Hallowe'en in the Cwm: The stories of Glasynys

A former farmhand from the Conwy valley returns from England to stop a wedding, and to see if a snare he once set has sprung. A bridegroom in Nant Gwrtheyrn devotes his life to finding the bride who has disappeared without trace. A kindly old man from Esgair Adda tells his nephew two ghost stories from his youth, and a young man staying at a country house for Hallowe'en sets his hopes on marrying his host's young daughter.

Owen Wynne Jones, also known as Glasynys (1828-1870) was a school-teacher, and clergyman, an editor and poet, and an influential figure in the eisteddfod movement. But he was also a folklorist and short-story writer, whose contributions to the Welsh anthology, Cymru Fu (1864), influenced T. Gwynn Jones among others, and now, in this new translation by Rob Mimpriss, a body of his work is available to English readers.

Combining horror, romance, humour and adventure with his own moving descriptions of the hospitality and generosity of ordinary people, these stories provide an account of a way of life now vanished, and a glimpse into the extraordinary richness of the Welsh oral tradition.

About the Translator

Rob Mimpriss is the author of three short-story collections, Reasoning, For His Warriors and Prayer at the End, and the translator of Going South: The Stories of Richard Hughes Williams. His recent short fiction has been translated into Arabic by Hala Salah Eldin for an anthology of fiction published by Albawtaka, Cairo, and has been short-listed for the Rhys Davies Prize. He has published criticism and reviews of Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Robert Olmstead and others for New Writing, New Welsh Review and elsewhere. In 2011 he was elected to Membership of the Welsh Academy, in recognition of his contributions to Welsh writing. He lives at http://www.robmimpriss.com and in Bangor.