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This collection of Welsh folklore, fairy tales and mythology is vital reading for anyone who is interested in early European vernacular literature and folk archetypes. Dating from as far back as the fourteenth century, the publication of this volume marked the first time that the tales were rendered in an English translation.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 septembre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775453642
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE MABINOGION
* * *
UNKNOWN
Translated by
LADY CHARLOTTE GUEST

*
The Mabinogion From an 1849 edition ISBN 978-1-775453-64-2 © 2011 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Introduction The Lady of the Fountain Peredur the Son of Evrawc Geraint the Son of Erbin Kilhwch and Olwenor theTwrch Trwyth The Dream of Rhonabwy Pwyll Prince of Dyved Branwen the Daughter of Llyr Manawyddan the Son of Llyr Math the Son of Mathonwy The Dream of Maxen Wledig Here is the Story of Lludd and Llevelys Taliesin Endnotes
Introduction
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Whilst engaged on the Translations contained in these volumes, and onthe Notes appended to the various Tales, I have found myself ledunavoidably into a much more extensive course of reading than I hadoriginally contemplated, and one which in great measure bearsdirectly upon the earlier Mediaeval Romance.
Before commencing these labours, I was aware, generally, that thereexisted a connexion between the Welsh Mabinogion and the Romance ofthe Continent; but as I advanced, I became better acquainted with thecloseness and extent of that connexion, its history, and the proofsby which it is supported.
At the same time, indeed, I became aware, and still strongly feel,that it is one thing to collect facts, and quite another to classifyand draw from them their legitimate conclusions; and though I am loththat what has been collected with some pains, should be entirelythrown away, it is unwillingly, and with diffidence, that I trespassbeyond the acknowledged province of a translator.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there arose into generalnotoriety in Europe, a body of "Romance," which in various formsretained its popularity till the Reformation. In it the plot, theincidents, the characters, were almost wholly those of Chivalry, thatbond which united the warriors of France, Spain, and Italy, withthose of pure Teutonic descent, and embraced more or less firmly allthe nations of Europe, excepting only the Slavonic races, not yetrisen to power, and the Celts, who had fallen from it. It is notdifficult to account for this latter omission. The Celts, drivenfrom the plains into the mountains and islands, preserved theirliberty, and hated their oppressors with fierce, and not causeless,hatred. A proud and free people, isolated both in country andlanguage, were not likely to adopt customs which implied brotherhoodwith their foes.
Such being the case, it is remarkable that when the chief romancesare examined, the name of many of the heroes and their scenes ofaction are found to be Celtic, and those of persons and places famousin the traditions of Wales and Brittany. Of this the romances ofYwaine and Gawaine, Sir Perceval de Galles, Eric and Enide, Mortd'Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Sir Tristan, the Graal, &c., may be cited asexamples. In some cases a tendency to triads, and other matters ofinternal evidence, point in the same direction.
It may seem difficult to account for this. Although the ancientdominion of the Celts over Europe is not without enduring evidence inthe names of the mountains and streams, the great features of acountry, yet the loss of their prior language by the great mass ofthe Celtic nations in Southern Europe (if indeed their successors interritory be at all of their blood), prevents us from clearly seeing,and makes us wonder, how stories, originally embodied in the Celticdialects of Great Britain and France, could so influence theliterature of nations to whom the Celtic languages were utterlyunknown. Whence then came these internal marks, and these propernames of persons and places, the features of a story usually ofearliest date and least likely to change?
These romances were found in England, France, Germany, Norway,Sweden, and even Iceland, as early as the beginning of the thirteenthand end of the twelfth century. The Germans, who propagated themthrough the nations of the North, derived them certainly from France.Robert Wace published his Anglo-Norman Romance of the Brutd'Angleterre about 1155. Sir Tristan was written in French prose in1170; and The Chevalier au Lion, Chevalier de l'Epee, and SirLancelot du Lac, in metrical French, by Chrestien de Troyes, before1200.
