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    The Mabinogion
    The Mabinogion
    The Mabinogion
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Mabinogion

    Published by Tantor Media, Inc

    Narrated by James Cameron Stewart

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Then they took the flowers of the oak, and the flowers of the broom, and the flowers of the meadowsweet, and from those they conjured up the fairest and most beautiful maiden that anyone had ever seen.

    Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history-these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as The Mabinogion. They tell of Gwydion the shape-shifter, who can create a woman out of flowers; of Math the magician whose feet must lie in the lap of a virgin; of hanging a pregnant mouse and hunting a magical boar. Dragons, witches, and giants live
    alongside kings and heroes, and quests of honor, revenge, and love are set against the backdrop of a country struggling to retain its independence.

    Sioned Davies's lively translation re-creates the storytelling world of medieval Wales and reinvests the tales with the power of performance.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    TranslatorSioned Davies
    Release dateJul 31, 2018
    ISBN9781977388018

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    Reviews for The Mabinogion

    4/5

    530 ratings22 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Jones & Jones highlight the distinctly differing styles of the anonymous manuscript writers, ranging from gritty tales where heroes die often and horribly, to courtly romances where to be a hero is to be invulnerable. I mostly enjoyed this book: there’s some really terrific tale telling. Just skip the pages where one anonymous was having all too much fun with this writing things down idea, naming every single person in Arthur's court... There are so many borrowings and adaptations of this Welsh cultural masterpiece in contemporary writing that it was all eerily half familiar. But definitely worth going back to the source.
    • 5/5
      (Sixth book/seventh text in the readathon.)

      It's been a long time since I read this in its entirety, if I ever did. I picked it up since I seemed to be on a role with Arthurian stuff, and was surprised to find how many of the stories do have some Arthurian aspect. I was under the impression it was only one or two.

      I like the Joneses translation, although the 'thou'ing gets a little irritating and hard to read at times -- perhaps mostly once it's 8am and you haven't slept that night.

      Interesting that the three prose romances at the end are pretty much copies of Chrétien de Troyes' romances. Obviously, they're rather later than 'Culhwch and Olwen'.

      I was always fond of 'The Dream of Macsen Wledig', for some reason, but now I am probably most fond of 'Culhwch and Olwen'.
    • 4/5
      The Penguin edition's introduction goes to enormous pains to tell me that the contents of the Mabinogian today probably do not reflect the original versions. They are only the oldest capturing we have of legends which were told orally for as many as several centuries prior. Further, we do not know exactly when this recording took place. Nor can we say for certain that it does not bear a heavy French influence which colors the lost originals. Nor is there much evidence that these stories held much influence over the development of Welsh culture. By the time I'd finished this detailed and inspiring intro, I almost reconsidered reading it at all.Happily the Welsh legends of the Mabinogian have several memorable bits, loaded with mythological elements, curious reasoning and fantastic events. It has the usual conflicts and cruel acts of violence encountered in most peoples' mythologies, but there's also some humour laced into it that I thought was more unusual. The most fantastical elements are met by the characters with forthright aplomb. This seems like a characteristic of most people of legend but here it's perhaps especially worth noting. As the (otherwise unhelpful) introduction notes, it's a recurring theme to see the fantastical and the real intertwined, and to see a crossing between the two come as naturally as fording a stream. I find Greek and Norse mythology more engaging and this is not all casual reading, but enough of it is entertaining.
    • 5/5
      Probably my single most favorite collection of mythology ever, The Mabinogion is a collection of Welsh legendary tales. They are gathered and written down from the bardic tradition of song so they prose may seem a bit off in places.

      Read in college (06-07)
    • 4/5
      I love to read history and while these tales are not histories, they do give a perspective of what was of on the minds of early medieval readers. These are traditional Welch tales, some pre-Christian era, some related to the myths of Arthur. I found Davies translations very readable and the extensive notes were for the most part helpful in providing background and context.

      The 11 stories in this collection are likely more than 1000 years old (perhaps some are much older but the written versions are in that range), and yet they are both similar to and different from modern stories. Similar in that sex and violence are common themes. Many of the fantastical elements form the basis for modern fantasy stories. Different in the way the stories are told and the expectation of what the reader will understand / accept as part of a good story. A couple of examples of that:

      1. The mix of pagan, pre-Christian notions with references to the Christian God. God, for instance, in one story curses a king and his men by turning them into pigs.

