The Mabinogion (Oxford World's Classics) (56 page)

Mochdref
50, 241 n.

Mochnant
the commot of Mochnant is partly in Denbighshire and partly in Montgomeryshire 50, 241 n.

Môn
the island of Anglesey in the north-west of Wales 106

Morgannwg
Glamorgan, an area in south-east Wales 47, 57

Mur Castell
known today as Castell Tomen y Mur, the site of a Roman hill-fort overlooking Trawsfynydd lake 59, 63

North
very often this refers not to North Wales but to the ‘Old North’, i.e. the old Brittonic kingdoms of Gododdin, Strathclyde, and Rheged located in the area covering the north of England and southern Scotland; the earliest surviving poetry in the Welsh language, associated with the sixth-century poets Aneirin and Taliesin, was probably composed here 65, 78, 181, 186, 207, 212

Pen Pengwaedd
Penwith Point, near Land’s End 181, 260 n.

Penllyn
a cantref to the east of Ardudwy, in northern Powys 59, 61, 63

Pennardd
in the commot of Arfon in Gwynedd, not far from Clynnog 50

Porffordd
Pulford in Flintshire, 5 miles south of Chester 214

Porth Cerddin
perhaps
Pwll Crochan
(‘Cove of the Cauldron’), west of Fishguard, in Pembrokeshire 209

Powys
a large area in the east of Wales, adjacent to the English border; in the twelfth century it consisted of Montgomeryshire and parts of the counties of Merioneth, Denbigh, and Flint 48, 50, 61, 214, 224

Preseli
in the region of the Preseli mountains in Pembrokeshire 16, 210

Prydain
there is some confusion in the medieval Welsh texts between
Prydyn
(Pictland), i.e. the north of Scotland, and
Prydain
(Britain); the two are often synonymous 187, 188, 216

Prydyn
Pictland 197, 208, 213

Pumlumon
(Plynlimon), a mountain range in central Wales 206

Rhos
a cantref in north-east Wales 50

Rhuddlan Teifi
today’s Rhuddlan, on the northern banks of the Teifi valley in south Ceredigion 48

Rhyd Wilfre
a ford (
rhyd
) on the river Vyrnwy in Montgomeryshire, between Llanymynech and Melverley 214

Rhyd-y-groes
the Ford of the Cross on the Severn, probably at Buttington near Welshpool in Montgomeryshire 215, 217

Saith Marchog
a reference to
Bryn Saith Marchog
(‘The Hill of the Seven Horsemen’) located between Ruthin and Corwen in north-east Wales 28

Talebolion
a commot in Anglesey 26, 33, 234 n.

Wysg
the river Usk 141, 143

Y Felenrhyd
‘The Yellow Ford’ is situated a few miles to the east of Y Traeth Mawr, on the south side of the Dwyryd river 51

Y Freni Fawr
one of the highest hills of the Preseli mountains in east Pembrokeshire 108, 251 n.

Y Traeth Mawr
meaning ‘The Great Stretch of Sand’, located at the estuary of the Glaslyn and Dwyryd rivers at Porthmadog 51

Ystrad Tywi
in the south-west of Wales, consisting of Cantref Mawr, Cantref Bychan, and Cantref Eginog 21

¹
The suffix -(
i
)
on
is a common plural ending in Welsh. Guest also included the tale of
Taliesin
in her translation. However, since the earliest copy of this tale is not found until the sixteenth century, subsequent translators have omitted it from the corpus.

²
The scribal error in the formula at the end of the First Branch—‘And so ends this branch of the Mabinogion’—–gave rise to Lady Guest’s title.

³
The Welsh word for ‘storyteller’ is
cyfarwydd
, which originally meant ‘the well-informed person, expert’, while the term
cyfarwyddyd
developed from its original sense of ‘lore, the stuff of stories’ to mean simply ‘tale’.

⁴
For example, the beginning of the second major episode in the First Branch of the
Mabinogi
echoes the opening of the tale: ‘Once upon a time Pwyll was at Arberth, one of his chief courts’ (p.8).

⁵
For an authoritative analysis of the history of the period, see R. R. Davies,
Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales 1063–1415
(Oxford, 1987).

⁶
Brynley F. Roberts (ed.),
Breudwyt Maxen Wledic
(Dublin, 2005),
p. lxxxv.

⁷
See Edgar M. Slotkin, ‘The Fabula, Story, and Text of
Breuddwyd Rhonabwy’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies
, 18 (1989), 89–111.

⁸
For an overall survey of Arthurian references in medieval Welsh literature, see O. J. Padel,
Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature
(Cardiff, 2000). For a more detailed analysis of individual Arthurian texts, see
The Arthur of the Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature
, ed. Rachel Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman, and Brynley F. Roberts (Cardiff, 1991).

⁹
Brynley F. Roberts,
Studies on Middle Welsh Literature
(Lewiston, Queenston, and Lampeter, 1992), 101.

¹⁰
For a detailed study of her life, see Revel Guest and Angela John,
Lady Charlotte: A Biography of the Nineteenth Century
(London, 1989). After her husband’s death Lady Guest married Charles Schreiber, her eldest son’s tutor, and travelled extensively on the Continent with him, collecting eighteenth-century ceramics; the Schreiber Collection can be seen today in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

¹¹
However, revised editions of her translation were condensed, and the Welsh text omitted; in other words, the text became appropriated by the culture of the English target language.

¹²
Michael Cronin,
Translating Ireland: Translation, Languages, Cultures
(Cork, 1996), 4.

¹³
André Lefevere,
Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame
(London, 1992), back cover.

