#red book of hergest

[gawrkin]

Notable Sorcerers of British Mythology (other than Merlin)

King Bladdud, from Historia Regum Britanniae. Father of King Leir and Grandfather of Gonoril, Regan and Cordelia. The earliest known necromancer in Britain.

[...]

Celidoine, King of Scotland and North Wales, son of Nasciens and ancestor of Sir Lancelot and Galahad. Buried in Camelot.

From the Red Book of Hergest Welsh Triads: Math ap Mathonwy, King of Gwynedd, brother of Don, and uncle of his protege, Gwydion, the magician-trickster hero of the Mabinogi. Amongst other things, punished his wayward nephews for raping Goewin by shapeshifting them, tested Arianrhod's virginity with his wand (which she failed), and is co-creator of Blodeuwedd, the flower-bride of Lleu Llaw Gyffes. Uther Pendragon, King Arthur's father, who mentored Menw, one of Arthur's own enchanter-knights. Infamous for using shapeshifting to seduce Igraine, siring Arthur. This triad implies Uther himself was a practicioner of the magical arts and has his own apprentice, with the assistance of Merlin in Historia being Geoffrey of Monmouth's spin. Gwythelyn the Dwarf. Unknown, but his nephew-protege, Coll ap Collfrewy, is one of the mighty swineherds of Britain and the owner of the magical sow, Henwen.

From Iolo Morgannwg's own dubious triads (so take them with a grain of salt): Idris Gawr of Merionydd, of Cadair Idris fame. A huge giant learned in poetry, astronomy and philosophy, who's throne/chair is a mountain said to be able to grant poetic skill or madness. Gwydion fab Don, the trickster figure of the Mabinogi and student of his uncle Math. The Milky Way Galaxy is said to be his fortress. Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of the Wild Hunt and King of the Fairies of Glastonbury. King Arthur's cousin and huntsman. Doomed by Arthur to fight Gwythyr ap Greidawl for the hand of Creiddylad until the End of the World.

*(Not included are Klingsor and Gansguoter of the German Arthurian Tradition)

It is very notable that many of these Sorcerers are Kings, lordly rulers in their own right.

[druidoak]

My heart aches to find fellow bloggers who practice welsh folk magic or who love the mabinogion. Please interact with this if you are either or both!

[warrioreowynofrohan]

LOTR Newletter - Prologue

Thoughts as I read:

Delighted to learn from @astronicht that the Red Book of Westmarch is in fact a reference to the Red Book of Hergest, a Welsh medieval book that contains among other things the Mabinogion. I’ve been reading and rereading LOTR for over 20 years, and only now learning that there are piles of references that I’ve been missing. Thank you! your observations are always a delight!

I love the way Tolkien fully treats his Middle-earth writings as a reality. That’s been done by a lot of people, of course – in the 1600s and 1700s when novels were rarer it seems like it was viewed as almost required to provide some fictional ‘source’ for your story that you had merely edited. But Tolkien does it more convincingly than many, including writing of Hobbits as still existing and in the present tense (“they avoid us now with dismay and are becoming hard to find” and “Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind”). He’s writing a mythology, not just a novel; and a key characteristic of a mythology is, I think, that the people who made it believed it. The words of one reviewer of The Hobbit express this quality wonderfully: “Has the air of inventing nothing. He has studied trolls and dragons at first hand and describes them with fidelity.”

I’m very amused that some of the hobbits’ characteristics are those of Tolkien, such as not liking complicated machinery and “being fond of simple jests at all times” (something he said of himself).

“[Hobbits’] elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races.” ‘A close friendship with the earth’….what an evocative and intriguing way of putting it!

Tolkien seems to have a thing for dviding his fantasy races into three groups corresponding to hill/mountain-likers (Harfoots, Noldor), water-likers (Stoors, Teleri) and tree-likers (Fallohides, Sindar). The Harfoots are also said to associate more with Dwarves (as do Noldor), the Stoors with Men (and Tolkien’s main groups of Men are also more associated with water, due to Númenor), and the Fallohides with elves.

Hobbits are shorter than I remembered! I was thinking of 3-4 feet as normal, but Tolkien says “between two and four feet”, with the Bulkroarer (an exceptionally tall hobbit) at four foot five. Two feet tall is tiny! Harfoots (most hobbits, and probably including Sam) are on the shorter side; Fallohides (Tooks and Brandybucks are said to have more Fallohidish background, so that includes Frodo, Merry, and Pippin) are on the taller side.

I am amused that the one governmental service that Tolkien does consider essential is the post-office.

[camlannpod]

Hi! So let’s say one of your listeners’ whole knowledge about Arthurian legends is that there was King Arthur, knights, Round Table and Grail. And they were like: fine, doesn’t matter, I will certainly enjoy Camlann anyway. And let’s say that after two episodes they did realise that it matter to them and they do have a deep personal need to actually know something more. What would you recommend them to read to learn more (or like anything) about Arthurian legends?

HI!!!!! Well, in this hypothetical situation, first of all I would say thank you very much to this listener for caring enough to ask.

Second, my big recommendations would be Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Mallory (maybe the most famous Norman version of the stories) and The Mabinogion, translated by Sioned Davies (the most Welsh version of the stories!). In particular I'd recommend this listener read up on Culhwch ac Olwen and Peredur, which have been referenced so far. I'd also strongly recommend this person read Gawain and the Green Knight (I like Simon Armitage's version, which is also available as an audiobook).

If this person wanted to go further, they could also read translations of Chretien de Troyes' chivalric romances, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Brittonum, and medieval Welsh poetry found in the Red Book of Hergest and the Black Book of Carmarthen.

I will say Camlann is (very much on purpose) a chaotic mish-mash of Arthurian legends and British folklore. In some places we run very close to 'the canon', and in other places we throw it away completely. Sometimes I'll be referencing pretty obscure bits of Arthurian canon, sometimes we'll be bringing up fairly commonly accepted stuff.

I hope this hypothetical listener has fun!

[irelandseyeonmythology]

Hey, I know you focus more on Irish material than Welsh, but I was wondering if you knew any good books/articles about the mabinogion and its composition, especially the supposed influence of pre christian elements? I often see it brought out as clearly pagan mythology in circles I'm in, which from what I know is... problematic, but I never have enough context to challenge it much.

