The Iliad on Audible. It’s a long and confusing narrative with so many lists of names that it makes the Welsh story of Culwch and Olwen seem positively half-hearted in comparison. How do you de-bug something like that and make is more accessible – the same I suppose with the ancient Welsh books and the poems of Taliesin. Or do we just have to accept them as they are as much as we do Shakespeare’s plays and not soften or reduce them?

Anton Lesser must be great to listen to - what a voice. We have Derek Jacobi doing the same thing, and it's great to listen to in the car. I think that in their raw form, the stories can be a bit indigestible especially for children. But they can be retold in such a way that you concentrate on the universal and exciting elements of the tales, and children can 'get' them. When I was young, my father bought me a copy of  the Odyssey in Barbara Leonie Picard's adaptation  and read it to me at night. I loved it, and Odysseus has always been one of my heroes. (yes, there are gruesome bits in the story, but somehow I absorbed those).

13. This seems a nice point to ask you about the pictures, Frances. I asked you to select several which had some kind of meaning for you. Could you tell us about them and what led to your choices?

Apart from a little bit of self-advertising for my Greek books, there the Lion Gate in Mycenae, which we first visited a few years ago, after longing for years to go there. Seeing it inspired me to write about Mycenae, and Agamemnon and his family. There's also a little Greek Athene owl, which I bought in Greece, and sat on my windowsill while I was writing the trilogy,, and I hope , gave me inspiration from the goddess!  Lastly two pictures taken from our house, just showing how beautiful Wales is, and how lovely it is to be able to wake up every morning and see such beauty for free - it's different every day and I never take it for granted. I don't have any pictures for the first trilogy, but certainly the beauty of the countryside inspired me to write about it.

14. The second picture looks very like a place I walk in regularly. That's Mid-Wales for you. But finally, Frances, are there still remaining characters, themes and ideas you want to work with and why?

I have a story that I wrote some years ago, set in the seventeenth century and the era of tulip fever. My agent wouldn't send it out, so it's still sitting there. It's probably a bit 'quiet' for today's market, but I'd like to work on it a  bit, and bring it out myself. I don't have many indulgences any more, so self-publishing  is one I can allow myself, I think.

Well I hope your tulips get to flourish at some time in the future, Frances,Thank you so much for chatting to me and everyone who reads this blog.

Steve, it's been a pleasure.

And I, everyone, will see you next in January so I'll look forward to that.




Steve Gladwin

Author of 'The Seven' and 'The Raven's Call.'

Writer and Screenwriter

imagepoet7@gmail.com

Hiraeth by Steve Gladwin

This month, to celebrate my two year anniversary as an abba blogger, (I know. Doesn’t it?) I’ve decided to do something different. For once I’m not going to waffle on but invite you, the reader, to use what follows as a reflection space. I hope that in doing so you will be able to find just a little bit of quiet in your every day and it might then encourage you to do more of the same and grab a few more opportunities than you usually do.

Before I do that however,  I need to talk about the Welsh concept of Hiraeth.

Hiraeth is one of those indefinable words – impossible to actually pin down and yet we know its essence when the word is both spoken and described to us. It is variously - longing, yearning, seeking or wishing to recapture someone or something which has gone. There are correlations with similar words and definitions in other languages, but being more of an instinctive person than a wikipedia one, I prefer to leave it to the individual. 

My own first experience of Hiraeth was rather an odd one. A few months before I moved from Somerset to Wales, I attended a friend’s book launch in Glastonbury. I bought a copy of his book and made like a fan so he could sign it. What he wrote in it was this.

‘Lift high the cup of Hiraeth.’

He doesn’t remember writing it, or where the inspiration to do so came from, but long before I knew the word, those few words of John's had managed to convey and even predict the future I would have when I moved here to Meifod and the beautiful Vyrnwy Valley – an ever changing web of inspiration and sadness, beauty and loss.

I love Wales and especially the place I live, but it is often hard. Sometimes that’s just how it is – the places we love are those that most challenge us. I remember standing by the bridge when I first arrived and wondering where the sadness I was feeling was coming from. When I found out about the concept of Hiraeth, it all began to make sense.

