Dedicated to celebrating and learning about all things Welsh

The Welsh Society of Western New England (WSWNE)

At present, Sherry Williams and Beth Roberts Brown are the only two active language group members, but they hope additional WSWNE members will join them soon.

Sometimes meeting at Beth's home in Westfield, MA and sometimes meeting online, using Skype to talk to each other in real time, they find they can work together on the same learning materials.

Their sources have included BBC Wales online language learning sites like Big Welsh Challenge, Catchphrase and interactive children's game sites (Snapdragon, Bowns, and Astro Antics). Other online resources include Say Something in Welsh (SSiW) and Acen.

More traditional materials include recorded lessons accompanied by printed text (like Now You're Talking), Welsh-English dictionaries, plus assorted grammar and phrase books.

Anyone interested in joining, contact Beth Roberts Brown edbethui@comcast.net (please include the word Welsh in the subject line) or phone her at 413-562-3990

Until recently this had been primarily an "e-mail discussion group" sharing information and announcements.

Now Susan Davies Sit reports that four members of WSWNE (Beth Roberts Brown, Susan Jenkins Meers, Susan Davies Sit, and Sherry Williams) met at Susan’s home in October 2011 to research their Welsh Family History (genealogy).

With lap tops and wi-fi in action they researched using web sites such as ancestry.com & findmypast.com. They found new information to further their research as well as enjoying a lovely pot-luck lunch. More meetings are planned.

Anyone interested in joining, contact Beth Roberts Brown edbethui@comcast.net (please include the word Welsh in the subject line) or phone her at 413-562-3990

Ninnau
 THE North American Welsh newspaper (written in English)
lowers its annual subscription to only $20.00

- WSWNE members Berwyn Jones & Martha Davies on the cover of the supplement to Cambrian News (Aberystwyth)

- WSWNE member Margaret Lloyd's book-length cycle of poems titled A Moment in the Field: Voices from Arthurian Legend

- Wales Display by Beth Roberts Brown in Southwick Library

At our March 3, 2007 St. David's Day Gathering, Caroline Cannings introduced those present to the book, "Every Day was Summer", written by her father, Oliver Wynne Hughes.

Oliver Wynne Hughes was born in Pwllheli and lived his boyhood years in Cricieth, Caernarfon and Ffestiniog. Educated in Liverpool and at London University, he also took an MSc in Strategic Studies at Aberystwyth. He has been a schoolmaster, was Bursar at Coleg Harlech and for 24 years was a regular army officer, serving in Hong Kong, Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus and West Germany as well as in the United Kingdom. He retired in 1983 and is now an Executive Recruiter. He has three adult children and lives with his wife Kim in North Wales.

"Every Day was Summer" is by and large the tale of three young sisters who grew up in the small Welsh town of Harlech in the years before the First World War. Their stories, some sad, some amusing, but all of them endearing, light up the pages of this book. The interweaving of their lives with those of their young friends and their relationships with English visitors, many of them members of the aristocracy, others from the world of entertainment, sport, literature and the arts who visited Harlech each summer, make a tapestry that is a social history of a small Welsh community during the early years of the 20th century.

"Every Day was Summer" is available from Amazon.com

WSWNE member John Bollard has published a new translation of the Mabinogi, "The Mabinogi: Legend and Landscape of Wales"


WSWNE member John Bollard has published a new translation of the Mabinogi, "The Mabinogi: Legend and Landscape of Wales". The Mabinogi is the jewel in the crown of Welsh literature and it is perhaps the one Welsh work, above all others, that anyone Welsh or interested in Wales should be familiar with.  To quote from the dust jacket, "Its Four Branches are tales of heroism and heartbreak, of love and disloyalty, that for all their magic and mystery, remain rooted in the emotional realities and moral complexities of everyday life. They are also rooted in the very soil of Wales, in a landscape relatively unchanged since these tales were first told in the early Middle Ages."  The sixty stunning photographs by Anthony Griffiths provide for the first time a striking view of the landscape of these tales throughout Wales. The book is available from Hiraeth Celtic Goods at www.hiraethcelticgoods.com or from Hiraeth Celtic Goods, 77 Cranberry Drive, Duxbury, Massachusetts 02332-4106
Check out The Mabinogi website http://themabinogi.googlepages.com/

WSWNE President Tom Bernard has published a book titled The Twelve Days of Christmas : The Mystery and the Meaning

Book Description - from Amazon.com website
The Twelve Days of Christmas is a popular Christmas song which people generally sing with great gusto - but with almost no understanding . The basic premise of Dr. Bernard's book is that there is a logic to the twelve sequences. His hypothesis is that the lyrics reveal a cartographic code of an esoteric route map by which pilgrims in the Middle Ages can make the long journey from England to Jerusalem.