To be clear, no worries if not, but I figured I'd ask in case there's some edition or monograph that treated that heavily that you knew of.

I do! I don't do as much with Welsh, you're right, and I talk about it on here even less, but this is actually something that I am equipped to handle.

So, mandatory "if anyone who reads this worships, venerates, or otherwise has a connection to the figures I reference here, my job is NOT to dictate anyone's religious beliefs, to make fun of them, belittle, etc. etc. etc. My job is to give my own personal impressions of the material, which is shaped by the current scholarly understanding."

Alright, now that that's out of the way.

So, your instincts are right, the tl;dr is that, while there are still some scholars (including people I deeply respect) who do work with the Mabinogi as a source for Pre-Christian beliefs, and that approach was very popular up until the 1990s, but that number is dwindling, and the current general scholarly consensus is that the Mabinogi is a thoroughly medieval text. You'll get even fewer Welsh experts who are willing to consider pre-Christian elements than you will Irish experts. There are a few who will say that MAYBE there is something going on beneath the surface, but the problem is whether it would even be possible to undergo that kind of excavation and whether...you lose more than you gain when you try it.

Like, Howard Shliemann, when he excavated Troy, was so eager to find the OLDEST, most ANCIENT part of the city, that he took dynamite to it, which blasted away significant parts of the city. He didn't care about anything else but finding his idealized version of Priam's city, and as a result, he wasn't able to appreciate it when it was right in front of him and, not only that, damaged it. While no one is (I HOPE???) asking to put a lit match to the Red Book of Hergest, we have started to believe that, maybe, by constantly focusing on the pre-Christian elements of the Mabinogi, writing everything else off as a corrupted form of a myth written by later authors who were too stupid to understand what they were dealing with...perhaps we were overlooking a genuinely great work of medieval literature, and that it was time for us to change that.

There are a number of reasons why this "excavation" is difficult if not impossible, but one of the strongest is that, frankly, Wales was converted before Ireland and it became VERY thoroughly Christianized early on, as well as, in general, us not having many early examples of Old Welsh literature. (Y Gododdin is traditionally seen as the oldest, but, honestly, even though it's controversial, due to its key role as a piece of Welsh cultural history, I've had a lot of Welshicists tell me that they think it's more likely a ninth century poem at the earliest.) Even things that people often think of as being indicative of pre-Christianity in Wales, like the Mari Lwyd are...well. We have no references to them before the 19th century (though it's clearly being described as an established tradition by then) and they very likely go back no further than the 16th century. Middle Welsh literature is also very, very difficult to date unless you have some sort of external feature to help you out, it doesn't have quite the same linguistic markers of Old Irish. (A trained Celticist who has had training in Old and Middle Irish can tell you an approximate date of an Irish text with a quick look, which can then be made more exact by analyzing key features, down to the century. You cannot do that with Welsh. We still do not even know when the Mabinogi was COMPOSED beyond "very likely between the 11th-13th centuries") Additionally, we do not have a large collection of Welsh folktales, so we cannot know how these stories might have been told IN Wales and whether they had a significant oral transmission. (It does seem like there might have been a few folky Mabinogi things but it is REALLY hard to know without a unified database.) I can't emphasize enough how lucky we are to have the Irish and Scottish folk collectors, because it means we can compare oral version of medieval texts and see how things change in the oral version. This doesn't inherently mean oral=pre-Christian, but it gives us a further range of how these stories have been used.

ANYWAY, you're here for recs, not my ongoing anger at 19th century archaeologists, so here are some of the best studies of the Mabinogi as literature (a lot of them don't directly interact with the myth, more directly pointing out how deliberate the Mabinogi is as a work of literature. One thing that no English translation of the Mabinogi that I've ever read can convey is how PRECISE each word is, how...there are layers upon layers upon layers and it's *brilliant*.)

Bollard, J. K. “The Structure of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.” THSC (1974–5): 250–76. (Considered to be one of the definitive pieces of literary scholarship around the Mabinogi.)

Davies, Sioned. ‘“Venerable Relics”? Re-visiting the Mabinogi’ in Joseph Nagy, ed. Writing down the Myths, edited by J. F. Nagy, Brepols, 2012. 157-79

Hamp, Eric P. ‘"Mabinogi and Archaism’"," Celtica 23, 1999. 96-110

Hemming, Jessica, “Ancient tradition or authorial invention? The ‘mythological’ names in the Four Branches”, in: Joseph Falaky Nagy (ed.), Myth in Celtic literatures, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. 83–104.

Hutton, Ronald, “Medieval Welsh literature and pre-Christian deities”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 61 (Summer, 2011): 57–86. (In general, while Hutton isn't a Celticist by training, we do consider him One of Us because he is VERY good.)

McKenna, Catherine, “Revising Math: kingship in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 46 (Winter, 2003): 95–118.

McKenna, Catherine, “The colonization of myth in Branwen ferch Lŷr”, in: Joseph Falaky Nagy (ed.), Myth in Celtic literatures, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. 105–119.

McKenna, Catherine. ‘"Reading with Rhydderch: Mabinogion Texts in Manuscript Context", in: Anders Ahlqvist and Pamela O'Neill, eds., Language and Power in the Celtic World: Papers from the Seventh Australian Conference of Celtic Studies, The University of Sydney, September-October 2010. University of Sydney, 2011. 205-30

Rodway, Simon. "The Mabinogi and the Shadow of Celtic Mythology" Studia Celtica 52(1) (2018). 67-85. 10.16922/SC.52.4.

Sims-Williams, Patrick, Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. (It's interesting because you do have figures from medieval Irish literature, like Cú Roí, popping up in a way that suggests that medieval Welsh authors were highly familiar with them...which also throws a wrench in the old "Celtic or an example of medieval cultural exchange" problem.)

