For the sake of accuracy, I have remained on the trail of the translation of "Diofal" as the "llywio a bod yn llawen" was a puzzlement to several of us. Therefore, I asked my friends, Phyllis and Mered, probably the two greatest living experts on these things and got this reply:

"Well! What a palaver! Did you know that that particular verse does not occur in the WFS Journal, nor in Caneuon Traddodiadol Cymru nor in Hwiangerddi Cymraeg??? At last I thought of a book called Caneuon Gwerin i Blant edited by a couple of rurally based no-hopers (***) ---
and behold! There it was. ... According to Mered the word 'llywio' has the meaning of 'to steer' and the import of the words is that even without a penny in his pocket he will be merry."

(***) I feel I must point out that the no-hopers referred to by Phyllis are, indeed, Phyllis and Mered themselves. So I guess that's as authoritative as we're going to get!

BTW (Nigel will love this!) I was in a party on Sat. night and met a music scholar who has been researching a well-known collector who died a few years back (TH Parry-Williams). In going through his papers, he found a manuscript of 24 folk-song arrangements which no one knew existed and, with Mered's help, they will be publishing them and launching the book the first week of August.

AND (this is where Nigel will get excited) they'll have singable translations written by one of Wales' current great poets - Gwyn Thomas (Gwyn Bangor) Apparently they're really-really good. I'll probably be at the launch - I'll tell you more when I get back the following week.

sian