‘Black book of Carmarthen’ on exhibit

‘Black book of Carmarthen’ on exhibit

May 31 2007 Western Mail

IT LOOKS very old inside its protective security case and can only be handled by people wearing silk gloves.

It’s also valued at £10,000 but the Black Book of Carmarthen on display in the National Library of Wales stand on the maes is an electronically produced copy, bound by conservators at the Library who dyed the leather to look exactly like the original.

“We were asked to bring the original down here but for obvious reasons the library declined,” said NLW senior education officer Rhodri Morgan. “There were issues of security and insurance and we just couldn’t risk it. The original is priceless, but this is the next best thing.”

No one knows for sure where the small book of 108 pages was originally written. Nothing is known about it before the 17th century when it was owned by the antiquarian Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt near Dolgellau, who collected some of the most important books written in Welsh.

In 1859 the Hengwrt manuscripts were bequeathed to William Watkin Edward Wynne of Peniarth, near Tywyn, and became known as the Peniarth manuscripts. The Black Book was given pride of place and designated Peniarth One and was valued at £400 when the whole collection was bought for a total of £5,000 in 1904 by Sir John Williams and donated to the National Library.

It is a poor companion to many of the better known medieval manuscripts like the Book of Kells or the Lichfield – or Llandeilo – Gospels, with none of their elaborate illustrations and using only black, red and green ink with some inconsistency in the handwriting.

“Whoever wrote it was not a scribe or specialist who would have written all day most days,” said Mr Morgan. “The parchment is not the best quality – the last few pieces of vellum have holes in them which he has written around – and he drew lines on the paper before writing on it and doodled in the margins and at the bottom of some of the pages to fill in space. It was just somebody writing down his favourite 39 poems and one piece of prose for his own use.”

And it is precisely the content of the book that makes it important, on a European level as well as for the Welsh language.

The poems were old when they were written down. Experts believe they date from three or four centuries before the Black Book was compiled, and contain the earliest references to King Arthur, Merlin and some of Arthur’s knights. There is also the earliest version of the legend of Cantre’r Gwaelod, the fabled land lost beneath the Irish Sea...

Stars to turn out for a spooky evening - icWales

Stars to turn out for a spooky evening - icWales

May 19 2007 South Wales Echo

EX-ATOMIC Kitten singer Natasha Hamilton and Miss Great Britain Preeti Desai will be the celebrity stars of a spooky evening at Welsh mansion.

The psychic event at the Court Colman Manor in Bridgend, whose guests also include Barry singer Jamie Shaw, will be hosted by paranormal investigator Gavin Cromwell.

Newport-born Gavin: “They’ll be frightened stiff – Jamie’s already petrified.”

Do you scare easily? - icWales

Do you scare easily? - icWales

Apr 19 2007 Kerry-Lynne Doyle, Glamorgan Gazette

As a paranormal investigator, John Sutton has helped to exorcise houses and seek out the truth behind spooky activities.

Now, with the help of his wife Lisa, he runs Ghost Knights, a company which organises paranormal evenings and clairvoyance shows in South Wales.

You can see his latest event at St Mary's Hotel, Pencoed, on April 27 - an evening with Bridgend medium Margaret Challenger.

And it will be a night of unique entertainment, whether you are a sceptic or a believer in the paranormal.

Mr Sutton, who has been in the job for 13 years, said: 'Being a paranormal investigator, I have to be sceptical.

'Mediums have to show me something concrete and the feedback from the audience when we used Margaret was good.

'She had a very good rapport with the audience.'

Apart from the quality of the medium, he also believes the setting is key to the atmosphere of the evening.

He said: 'St Mary's is a fabulous place, it's a nice location.

'I believe it's haunted as apparently there is something in one of the rooms.

'It's also got nice surroundings.'

The Suttons set up Ghost Knights to give people a more informal and honest insight into the paranormal.

