Siams Dwnn c1570-c1660

James or Siams Dwnn of Betws Cedewain, Montgomeryshire is hardly one of the better known Welsh bards, he merits only a few lines in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography and is noted in the Oxford Companion to Welsh Literature only under the entry of his father, the herald bard Lewis Dwnn. If I ever wondered about Siams Dwnn in the past it was because of his Mid Wales connections and the fact that he carried the bardic tradition deep into the Seventeenth Century.

Now four volumes of a work entitled Astudiaeth o Fywyd a Gwaith Siams Dwnn (C.1571- C. 1660): Cywyddwr o Fetws Cedewain yn Sir Drefaldwyn is being published by Dafydd Huw Evans and the Edward Mellen Press. The four volumes, detailing the work and life of James Dwnn, amount to over 1700 pages at a cost of nearly £310. In an age when so much that passes for scholarship is shallow and banal, I find the news of this project inspiring.

So do I buy these four volumes or ten years of sixties Autosports?