Wooding, Jonathan. Tyrannies of Distance? Medieval Sources as Evidence for Indigenous Celtic and Romano-Celtic Religion’ in Ralph Haeussler and Anthony King (eds.), Celtic Religions in the Roman Period: Personal, Local, and Global, University of Aberystwyth, 2017. 57-70

As for what I personally think....some of these sources are going to be softer than I would be and some of these sources are going to be harder on the concept than I would be. I don't HATE the idea of Pre-Christian elements existing in medieval texts, I just think it should be done carefully, cautiously, and with full knowledge of the limits of such an inquiry, without ALSO being disrespectful to the medieval context while ALSO not, in our attempt to right past wrongs, fall into the pitfall of thinking that Christianity = sophisticated elements, pre-Christian elements = unsophisticated. It's a delicate tightrope to walk, but I do want to see a day when we can have these conversations in the field without either ridicule or ad hominem assumptions of ill intent. We could do so much more if we would just listen to one another instead of leaping to prove one another's wrong. I don't believe there's evidence to suggest that Pre-Christian myths have been substantially preserved in the Mabinogi, and I think we should be wary and aware of the possibility of cultural exchange. I think that past scholars did the medieval writers a great disservice when they made the Mabinogi out to be some sort of corrupted, derelict scrapbook instead of one the greatest works of medieval prose narrative in Europe. I also think, for that matter, that the assumption that we are dealing with a mythic text that prescribes proper behavior that mortals are meant to follow has negatively impacted literary criticism of the text, particularly with regards to the female characters, whose abuse by men is justified as just punishment as opposed to something that is FRAMED as being horrific. Still, there are some things, such as a Donegal folktale (collected by Jeremiah Curtin) in which Lugh has to get Balor to give him a name and arms, similar to Arianrhod...I have never found a satisfying explanation for, from either side of the aisle.

What should be clear, from how many qualifiers I'm having to put up, is that it is even more difficult to assign FUNCTION to the Welsh figures than the Irish, not the least because, while the Tuatha Dé are explicitly supernatural....the Mabinogi is about a bunch of people who have superpowers but are also fundamentally human. We do not have the little signposts saying "BTW THESE GUYS ARE GODS!" that the Irish so nicely provide to us. If someone feels called to worship Arianrhod as a moon goddess, it isn't like I can stop them, nor would I *want* to, but I will say that there is no evidence for it FROM the Mabinogi. Or that Blodeuedd is a goddess of springtime (despite the unusual circumstances of her birth...she isn't really supernatural) or love. Or GOD FORGIVE ME, that Rhiannon is the goddess of forgiveness and understanding, which I saw one time. (Normally I do not judge people for how they view these figures, see all of the above disclaimers, but I do with that one. Just a little. Because I think that might be a tiny bit sexist to reduce her entire role in the Mabinogi to her abuse and then make her story one of forgiveness instead of one of a woman who is put into a horrific situation by the laws of the society she has married into.) I wish that there was a convenient listing of pre-Christian Welsh and Irish deities out there with their functions, but they don't fit that cleanly, and I doubt they ever did. It's one more reminder that they really, really aren't like Greek Mythology, and you can't go into this like Greek Mythology. (Though arguably, Greek Mythology isn't like Greek Mythology, but I digress.)

Anyway, thank you for sending me this; I do love the Mabinogi dearly and it's been ages since I've had the chance to talk about it.

[cicelythereaper]

If I wanted to get really into medieval welsh literature instead of just reading everything in our beloved Hergest duo, do you have any recommendations on where to begin?

hi! sorry it took me so long to answer this but hopefully the length of the answer means it's worth the wait. by "our beloved hergest duo" i'm assuming you mean the white book of rhydderch and the red book of hergest, and more specifically the texts collected as the mabinogion from those two manuscripts - if i'm wrong let me know. i'm also assuming that you mainly want to read in english translation, at least to start with.

there is a LOT of medieval welsh literature out there beyond the mabinogion but a lot of it is harder to access. this is a rough menu of options with my honest opinions about how easy it is to get at these things:

the triads of the island of britain (trioedd ynys prydein), aka a big long list of People And Things From Welsh Tradition (Some Possibly Made Up). for this you want rachel bromwich's edition and translation: there are four different editions of this and all of them are expensive (and three of them are out of print). i recommend keeping an eye out on secondhand book websites for the 2nd edition (1978) or the 4th (2014), or bugging your library to see if they have, or will buy, either of these. if you're currently at uni you may be able to get access to an electronic version of the 4th edition.

material about merlin. maybe start with geoffrey of monmouth's latin vita merlini - this is less a reflection of welsh tradition and more an extremely lengthy riff on it, but still very interesting. a new translation of it can be found here! medieval merlin material in welsh is basically all prophetic poetry, mostly from the black book of carmarthen. at the moment, the best place to find translations of this is in the romance of merlin, ed. peter goodrich (1990) - again i recommend looking out for a secondhand copy or talking to your library. hopefully the myrddin project at cardiff will soon have fresh editions and translations for us available online! (in the meantime, here's their twitter.) there's also armes prydein vawr, a somewhat different type of prophecy poem also associated with merlin/myrddin and generally dated to the 10th century, which you can find on archive.org here.

material associated with taliesin. this comes in many shapes and sizes. first of all, there's praise poetry attributed to taliesin and addressed to the 6th-century king urien of rheged: this is mostly translated in the two clancy anthologies i'm going to cite further down, but if you want the welsh text, the best place to find it is probably in ifor williams' edition (translated into english as the poems of taliesin by j. e. caerwyn williams, available from the dublin institute for advanced studies). second of all, there's All The Other Poetry Attributed To Taliesin: for this you want marged haycock's legendary poems from the book of taliesin and prophecies from the book of taliesin. again with these i recommend the secondhand or library approach. THIRD of all, there's a relatively late folktale about taliesin (this is where ceridwen and gwion bach come in): this you can find translated in patrick k. ford's the mabinogi (which it looks like you can get as a kindle or paperback comparatively cheap).

