The Project Gutenberg EBook of The MabinogionCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributingthis or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this ProjectGutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit theheader without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about theeBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included isimportant information about your specific rights and restrictions inhow the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make adonation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****Title: The MabinogionTranslator: Lady Charlotte GuestRelease Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5160][Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule][This file was first posted on May 22, 2002][Most recently updated: May 22, 2002]Edition: 10Language: English*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE MABINOGION ***Transcribed from the 1849 edition text by David Price, emailccx074@coventry.ac.ukTHE MABINOGIONTRANSLATED BY LADY CHARLOTTE GUESTContents:IntroductionThe Lady of the FountainPeredur the Son of EvrawcGeraint the son of Erbin
Kilhwch and OlwenThe dream of RhonabwyPwyll Prince of DyvedBranwen the daughter of LlyrManawyddan the son of LlyrMath the son of MathonwyThe dream of Maxen WledigThe story of Lludd and LlevelysTaliesinINTRODUCTIONWhilst 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 ancient
dominion 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 by
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