About the Author - from Amazon.com website
Dr. Thomas L. Bernard was born and raised in Scotland , and received his education in Wales , and in the USA where he earned a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts and a postgraduate certificate from Harvard University . His professional career as an educator, professor, administrator and lecturer has spanned over 50 years with service on five continents . He has authored or co-authored over a hundred books or articles, and takes particular pride in The Twelve Days of Christmas : The Mystery and the Meaning, which he feels is the first significant attempt to explain by translation the underlying message of the twelve parts of this popular Christmas song.

WSWNE webmaster Ed Brown has said, "Tom Bernard's unraveling of the hidden meaning coded into a well known composition brings to mind both the allure of the popular fictional work, The Da Vinci Code, and the fascinating true story of how the lyrics of spirituals were used as code by slaves in the American south to guide their journey to freedom in the north".

Copies of The Twelve Days of Christmas : The Mystery and the Meaning may be obtained:

- Locally from the Odyssey Bookshop, 9 College St., S. Hadley, MA 01075. 413-534-7307

- Online from Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble

WSWNE member Margaret Lloyd has published a book-length cycle of poems titled A Moment in the Field: Voices from Arthurian Legend

Margaret Lloyd writes:
The new book, A Moment in the Field: Voices from Arthurian Legend, released by Plinth Books on October 1st, 2006, is a book-length cycle of poems that remains faithful to early Arthurian sources while being contemporary in its style and concerns. While these poems primarily focus on female experiences which have
often remained hidden or gone unnoticed, they also evoke aspects of male experience not traditionally accessed in Arthurian narrative.
 
Each poem in A Moment in the Field is written in the voice of a character from Arthurian legend. My primary narrative source was Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur , although I have also drawn upon early Welsh Arthurian poetry and prose, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain , and the courtly romances of Chretien de Troyes.    While writing these poems, I strove to remain faithful to characters and events in this early literature as I explored emotional moments, situations, and psychological states suggested by the texts.
 
The following are some early endorsements of the book:
 
“The old stories and the old characters are not as old as they are deep. They need to be awakened regularly to tell us their secrets. They require an enchantress to bring them back and help us hear them.   Margaret Lloyd performs this priestess, Merlin, Cassandra, Mercury service here in splendid and powerful fashion, showing how our daily passions, strong and subtle, light and dark, give us our humanity. You need courage to take these poems in, given the hot blood and sharp edge that Margaret Lloyd brings to them.” —Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and Dark Nights of the Soul
 
“The power of Arthurian legend, and of the hold romantic love has over human beings, is shown again here in this moving sequence which speaks almost entirely in the voices of the women of the stories. . . .Margaret Lloyd has gathered all this to her with haunting empathy for human life and the life of the natural world.” —Jean Valentine, author of Door in the Mountain , winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry
 
“Margaret Lloyd uses the names and stories of legendary women, and some men, to write a book of love poems in a fresh, contemporary voice. . . . [T]he old stories [are given] new life in this excellent collection.” —Gillian Clarke, author of The King of Britain’s Daughter and Making the Beds for the Dead
 
Here is some information about my background:   I was born in Liverpool , England of Welsh parents and grew up in a Welsh community in central New York State . I received a Ph.D. from the University of Leeds , England , and have published a book on William Carlos Williams’ poem Paterson (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press).    Alice James Books published my first poetry book, This Particular Earthly Scene. I have received a number of awards and fellowships, including one to Hawthornden Castle , an International Retreat for Writers in Scotland , where I completed A Moment in the Field. Presently, I chair the Humanities Department at Springfield College , Massachusetts .
 
A Moment in the Field can be ordered directly from the press:
Plinth Books,
P.O. Box 271118 ,
West Hartford , CT 06127-1118
or through Small Press Distribution  
http://spdbooks.org/
 
       ISBN: 1-887628-08-8 paper   $12            
       ISBN: 1-887628-09-6 cloth     $24

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Wales Display - Beth Roberts Brown, on June 30, took down her three month cabinet display of items related to Wales at the Southwick, MA public library where she is a librarian. See top shelf photo below.

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The WSWNE Genealogy Group members share contact information, update each other on progress and to tap each other's research skills.

An "e-mail discussion group" has been created whereby members can e-mail the entire group or individually.

Anyone interested in joining, contact Beth Roberts Brown edbethui@comcast.net (please include the word Welsh in the subject line) or phone her at 413-562-3990

Beginning Welsh language classes continue to be held sporadically.

New students are always welcome. For further information:

SHARE YOUR PHOTOS OF WALES with WSWNE members by link from this website to your photo site on the internet. Just send the internet address (URL) where you have posted your photos to WSWNE webmaster, Ed Brown edbethui@comcast.net

Alternatively, simply notify the webmaster that you have photos that you would like to share and we will try to get them up on either our own server or on other server space.

Photos of Conwy, North Wales supplied by Sue Davies Sit click here