Nice idea, Geraint. Also nice choice, Simon - that's one of my favourite Welsh waltzes - goes very nicely with
Glwysen by Edward Jones (to whom we were referring in that recent mega-thread!) next to which it appears in
Blodau'r Grug - one of the main readily available in-print source books of Welsh tunes. Here are the dots for the pair of them:
The "thorn" referred to in the title
Blodau'r Drain could be either Blackthorn (sloe - prunus spinosa, draenen ddu) the snow-white flowers of which are an early spring adornment of our British hedges, flowering before most of the leaves get started; or it could be Hawthorn (May/whitethorn - crataegus monogyna, draenen wen) which flowers (surprisingly enough!) in May and turns the hedges to rolls of creamy cotton-wool with a heady scent....... Both are very common deliberately planted hedgerow species (because of their growth habits and thorniness) as well as occurring wild.
Here are the dots for two more "Dream" tunes -
Breuddwyd Dafydd Rhys I think is even lovelier than Simon's suggestion, and is far less well known. I suggest playing it as an air rather than as a waltz - not too slow, but without the waltz swinging rhythm:
And: - the first of these two rather brisker (non-waltz although 3/4) tunes (learnt from Ceri Rhys Matthews who says they're kind-of galliards) the second of which is better known in another slower, waltz-like version (which I don't have dots for at present):
Geraint posted the ABC for
Breuddwyd y Wrach above - here are the dots, prefaced by those for another slip-jig,
Hoffedd ap Hywel - the two tunes are commonly played for the energetic dance also entitled "Hoffedd ap Hywel".
![Image](http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/2310809_vgcgd/ffeddapHywel_BreuddwydyWrach.jpg)
Yes, they are most commonly played in those keys, though you do sometimes find folk playing them up a tone to make 'em easier for (C whistle-less) whistle and box players.
Since it was mentioned, here also are the dots for Lliw Lili Ymysg y Drain (lots of dreams and thorns here this-morning!)
Just a quick mention of some rough points of Welsh orthography and pronunciation for the uninitiated: "dd" is a soft, voiced "th" sound; a single "f" is = to an English "v"; a double "ff" = English "f"; "y" in "ymysg" is kinda like English "u" - "um-usg"; best (not brilliant!) approximation I can give for "breuddwyd" ("dream") is "breythe-oid" (though in N. Wales they'd make the "wy" less of a dipthong, "breythe-oo-id") - the "wy" in "Glwysen" is similar; "drain" and "draenen" (its plural) don't sound like English "drain" as in ("down the....") - the dipthong vowel sound is more like English "eye"; the "au" dipthong in "blodau" is also similar to "eye"; the "u" in "grug" is like an English "y" - the word is pronounced similarly to the name of the Norwegian composer Grieg.