The Mabinogion (Oxford World's Classics)

by Sioned Davies

  In order to fully appreciate the Mabinogion, we have to understand the effect that this oral milieu had on the written tales. Oral and performance features are an integral part of their fabric, partly because the authors inherited pre-literary modes of narrating, but also because the written tales were composed for oral delivery, so that their reception and dissemination continued to have an influence on both style and structure. Indeed, one of the overriding concerns of this new translation has been the attempt to communicate to readers the exhilarating power of performance.

  Many features related to the tales’ structure are inexorably linked to memorability: after all, if an oral tale is impossible to remember it will not survive. The structure of each tale is divided into manageable episodes, as reflected in manuscript layout and decoration, where large initials divide the manuscript texts in many instances. A more common technique is for tales to be divided by scene-setting phrases such as ‘one day’, ‘one afternoon’, which function as a boundary between one event and the next, or for episodes to be framed by verbal repetition, which acts as a ‘chorus’ of sorts and functions as a signal to a listening audience.4 Indeed, one could argue that the episode was the all-important narrative unit, and that the authors were the first to combine such units into long composite texts, although the audience might well have been aware of an immanent whole. The chronological structure of each episode is again linked to memory, while the overwhelming presence of the conjunction ‘and’ may well be a reflection of the fragmented nature of spoken language. This, together with features such as the use of the present tense as the action intensifies, is a constant reminder of the crucial role played by oral performance in shaping the grammar and linguistic structure of vernacular narratives from the Middle Ages.

  The onomastic tags that conclude several episodes point again to narrative that is memory-friendly: the three major episodes of the First Branch of the Mabinogi, for example, can be remembered by recourse to three onomastic explanations: (i) Why was Pwyll called Head of Annwfn? (ii) When was ‘Badger in the Bag’ first played? (iii) How did Pryderi get his name? Onomastic tales linked with place-names are a common feature of much of the corpus, too—they are a constant reminder of the significance of the place and the legends connected with it.

  Repetition of events, with a high dependency on verbal repetition, is a common feature of any oral tale. This makes sense in practice, due to the ephemeral nature of oral prose or poetry. Tripartite repetition is particularly prevalent in the Mabinogion, employed to create suspense, and to focus. As well as verbal repetition within individual tales, one finds that certain phrases are common to more than one tale in the corpus, suggesting that the authors are drawing on a common pool of formulae or traditional patterns. Much has been written on the significance of the formula in oral poetry, ever since the work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord on Homeric diction and South Slavic heroic songs. Although metre is an integral part of the Parry–Lord formula, many scholars have shown that formulae, or stereotyped forms of expression, are also a distinctive feature of orally transmitted prose. In the Mabinogion they are employed to describe physical appearance, combat, horses, approach to a building, feasting, transition from one day to the next, and openings and endings of tales, so that although composition was in writing, formulae facilitated the retention, and therefore the reception, of the written text when read or heard.

  Many passages in the Mabinogion demand a voiced performance. This is particularly true in the case of dialogue, which in some tales constitutes almost half the narrative. Often the action calls for a wide range of voices, from the giant Ysbaddaden to the drunken Peredur, from the ferocious boar Twrch Trwyth to the distressed Lady of the Well. Indeed, characters come alive through their words rather than through any descriptions which, if they exist at all, are in the main highly stereotyped. There are many other examples in the tales where a silent reading does not do them justice. This is particularly so in the case of ‘How Culhwch Won Olwen’, of which it has often been said it is a tale to be heard. The long rhetorical passage describing in detail Culhwch’s steed, hounds, and equipment in a rhythmical fashion is highly reminiscent of the elaborate style of the court poets of medieval Wales, a style linked inexorably with public declamation, and found elsewhere throughout the corpus, not in extended paragraphs but as isolated descriptive phrases, especially with reference to horses, knights, squires, and in descriptions of combats, physical or verbal. The two lists in the tale also need to be read out loud for full effect. The first, a roll-call of those present at Arthur’s court (pp. 184–9), is highly alliterative and descends into farce at times, with the rhetorical effect taking on more importance than the personalities themselves. Inserted in the list, too, are tantalizing fragments of narrative—the triad of the three men who escaped from the battle of Camlan, for example, or Teithi the Old whose lands were submerged by the sea—challenging the listeners’ knowledge of traditional narrative. The second list is placed within a formulaic dialogue between Ysbaddaden and Culhwch (pp. 195–200), where the giant challenges Culhwch to perform forty seemingly impossible tasks in return for the hand of Olwen, his daughter. Upon hearing each task, Culhwch replies, ‘It is easy for me to get that, though you may think it’s not easy’, to which the giant retorts, ‘Though you may get that, there is something you will not get’, and proceeds to describe the next challenge. The formulae therefore act as a chorus of sorts between the naming of each task, easing the listing, and also the listening, process.

