The Mabinogion (Oxford World's Classics)
Read The Mabinogion (Oxford World's Classics) Online
Authors: Sioned Davies
THE
MABINOGION
MABINOGION
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
SIONED DAVIES
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford
OX
2 6
DP
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© Sioned Davies 2007
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First published 2007
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ISBN 978–0–19–283242–9
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
THE MABINOGION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
IN the tale of ‘How Culhwch Won Olwen’, we are presented with a roll-call of the Arthurian court, with characters ranging from Gilla Stag-Leg to Isberyr Cat-Claw. Judith Hawk-Eye would take her place well among these. I thank Judith Luna not only for her scrupulous editing, but also for her subtle reminders, her gentle prodding, and for her constant patience and encouragement.
My debt to Brynley F. Roberts is immense; he read the entire manuscript and offered advice and insightful criticism. Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, together with my colleague Dylan Foster Evans, also made valuable suggestions which I have taken on board. I must thank colleagues at Cardiff University, and in particular the staff of the School of Welsh who have had to live with this translation for more years than they care to remember; I am particularly grateful to Cath Pugh for easing my administrative burdens and for being so supportive at all times.
There are many others who have made this translation possible: my friends Manon Rhys and Christine James who have been a constant inspiration; my wonderful neighbours who would voice great concern at seeing the burning of the midnight oil; my parents—my father, whose gift as a storyteller first awakened my interest in these medieval tales, and my mother who commented on the entire translation; and finally, Smwt and Mao, who would curl up at my feet and purr whenever I settled down at my desk. Translating the
Mabinogion
has been a challenging, but one of the most rewarding experiences ever. Diolch o galon i bob un ohonoch.
In memory of Yolande, who loved performing
B
ROTHERS
transformed into animals of both sexes who bring forth children; dead men thrown into a cauldron who rise the next day; a woman created out of flowers, transformed into an owl for infidelity; a king turned into a wild boar for his sins—these are just some of the magical stories that together make up the
Mabinogion
.
The tales, eleven in all, deal with Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and a view of the past as seen through the eyes of medieval Wales. They tell of love and betrayal, shape-shifting and enchantment, conflict and retribution. Despite many common themes, they were never conceived as an organic group, and are certainly not the work of a single author. Their roots lie in oral tradition, and they evolved over centuries before reaching their final written form: as such, they reflect a collaboration between the oral and literary culture, and give us an intriguing insight into the world of the traditional storyteller.
Mabinogion?
The
Mabinogion
is the collective name now given to eleven medieval Welsh tales found mainly in two manuscripts, the White Book of Rhydderch (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 4–5), dated
c
.1350, and the Red Book of Hergest (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Jesus College 111), dated between 1382 and
c
.1410. The term is a scribal error for
mabinogi
, derived from the Welsh word
mab
meaning ‘son, boy’. As a result, some have suggested that
mabinogi
was a tale for boys, or perhaps a tale told by young or apprentice storytellers; however, the general consensus is that its original meaning was ‘youth’ or ‘story of youth’, confirmed by the appearance of the term as a translation of the Latin
infantia
, and that finally it meant no more than ‘tale’ or ‘story’.
The term
Mabinogion
was popularized in the nineteenth century when Lady Charlotte Guest translated the tales into English, between 1838 and 1849. She regarded it as the plural form of
mabinogi
,
1
and an ideal title for her collection. As her translation was published time and time again, the title became established, and by now has become an extremely convenient way to describe the corpus. However, it needs to be emphasized that the term
Mabinogion
is no more than a label, and a modern-day one at that: the stories vary as regards date, authorship, sources, content, structure, and style. Having said that, ever since Lady Guest’s achievement the
Mabinogion
have taken on a life of their own, and earned their place on the European and world stage.
Of the eleven tales, it is clear that four of them form a distinct group, generally known as ‘The Four Branches of the
Mabinogi
’. These are the
mabinogi
proper, as it were, so called because each one ends with the same formula in both the White and the Red Books: ‘and so ends this branch of the Mabinogi.’
2
They are the only tales in the corpus that refer to themselves as
mabinogi
, divided into ‘branches’, a term used in medieval French narrative also to denote a textual division, suggesting the image of a tree with episodes leading off from the main narrative or ‘trunk’. Even so, the link between them is fairly tenuous; the only hero to appear in all four is Pryderi—he is born in the First Branch and is killed in the Fourth. Resonances of Celtic mythology are apparent throughout these four tales, as mortals come into contact with characters who possess supernatural powers, from Gwydion the shape-shifter, who can create a woman out of flowers, to Bendigeidfran the giant, who lies across the river as a bridge for his men to cross; from Math the magician, whose feet must lie in the lap of a virgin, to the beautiful Rhiannon, whose magical white horse is impossible to catch. Yet, despite drawing on much older material, the author of the ‘Four Branches’ attempts to make the tales relevant to his own time, and indeed to any period, by using them to convey his views regarding appropriate moral behaviour, doing so by implication rather than by any direct commentary.
Manuscript evidence does not suggest any particular groupings for the remaining seven tales, although scholars and translators have indeed attempted to classify them, based on certain critical judgements.
Traditionally, the tales of ‘Peredur son of Efrog’, ‘Geraint son of Erbin’, and ‘The Lady of the Well’ have been known as ‘the three romances’, partly because they correspond to the late twelfth-century metrical romances of Chrétien de Troyes—
Perceval, Erec et Enide
, and
Yvain
. They have as their focus the court at Caerllion on Usk, home to the emperor Arthur and his queen, Gwenhwyfar. In each tale the hero embarks on a journey in order to prove himself; once he has moved beyond the parameters of Arthur’s realm, he comes across shining castles with grey-haired hosts and the most beautiful maidens who bestow lavish hospitality; threatening knights who must be overpowered and widowed countesses who must be defended. But in each tale the emphasis is different, so that although the three share common themes, which indeed set them apart from the other
Mabinogion
tales, they should not be regarded as an organic group, the work of a single author. Indeed, they have not been copied as a group in the extant manuscripts; neither do they share a common manuscript tradition. Moreover, although they exhibit some of the broad characteristics of romance, such as concerns regarding chivalric modes of behaviour and knightly virtues, they do not lie comfortably within that genre, so that the term ‘the three romances’ is both misleading and inappropriate; while they may well be very loose retellings of Chrétien’s poems, they have been completely adapted to the native culture, and remain stylistically and structurally within the Welsh narrative tradition.
