h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have read a number of entries about Wales tonight, and many of them have been ludicrous - stereotypical fallacies about Welsh placenames. This one, however, deserves a response since not only is it ridiculous, but it is historically incorrect.

Glyndw^r's uprising was hardly a 'little skirmish'. Glyndw^r cleared Wales of English authority (albeit for a brief while), and secured international support for his campaign and for his being recognised as Prince of Wales. His was a truly national uprising, fuelled not - as English/British nationalists would claim - by a petty land dispute, but by racist legislation against the Welsh by the English, and driven and sustained by a centuries-old 'national' identity (which emerges first in literature in around the tenth century). While many of the feelings current then still endure, we may merely lament the fact that he failed, and that we as yet have not found his replacement.

Owain, of course, was hailed as 'Mab Darogan', the son of prophecy who - like Arthur, perhaps the most famous Welsh hero - must return some day to save the Island of Britain and return control to the original Britons (the Welsh). SInce Owain was never found dead, but simply vanished c. 1416, there is yet hope.

There are many web-sites devoted to Owain, and some good books, of course - I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to reference them, so I shan't.