The moral support I received from a number of people during the two years I worked on the translation was particularly important to me. I am especially indebted to Edgars Kariks of the Baltic Office of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, who gave constant encouragement and concrete support, and Ojars Kalninš of the Latvian Institute in Riga, who was extremely positive and supportive from an early stage in the project. These two gave me the courage to keep going. Among others, Rita Berzinš read an early fragment and encouraged me to believe I was on the right track, and Jana Felder (née Martinson) responded enthusiastically to a presentation at a conference. Valters Nollendorfs encouraged me to trust my own feeling of what sounded right, and Guntis Smidchens showed interest in the translation from the point of view of a university teacher. I am greatly indebted to my Latvian teacher in Adelaide, Ilze Ostrovska. Without her I would never have learned enough Latvian to read the original poem. Mirdza Kate Baltais edited the first version of the manuscript and helped me eliminate a very large number of errors, as well as making numerous suggestions for improvements. It is definitely not her fault that there are still errors in the text-quite apart from certain liberties that I have allowed myself (see p.iii). My colleague in Riga, Kaspars Klavinš, read the entire manuscript and made a number of sensitive and insightful suggestions for corrections and improvements, for which I am grateful. My son, Andrew Cropley, discussed the project with me many times, and suggested the addition of a Glossary (see p.164). He also built the Bearslayer website, with which some readers will be familiar (http//:web.aanet.com.au/Bearslayer). My wife, Alison, was patient and encouraging throughout, as well as providing artwork for the cover. Adelaide, January 2006 Arthur Cropley TECHNICAL NOTES This is a free translation into English heroic verse of Lacplesis (Bearslayer) by Andrejs Pumpurs, first published in Latvian in 1888. The translation here is a corrected version of the original, which was published in 2005. Lacplesis has been translated into Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish and at least three times into Russian, as well as into Japanese! An English translation was published by Rita Berzinš in 1988. This used poetic language, but the text was unrhymed and its metre irregular. It is also very difficult to obtain. Various prose translations of fragments also exist. The present translation is in rhyme and has a strict metre. As far as I know, it is the only existing translation of the entire poem into English verse.