Cyfarwyddyd: Welsh Tales and Foreign Adaptations

Discussions

• Proinsias Mac Cana, The Mabinogi (`Writers of Wales', 1977; new edn 1992). An essential introduction to present-day study of the eleven tales commonly entitled `The Mabinogion' (an ancient misnomer, whose currency derives from its original adoption in 1849 by Lady Charlotte Guest as the title for her pioneer publication of the tales, with accompanying translation). The authentic title `Mabinogi' occurs in the manuscripts only in relation to the four mythological tales (=Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi) which are derived from traditions of the ancient Celtic deities - the children of Don and of Lly^r. The Four Branches receive priority as the subject of the first half of Mac Cana's study. His book offers a concise exposition of the leading questions concerning the genesis and significance of all the eleven tales - the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, `Culhwch and Olwen', the `Dream of Maxen', `Lludd and Llefelys', and the Three Romances of `Owein', `Gereint' and `Peredur'. Illuminating parallels with early Irish literature are pointed out at all stages: in particular, the parallel is noted between aspects of the Arthurian cycle and the cycle of Fionn mac Cumhaill.
• Proinsias Mac Cana, Branwen Daughter of Lly^r: A Study of the Irish Affinities and of the Composition of the Second Branch of the Mabinogi (1958). This early study by the author is significant as representing a distinguished Irish scholar's overview of the Irish analogues, or possible analogues, to incidents in the tale of `Branwen'. Mac Cana's findings remain valuable, although a later generation would probably be less ready to accept that such analogues are due to direct literary borrowings into Welsh from Irish, rather than the result of a common Celtic inheritance, in which both nations once participated. Certain points of detail in the discussion of `Branwen' require modification in the light of findings made over the last forty years - for instance in relation to the significance of the Triads quoted, or implied, in the background to the tale, and the variants of specific incidents in the `Mabinogi' which appear in these and elsewhere. Mac Cana advances an intriguing speculation as to the possible authorship of the Four Branches, and makes perceptive remarks on the author's style
• W.J. Gruffydd, Math vab Mathonwy (1928); idem, Rhiannon (1953). As early milestones in the study of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, these two books cannot be disregarded. However much opinions may by now have altered with regard to certain of WJG's findings, they represent an important stage in the evolution of Mabinogi scholarship. A quarter of a century separates the dates of publication of the two books, yet the author's opinion that the `Mabinogi' developed originally around the life-story of the hero Pryderi, remained virtually unchanged over this long period. (WJG failed to complete his study of `Branwen', the second Branch; for an outline of his views on this tale see the appendix to Mac Cana's Branwen (above), and Llên Cymru iv, 129-34.) WJG's approach is that of a folklorist, rather than of a mythologist, yet he followed his teacher Sir John Rhy^s in discerning a number of analogues in early Irish tales, as well as in modern Irish folk-tales, for themes in the `Mabinogi'. Yet he envisaged these analogues as due to the participation of Wales and Ireland in a common Celtic inheritance, rather than as the result of direct borrowing, whether oral or literary, by the one from the other. He believed that the sources of the constituent stories had been handed down over the centuries since their early evolution in west Wales, in Gwynedd and Dyfed - two areas in which Irish settlements had been made in the remotest past. He believed that originally the tales might even have been first narrated in the Irish language. Yet it remained for a gifted south Wales author, in the eleventh or early twelfth century, to redact the Four Branches in the classic form in which the `Mabinogi' has come down to us. In the course of his discussion WJG makes a number of valuable identifications of incidents which are introduced in the tales to explain forgotten place-names
• K.H. Jackson, The International Popular Tale and Early Welsh Tradition (1961). Professor Jackson brings a new dimension to the study of both the analogues to, and the possible influences upon the `Mabinogi' and the other Welsh tales. He illustrates by examples the great antiquity and widespread distribution of international story-themes (`folk-tales'), which are attested in countries dispersed throughout the world. He shows that such stories were cultivated in early times by both rich and poor alike, and were in no sense restricted to the peasantry. International themes (such as the `Calumniated Wife'), which are prominent in the `Mabinogi', could have reached Britain during the Roman period or at an even earlier date. Both Celtic and international story-themes, though more fully exemplified in early Irish sources than in Welsh, are nevertheless as likely to have reached Britain directly from the Continent as they are to have come from Ireland. KHJ's concluding views on the genesis and authorship of the `Mabinogi' will be found more controversial
• Pennar Davies, Rhwng Chwedl a Chredo: Datblygiad Meddwl Crefyddol Cymru yn yr Oesoedd Cynnar (Between Fable and Belief: the early development of religious thought in Wales) (1966). This book is an expansion of a lecture sponsored by the Pantyfedwen Trust and delivered in 1963. The author demonstrates from early Welsh literature the continuity in thought and ethics which spans the divide between pre-Christian and Christian beliefs: he thus examines the `Mabinogi' from a viewpoint distinctive from that of any previous writer. The importance of this study lies in its later chapters, which assess the Four Branches of the Mabinogi as a finished literary masterpiece, instead of concentrating on the constituent elements which went in to their formation. The early chapters have been subject to some criticism, as oversimplifying the details of the archaeological background to early Celtic Christianity
• Oliver Davies, Celtic Christianity in Early Medieval Wales: the Origins of the Welsh Spiritual Tradition (1996). This book uncovers the origins of a Welsh spiritual tradition in the early religious literature which OD sees as reflecting the interaction of early Christianity with pagan Celtic religion. OD approaches his subject from a wide European perspective and intersperses his commentary and interpretation with extensive English translations of his own from sources such as the Black Book of Carmarthen, the Book of Taliesin and the Lives of the Saints
• Ifor Williams, Chwedl Taliesin (1957). Based on the O'Donnell lecture delivered in the University of Wales for the year 1955-6. The `Story of Taliesin' is shown to be of ancient pagan and mythological origin, although in its complete form it has come down only in versions recorded from the sixteenth century and later. (A translation of one of these is given in Guest's Mabinogion; see also P.K. Ford, Ystoria Taliesin.) IW outlines the earliest of these versions, as it has come down in the text of Elis Gruffydd (the `soldier of Calais', c.1490-1552), adding to it some interesting notes on names and places. His belief was that a semi-mythological story about Taliesin was first evolved in north Wales during the ninth or tenth century, and he finds confirmation for this in early poems preserved in the fourteenth- century Book of Taliesin: these clearly have their context in events narrated in the story. Evidently, `Chwedl Taliesin' enjoyed a wide circulation in Wales over a period of several centuries: a number of new poems were added in the later versions, and these show how the tale became progressively christianized at the hands of its later transmitters
• Sioned Davies, Crefft y Cyfarwydd (The Art of the `Cyfarwydd') (1996). The eleven tales in the `Mabinogion' collection are envisaged as literary compositions deriving their essential features from the techniques of the `Cyfarwydd' or oral storyteller: episodic structure, recurrent formulaic elements, triple repetitions and conversations in direct speech. The stories were intended to be declaimed or read aloud to a listening audience. Comparisons are made with oral literatures elsewhere, and current theories about oral composition are discussed.

Arthurian Studies