The myths and stories of Wales are full of sadness of course. In one of the most famous, the story of Branwen, Daughter of Lir, the second ‘branch’ of the collection called the Mabinogi, there is a famous sequence involving a singing head. Essentially, Bran’s disembodied head keeps the only seven survivors of a great battle both entertained and enchanted for over eighty years, until one of them Heiliyn Gwyn, opens the door to the West. In doing so he lets in not just the natural elements but the power and sadness of all the terrible memories that the enchantment has so far held at bay.

Perhaps there is nothing quite so sad as a good spell that has been prematurely broken, especially if the reasons for casting it in the first place have been kindly and therapeutic. We cannot unmake the past and our sadness no matter how much we might wish to. Only the arts are able to do this and perhaps in doing so, gift us with a therapeutic base on which to build our future. Literature is full of sadness and occasionally there are places where the sad and those not quite healed of their griefs and the horrors and traumas they have witnessed, can go. I wonder whether Tolkien was aware of the concept of Hiraeth because in The Grey Havens he surely provided a place where the ring bearers, as well as the retiring elves, might be able to escape from it.

And so much of music too, in all its forms and varieties, is about sadness, about relationships failing and unrequited love. At the beginning of the film of Nick Hornby’s, High Fidelity, Rob, the main character played by John Cusack, reflects on whether parents ever really understand just how dangerous it might be to allow their children to listen to all that stuff about love and death. The answer, I suppose, is that of course they do, as they probably did the same thing themselves.

Maybe there is something to be said for such a form of therapeutic sadness, exposing us all to the ideas from an early age through the eyes and minds of others, so that by the time we come to realise it for ourselves, we will be that much readier. And of course that's what you find in so many fairy and traditional tales, and why it is all the more vital that children continue to read and engage with them.

This time last year I posted about my partner and her on-going struggles and about how this connected with the futurelearn course I was doing on mental health in literature. I was very moved by the many responses, but even gladder to share people’s recommendations for poetry which reflected the many aspects of this, and how they felt. It was the power of poetry which on that one occasion most helped Rosie and which, I have read - time and time again – has done the same for others.

So here are a few pictures of the place where I live in Wales, and where the gift of Hiraeth is sometimes overwhelming.  Perhaps you can think of some lines of poetry which any of these images remind you of, or you might simply take the space to reflect on the idea of Hiraeth and maybe with it the places, people or memories which particularly tug at you.

Of course it might also encourage you to dig through your own photo collection and find the ones which most evoke such feelings and maybe some poetry which goes with it.  Thanks everyone for the last two years and I'm looking forward to more.

​

Steve Gladwin - 'Grove of Seven' and 'The Year in Mind'

Writer, Performer and Teacher

Author of 'The Seven' and 'The Raven's Call'

www.stevegladwin.co.uk

Intent To Tell by Steve Gladwin

Many years ago, when I first came to Wales, I got into conversation with a storyteller friend about repertoire. What would and wouldn’t we tell? My friend surprised me by saying that she preferred to stick to the tales - of her ‘homeland’, ie of northern Europe. When it came to stories outside that area and those of those of ‘native peoples’ in particular, she didn’t feel  comfortable telling the ‘sacred tales of other people’. I couldn’t agree with her but then I couldn’t exactly disagree either. In the intervening years I’ve often wondered whether she changed her mind about this. Recently I’ve had reason to consider this issue again and whether there is a particular ‘way’ which we should tell stories.

In November I picked up from my bookshelf one of the many books of traditional tales which have been stacked there for the entire time I have lived here in Wales. (And before!) The book in question was one which I had never got on with. Faded, but still magnificent, I found myself thumbing once again through 'American Indian Myths and Legends' by Erdoes and Ortiz. I’ve owned it for as long as I can remember and just before I left Somerset, I added to my collection their 'American Indian Trickster Tales'. This slimmer volume contains such stories as 'Monster Skunk Farting Everything To Death', (I”m not making this up!). However, although I confess to having read that one once or twice, I had never read either of the actual books.

The books which stayed on the shelf!

But there I was sitting down with it in November - and dear reader - I found myself completely entranced and captivated. If there is such a thing as finding the right time for the right book, surely I had done so. There were I admit, some tales I found complicated, but there were far more which were powerful, vital and often visceral. Almost uniquely in my reading of such volumes I found myself feeling that not only the stories of the people, but also their lives and history were really being captured. More often than not the tales had been recorded from actual sources rather than simply retold. I remember years ago having a similar reaction while reading Neil Philip’s collection of English Folk Tales, a great many of which are also in dialect. But would I tell any of Erdoes and Ortiz’s tales as a storyteller? Why ever not? 

