Forthcoming new book ‘Illustrated Welsh Folk Tales for Young and Old’ by Aberystwyth based author Peter Stevenson

Aberystwyth based author Peter Stevenson’s new book ‘Illustrated Welsh Folk Tales for Young and Old’ will be Published tomorrow (15th June)

There are several stories are based in areas of South Wales such as Cardigan Bay, Llyn Barfog, and Tregaron (see press release below).

Below is an Extract taken from Illustrated Welsh Folk Tales for Young and Old, along with several images from the book.

In a mud-walled cottage on the slopes of Banc Penrhiw, near Cei Newydd, lived a mischievous old woman named Beti Grwca. She had a thousand wrinkles round her eyes, a single grey hair in the middle of her chin and a solitary yellow tooth that wobbled unnervingly in the breeze from her breath. Beti made potions with herbs from the forest mixed with water from the well at Pistyll y Rhiw, but not any old potions. Beti made love potions. One day, the childminder from Plas-y-Wern called to see Beti for a drop of potion, and with her was the squire’s baby boy, Cedrig.

At the same time, the farm-girl from Rhyd-y-Ferwig arrived for her dose, with the farmer’s baby daughter, Elinor. Beti gave the two girls their potions, but being a mischievous old granny, she also gave a drop to the two babies and cackled to herself, as troublesome old ladies do in fairy tales. Time passed in the blink of a crow’s eye, and Beti Grwca was still there at Banc Penrhiw, even more wrinkles around her eyes, more mischievous than ever and still selling love potions. One day, a girl knocked on the door, and while Beti Beti’s Love Potions mixed a potion from the green and brown bottles on her sagging shelves, there was another knock and a lad asked for a drink of water. As the eyes of the two young people met, they rushed into each other’s arms and began kissing, right there in the middle of Beti’s flagstone floor.

Beti pushed them apart with a frying pan and asked their names. The girl said ‘Elinor’ and the lad, ‘Cedrig’. Beti explained that they were the babies she had given potions to, and now they were doomed to be in love for evermore. Not that Elinor or Cedrig were bothered. They held hands in Aberystwyth, cuddled in Aberteifi and kissed in Aberaeron, and after a year they decided to get married. But Cedrig’s father, the old squire of Plas-y-Wern, didn’t want his son to marry a poor farm girl like Elinor, while Elinor’s mother didn’t want her daughter Beti’s Love Potions to marry into a well posh family like Cedrig’s. So, the young couple took a boat across Cardigan Bay and got married in Barmouth. When they returned from their honeymoon, the old Squire was two metres under the ground, so Cedrig and Elinor inherited Plas-y-Wern and they filled the house with so much love and so many babies they couldn’t count them all, never mind remember all their names. And Beti? Well, she’s still there at Banc Penrhiw, though the solitary yellow tooth and grey hair dropped out long ago. And she’s still making love potions, and it’s said she’s responsible for all the happy marriages in west Wales. And most of the troublesome ones.