y gododdin, the massive poetic text attributed to aneirin about A Lot Of Dead Dudes In Southern Scotland. this is a tough one to get to grips with, i'm not gonna lie. if you want to get at the welsh text, the massive modern welsh edition by ifor williams (canu aneirin) is still the best there is, but he reorders the stanzas of the poem from the manuscript pretty radically. (to see the stanzas in order, look for daniel huws' facsimile edition of the book of aneirin - or, depending on how well you read medieval welsh handwriting, check out the manuscript itself.) for translations, i recommend joseph p. clancy's, which has multiple versions floating around - there's one in the triumph tree (ed. thomas owen clancy) and a slightly less full one in medieval welsh poems (joseph clancy's big anthology, now out of print). this is the most poetic while still being largely accurate, but if you're concerned about academic levels of accuracy, then i recommend balancing clancy out with kenneth jackson's the gododdin: the oldest scottish poem, which has the advantage of being designed to be used alongside ifor williams. FOR ALL OF THESE you'll need to hit up secondhand booksellers or libraries.

early welsh englyn poetry: by this i mean poetry in englyn metre about historic figures and landscapes. as academic sources/translations, if you can get your hands on them, i recommend jenny rowland's early welsh saga poetry (1990) and patrick sims-williams' new englynion y beddau (2023), but both of these are massive and expensive. a more approachable way to get at this material may be rowland's a selection of early welsh saga poems, which is intended more for classroom use - this you can get for relatively cheap as a paperback. you might also want to check out kenneth jackson's studies in early celtic nature poetry (dated, but i think he translates some of the less-studied englyn poetry in there: again, check with secondhand booksellers) and nicolas jacobs' early welsh gnomic and nature poetry (cheaper and easier to get, but untranslated, though he gives a useful glossary so you can attempt it yourself).

additional arthurian material. this is scattered across various places and manuscripts, but some good places to learn about it, if not necessarily read it, are o. j. padel's arthur in medieval welsh literature (2013, heavily recommended, you can get it cheap as a paperback); bromwich et al's the arthur of the welsh (1991), which iirc includes patrick sims-williams' translation of my beloved arthurian poem pa gur; and the new and exciting arthur in the celtic languages, ed. ceridwen lloyd-morgan and erich poppe (2019), which is going to give you a BIG and comprehensive overview of every text arthur has ever shown up in in welsh. for the last two you definitely want to go secondhand or through a library. EDITED TO ADD: [LOUD BUZZER NOISE] I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT NERYS ANN JONES' ARTHUR IN EARLY WELSH POETRY which came out in 2019! go buy it it's a £15 paperback! an absolute steal for what you get!

high and late medieval poetry of praise, lament and love: the bread and butter of the professional poet. these can be found in various places. for the gogynfeirdd, the high medieval poets, the medieval welsh texts (+ modern welsh paraphrases) can be found in the absolutely massive series cyfres beirdd y tywysogion, but this is not something to attempt to get without a powerful library on your side. the late medieval poetry, on the other hand, is edited in cyfres beirdd yr uchelwyr and can be found online here - which was news to me! much of this material has never been translated into english. for a good selection of translations of some of the best stuff, i really recommend joseph p. clancy's medieval welsh poems (find a secondhand copy or get your library to do it for you), and/or tony conran's welsh verse. a couple of good selections of the later medieval poetry are: the poetry of dafydd ap gwilym, ALL of which is available online in translation here; loomis and johnston's medieval welsh poems: an anthology; and dafydd johnston's galar y beirdd: poets' grief, which specifically collects poets' laments for their dead children.

RELIGIOUS MATERIAL, of which there is a shit-ton. my recommendations are definitely going to be missing some stuff (e.g. soul-and-body dialogues, descriptions of purgatory, etc) but here's what i've got. for material to do with welsh saints, i recommend this website, where you can find translations of a lot of the latin prose lives of saints and quite a few welsh poems about saints as well - and if you look at the bottom you'll see it lists a few more books you might want to look into. if you want an even fuller look at welsh saints' latin lives, albeit dated, see if you can get your hands on a secondhand/library copy of wade-evans' vitae sanctorum britanniae (1944). if you like genealogies, barry lewis i believe has just put out an edition and study of bonedd y saint, the genealogies of the welsh saints, available from the dublin institute for advanced studies (though it's not the cheapest thing out there).* there is also a lot of general religious poetry, which you can find edited in marged haycock's blodeugerdd barddas o ganu crefyddol cynnar (1994) and translated in mckenna's the medieval welsh religious lyric (1991).

*i should also say that if you're interested in medieval welsh genealogies in general, you want ben guy's medieval welsh genealogy - this is very technical and probably expensive but if you really need to know who's related to who in the welsh historical imagination, it's a great resource.

(pseudo-)historical texts: there are various of these. the most famous is geoffrey of monmouth's de gestis britonum (also known as historia regum britanniae, 'history of the kings of britain') - this you can find edited and translated by reeve & wright under the latter title. if you want to know about geoffrey's work but you can't get your hands on it or don't have time to read what is honestly a massive text, then i recommend karen jankulak's book geoffrey of monmouth - super useful and you can get it cheap as a paperback. then there are medieval welsh translations of this text (all known as brut y brenhinedd), some of which go on to become chronicles in their own right (brut y tywysogion). off the top of my head there are three different versions of brut y tywysogion which you can find in a good english translation: the peniarth 20 version (edited and translated by thomas jones, edition 1941, translation 1952); the red book of hergest version (ed. and trans. thomas jones, 1955); and brenhinedd y saesson (ed. and trans. thomas jones, 1971). you might also want to check out the medieval biography of gruffudd ap cynan (king of gwynedd 1081-1137), which starts as a latin text and is later translated into welsh. the latin text is edited and translated by paul russell as vita griffini filii conani (2005); the welsh text is edited as historia gruffud vab kenan (1977) and translated as a mediaeval prince of wales: the life of gruffudd ap cynan (1990) by d. simon evans.

edited to add: [LOUD BUZZER SOUND] I FORGOT ABOUT HISTORIA BRITTONUM AND SHOULD BE PUBLICLY SHAMED. this is a ninth-century latin historical text from north wales, it's weird as hell, i love it to bits and should probably actually read more of it. currently the edition everybody uses is john morris's nennius: british history and the welsh annals (1980), which is not the most expensive thing out there but certainly not the cheapest so get it through your library if you can. this is especially useful in conjunction with geoffrey's de gestis britonum because he was absolutely using it as a source.

