Anyway, naturally I went to my Welsh bibles and looked up Psalm 102.... it was very interesting. Oh yes. There's more than one bird in there for a start, and some of them get changed and/or edited out.... the "normal" English bible says ...
6] I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.
7] I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.
but ... but.. the "New" English bible goes like this ..
6] I am like a desert-owl in the wilderness, an owl that lives among ruins.
7] Thin and meagre, I wail in solitude like a bird that flutters on the roof-top.
Well, that's no good is it! Where's the blasted pelican flown off to? What's all this " thin and meagre" stuff ? Where have those ruins come from?
I'm sure the Welsh will have it sorted ... let's see shall we..... here's what my "old" Welsh bible says about all this....
6] Tebyg wyf i belican yn anialwch: ydwyf fel dylluan y diffaethwch.
7] Gwyliais ac ydwyf fel aderyn y tô, unig ar ben y tŷ .
Well well well ... the pelican is back, in the wilderness, even though they prefer lakes and stuff, the owl's still there, but they're using a different Welsh word for the wilderness/desert it's in. There's the roof-sparrow, all on its own by the looks of it. "ydwyf = I am , by the way.
Let's get bang up to date with a look at what "Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd" has to say on this vital topic ... will the pelican still be in its wilderness? Will the owl be in a slightly different sort of desert/wilderness? What will the sparrow be getting up to in the possible ruins?
Here we go ... brace yourself for a shock of biblical proportions ...
6] Yr wyf fel brân mewn anialwch, ac fel tylluan mewn adfeilion.
7] Yr wyf yn cadw'n effro, ac fel aderyn unig ar do.
Cripes ... from pelican to crow,rook or raven in 1 easy step. The owl... yes, they've stuck to that owl ... has got its ruin to play around in... as for the writer, no mention of any wailing , nor any solitude ...unlike the lone "bird" on the soft-mutated roof.
You can't help but be suspicious that the pelican has been Cymraeg-ificated into some corvid or other. I wonder exactly how many pelicans there are in Wales.... i'm guessing 23.
Isn't it interesting though to see how these bibles chop and change the content of these stories verse by verse, sentence by sentence? Yes it is.
But now, in the music section, recently awarded the prestigious "Nobel Prize for Niche Brythonic-based Music Spots 2016" it's Vanta and " Twll Diwaelod" ... nifty use of a prefix there.