Lloyd Chudley Alexander, one of the best children's fantasy writers ever, now travels in elephants. He had cancer, the article says, and passed two weeks after his wife Janine, of 61 years. His Prydain books introduced me to the glorious world of the Mabinogion, as well as being a lovely mythological epic in their own right.
I'm a little touched by this also, because he (along with Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising books) introduced me to the Welsh language, with which I'm still very much in love. The Prydain books were chock-full of Welsh place and people names, and to look at them, they might as well have been magic in ink. When I was about 13 I ordered a self-instruction book from the library and spent days at a time trying to learn it. A couple of years later, after we moved to Seattle, I found an evening class and a Welsh choir, and that made my teenage years bearable. I still love a good gymanfa when I can get to it. I always wanted to write to him and thank him for bringing this wonderful language into my life, but I never got around to it. I hope he knows now how grateful I am.
Duw a'i bendithio.
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