Moelona

Moelona was the pen-name of Elizabeth (Lizzie) Mary Jones (née Owen) (21 June 1877 – 5 June 1953), a Welsh novelist and translator who wrote novels for children and other works in Welsh.

She was born at Rhydlewis, Ceredigion, the youngest of thirteen children, on a farm called "Moylon", hence her choice of pseudonym. She went to school at Rhydlewis, one of her schoolmates being Caradoc Evans. In 1890 she became a pupil-teacher, the need to care for her widowed father preventing her from obtaining any tertiary education. She went on to teach at elementary schools in various parts of Wales until her marriage, in 1917, to a Baptist minister, John Tywi Jones.

Moelona had written her first novel for an eisteddfod in 1907 but it was not published until 1918. As a result of joining a British-French Society in Cardiff, she had become acquainted with the works of Alphonse Daudet, several of which she translated for Welsh-language periodicals. Her husband was also a writer, and encouraged her in her writing career by making her the children's columnist on Y Darian, a periodical which he edited.

In her novel Bugail y Bryn she evokes the Welsh dialect of south Cardiganshire, with an explanatory note (before page 1) of the most common distinctive features.

"Moelona" was an active participant in the eisteddfod movement, and the couple lived in New Quay, Ceredigion, from 1935 until their respective deaths in 1949 and 1953. They had no children.

Works

• Teulu Bach Nantoer (1913)
• Bugail y Bryn (1917)
• Rhamant y Rhos (1918)
• Cwrs y Lli (1927)
• Breuddwydion Myfanwy (1928)
• Beryl (1931)
• Ffynnonloyw (1939)