From these facts it is to be argued that the further back theseromances are traced, the more clearly does it appear that they spreadover the Continent from the North-west of France. The olderversions, it may be remarked, are far more simple than the latercorruptions. In them there is less allusion to the habits and usagesof Chivalry, and the Welsh names and elements stand out in strongerrelief. It is a great step to be able to trace the stocks of theseromances back to Wace, or to his country and age. For Wace's workwas not original. He himself, a native of Jersey, appears to havederived much of it from the "Historia Britonum" of Gruffydd abArthur, commonly known as "Geoffrey of Monmouth," born 1128, whohimself professes to have translated from a British original. It is,however, very possible that Wace may have had access, like Geoffrey,to independent sources of information.
To the claims set up on behalf of Wace and Geoffrey, to be regardedas the channels by which the Cymric tales passed into the ContinentalRomance, may be added those of a third almost contemporary author.Layamon, a Saxon priest, dwelling, about 1200, upon the banks of theupper Severn, acknowledges for the source of his British history, theEnglish Bede, the Latin Albin, and the French Wace. The last-namedhowever is by very much his chief, and, for Welsh matters, his onlyavowed authority. His book, nevertheless, contains a number of namesand stories relating to Wales, of which no traces appear in Wace, orindeed in Geoffrey, but which he was certainly in a very favourableposition to obtain for himself. Layamon, therefore, not onlyconfirms Geoffrey in some points, but it is clear, that, professingto follow Wace, he had independent access to the great body of Welshliterature then current. Sir F. Madden has put this matter veryclearly, in his recent edition of Layamon. The Abbe de la Rue, also,was of opinion that Gaimar, an Anglo-Norman, in the reign of Stephen,usually regarded as a translator of Geoffrey of Monmouth, had accessto a Welsh independent authority.
In addition to these, is to be mentioned the English version of SirTristrem, which Sir Walter Scott considered to be derived from adistinct Celtic source, and not, like the later Amadis, Palmerin, andLord Berners's Canon of Romance, imported into English literature bytranslation from the French. For the Auntours of Arthur, recentlypublished by the Camden Society, their Editor, Mr. Robson, seems tohint at a similar claim.
Here then are various known channels, by which portions of Welsh andArmoric fiction crossed the Celtic border, and gave rise to the moreornate, and widely-spread romance of the Age of Chivalry. It is notimprobable that there may have existed many others. It appears thenthat a large portion of the stocks of Mediaeval Romance proceededfrom Wales. We have next to see in what condition they are stillfound in that country.
That Wales possessed an ancient literature, containing various lyriccompositions, and certain triads, in which are arranged historicalfacts or moral aphorisms, has been shown by Sharon Turner, who hasestablished the high antiquity of many of these compositions.
The more strictly Romantic Literature of Wales has been lessfortunate, though not less deserving of critical attention. Smallportions only of it have hitherto appeared in print, the remainderbeing still hidden in the obscurity of ancient Manuscripts: of thesethe chief is supposed to be the Red Book of Hergest, now in theLibrary of Jesus College, Oxford, and of the fourteenth century.This contains, besides poems, the prose romances known as Mabinogion.The Black Book of Caermarthen, preserved at Hengwrt, and considerednot to be of later date than the twelfth century, is said to containpoems only. [1]
The Mabinogion, however, though thus early recorded in the Welshtongue, are in their existing form by no means wholly Welsh. Theyare of two tolerably distinct classes. Of these, the older containsfew allusions to Norman customs, manners, arts, arms, and luxuries.The other, and less ancient, are full of such allusions, and ofecclesiastical terms. Both classes, no doubt, are equally of Welshroot, but the former are not more overlaid or corrupted, than mighthave been expected, from the communication that so early took placebetween the Normans and the Welsh; whereas the latter probablymigrated from Wales, and were brought back and re-translated after anabsence of centuries, with a load of Norman additions. Kilhwch andOlwen, and the dream of Rhonabwy, may be cited as examples of theolder and purer class; the Lady of the Fountain, Peredur, and Geraintab Erbin, of the later, or decorated.
Besides these, indeed, there are a few tales, as Amlyn and Amic, SirBevis of Hamtoun, the Seven Wise Masters, and the story ofCharlemagne, so obviously of foreign extraction, and of lateintroduction into Wales, not presenting even a Welsh name, orallusion, and of such very slender intrinsic merit, that althoughcomprised in the Llyvr Coch, they have not a shadow of claim to formpart of the Canon of Welsh Romance. Therefore, although I havetranslated and examined them, I have given them no place in thesevolumes.
There is one argument in favour of the high antiquity in Wales