Cyfarwyddyd: Welsh Tales and Foreign Adaptations

Texts and Editions

• J.G. Evans, and R.M. Jones, Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch: Y Chwedlau a'r Rhamantau (The White Book of Rhydderch: Tales and Romances) (1972, 1977). A reprint of J.G. Evans's White Book Mabinogion; Tales and Romances (Pwllheli, 1907), with a new introduction by R.M. Jones. Together with much other material, the `White Book' contains the oldest complete texts of ten of the eleven `Mabinogion' tales (the eleventh, `Breuddwyd Rhonabwy', is here supplied from the Red Book of Hergest). `The White Book provides the earliest texts of much of the best of Welsh medieval secular prose . . . Only the Red Book of Hergest can be compared to it in importance' according to the estimate of Daniel Huws, `Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 21 (1991), 1-37. The same authority here concludes that the manuscript was written by five different scribes, all of them working c.1350.
• Ifor Williams, Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi (The Four Branches of the Mabinogi) (1930; new edn 1951, 1994). More than sixty years since its first publication, IW's edition of the Mabinogi remains fundamental for the study of the four tales `Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed', `Branwen ferch Ly^r', `Manawydan fab Lly^r' and `Math fab Mathonwy'. IW here provided for the first time a satisfactory explanation of the title `Mabinogi', as meaning `youth, a tale of youth' and then simply `a tale'. With W.J. Gruffydd he regarded the south Wales hero Pryderi as the single central figure around whose life the composite Mabinogi could have developed. He suggested that the work was first redacted by a south Wales author during the brief period when the whole country was united under Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ap Seisyll (d. 1063), and that this author based his work on antecedent, orally preserved legend and mythology. Edited with introduction and copious explanatory notes. [English editions of `Pwyll' and `Branwen', by R.L. Thomson and D.S. Thomson respectively, and based on IW's edition, were published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 1957, 1961. For English translations of the eleven tales see Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, The Mabinogion (Everyman, 1949) and J. Ganz, The Mabinogion (Harmondsworth, 1976).
• Rachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans, Culhwch ac Olwen: Testun Syr Idris Foster, wedi ei olygu a'i orffen gan RB a DSE (CO (i)) (1988). A revised edition of CO (i) is in the Press and is scheduled for publication in 1997. It will have full notes and critical apparatus, and a revised text edited from the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest.
• Rachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans, Culhwch and Olwen: An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale (CO (ii)) (1992). The text of the tale corresponds in the two editions, CO (i) and CO (ii), but CO (ii) offers a newly written introduction which acknowledges indebtedness to the earlier work of Sir Idris Foster, makes some new suggestions, and takes account of studies published after the death of Sir Idris in 1984.
  With the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, `Culhwch and Olwen' represents the oldest of the Welsh tales which has survived in a complete form. Like the Four Branches, it is the final redaction in writing of a long antecedent tradition of oral story-telling: a tradition which has left its influence in different ways on the style of both `Culhwch and Olwen' and the Four Branches. (See P. Mac Cana, The Mabinogi.)
• Glenys W. Goetinck (gol.), Historia Peredur vab Efrawc (1976). Edited from the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest. With brief introduction, notes, and glossary (in Welsh). (Fragmentary texts from Peniarth 7 and 14 are printed in an appendix.) Peredur was an ancient traditional hero of the `Old North', whose name is found in the `Gododdin'. (Efrawg = Eburacon =York). With `Owein' and `Geraint ab Erbin' this tale is known as one of the Three Romances in the `Mabinogion'. The three tales are united in their similarity of style and subject-matter: the names of the protagonists in all three have close parallels in those of their counterparts in the corresponding poems of Chrétien de Troyes `Perceval li Gallois', `Yvain', `Erec et Enide'. In the Welsh version, Peredur's story contains within it the germ of the Grail legend, which was developed more explicitly by Chrétien de Troyes. See Goetinck's Peredur: A Study of Welsh Tradition in the Grail Legends.