the hardest thing to get at on this list: translation literature. by the time we get to the red book of hergest there's been a huge boom in medieval translations of french and latin texts into welsh - and these are often really fun and interesting to read, but under-studied! this is an issue because it means i basically cannot recommend you any english translations of them. if you're still interested and you want to plough through the medieval welsh yourself, here are some texts:

cân rolant, a welsh version of the 'song of roland' aka Violence Violence Violence, edited and translated by a. c. rejhon (1984) - the only thing on this list to have a recent translation, alas;

ystorya de carolo magno, edited by stephen williams, 2nd edition (1986) - a welsh version of the charlemagne legend, this is where cân rolant comes from;

ystoryaeu seint greal, a welsh translation of two french romances, queste del saint graal and perlesvaus: you can find the whole thing in the (very old, undoubtedly outdated) selections from the hengwrt mss volume 1, y seint greal, edited and translated by robert williams (1874-6), which is on archive.org here, and the welsh text of the first part is edited as y keis by thomas jones (1992);

ystorya bown de hamtwn, a welsh version of the romance of bevis of hampton, an absolutely insane text about the worst man in the world which i love dearly: the whole thing is edited (but not translated) by morgan watkin (1958); selected bits of it are edited with a useful glossary for classroom use by erich poppe and regine reck as selections from ystorya bown o hamtwn (2009);

a welsh bestiary of love, ed. g. c. g. thomas (2008) - a translation of the french bestiaire d'amour, aka Do You Want To Hear The Worst Man In The World Tell You Dubious Animal Facts? Of Course You Do;

kedymdeithyas amlyn ac amic, edited by patricia williams (1982), a welsh version of the french tale ami et amile about two identical friends;

chwedlau odo, a collection of fables, edited by ifor williams (1958);

chwedlau seith doethon rufein, edited by henry lewis (1958) - 'stories of the seven sages of rome'.

and finally, medical texts! if you want a look at medieval welsh medical practices and you want to learn a lot of plant names in middle welsh, check out diana luft's medieval welsh medical texts, which you can find online for free here.

i hope this is helpful! enjoy Experiencing Welsh Literature and best of luck getting your hands on it!

[taliesin-the-bored]

Hi :) Could I have the source for "wherever Arthur walks, plants die"? That's very "Holly King" coded of him

Sure thing! It's from Triad 23 in the Red Book of Hergest. Here's a translation by John Rhŷs and John Gwenogvryn Evans:

Three Red Ravagers of the Island of Britain: Rhun son of Beli, and Lleu Skilful Hand, and Morgant the Wealthy. But there was one who was a Red Ravager greater than all three: Arthur was his name. For a year neither grass nor plants used to spring up where one of the three would walk; but where Arthur went, not for seven years.

Peniarth MS 54 lists "{t}hree red-spotted ones of the Island of Prydain. Arthur; and Run son of Beli; and Morgant Mwynfawr" (W.F. Skene's translation), which probably means the same thing, since both include Arthur, Rhun son of Beli, and someone named Morgant. In Welsh, "Morgant the Wealthy" is Morgant Hael, and I haven't been able to determine whether he and Morgant Myfanwyr are the same person.

Thanks for the ask!

[alephskoteinos]

Notes from Ronald Hutton's lecture "Finding Lost Gods in Wales" from Gresham College

A major problem for locating Welsh paganism in historical terms is that there really is very little source material to work with, certainly not much medieval literature seems to have survived in Wales, at least when compared to other countries such as Ireland and Iceland. It was thought that several Welsh stories and poems reflected the presence of an ancient Druidic religion and thereby some form of paganism, but this idea has since been rejected. It is now believed these stories and poems originated much later, possibly dating to around 500 years after "the triumph of Christianity". Only four manuscripts written in the 13th and 14th centuries might contain some possible relevance to paganism. Hutton tells us that these are The Black Book of Carmarthen, The White Book of Rhydderch, The Red Book of Hergest, and The Book of Taleisin (so-called). About 11 stories from the White Book and Red Book were compiled into what was called The Mabinogion in the 1840s. None of these are stories are certain to be older than the 12th century, although the oldest stories in the Four Branches of the Mabinogion may have been written as far back as 1093, and according to Hutton some of the stories of the Mabinogion were actually inspired by foreign literature, including not only French troubadour stories but also Egyptian, Arabic, and Indian stories that were brought to Europe.

Hutton notes that, unlike in medieval Irish and Scandinavian literature, the stories of the Mabinogion don't seem to feature any gods or goddesses or their worshippers (at least not explicitly anyway), despite being set in pre-Christian times. Many characters have superhuman abilities, but it's apparently not clear if these are meant to be understood as gods, or magicians, or just narrative superhumans. If there are pagan survivals in these stories, it may be the presence of an otherworld realm called Annwn, often equated with the underworld, and/or the presence of shapeshifting abilities (and on this point I believe Kadmus Herschel makes a convincing point in True to the Earth about this being reflective of a non-essentialist pagan worldview). Of course, Hutton believes that these are generalized themes and no longer linked to paganism in themselves, but of course I'd say there's room for skepticism here (I'm not exactly picturing a Christian Annwn here).

An important figure within the Four Branches of the Mabinogion is Rhiannon, a woman from Annwn who often believed to be a surviving Welsh goddess or survival of the Gallo-Roman goddess Epona. Her marrying two successive human princes has been interpreted as signifying Rhiannon as a goddess of sovereignty. Hutton argues that this is not certain because Rhiannon does not confer kingdoms to her husbands, there is no clear sign of a sovereignty goddess outside of Ireland or British horse goddesses in Iron Age archaeology or Romano-British inscriptions. Hutton argues that it's more likely that Rhiannon was a member of human royalty or nobility rather than a goddess. Of course, this is perhaps a zone of contestation. Hutton does not deny the possibility that Rhiannon was a goddess, but believes that the decisive evidence is lacking. For what it's worth, Rhiannon is a unique figure in the literature of the time, as a being from the otherworld who chooses live in the human world and willing to stay there even after every misfortune or crisis she encounters, responding to every problem with an indomitable and perhaps "stoical" willpower and courage.