'People don't seem to want to go to a spiritualist church so we thought we would bring the paranormal to people,' said Mr Sutton.

'We want to run an honest evening's entertainment.

'It's a good night's entertainment and it's safe.'

While the paranormal has never been more popular thanks to shows such as Most Haunted and Haunted Homes, he believes Most Haunted has been both a blessing and a curse to his industry.

He said: 'In my opinion it has caused damage to the business by making people think that people get possessed or attacked regularly in investigations.

'That has only happened to me once and it's very rare.

'I feel our evenings are more of an education to people.'

As well as providing entertainment, Ghost Knights donates £2 to the Ty Hafan hospice from every ticket sold.

Mr Sutton, originally from Yorkshire, said: 'I'd never heard of it before until I moved here but it feels great to be able to support the work they do.'

And he hopes to continue supporting the hospice through events lined up for the future.

He said: 'We do investigate houses and are planning special events with crystal healers and different mediums.

'We are just planning things for people to give the paranormal a try.

'Nothing nasty is going to happen, no-one is shown up, you just get to have a bit of fun as well.'

Tickets cost £10 on the door. For more information, visit http://ghostknights.moonfruit.com/.

The 10 greatest treasures of our National Library

The 10 greatest treasures of our National Library

Mar 21 2007 Western Mail

It holds many riches from our past - choosing favourites is no easy task. Trevor Fishlock takes a deep breath...

HERE'S the challenge. I'm at the National Library of Wales on the hill overlooking the sea at Aberystwyth. From its millions of books and manuscripts and remarkable objects and curiosities I've been asked to choose just 10.

It's a bit like Desert Island Discs, but more fun and much harder.

I admit I have a head start. The library celebrates its centenary this year and I've been here making television and radio programmes about its treasures for BBC Wales and gathering material for a book. It would be easier to pick my top 200 or 300 treasures, but 10 it has to be.

Of course, the library itself is a wonder, the living memory of the people, the dream that flowered into a reality. It sprang from the great 19th century welling of Welsh consciousness and aspiration from which emerged the unifying national institutions: university, library, museum and eisteddfod.

The library and museum have grown into the granaries of beloved treasures; and the library itself stands as the powerful witness of the Welsh experience, affirming six simple and determined words: Wales was, is and will be.

Ghost buster wanted at Bodelwyddan Castle - Daily Post North Wales

Ghost buster wanted at Bodelwyddan Castle - Daily Post North Wales

Nov 2 2007 by Roland Hughes, Daily Post

Ghost buster

WANTED: one ghost hunter, must be strong of spirit and prepared to work nights.

Those are the criteria for what must rank as one of the oddest job ads ever posted: a paranormal investigator at a North Wales castle.

A boom in visitors keen on the paranormal has led to staff seeking another hardy soul to join their ranks.

The spooky job may not be for everybody’s tastes, and anyone who would flee the room screaming is likely to fail their interview.

Paranormal events first started at Bodelwyddan Castle two years ago, and have attracted growing crowds.

Participants are given guided ghost walks between 9pm to 6am.

Events alongside the walks include meditation with crystals, scientific tests, vigils and divination sessions.

Laura Whitley, paranormal assistant at Bodelwyddan Castle, said: “The vigils last about 45 minutes in the dark, and you start by shouting ‘are there are any spirits in the room.’

“Sometimes you get really loud responses, like bangs. Then we go on to use methods like laser thermometers to test for any presence.

“At the last divination, we had some impressive results – members of the group brought spirits along with them, and they ended up coming through.”

The job advert calls for “an enthusiastic individual to join the Paranormal Investigation Team... no experience necessary, but an interest in the paranormal is essential, as is the willingness to work unsociable hours.”

Applicants would work on demand, with events taking place at least once a month during the winter.

Laura said: “We are looking for somebody confident – it is an unusual job and one that involves dealing a lot with the public.

“Bearing in mind we are leading groups of the public, you can’t really be the first person to run out of the door as soon as you hear a bump.