  The Tales and the Medieval Context

  This is the milieu, therefore, in which the Mabinogion developed before they were committed to writing. Although the tales appear in the fourteenth-century Red and White Book manuscripts, fragments of individual tales occur in manuscripts earlier by a hundred years or so. It is unclear whether the texts represent the earliest attempts at recording narrative prose in the Welsh language, or whether they are merely the earliest surviving examples. The dating and chronology of the tales are also problematic, which complicates issues concerning the relationship between individual texts. However, we can probably assume that they were written down sometime between the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, against a background of vast change in the history of Wales.5 During this period the Welsh struggled to retain their independence in the face of the Anglo-Norman conquest which ultimately transformed the society, economy, and church of Wales. Wales was divided into four major kingdoms—Gwynedd in the north-west; Powys, which stretched from the borders of Mercia into central Wales; Deheubarth in the south-west; and Morgannwg or Glamorgan in the south-east. These were further divided into smaller units ruled by independent princes who vied with each other for supremacy. There was, therefore, no central unity, largely due to the difficulties imposed by physical geography, so that Wales did not develop into a single kingdom or kingship. With the erosion of Welsh authority in the south of the country, together with the establishment of the rule of the Anglo-Norman barons along the Welsh–English border, known as the March, there was an attempt to create a single Welsh principality under the leadership of the native princes of Gwynedd, figures such as Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (otherwise known as Llywelyn the Great, who was married to Joan, illegitimate daughter of King John), and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, whose death at the hands of the English in 1282 brought any hopes of Welsh independence to an end. But even without the emergence of a common polity, Wales had an identity of its own, as exemplified by its language, culture, customs, and laws. Moreover, the Welsh had a shared sense of the past, and pride in a common descent from the Britons, the rightful owners of the Island of Britain.

  This clear view of their own past is attested in sources such as Trioedd Ynys Prydain (The Triads of the Island of Britain), a catalogue of stories and characters listed in groups of three similar episodes or themes which would have facilitated the recall of the material for storytellers and poets. Some of the references are corroborated by surviving narratives. According
to the triads, one of the ‘Three Fortunate Concealments of the Island of Britain’ is the head of Bendigeidfran, concealed in the White Hill in London with its face towards France to ward off Saxon oppression; indeed, the account in full is given in the third part of the Second Branch of the Mabinogi. As for other references, however, they will forever remain cryptic. Some of the triads deal with mythological themes and figures from the Welsh heroic age, but many, including the reference to Bendigeidfran, are concerned with the traditional history of Britain, focused on the notion of Britain as a single entity. The basic concept of medieval Welsh historiography was that the Welsh, descendants of the Britons, were the rightful heirs to the sovereignty of Britain, symbolized by the crown of London; despite invasions by the Romans and the Picts, and despite losing the crown to the Saxons, the Welsh would eventually overcome and a golden age of British rule would be restored. The theme of the loss of Britain can be traced back to the sixth century, to the work of the British monk Gildas; it is seen again some 300 years later in the anonymous History of the Britons (often ascribed to Nennius), and reaches its zenith in the twelfth century, in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s highly influential, and largely fictional, History of the Kings of Britain—all these were works that helped forge the Mabinogion.