Long before I came to live in Wales I spent a week here on a writers retreat in Lampeter with my then partner and two poets. The retreat turned out to be as much about drinking as writing but that need not concern us here! Besides drinking, I spent most of that week reading my way through Joseph Jacobs Celtic Tales. I was introduced, along with their delicate line drawings, to many tales which would become favourites later.The one which completely hooked me however was called Powell, Prince of Dyfed. Notwithstanding the change of spelling, it comes from the first branch of the collection of Welsh tales called The Mabinogion.

The first appearance of Rhiannon from Joseph Jacobs Powell, Prince Of Dyfed with illustration by John D. Batten.

In October 2014 my first book The Seven was published, concluding a process which had first begun with that early reading of the first ‘branch’, as the four tales are collected. The Seven’s antecedents are firmly in the second ‘branch’, Branwen, Daughter of Lir, as well as other Welsh tales. In The Seven I take a number of liberties with this story. As a writer with an obsession which has lasted for years I never much questioned my right to do so.

My point however is that as a storyteller I would have felt almost bound to question doing that and would therefore have been a great deal more cautious. After all, when you are giving a live performance in Wales, it’s best not to invite the unwelcome attentions of any Mabinafia. I’m sure this applies equally to any country where the audience feel they have a right to hear those tales unblemished or ‘mucked about with’.

I have always felt that what you do as a storyteller depends on your intent in the first place. If you set out to improve without altering the balance, add to without compromising the message, then surely this is permissible. 

Do we always do this as writers? I must confess that I’m not sure. Whereas I would have balked at messing about with the story of Branwen in front of a people for whom it was an essential part of their culture, I’m sure I didn’t question it half as much as a writer adapting a tale to attract an often Welsh readership. My concerns as a writer were all about how I might make the idea work. My editor here in Wales, shared the same concerns.. At no stage did she say to me, ‘You can’t do that with the story of Branwen.’

Several years ago Seren Books in Wales commissioned a number of Welsh writers and poets to write new versions of the Mabinogi stories. I have read only a couple of them including White Ravens by Owen Shears. I felt that while retaining some essence of the original, I also enjoyed his treatment because it went its own way. That is surely how it should be. Another storyteller friend disagreed. She felt that he’d lost the essence of Branwen altogether.

One of the series of Mabinogion retellings by Seren Books.

Whatever the truth, it’s the intent that matters. I feel as I have always done both as a writer and a storyteller. If we set out to do justice to the tales we are telling when we ‘adapt’ them, surely the story gods will be with us. More often than not, we are also old and wise enough to judge when we are doing right or wrong by them and the story.

I also disagree that there is only one set way to tell a story. Or the idea that they can only be told with a certain rhyme, rhythm and cadence. The Kalevala chanted to suitable musical accompaniment might make for a thrilling experience, but few of us are linguistically equipped well enough to understand it. Once a story leaves the oral tradition, or its natural land, something of its power may is lost. Should that however prevent us from trying to recapture it with the abilities we have. More often than not nowadays, that recapturing is done by writers as much as storytellers.

Should there then be different responsibilities for an 'oral' storyteller, to those of us who are 'retelling' a story it as a writer? How concerned should we be with having the right intent?
Lastly is there any right or wrong way to tell a story? I'd love to hear your thoughts.


Native American Myths and Legends and Native American Trickster Tales, (which includes Monster Skunk Farting Everything To Death) are published by Pantheon Books.

Getting hold of a complete volume of Joseph Jacobs Celtic Fairy Tales doesn't appear to be easy but Pook Press do a nice selection with an arresting cover and the John Batten illustrations.

Seren Books have commissioned all of the retellings of The Mabinogion, with often very interesting results.

Storyteller Fiona Collins wonderful retelling Pryderi, for The History Press in her Ancient tales Retold series, tells the story of the one character whose life spans the entire four branches.
http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/ancient-legends-retold-the-legend-of-pryderi-24046.html

My own offshoot The Seven - a retelling of Branwen amongst other things is available from Pont Books.