Welsh Journals

hallowed fane of the patron saint. Then again, there is his wide and variegated knowledge of the place, its people, customs, practices, and legends. He is particularly attuned to the appeal of its place-names, and especially the Welsh ones of the area; those names that encapsulate centuries of history almost swallowed up in the mists of time: Ffos y Nynach, Waun y Beddau, Eglwys y Cathau, or the strange and inexplicable Llangidige. Like all those who come in contact with St David's, he has fallen under its spell; the better they know it, the more completely they succumb to its mystique. David James has something of the poet's ear for words, and an artist's eye for a natural setting. He memorably describes a scene in the cathedral at evensong: 'a lone priest talking to himself and his God; a tiny mortal doing his duty to himself and his church, alone in a vast and darkening sacred house, in an indifferent world'. Or again, this is how he sees Porth Glais in winter: 'This, then, its elemental self, around the ghosts of the past. There is nothing else, except a strange magic no different perhaps from what it was in the time of the coracle-paddling saints. Porth Glais in winter breathes silence.' Having greatly enjoyed reading the book, I am sorry to have to say that it is flawed by a number of minor mistakes. Bishop William Barlow did not arrive in St David's in Edward VI's reign; he left then (p. 31). He reappears on p. 37 under the alias of Edward Barlow. It really is far too sweeping and mistaken to assert that from the beginning of the sixteenth century down to 1874 there was no Welsh bishop (p. 51); there were five Welsh-born bishops in the sixteenth century alone. Whatever poor Bishop Laud's blunders may have been, he could not have issued orders in 1662 (p. 52) when he had been executed seventeen years earlier in January 1645. But perhaps the oddest slip of all is to refer to 1300 years having passed since the age of St David (pp.57, 59), when it is surely 1400 years that is meant. There are, unfortunately, other mistakes of the same kind. Nevertheless, in spite of the occasional blemish, I found this to be a delightful book and one which I warmly commend to all those who are interested in the history and traditions of St David's. GLANMORwTLLIAMS Swansea MODERN WALES: Politics, PLACES AND PEOPLE. By Kenneth O. Morgan, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1995. Pp. xiv, 492. £ 40.00. The twenty-six essays and articles published in Modern Wales were written