  The tale of ‘Lludd and Llefelys’ and ‘The Dream of the Emperor Maxen’ closely mirror these themes. Indeed, the former is unique among the tales of the Mabinogion in that it first appears as an addition incorporated into a mid-thirteenth-century Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work. There is no doubt that it was taken originally from the oral storytelling tradition, as testified by the translator himself. However, even in its slightly embellished form in the White and the Red Books, the tale owes more to a translation style than to the oral storytelling style of the other tales: there is almost no dialogue, the treatment of the tripartite repetition is unimaginative, while there is overall very little attention to detail and no desire to dwell on the magical qualities of the three plagues that threaten the Island of Britain. In the tale, after all, these are not represented as historical invaders; rather, they have been transformed into the realm of folk-tale and presented as supernatural oppressors: the Coraniaid, a race of people who are able to hear every word that is spoken; fighting dragons whose screams every May eve cause women to become barren and men to lose their senses; and a powerful magician who can lull the court to sleep. The tale can be read as an alternative rendering of a triad, in which the invaders are the Romans, the Picts, and the Saxons. Indeed, the episode of the dragons, who are eventually captured and laid to sleep at Dinas Emrys in Snowdonia, is related to the ninth-century History of the Britons, and linked with the development of the red dragon as a symbol of Welsh identity.

  It may be no coincidence that ‘The Dream of the Emperor Maxen’ precedes ‘Lludd and Llefelys’ in both the White and the Red Books: the island is left at the mercy of foreign invaders as a result of Maxen’s action for it was he who deprived Britain of her military resources when he led them away to fight on the Continent. Unlike the Latin chroniclers, however, the native Welsh tradition shows Maxen in a favourable light, a symbol of the relationship between Rome and Wales, and someone from whom medieval Welsh dynasties claim to derive their descent. As with ‘Lludd and Llefelys’, the author again combines historical facts with folk-tale motifs, the hero’s quest for his true love, together with love-sickness, being common themes in Indo-European literature. This author, however, is much more skilful in his handling of the narrative, and especially in his imaginative treatment of the triple journey. When Maxen travels in his dream, the description of the journey itself is realistic, but actual geographical locations are imprecise. When his messengers go in search of the maiden, however, place-names are introduced and the journey is localized, although the maiden’s name is not revealed. The third journey is over in a few lines, as Maxen himself travels to the Island of Britain, invades and defeats the inhabitants, and makes for the castle at Caernarfon in Gwynedd. It is only then that we learn the identity of the maiden and her family: she is Elen of the Hosts, daughter of Eudaf and sister of Cynan. The remainder of the tale is far less integrated, consisting of a collection of onomastic tales and an account of the founding of Brittany— Maxen travels to the Continent to defend his throne, and grants land in Brittany to Elen’s brother, Cynan, in return for military support. The identity of the author is unknown, although interest in Caernarfon, together with dialect features, suggest that he might have come from North Wales. Indeed, the author may have been motivated by the historical circumstances of the reign of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the legend used ‘as a contemporary declaration of the long-standing Gwynedd policy of Welsh hegemony’, such a political motivation being in line with other attempts to fabricate or manipulate the past to justify the claims of Gwynedd.6 Indeed, it may be significant that ‘The Dream of the Emperor Maxen’ is preceded by ‘Peredur’ in both the White and the Red Books—they could both be vestiges of the powerful court of Gwynedd.

