Welsh Journals

always be seen in Wales, always, before any- one died, to show that he had been good Bishop and died true for his religion. And God was granting him this favour. So the Corpse Candles are not bad things to see, no indeed, quite good they are, it is. THE GWRACHYRYBIN SHE is the awful thing! An old 'ooman with hair like burnt furze sticks, and teeth like long thorns. Oh, very evil this one is! She goes shrieking and screaming, and laughing dreadful laughs through the night trying to catch souls to destroy them, and the screech she gives makes the people who hear it faint with terror and all their blood turn to ice. If she sees a fire she will not pass it. TWO BOOKS FROM THE GREGYNOG PRESS WITHIN the space of a few weeks the Gregynog Press have issued two new books, *Llyfr y Pregethwr", reprinted from Bishop Morgan's Bible, and t"The Life of Saint David", collated from various sources by Ernest Rhys. Hitherto the books from this press have commanded so much attention on account of their literary merits that scant notice has been given to their typographical values. This partial neglect has robbed the press of the interest which their typography demands for them, and the pub- lication of two books which it is useless if not impossible to criticise from a literary standpoint, is a good excuse to give all the attention of this review to an assessment of the merits and faults of the bookmaking. To print the Bible, wholly or in part, is a task in which dangerous pitfalls are hidden. The ad- venturer who, desirous of making a fine book and Llyfr y Pregethwr. Taken from Bishop Mor- gan's Bible. Set in Poliphilus type and printed in black and red on Batchelor hand-made paper. With two wood-engravings by David Jones. Limited to 250 copies at 12/6 net. t The Life of Saint David. Edited by Ernest Rhys. A new text based upon the Latin Life by Rhygyfarch. Set in Poliphilus type. The text printed in black and blue, with red initial letters, on Batchelor hand-made paper. Em- bellished with 25 wood-engravings by R. A. Maynard and H. W. Bray, and coloured by hand. Limited to 175 copies at 5 guineas net. Once there was a poor blacksmith living on the Mynydd who could not get his fire covered in time, and the Gwrachyrybin came and stood by it screaming and laughing like a furies, and the poor man tried to put the fire out by pour- ing water on it, but all the time it only burnt the brighter! And then he went mad and began screaming and laughing as well as the Gwrachy- rybin. In the morning they found him quite dead with his body all burnt black to cinders but with a dreadful smile still on his face, for the Gwrach- yrybin while she is screaming and laughing is telling terrible things all the time, and no one knows what they are save the one who is killed by hearing them. But there are not many others as bad as the Gwrachyrybin, and she has not been seen about now, no, not for long times. by Ifan Kyrle Fletcher. at the same time of preserving some of the tradi- tional setting of religious austerity, sets out bravely on this task, finds that success comes only to those who combine a sound historical sense with a sensitive feeling for the contemporary mind. On the one hand lies the Scylla of archaic pastiche and on the other the Charybdis of revo- lutionary chaos. And even when a dauntless prin- ter has finished the hazardous task with, as he thinks, some degree of success, he finds himself face to face with a Bible printed on a hand-press at Mainz in 1455 by one Gutenberg-and he is dismayed. The Gregynog Press have started on this task of re-issuing Bishop Morgan's Bible by printing "Llvfr y Pregethwr". It is printed in red and black in an admirably legible type, and has two wood-engravings by David Jones. By a careful compromise with these two, the type and the engravings, the printer has hoped to pass the dangers mentioned above. The woodcuts give the book the connection with the past that it is desir- able to retain in literature as bound to tradition as is the Bible. The immediate influence of the engravings is from the Byzantine work of the early Christian centuries. The small design on the title-page is perfect. Not only has it exquisite beauty as a design, but it attunes the mind to the precise key of "Llyfr y Pregethwr". Having allowed the melancholy beauty of its drooping curves to saturate the mind, the reader is pre- pared for the opening "Gwagedd o wagedd, medd y Pregethwr,