“You have got to be extremely level-headed. It’s difficult to say what they should expect, it all depends on whether any spirits want to come along and play.”

The successful applicant will be given full training on the historical aspect of the events, and the technology required to conduct tests.

Spooky ... one of our UFO sightings goes missing

Western Mail (Cardiff); Feb 20, 2007; Robin Turner, Tryst Williams; p. 13

A celebrated ufo incident in which aliens are said to have crash- landed into a remote Welsh mountain range in 1974 may finally have been debunked. According to contributions on the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, the Berwyn Mountains Incident - often referred to as the 'Welsh Roswell' - was actually a combination of an earthquake, a meteor shower and poachers carrying lanterns. Supporters of the UFO theory last night hit back at the claims.

It all happened on the frosty night of January 23, 1974, near Llandrillo, high in Clwyd's Berwyn Mountains.

Just after 8.30pm, even the most solid farmhouses and country pubs began to shake as the earth rumbled with what appeared to be a fantastic impact.

As people looked out of their homes, the night sky was streaked with light. Peculiar 'fairy lights' were also seen floating over the Berwyns. A nurse and her two daughters claimed to have seen an orange ball on the mountainside above Llandrillo while others claimed to have seen 'non-human beings' being handled by military personnel.

But it was, says Wikipedia, a complex coincidence of a meteor shower widely observed over Wales and northern England, a small earthquake, plus the activity of poachers - which explained the fairy lights.

And the website says so-called 'men in black', thought to have been Government agents in the area soon afterwards, were in fact civil servants from the British Geological Survey who happened to be wearing dark clothing.

Contributors to the online encyclopedia say it is now known that at 8.38pm on January 23, 1974, an earthquake measuring 3.5 on the Richter Scale was felt over a wide area of North Wales and as far afield as Liverpool.

First reactions were that a plane had crashed, or a meteorite had impacted.

Wikipedia claims, 'Further confusion was caused by lights seen on the Berwyn Mountains, which subsequently turned out to have belonged to poachers.

'Police were alerted and set up a search team. Within an hour about 10 officers were searching the Berwyn Mountains and they were joined later by an RAF mountain rescue team from Valley (Anglesey). Nothing was found, and all searches were called off at just after 2pm the following day.'

But Cefn Henry Williams, a Plaid Cymru councillor representing Llandrillo, believes something unusual happened that night.

He said, 'In the early hours a close friend of mine said he went up the mountain to see if there had been some kind of crash. He was buzzed by army helicopters all screaming at him through loud speakers 'keep away - evacuate the area'. Now while I am not a follower of the crashed UFO theory there could have been some experimental jet which crashed and the military wanted no one near there.'

Cardiff-based Lionel Fanthorpe, the broadcaster and cleric who is president of the British UFO Research Association (Bufora), yesterday invoked the example of the celebrated Roswell incident - when the US Government is rumoured to have recovered an alien body from a downed UFO near the remote New Mexico town of Roswell - in support of the claims.

He said, 'Purely from a statistical point of view a visit from some other civilisation is long overdue.': Wales' history of UFO sightings:Wales has had its fair share of UFO sightings over the years. In the '70s an entire class of primary school children in Broadhaven, West Wales, claimed to have seen a UFO landing and aliens get out.The pictures they drew of what they had seen - a cigar-shaped object - appeared uncannily similar.

In 2006 however, James Carlson of New Mexico, a serviceman based at Brawdy, West Wales, in the '70s and '80s, told paranormal magazine the Fortean Times in a letter that

the Harrier vertical take-off jet used in the UK from 1969 might explain the cigar-shaped object sightings because it did not move like a conventional aircraft.

In October 2005, the Ministry of Defence admitted they had investigated 28 UFO reports in Wales in the previous three years. They included a giant black object seen over Rhyl, a flying disc with legs seen over the Rhondda and a flying disc seen over Newport.

The monser of Langorse Lake