  Although very different in their approach, both ‘How Culhwch Won Olwen’ and ‘Rhonabwy’s Dream’ look back to a time when Britain was under the rule of one leader—Arthur. In the former he is described as ‘chief of the kings of this island’; in the latter, he is ‘emperor’. ‘Rhonabwy’s Dream’ is unique in that it survives only in the Red Book of Hergest. Moreover, in that manuscript some fifty-six columns separate it from the nearest Mabinogion tale—it is grouped with a prophetic text and a version of the tale of the Seven Sages. The opening suggests a pseudo-historical tale, where Madog ap Maredudd, ruler of Powys, sends men to seek out his troublesome brother Iorwerth; however, one of the envoys, Rhonabwy, falls asleep on a yellow ox-skin and is granted a vision, reflecting the ritual of the Irish poet-seers who were said to lie on the hides of bulls to acquire hidden knowledge. But any comparison ends there, for Rhonabwy’s action occurs completely by chance—it is not premeditated—and he is granted a vision of the distant Arthurian past rather than of future events. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this tale is that nothing really happens—there are digressions and detailed descriptions, where the author combines every known formula possible, but very few actions that lead to any clear outcomes. In fact, time runs backwards: Rhonabwy is guided through his dream by Iddog, who has just completed seven years penance for causing the battle of Camlan, Arthur’s final battle; yet Arthur himself is then introduced, and we are informed that the battle of Badon has not yet taken place! Indeed, the account of that battle is replaced by a long and perfectly balanced set-piece where Arthur plays gwyddbwyll, not against his enemy, which may well have been an acceptable motif, but against one of his own men, Owain son of Urien. As the board-game progresses Arthur and Owain’s men attack and kill each other offstage, and it is only when Arthur crushes all the pieces on the playing board that a truce is finally called. When Rhonabwy wakes up to discover that he has slept for three days and three nights, the tale comes to an abrupt end—no commentary whatsoever is offered, and nothing more is said of Rhonabwy, Madog, or Iorwerth.

  The meaning of the dream and its purpose have been interpreted in a variety of ways, much depending on views regarding the date of the tale and the nature of the satire contained within it. The framework is set in Powys during the reign of the historical Madog ap Maredudd. The comparative stability of his reign (1130–60) was followed by a period of unrest as Powys was divided between Madog’s sons, brother, and nephew. The tale may well have been composed in the thirteenth century, when the author, surely someone from Powys, was looking back to a golden age under Madog’s rule; or it may be a product of Madog’s lifetime (he died in 1160), and the satire aimed at contemporaries, even perhaps at Llywelyn ap Iorwerth of Gwynedd, whose political ambition was to become, like Arthur, a national leader. On the other hand, Arthur himself and all his trappings seem to be mocked, so that the satire may be directed not so much at the past as at stories about the past, and ag
ainst those who take the Arthurian myth and its values seriously.7

  Whereas the author of ‘Rhonabwy’s Dream’ may well have a cynical view of national leaders, the author of ‘How Culhwch Won Olwen’ sees Arthur as the model of an over-king, physically strong, decisive, focused, and leader of a band of ferocious warriors. The tale was probably first written down in south-east Wales, perhaps at Carmarthen, in the first half of the twelfth century; whatever its date, it certainly bears no resemblance to the Arthurian history of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Rather, the atmosphere is akin to that seen in early Welsh poems such as ‘What Man is the Gatekeeper?’, where Arthur and his band of warriors roam the country fighting witches, chasing monsters, and overpowering supernatural opponents. The action in the tale is centred on two classical international themes: the Jealous Stepmother and the Giant’s Daughter. When the young Culhwch refuses to marry his stepmother’s daughter, she puts a curse on him that he will marry no one save Olwen, the daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief Giant. At the mere mention of Olwen’s name Culhwch falls in love with her, and sets off for Arthur’s court to seek help. There he comes face to face with a host of men and women whose names are presented in a florid list—some 260 names in all— drawn from a variety of sources, reflecting both historical and legendary characters. Six warriors are enlisted as Culhwch’s helpers, and they accompany him to Ysbaddaden’s court, where we are presented with a list of forty tasks or marvels which Culhwch must achieve before he can win Olwen’s hand. Some of these involve the provision of food, drink, and entertainment for the wedding feast, while many focus on the hunting of Twrch Trwyth, a magical boar (twrch) who has between his ears a comb and scissors required by Ysbaddaden to trim his hair for the special occasion. The account of how the tasks are accomplished forms a series of independent episodes in which Arthur, together with warriors such as Cai and Bedwyr, help Culhwch win his bride.