The mystical poems, or the court poets from 900-1300, are also thought to contain some aspect of lost Welsh paganism. These were to be understood as a kind of artistic elite that delighted in prose that was sophisticated to the point of being almost beyond comprehension. They apparently believed that bards were semi-divine figures, permeated by a concept of divine inspiration referred to as "awen". They drew on many sources, including Irish, Greek, Roman, and even Christian literature, but also apparently the earlier Welsh bards. Seven mystical poems are credited to Taliesin, and these could be dated any time between 900 and 1250, though contemporary scholars typically favour 1150-1250 as the likely timeframe. Despite probably being written at a time when Wales was likely already Christianized, the poems are repeatedly referred to as sources of paganism and ancient wisdom by modern commentators.

The poem Preiddeu Annwn is one "classic" example. It is the story of an expedition into the realm of Annwn, which is undertaken to bring back a magical cauldron. The poem that we have seems to be explicitly Christian, but it is often believed that this is merely a Christian adaptation of an older pre-Christian text. But apparently no one really knows the real meaning of the Preiddeu Annwn, not least because no one can agree on what a third of the actual words in the poem mean. No one really knows if Taliesin was demonstrating a certain knowledge that only he possessed or what, if anything, he was referencing, so in a way we just don't "get" his poem.

Over the years the court bards ostensibly developed a new cast of mythological characters, or simply an enhanced an older cast of characters, to the point that they seem superhuman or even divine, yet just as medieval as King Arthur or Robin Hood. One example of this is Ceridwen, a sorceress who first appears in the Hanes Taliesin. Court poets apparently interpreted her as the brewer of the cauldrons of inspiration, and eventually the muse of the bards and giver of power and the laws of poetry. In 1809 she was called the "Great Goddess of Britain" by a clergyman named Edward Davies, which has been taken up by many since. Then there's Gwyn ap Nudd, who appears in 11th and 12th century texts as a warrior under the command of King Arthur. In 14th century poetry he seems to have been interpreted as a spirit of darkness, enchantment, and deception, and in the 1880s professor John Rhys identified him as a Celtic deity. Another major character is Arianhrod, who first appears in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion as a powerful enchantress whose curses were unbreakable. Over time it was also believed that she could cast rainbows around the court, the constellation Corona Borealis was dubbed "the Court of Arianrhod", and somehow since the 20th century she was identified as an astral goddess.

Then we get to the canon known as "Arthurian legends": that is, the stories of King Arthur. Hutton says that these tales originated as stories of Welsh heroes who fought the English, and these stories also contained what are thought to be residual pagan motifs. One example is the gift of Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, which is either based on memories of an older pre-Christian custom of throwing swords into lakes, the rediscovery of an older custom through finds, or even a persisting medieval custom of throwing a knight's weapons into a water. The Dolorous Blow which strikes the maimed king and turns his kingdom into a wasteland is thought to suggest a residual belief in the link between the health of a king and the health of a land, though the blow itself is inflicted by a Christian sacred object. The Holy Grail is often believed to derive from a pre-Christian sacred cauldron, but it was originally just a serving dish before becoming a Christian chalice.

And of course, there's Glastonbury, featuring as the Isle of Avalon, the refuge and possible burial site of Arthur. It has been thought since at least the 20th century that Glastonbury was a centre of paganism, but no remains have been found there which might suggest the presence of a pagan reigious site. And yet, in 2004, some prehistoric Neolithic post-holes were discovered near the Chalice Well garden in Glastonbury after the Chalice Well house started a kitchen extension. Although no deposits were found that suggest anything about the religious life of the area, the point stands that it was the first trace of anything Neolithic at Glastonbury. But there is perhaps always more to be found. As Hutton says, there are always new kitchen extensions, garden developments, street work, or any other renovation that might result in archaeological excavations, and we could find almost anything at any time. For my money, if there's hope anywhere, it's in that. Almost makes me want to get back into my childhood metal detecting hobby. It would certainly have a purpose: to rediscover anything from our pre-Christian past that could possibly be found.

From the Q&A we can incidentally note that many contemporary artefacts of Welsh national/cultural identity are very modern, they have nothing to do with some ancient past, but they weren't always to do with the romantic nationalism of Iolo Morganwg. The daffodil, for example, was probably first taken up as symbol of Wales in 1911, during the investiture of the then Prince of Wales. The leek, on the other hand, seems to have been symbolically associated with Wales since the Middle Ages, possibly as a reference to St David as his favorite dish, or possibly as a less then flattering reference to Welsh agriculture. The dragon, or rather Y Ddraig Goch (literally "the red dragon") as it is called here, dates back to a medieval narrative about a tyrannical king named Vortigern. He tries to build a castle but it repeatedly collapses, and according to the legend that's because two dragons, one red and the other white, are always fighting beneath the ground. The white dragon is supposed to represent the English and/or the Saxons, while the red dragon represents the Welsh and/or Celtic Britons. Although traditionally, at that time, Welsh princes took up the lion as their symbol much like English and other European royalty did, the Tudors established the red dragon as an official heraldic symbol of Wales to distinguish from English iconography, and that has been a mainstay of Welsh culture ever since. All-in-all, however, probably nothing to do with paganism here, unless the dragon has some older significance that we don't know about (and I'm inclined to be charitable here, considering that dragons in Christian symbolism usually represent Satan and/or evil).

There is the suggestion that Arianrhod is to be identified with Ariadne, the Cretan princess who became the lover and consort of the Greek god Dionysus. Both Ariadne and Arianrhod are associated with the Corona Borealis, which in Greek myth was a diadem given to Ariadne as a wedding present from Aphrodite. But that's about it. Any identification based solely on that would be a stretch.