      2. In the "romances" in this collection, knights are constantly running about and killing people to win the hand of the "woman they love best", even to the point of killing other men to take their wives for themselves, and those wives scheming with them to do so. Perhaps an early form of "a code of chivalry" (and the medieval notion of love at first sight) when these tales were told, but certainly not a modern understanding of appropriate behavior between the sexes.

      3. The understanding that children of the noble class were commonly given away to be reared by "foster parents".

      I have not read the other translations that people mention in other reviews, but I enjoyed reading this enough to (at some point) seek out some of those translations.
    • 3/5
      Used mainly as a reference in a course. Would have liked footnotes instead of end notes but the information was helpful. I've found more modern translations to be more easily understood as some of the arcane word patterns here made reading comprehension challenging in some parts.
    • 2/5
      Sadly I found the language style and way of storytelling dull. I read the first 4 mabagoni but then gave up - too much like hard work.
    • 3/5
      The stories themselves are fascinating, but between the Old English translation and the near impossible to pronounce names, this translation is a pass.
    • 3/5
      This translation was pretty painful to get through. There were several instances of tense shifting within the same sentence, all throughout the book. The entire thing seemed kind of sloppy.
    • 3/5
      This book is the standard for early mideval Welsh mythology and pre-Malory Arthurian myth. The gods are there, but the heroes do much of the work. I've just finished the story of Culhwch and Olwen, and in order for our hero to marry Olwen, the daughter of Ysbadadden the Chief Giant, he must undertake a number of tasks that would make Odysseus himself swoon. His tasks involve bringing a cauldron that the owner does not want to surrender, finding a comb and shears between the ears of Twrch Trwyth and his piglets (and I'm not sure if Twrch Trwyth is himself a giant boar or a human giant. Either interpretation works), and there is much chasing over the lands of the Isle of Britain, France, Normandy, Brittany, and Ireland. There is mention of Arthur's loyal hound, Cafall, often a missing character in later Athurian romances. The translation is made with lots of thee's" and "so forth's" which can make the reading laborious. On the other hand, it gives a good historical view of the nobles and famous folk whom history has otherwise forgotten. Well worth reading, especially for scholars of early European history and myth."
    • 4/5
      This is a set of tales translated from the original Welsh. They were collected together in the 1350s, although some of them probably have much older origins. They are from an oral tradition that was dying out, cultural changes meant that the old Welsh mode of living was being diminished. And you can see that within these stories, there are mounted knights and jousts - surely not a part of ancient Celtic life. There are some startling images, the sheep that change colour from black to white and back again as the cross the stream, the tree that is half burning flame and half in leaf, the colourful knights and messengers. It is captivating. It doesn't always, strictly, make sense. But there is something about them that captures the imagination. In the same vein as Beowulf, and again reflecting that transition from oral to written history, you could view this as being part of the touchstone of being Welsh.
    • 3/5
      Fairly confusing Welsh mythology introducing ferries and other sprites among historical figures.
    • 5/5
      I'm giving the Mabinogion five stars because it is so much itself. These old tales are not for everyone and the language comes down to us a bit stilted, but I love the repetition and pageantry. It's dreamlike: evil giants, strange beasts, knights so powerful they kill a thousand men in a day. I love phrases like "the loudest thing anyone ever heard" and "the hoary-haired man."

      It's old-fashioned. It's put-downable. And there's nothing else like it.

      Petrea Burchard
      Camelot & Vine
    • 4/5
      The first four stories are really excellent, weird old stuff from pre-christian Wales that move quickly and are consistently entertaining and surprising. I found the Arthurian stories a little less interesting, though not terrible by any stretch. The Welsh taxonomy is just fantastic, and puzzling out the correct pronunciation of character and place names (with the help of the pronunciation guide) is a great game. Wales seems to get short shrift among Celt-crazy Americans, and it seems a bit unfair after reading this.