• Melville Richards, Breudwyt Ronabwy (The Dream of Rhonabwy) (1948, 1980). This tale is the latest to be included in the `Mabinogion'. The only surviving text has been preserved in the Red Book of Hergest. `Rhonabwy's Dream' may have been composed in the middle or later thirteenth century, and in character it contrasts strongly with all the other Welsh tales. A precise historical and geographical setting - Powys under the rule of Madog ap Maredudd (d.1160) - is sharply juxtaposed to the fantasy of an occult dream-vision, which discloses to Madog's messenger Rhonabwy the visionary panorama of Arthur's court, peopled with legendary heroes, all no doubt familiar names to the author, and to the reader or listener to the tale. Both the Arthurian world and the narrator's contemporary world are satirized concurrently, though at this distance of time it is impossible for us to estimate the finer points of the satire.
• Patrick K. Ford (ed.), Ystoria Taliesin (1992). The first scholarly edition, with an extended introduction, notes and glossary, of a folk-tale which is presumed to be of great antiquity, telling of the miraculous birth of the `archetypal Celtic poet' Taliesin; of how he acquired the `awen', or gift of poetic inspiration and prophecy, and was later enabled by this to confute an assembly of rival poets at the court of the king Maelgwn Gwynedd. The text is based on that of Elis Gruffydd, the sixteenth-century `soldier of Calais' who acknowledges that in his day there existed many variant oral versions of the tale. [The story was first made known in English through T. Love Peacock's The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), and subsequently a text and translation, from a version by Iolo Morganwg, was included in Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion in 1849. See also Ifor Williams, Chwedl Taliesin).
• Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary (1961; new edn 1978; 3rd edn in the Press and scheduled for publication in 1997). The `Triads of the Island of Britain' are a series of triple groups commemorating the names of heroes and heroines from an extensive corpus of lost Welsh traditional narrative, which was for the most part only retailed orally, and hence has very largely been lost to posterity. But the traditional names are frequently recalled in tantalizing allusions by the Gogynfeirdd and later poets, as well as in the Mabinogi and elsewhere. The Triads have come down in numerous manuscript copies from the late thirteenth century onwards (though some individual triads are certainly much older than this). The names are grouped under various imprecise but complimentary epithets, often paralleled in the esoteric language of the poets. The book ends with five appendices: Bonedd Gwy^r y Gogledd (The Descent of the Men of the North); Tri Thlws ar Ddeg Ynys Prydein (The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain), Enweu Ynys Prydein (The Names of the Island of Britain) and Pedwar Marchog ar Hugain Llys Arthur (The Twenty-Four Knights of Arthur's Court) and North Welsh Genealogical Triads.
• R. Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydain in Welsh Literature and Scholarship (G.J. Williams Memorial Lecture, 1969). This lecture outlines the reverential attitude held towards Trioedd Ynys Prydain as a prime historical source from the time of the Renaissance scholars Salesbury and Camden, and culminating in Iolo Morganwg's compilation and publication of his `Third Series' of Trioedd Ynys Prydain in the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales in 1807. The basis of his work was an imaginative recreation of Triads from the older collection compiled by Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt (1592-1667; see triads 1-46 in the previous entry), and published as the Myvyrian `First Series' of Trioedd Ynys Prydain. [For an annotated edition of Iolo's manuscript English translation of his `Third Series', see further R. Bromwich, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1968 and 1969.
• D. Gwenallt Jones (gol.), Yr Areithiau Pros (1934). A selection of the `Prose Orations', which are here described as exercises in declamation composed for the use of apprentice bards. They consist of short anecdotes, lists of things liked and disliked, imaginary dreams and speeches. They have come down in numerous manuscript copies, none of which is earlier than the sixteenth century, though their contents suggest that those which contain echoes of the Mabinogi and other medieval tales, have developed out of considerably older materials. They were probably evolved gradually by the bards over a long antecedent period. The two first examples here given have phrases culled from `Culhwch and Olwen', while `Araith Iolo Goch' is obviously a parody of that tale. The Areithiau have been fathered on the names of earlier poets, especially poets of the fourteenth century - Dafydd ap Gwilym, Iolo Goch, Gruffudd ab Adda, Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen.

Medieval Adaptations