The Mabinogion is a collection of Welsh stories preserved in manuscripts from the fourteenth century, but it's assumed that the stories are older than that, they have been translated into English since the eighteenth century and this collection is in that tradition.

I enjoyed it and will probably read it again some time. It got me wanting to read Le Morte D'Arthur (I have a copy somewhere) and to play Gwyddbwyll Among the numerous works by J. R. R. Tolkien that he has illustrated are the 1992 centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings, a 1999 edition of The Hobbit, the 2007 The Children of Húrin, the 2017 Beren and Lúthien, the 2018 The Fall of Gondolin, and the 2022 The Fall of Númenor. [2] [3] It first came to general literary prominence in the mid 19th century, when Lady Charlotte Guest published her translation of 11 medieval Welsh folk tales under the title The Mabinogion. You’re hunting alone in the forest and encounter a stag being chased by brilliant white hounds with blood-red ears. Seeing no one around, you chase the hounds off and let your own dogs feed on the kill. But out of the forest appears the king of the Otherworld who says the stag was his and claims offense. The only way make amends, he says, will be to trade places with him for a year—he will become you and you will become him.

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The Dream of Maxen” also shares some similarity with an Irish tale, “The Dream of Oengus.” In both, the man dreams of a beautiful girl who, upon awakening to her absence, leaves him depressed and nearly paralyzed with heartache until he can find her in the waking world. Each tale sees its subsequent quest play out in contrasting ways. Transformation into animals is another recurring element of both Irish and Welsh lore, and so is the theme of rebirth through this metamorphosis. In it people are transformed into eagles, owls, maidens are created from flowers, but my favorite one must be when Math punished brothers Gwydion son of Dôn and Gilfaethwy son of Dôn for raping the virgin Goewin by transforming them first into hind and stag for the year, then into wild boar and a wild sow, and finally into a wolf and she-wolf and making them procreate with each other. To be fair, Math fostered all resulting children.

This Penguin Classic translated by Jeffrey Gantz (not the same illustration as pictured here) is the third translation of The Mabinogion I have read, and it’s by far the best. The title is misleading, stemming from Lady Charlotte Guest’s use of it in her nineteenth century translation, but it’s now ”established and convenient”. In his introduction Gantz explains the misuse in detail. Many concepts not only in fantasy literature but in the broader realm of fiction that were popularized over the later centuries seem to have been introduced in these stories. One that first springs to mind is the mysterious wall of fog that Gereint meets toward the end of his saga. He knows something challenging awaits him on the other side, but is unsure what. Outside the fog wall poles are lined up with the heads of slain men who have come before. He enters the fog and is soon met with an enormous warrior he must defeat. Only after he is victorious does the fog disappear so that he may leave. People with interest in Arthurian legends will find some familiar stories here, especially towards the end. I didn't find it quite clear if they were influenced by the French collection of stories of Arthur, or the other way around. Most of the stories have some patchwork in making each a story, but really they are easy to follow, though some inconsistencies exist. In my own reading experience, only "Peredur Son Of Evrawg" was clangingly clearly taped-together, and its ending wasn't quite smooth. And so images of stories from the Mabinogion are relatively scarce online, with most illustrations coming from various republications of Charlotte Guest’s translation that use the same drawings by S. Williams (I don’t have more detail!). So I went for a little bit of a hunt for some more obscure public domain images. ones. I didn’t turn up a lot for this story but below are a few I uncovered, illustrated variously by John D. Batten in More Celtic Fairy Tales and by T.H Robinson in Y llyfr cyntaf Pryderi fab Pwyll.Jones, Gwyn and Jones, Thomas. "The Mabinogion ~ Medieval Welsh Tales." (Illust. Alan Lee). Dragon's Dream., 1982. Before Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain or the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes, there was The Mabinogion, the extraordinary collection of ancient Welsh mythology and legend regarded by many as Britain's earliest known prose literary work. Lee worked as a conceptual designer on the films Legend, Erik the Viking, King Kong and the television mini-series Merlin. [5] The art book Faeries, produced in collaboration with Brian Froud, was the basis of a 1981 animated feature of the same name. [9] [10] bw): Richard Day, George James Hopkins / (c): Cedric Gibbons, E. Preston Ames, Edwin B. Willis, F. Keogh Gleason

Rhiannon is included in various Celtic neopaganism traditions since the 1970s, with varying degrees of accuracy in respect to the original literary sources.oral tradition of story telling that many of the fantastic and supernatural elements of the tales have come In the fantasy world of Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, there is a "University of Rhiannon", where Magic is taught. In the Robin of Sherwood story "The King's Fool" (1984), Rhiannon's Wheel is the name of a stone circle where Herne the Hunter appears to the characters. [15]

This new edition contains the definitive translation of the work by Lady Charlotte Guest, undoubtably the most accessible of those published, and includes the tale of Taliesin, which has been missing from the collected tales of the Mabinogion for over twenty years. It also contains 50 colour paintings by Alan Lee, many appearing here for the first time. Best known for his work on the illustrated editions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, it was always Alan Lee's ambition to illustrate THE MABINOGION, as it combines his main interests of folklore, legend and the supernatural. His style lends itself perfectly to the work and his interpretation will give enormous pleasure as the stories enter their third millennium. The stories vary in length. There are some bizarre-amusing etc. elements that stand out, like a Loki-like character, other dimensions of the same place just with no people, vanishing fortresses, people taking mice-forms, guarding virginity by keeping your feet in the maiden's lap, two men as an animal couple (and not just one kind of animal!), a dragon in Oxford, people like a person who The stories have had newer stuff (and values) multilayered over the original, French appearing over Celtic, but some common themes still shine through. Some characters, who appear briefly or in minor character might have had bigger roles and their own stories in the past. Some historical people appear, sometimes under Welsh-name versions. I used this collection of Welsh tales to gain key insight into connections with the English language by comparing the names of characters and locations to their English counterparts.Manawydan now becomes the lead character in the Third Branch, and it is commonly named after him. With Rhiannon, Pryderi and Cigfa, he sits on the Gorsedd Arberth as Pwyll had once done. But this time disaster ensues. Thunder and magical mist descend on the land leaving it empty of all domesticated animals and all humans apart from the four protagonists. These stories were not written or even created by a single author. They evolved over centuries passed down from storyteller to storyteller through the ages and so were altered, distorted, and expanded. Like some other figures of British/Welsh literary tradition, Rhiannon may be a reflection of an earlier Celtic deity. Her name appears to derive from the reconstructed Brittonic form * Rīgantonā, a derivative of * rīgan- "queen". In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, Rhiannon is strongly associated with horses, and so is her son Pryderi. She is often considered to be related to the Gaulish horse goddess Epona. [2] [3] She and her son are often depicted as mare and foal. Like Epona, she sometimes sits on her horse in a calm, stoic way. [4] This connection with Epona is generally accepted among scholars of the Mabinogi and Celtic studies, but Ronald Hutton, a historian of paganism, is skeptical. [5] Rhiannon's story [ edit ] Y Mabinogi: First Branch [ edit ]