1. “The Song of Songs in the Valley of Bones”, Introduction to a reading of The Waste Land at the Palace Theatre, London, 25th. Sept. 1988. (Hughes 1992, 12).

2. The full story of Caire’s cursing is told by Matthews (1991, 140-1).

3. This was said by Hughes in a tape recording made for The Critical Forum Series (1978).

4. Taliesin’s poem ‘Cad Goddeau’. (Matthews 1991, 300).

5. ‘Taliesin’s Bardic Lore’. (Matthews 1991, 303).

6. Taliesin’s poem ‘The Hostile Confederacy’. (Matthews 1991, 102).

7. Taliesin’s poem ‘Primary Chief Bard am I’. (Matthews 1991, 285).

8. Taliesin’s poem ‘The Rebuke of the Bards’. (Matthews 1991, 111).

9. Quotations from various poems by Taliesin (Matthews 1991, 42).

10. ‘Taliesin’s Bardic Lore’. (Matthews 1991, 304).

11. From Hughes’ 1964 Listener review of Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism (Eliade 1964), now reprinted inWinter Pollen (Hughes 1994, 58).

12. The Arvon Foundation was the invention of John Fairfax and John Moat who approached Hughes for support. Some fourteen apprentice writers live and work for a week with two well-known, published authors, gaining help and inspiration from such interaction. Its courses take place at Lumb bank, a mill-owner’s house in Hebden bridge, Yorkshire and at Totleigh Barnes, a cottage in Devon.

13. Taliesin’s poem ‘The Rebuke of the Bards’. (Matthews 1991, 290).