Introduction to the Mabinogi

I came across this book via an article in one of the Welsh newspapers. Being interested in Mabinogion scholarship, I figured I should take a look. While the book is, as it says, an introduction, I’m glad I did.

A word on terminology is in order before I start. These days the word ‘Mabinogion’ is often held to be a foreign mis-translation, and Lady Charlotte Guest is most frequently blamed for it. The truth is not that simple.

Each of the four branches that make up the main part of the collection of stories ends with the phrase, ‘thus ends this branch of the Mabinogi’. Or rather, three of them do. The first branch, in both fully extant versions of the text, ends with the word ‘Mabynnogyon’. This is now generally assumed to be a scribal error. The word ‘Mabinogi’, used at the end of the other three branches, is a perfectly valid Welsh plural and there is no need to add anything to it.

The use of ‘Mabinigion’ can be traced back to the Welsh antiquarian, William Owen Pughe, who is best known for his work on an English-Welsh dictionary. Pughe’s translation of the Mabinogion was never fully published, but his work was known to Guest and she presumably got the title from him.

In her Oxford edition of the Mabinogion, Sioned Davies suggests that the word ‘Mabinogion’ be used for the full collection of eleven stories that are found together in both the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest. However, the four branches, which form a semi-coherent whole, should be known as the Mabinogi. Shân Morgain’s book, being only about the four branches, is therefore correctly an introduction to the Mabinogi.

While there are several theories, no one actually knows what ‘Mabinogi’ means.

The first thing to note about Morgain’s book is that it is in need of some care and attention from a graphic designer. Having little in the way of artistic skills myself, my own philosophy of book design is to keep things as simple as possible. Morgain is much more ambitious, and the end result reminds me somewhat of the ‘ransom note’ design fashion that appeared in the early days of Pagemaker on the Mac.

Thankfully the text, while very enthusiastic at times, is solidly informative, if not academic. Morgain does have a PhD, for a study of the character of Rhiannon that she did through Swansea University. It is open source so I have downloaded it and am looking forward to reading it. This book is intended for a much more general audience and eschews footnotes and the like.

A little over half the book is taken up with short versions of the stories of the four Mabinogi. As the book is an introduction, these are neither intended to be a faithful translation nor a literary one. They are there to familiarise the reader with the plots and characters.

The rest of the book is an introduction to Mabinogi scholarship, and is pretty clearly based on the research that Morgain did for her PhD. It covers the breath of scholarship on the stories, from Edward Lhuyd in 1707 down to the present day. It also covers examples of the stories in popular culture, from Evangeline Walton through to modern video games. None of this is covered in very much detail, but there is enough to enable you to follow things up should you need to.

Of particular interest is the section on Patterns in the text. This is a Structural Analysis approach building on the work of John K Bollard. What this does is identify ways in which the structure of the four Mabinogi stories mirror each other, thereby showing that the author(s) were putting quite a bit of thought into the writing process.

On the downside I was surprised to see very little mention of the context in which the stories were written down. While the Mabinogi probably originated in a bardic tradition of oral storytelling, which may stretch back into pagan times, they were written down by Christian monks who had their own cultural and political issues to deal with. In ‘Peredur’, for example, which is not part of the four branches but is included in the Mabinogion, some scholars claim to see commentary on the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda.

Morgain clearly has a strong love for the source material, which tends to make the reader doubt her claims at times, which is probably unfair. She has a particular disdain for people such as the Goddess Movement who re-purpose the stories and claim to have re-discovered the ‘authentic’ meaning of the tales. But as long as you admit to having re-worked the stories for your own purposes she’s fine with that.

If you have an interest in the Mabinogi, and wish to further your scholarship, I think this book is an excellent introduction. I certainly learned things from it. But if you are just interested in the stories this is probably taking you a step or two down a road you don’t want to follow.

Title: Introduction to the Mabinogi
By: Shân Morgain
Publisher: House Morgain
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