¹⁴
See T. P. Ellis and John Lloyd,
The Mabinogion: A New Translation
(Oxford, 1929), and Jeffrey Gantz,
The Mabinogion
(Harmondsworth, 1976). In his
The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1977), Patrick K. Ford included a translation of the Four Branches of the
Mabinogi
, ‘Lludd and Llefelys’, ‘Culhwch and Olwen’, ‘The Tale of Gwion Bach’, and ‘The Tale of Taliesin’.

¹⁵
First staged in the London Opera House in 1912, this was also translated into German and performed in Vienna in 1923.

¹⁶
The trilogy is in clear emulation of Wagner’s
Der Ring der Nibelungen
.

¹⁷
For further details see www.S4c.co.uk/otherworld/.

¹
Cai and Bedwyr
: two of Arthur’s closest companions. For Cai, see note to
p. 68
. There are several references to Bedwyr in the medieval Welsh sources, including the poem ‘What Man is the Gatekeeper?’ in the Black Book of Carmarthen (see Sims-Williams,
AOW
). In the triads he is one of the Three Diademed Battle-leaders of the Island of Britain (
TYP
21), and is also mentioned in relation to Drystan son of Tallwch, one of the Three Powerful Swinherds of the Island of Britain. For further details, see
TYP
, pp.
286
–
7
.

²
Maelwys son of Baeddan … Corfil Berfach
: on the Irish origin of these names, see Patrick Sims-Williams, ‘The Significance of the Irish Personal Names in
Culhwch and Olwen’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies
, 29 (1982), 607–10.

³
Gwyn … and Edern son of Nudd
: see note to
p. 148

⁴
Fflewddwr Flame
: according to
TYP
9 he is one of the Three Chieftains of Arthur’s Court. His title
gwledig
(‘lord’ or ‘ruler’) is usually associated with Dorath, the patronymic of the next character in the list, and suggests miscopying since in the triads, and again in ‘Rhonabwy’s Dream’, Fflewddwr has no title.

⁵
Twrch son of Perif and Twrch son of Anwas
: these are two boars (
twrch
). The former becomes one of Arthur’s counsellors in ‘Rhonabwy’s Dream’ (
p. 225
).

⁶
Contempt son of Caw … Samson Dry-Lip
: Caw is listed in Ysbaddaden’s list (
p. 197
) and plays a role in securing Olwen for Culhwch. Of the nineteen sons listed here, some are clearly farcical. Caw’s son Gildas is the sixth-century Welsh and Breton saint, whose memory is preserved in two saints lives. Samson (Dry-Lip) is named as another of Caw’s sons in the genealogies, again a saint and the founder of the cathedral of Dol in Brittany.

⁷
Fflergant, king of Brittany
: Alan IV, or Alan Fyrgan, duke of Brittany (d. 1119). He appears in the triads as one whose war-band was disloyal to him (
TYP
30) and allowed him to go into the battle of Camlan alone, where he was killed.

⁸
Geraint son of Erbin
: the hero of the tale that bears his name, see note to
p. 141
.

⁹
Morfran son of Tegid
: ‘Great Raven’ son of Tegid, whose story is told in the sixteenth-century
Hanes Taliesin
(‘The Tale of Taliesin’), ed. Patrick K. Ford,
Ystoria Taliesin
(Dublin, 1992). Both Ford and Lady Charlotte Guest included this tale in their respective translations of the
Mabinogion
, on the basis that it originated from the medieval period.

¹⁰
Three Who Escaped from Camlan
: this triad may well be an invention on the part of the redactor—no version appears in the surviving collections, although there are other references to Camlan, the supposed site of Arthur’s last battle.

¹
Teithi the Old … whose kingdom the sea overran
: one of the many references in medieval Welsh to submerged kingdoms, see the note to
p. 28
.

²
from the headland of Gamon
: probably Garman in Co. Wexford, in the south-west of Ireland.

³
Dyfnwal the Bald
: he is mentioned in the genealogies of the ‘Men of the North’, and also in some versions of the Welsh laws, where he is given the credit for measuring Britain from the headland of Blathaon on Pictland to the headland of Penwith in Cornwall (
LHDd
120).

¹
Celli Wig
: Celli (‘grove’) and
gwig
(‘forest’) is the site of Arthur’s court both in this tale and in the triads. Several locations have been suggested, including Killibury hill-fort in the parish of Egloshayle, or Penwith (
Pen Pengwaedd
). For Arthur’s Cornish connections, see Oliver Padel, ‘Some South-Western Sites with Arthurian Associations’, in
AOW
229–48.

²
Pen Blathaon
: Pen here means ‘point’ or ‘promontory’. See note to
p. 182
on
Pen Pengwaedd
.

³
Ehangwen
: means ‘roomy and fair’.

¹
Tyrrhenian Sea
: the western Mediterranean between Sicily and Sardinia.

²
the Exalted One of Prydain
: the proper name may have been omitted here.

¹
Gwarae Golden Hair
: equated with
Gwri Wallt Euryn
(‘Gwri Golden Hair) in the First Branch of the Mabinogi (
p. 18
).

²
Brys son of Brysethach
: for references in the saints lives, and parallels in Irish, see
CaO
101. As for
Prydain
, the two forms
Prydain
(‘Britain’) and
Prydyn
(‘Pictland’) are often confused in medieval Welsh texts.

¹
Pwyll
: a character in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, whose name means ‘wisdom’, ‘caution’. His lack of sense and its repercussions in the First Branch may explain the epithet here (see
p. 12
).