There is the discussion of the legend of Bran, or Bran the Blessed, a king of Britain whose head was said to be buried in a part of London where the White Tower now stands. Hutton says it's possible that this may have reflected an ancient pre-Christian custom of burying parts of "special" people in "special" places to give them enduring magical/divine power, or alternatively that it references a Christian tradition of similarly venerating the relics of saints (itself possibly adapted from pre-Christian traditions in the Mediterranean, but that's another story; any input on that subject though would be much appreciated!). Hutton suggests that Bran's head being specifically buried beneath The White Tower is one of the best indications that the Four Branches of the Mabinogion as we know them were composed no earlier than the early 12th century, because the White Tower was built by William the Conqueror in 1080, and the Norman occupation in Wales as well as England at the time was part of the backdrop of the writing of the Four Branches. Hutton also suggests that stories concern parables from a distant, lost ancient time that were marshalled by Welsh poets who applied them as lessons for how to survive in the present, against the threat of Norman occupation. I should like to have answers on that front, because something about the reactivation of a distant past against the present order resonates very well with Claudio Kulesko's concept of Gothic Insurrection. It makes for interesting horizons, especially when applied to radical political dimensions relevant to things like the question of political identity in the context of the British union.

Relating to the legend of Wearyall Hill, the place in Glastonbury where Joseph of Arimathea supposedly planted the "holy thorn", there is the point made by the late historian Geoffrey Ashe (who, incidentally, died in Glastonbury) that none of the legends concerning Glastonbury have been or even can be disproved, which means that they all just might be correct. Hutton seems inclined to take what could be described as the "glass half full" side of that problematic, in that he thinks the great thing about myths and legends is that there also the possibility that there's something to them. I think that this presents possibilities for paganism, but in the sense that we are to look at it as an act of assemblage, or rather re-assemblage, and in a sense it works to the precise extent that we take it as medieval and contemporary mythology, without at the same time believing the lies that we tell ourselves through our romance and mythology.

Then there's the subject of the demonization of Gwyn ap Nudd in the Buchedd Collen, which incidentally counts as yet another Glastonbury legend. Hutton says that there is no doubt that Gwyn ap Nudd was demonized by Christians, but says that this was not specifically the work of the St. Collen myth. The legend of St. Collen was already fairly well-established in the Middle Ages, and the Welsh town of Llangollen takes its name from St. Collen. The legend goes that Collen was preaching in Glastonbury when Gwyn ap Nudd had taken over the Glastonbury Tor (Ynys Wydryn) and set up a mansion from which to tempt and seduce the inhabitants with vices and pleasures. Collen then goes to Gwyn ap Nudd's mansion and sprinkles holy water everywhere, causing it to explode and leave nothing but green mounds. Hutton suggests that by the 14th century Gwyn ap Nudd was already interpreted as a demon, but we don't really know how or why that happened. Here a horizon of assemblage emerges from the context of Christian demonization.

Gwyn ap Nudd, if taken as a Welsh or Brythonic deity, is interesting to consider as a demon invading Glastonbury and being exorcised by a Christian monk with holy water. There's an obvious question, albeit one that may have no answer: why does Gwyn appear as the subject of an exorcism myth in the context of a Christianized society? It seems plausible to consider Christians interpreted Gwyn ap Nudd as a demon by way of his already being the ruler of Annwn, an otherworld realm then recast as Hell. It may also be possible that Gwyn was a persistent reminder of an older pre-Christian polytheism, even if it's unlikely that he was actually worshipped by anyone living in the Middle Ages. Everything sort of hinges on the fact that the figure of Gwyn ap Nudd was pre-eminent enough in medieval culture, and enough of a thorn on the side of the Christian imaginary, to first of all be recast as an evil demon and then become the central antagonist of the legend of a Christian saint who exorcises him. That might allow Gwyn's presence in the legend to be interpreted as symbolic of the pre-Christian past, albeit through Christian eyes, and a figure who could represent its potential reactivation in Wales.

Lastly, there's the matter of apparent similarity between Welsh and Irish mythology, and the idea of a shared "Celtic origin" between them, in which we are again at a crossroads of possibility. That whole connection comes with a problem: there are definitely similarities between the Irish and Welsh characters at least in name, but these characters also to tend to share names more than they share almost anything else. The two explanations are either that these characters were deities that were worshipped in pre-Christian Wales as well as Ireland, or that Welsh authors were just well-acquainted with Irish folklore and literature and simply borrowed ideas from there. Hutton suggests that the first explanation may not be entirely wrong, or at least not completely invalidated, and leaves it up to the individual to decide between the two possibilities. It is very difficult to be certain is the first possibility holds up, and I have the suspicion it might not, at least not sufficiently. But it doesn't seem totally impossible, given the resonances between the mythical figures in Wales vs the pre-Christian gods of other lands. A relevant example would be Nudd, or Lludd Llaw Eraint, the mythical hero whose name was cognate with the Irish Nuada Airgetlam and apparently derived from the name of the ancient god Nodens. Not to mention Lleu Llaw Gyffes coming from the name of the Celtic god Lugus. That presents the slim possibility of connection, and perhaps assemblage by way of Irish myth.

If you want to see the full thing I'll link it below, here:

[etymology-of-the-emblem]

Elffin / エルフィン, Myrddin / ミルディン, and Merlinus / マリナス

Elffin (JP: エルフィン; rōmaji: erufin) is a bard involved with the resistance on the Western Isles in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. He gets his name from a figure in Welsh mythology, Elffin ap Gwyddno, lord of Ceredigion. Before his lordship, Elffin's father asked him to catch salmon - to his surprise what he found in the water was not fish but a lone infant. He took up the baby, who was capable of speaking in eloquent poetry, and called him Taliesin. Taliesin was a semi-historical figure, called Ben Beirdd, or "Chief of Bards" for his skill with poetry and serving as the bard to multiple kings. According to legend, Elffin was imprisoned by the king of Gwynedd when he refused to sing his praises, as Taliesin was a more skilled bard and Elffin's wife was more loyal and virtuous than all of the king's court. The King of Gwynedd then sent his son to take the wedding band from Elffin's wife to prove a lack of chastity. Luckily, Taliesin was blessed with prophetic visions and knew the means to prevent Gwynedd from undermining his family.

As apparent from how much focus was given to him, The Binding Blade's Elffin pulls from aspects of Taliesin, borrowing his skills as a bard and his abilities as a seer. Additionally, Taliesin makes appearances in a few Arthurian tales like Culhwch and Olwen, where he acted as King Arthur's bard. This better ties him to the many existing allusions to the King Arthur mythos.

