Welsh mythology is the western version of the Japanese Yokai….

Welsh mythology is the western version of the Japanese Yokai. Full of bizarre beasts and spirits that seem far removed from those of a more classical mythology (I’m looking squarely at certain early fantasy novelists that were so busy making up a British Mythology that they swerved most of the good stuff we had here).

This is an image I knocked up of one of the Welsh lake and river monsters, a Chimerical beastie, part Crocodile and part Beaver, so I think it’d look like this… The English would probably name it a Beaverdile, or maybe a Crocodeaver… But in Cymru it is called the Afanc (Avank).

Why do I want a picture of an Afanc? Well, it seems at least one has a mention in “Ironmaster & Other Tales” and it just happens to be in the big battle at the zenith of the plot, that I thought might make a pretty good cover image…