Acknowledgements

‘The Collectors’ was written with the help of a bursary from the Academi; I am very grateful indeed for the time it bought, and the motivation it provided. Thanks too, to Gwen Davies for encouraging me to get a collection together, to Francesca Rhydderch for renewing wavering resolve, and to Penny Thomas at Seren for her thoughtful and tactful editing.

‘The Collectors’ grew out of earlier work on nineteenth-century Breton popular traditions; ‘Z’ and Le Coadic are loosely based on historical characters, but (as far as I know) never met. I would like to thank Donatien Laurent for permission to use fragments of the ‘Skolan’ ballad he collected, and also, many years ago, for telling me the story reprised in ‘Warrior’; Éva Guillorel kindly looked over my Breton.

Love and thanks as ever to all my family, especially David, my most encouraging reader.

‘Absolution’ appeared in the collection edited by Gwen Davies, Sing Sorrow, Sorrow (Seren, 2010); ‘Lake Story’ appeared in the New Welsh Review 99 (Spring, 2012).