A Machynlleth triad

A Machynlleth Triad, whose title recalls a medieval Welsh literary and gnomic device, fancifully describes - in both English and Welsh - the Welsh town of Machynlleth at three moments in its history. In 'Y The Past', we visit Machynlleth during the Welsh rebellion of the early fifteenth century, when Owain Glyndwr the patriot leader held a parliament there and, according to tradition, was crowned Prince of Wales. 'Y The Present' examines the town's personality in 1991, when it celebrated the 700th anniversary of its foundation. The English conquerors are gone; yet the Cymry Cymraeg, the Welsh-speaking Welsh, are not obviously in the ascendant. Wales is still in a kind of historical limbo. In the third part, 'Y The Future', we are projected into the twenty-first century to visit a Machynlleth celebrating its (unspecified) anniversary as capital of the Welsh Republic, an independent neutral state within a federal Europe. The contemporary segment is more or less reportage, the other two imaginative essays. All three are bitter-sweet; part serious, part fun. The whole work presents an artistic portrait of the condition and possible destiny not just of a single small market town, but of an ancient European people. From 1911 to 1981, the number of Welsh speakers declined annually. The 1991 census showed, for the first time this century, an increase. Twm Morys has interpreted, for this growing and discriminating constituency, Jan Morris's graceful meditation on Wales and its history.