      Also recommended if you enjoyed Lloyd Alexander in your youth, as he clearly drew heavily from this and similar sources.
    • 3/5
      "And they took counsel and cut out the tongues of the women lest they should corrupt their speech. And because of the silence of the women from their own speech, the men of Amorica are called Britons. From that time their came frequently, and still comes, that language from the island of Briton""And he (Lludd) dwelt therein most part of the year, and therefore was it called Caer Lludd, and at last Caer London. And after the stranger-race came there it was called London or Lwndrys"The above must be true as I read them in Lady Guest's 1849 translation of the Mabinogion. These tales were collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts and draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology. The first four stories in the collection are the oldest and are known as the four branches of the Mabinogi. Pryderi fab Pwyll from Welsh mythology occurs in all of them and they have a very medieval feel to them and are not always easy to follow. Magic features prominently in all of them and there is much going "to meat" and "taking counsel", however these feel more like crude devices to keep the story moving or to depict time passing. There is no character development: merely a relating of events, but these get a bit bogged down by the need to list the names of characters that might be relevant to the narrative.The five following tales are more recognisable because they are based around the figure of king Arthur and his knights. There are still difficulties however as in Kilhwch and Olwen there is a four page list of Arthur's knights, which are largely unrecognisable in their Welsh spellings. However all the tales have some interest especially the dream vision of Rhonabwy, which features Arthur, Gawain and flocks of ravens.The next three tales are all recognisable from Chretien de Troyes Arthurian Romances. The Lady of the Fountain has the same source material as "The knight with the lion (Yvain)" and "Peredur the son of Evrawc" and "Geraint the son of Erbin use material from "The story of the Grail". They do not however have the same Christian message as Chretien's tales for example we find this in Peredur:"Then said Peredur, to heaven I render thanks that I have not broken my vow to the Lady that best I love, which was that I would not speak one word unto any Christian"As these three tales in particular have not been dated, it is still not known whether they came from an original source or are adapted from Chretien de Troyes Arthurian Romances. The final story in the collection is Taliesin; the story of the Welsh bard and features some of the poems accredited to him. Apparently this is from a later manuscript and there is a direct reference to Christianity in the first poem that Taliesin wrote which ends like so:There lies a virtue in my tongue.While I continue thy protectorThou hast not much to fear;Remembering the name of the Trinity,None shall be able to harm thee.The Mabinogion is certainly of interest for those who wish to delve into the history of the Arthurian legends and to medievalists in general. The Lady Charlotte E Guest's translation has been criticised for a bowdlerisation of the original text and at times it feels a bit clunky. There are more recent translations available but these may not include the Taliesin poems
    • 5/5
      An accessible and eminently readable new translation with copious notes which are almost as interesting as the original stories themselves.
    • 3/5
      I'm splitting the difference between my love of the medieval collection (i.e. Y Mabinogi and the other Welsh tales) and Lady Charlotte Guest's sometimes-bowdlerized, romanticized, nineteenth-century (and I mean that in the worst possible way) translation (which would garner at best two stars, because I'm feeling generous). The real advantage of this book is if you're interested in the history of how the Mabinogion has been treated in the English language; otherwise, you should decide if you wanta.) a literal translation: in that case, go with the Jones and Jones translation of the 1950s (IIRC), offered by Everymanb.) a readable translation that also tries to give the flavor of the medieval original: in that case, go with Sioned Davies' translation from 2006.c.) a translation that focuses on the pre-Christian mythology of the non-Romance tales: in that case, go with the Patrick Ford translation from the 1970s. The advantage of Ford's translation is its inclusion of the earliest version of "The Story of Taliesin"; the disadvantage is it doesn't include the Three Romances ("Peredur", "Owain", and "Gereint").d.) a translation that focuses on the environment of Wales: the Bollard translation is great for this.
    • 4/5
      Eleven Welsh stories dating from the 14th century shares much content with Morte d' Arthur. Arthur and Gwenhwyfar are principle characters. The tales shares parallels with Arthur, and Homer, and yet are much simpler and rustic. Comparatively, it's as if these tales were neither written by a single genius nor had time to be refined through successive iterations of storytelling.
    • 3/5
      The 4 Branches stories are better than the other 2 parts. The native tales and the romances seemed to be tainted with Chrétien's touch. Favorite tale: Branwen, Daughter of Llŷr(Efnisien's complexity). Least Favorite: Culhwch and Olwen( way to many lists).
    • 5/5
      This collection of Welsh tales is a must-read for any lover of Arthurian literature. It contains "Culhwch and Olwen", the first full-length tale (that we know of) starring Arthur and his men in its entirety. Other tales contained in this collection bear resemblance to works by Chretien de Troyes, and serve as interesting comparisons to the French variations, which people are more likely to be familiar with.
    • 3/5
      Full of Welsh people with silly names, but an interesting glimpse into folk memeries from the edges of History.
    • 5/5
      Gorgeous collection of Welsh tales.