This retelling of a branch of the Mabinogion that I was less familiar with is spellbinding in its scholarship and imaginative interpretations of gaps in the oral and manuscript traditions underpinning Welsh folklore. I learned of many myths, stories and fragments that have gone on to influence wider literary culture, and the author’s afterword - which traces the lineage of some aspects of this collage of narratives - introduced me to ‘Yr Hen Ogledd’, a whole historical and linguistic region that was instrumental in establishing and disseminating tales of the Cymry people that continue to shape storytelling today. This would be a very useful text to read alongside the other branches of the Mabinogion, in editions such as the Oxford World Classics version.