Written on the train from Bristol to Cardiff on a warm twilight in May.

The difference between England and Wales was subtle, but Wales was rather vaster. There were fewer squares of countryside separated by thin, crumbling stone walls and more dark clumps of trees. Faraway things seemed a little smaller and more distant, and the hills were taller, the grass longer and wilder.

That was the realm of sunlit fields, of fairy dances and lonely wanders down hedged country lanes. This was the land of steeds that moved like comets; of dark trades made in forests under a purple sky.