Elffin's true identity is that of Myrddin (JP: ミルディン; rōmaji: mirudin), the lost prince of Etruria. In Welsh legend, Myrddin Wyllt, also called Myrddin of Caledonia, is a bard accredited to poems found in The Black Book of Carmarthen and The Red Book of Hergest. In Welsh literary tradition are many poems presented as prophecies of coming battles; these are frequently attributed to the mind of Myrddin. It is said that after the death of King Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio, in the Battle of Arfderydd, Myrddin his adviser was driven to madness. He fled to the Caledonian Forest of Scotland, reflecting on that battle for the rest of his days. Or until saved by a saint, in modern Christianized adaptations.

There is plenty here already to relate to Fire Emblem's Prince Myrddin, but there is also an explicit connection made to Elffin. According to tellings of Elffin's imprisonment by Maelgwn Gwynedd, when asked to identify himself in the court of Gwynedd, Taliesin opened as such:

"Primary chief bard am I to Elphin, And my original country is the region of the summer stars; Idno and Heinin called me Merddin, At length every king will call me Taliesin."

From the horse's mouth: Taliesin is Myrrdin, little sense as that makes. And so, the Etrurian Myrrdin and the bard Elffin, who is heavily based on Taliesin, are appropriately one and the same. And yet it goes deeper still.

Merlinus (JP: マリナス; rōmaji: marinasu) is a traveling merchant turned inventory manager and adviser to House Pherae in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade and The Blazing Blade. Merlinus Caledonensis was another name for Myrddin Wyllt. And it was from Myrddin Wyltt, combined with a similar figure called Ambrosius Aurelianus, that Geoffrey of Monmouth created the character of the magician Merlin. Originally called Merlinus Ambrosius, he was a madman sired by an incubus, capable of prophecy and form-shifting magic. He used this magic to change the appearance of Uther Pendragon to that of his mortal enemy, so that he may bear a son - King Arthur - with the opposing king's wife in their own bed. Later French-based adaptations of the Matter of Britain would change Merlin from an insane visionary to a sagely wizard and adviser to Arthur from an early age. Merlinus, as Roy's tactician and adviser, is more based on the later versions of Merlin's character.

[gawrkin]

(Summary of Math, son of Mathonwy Branch)

(Source: Red Book of Hergest Welsh Triads)

Here, we have another example of the Welsh hyping up Arthur over actual gods. (Lleu Llaw Gyffes being the Welsh rendition of the Pan-Celtic deity Lugus)

[druidoak]

In very basic summary, this is how I feel in regards to the continual arguments against the many mighty characters in the Mabinogion NOT being dieties.

I understand they may not be dieties and there's a rather grand lack of evidence in favor of them being dieties. Nonetheless I have heard the Cwn Annwn in my dreams and felt the presence of them in my day to day life. Even if they may not have been some sort of pre Christian, Welsh pagan dieties it does not de-note the modern day practioners and followers. The powers are there and the wonder is real.

[maltrunners]

Penderyn 2012 The Red Book of Hergest

Review by: Raygun A quick note before anything else for the sake of transparency. This review was done with an industry sample provided free of charge, with no expectations beyond drinking them. As always, I do my best to provide my unbiased opinion, and readers can decide how they want to take this review. For more information, see our Ethics & Transparency statement. Penderyn was founded in…

[dissociative-disaster]

You can even tell from the names that the origin is Welsh. Arthur is a Welsh name. 'Merlin' is someone mishearing 'Myrddin,' a Welsh name. Merlin in fact probably originating from the Welsh legendary figure of Myrddin Wyllt, described in medieval literature such as the Black Book of Caerfyrddin and the Red Book of Hergest. Morgana is a name of Welsh origin also.

Also the sword Excalibur made frequent appearances in Welsh legend, used by various legendary figures. Its name is usually 'Caledfwlch,' meaning 'Hard scabbard.'

The English: This is our legendary King Arthur. His bravest knight is named Gawain who cut off a green giants head

The French: That’s cool, but what if his coolest knight was FRENCH and practiced INFIDELITY with the QUEEN

The English: That’s not…

The French: His name is Lancelot.

The English: Okay actually that name frickin rules. Proceed.

[ashleysingermfablog]

Wk 16, 11th of May, 2024 Research

Welsh Divination dewiniaeth

From the text: Welsh Myths and Legends...

Chapter: The Mabinogion

The Mabinogion is a collection of 11 mythical tales from the medieval period in Wales. The stories have great cultural and historical significance, and the Mabinogion is where you can find some of the first references ever made to King Arthur.

The Mabinogion also features well known legends such as the story of Branwen, the daughter of Llyr and the Legend of Blodeuwedd and Lleu.

Many of the places spoken of in the Mabinogion can be traced to places in both England and Wales and even France!

Chapter: Lady of the Lake

The lady of the lake is a legend about a beautiful woman who appeared to a man in the middle of a Lake called Llyn y Fan Fach in Carmarthenshire.

She agrees to marry the man after a few meetings, and for a few years, they are happily married. Sadly, at the end of her tale, she must return to the lake.

Her grandsons published The Red Book of Hergest in the year 1230. It is full of information about healing potions, and this can still be found today in the National Library of Wales.

Learning about Welsh myths and legends is important for young learners to help them connect with their culture. There are many ways that children can benefit from this, such as learning about the way that these stories have been passed down throughout history, and how they have impacted culture and society in Wales.

Chapter: The Mythology of Wales

The first thing I believe one should familiarise oneself with when embarking upon a journey to become acquainted with the magic of Wales is to dive deep into the ancient myths and legends of this landscape. Most of the myths and legends of Wales stem from medieval literature, such as the Mabinogi. Though these legends were compiled in written format in the 12th to the 13th centuries, they derive from older oral traditions of storytelling. The Mabinogi (pronounced Mah-Bee-Nogg-ee) is a collection of various legends separated into four branches. The legends themselves speak of otherworldly kings, giants, wizards and magic.

Growing up in a Welsh schooling system, we studied the Mabinogi from a very young age. We took part in art projects surrounding some of the tales, watched theatrical retellings of them, and even went on school trips to places of significance regarding some of the legends. The legends of the Mabinogi are captivating, and it seems the more you read and study them, the more secrets you notice woven into them. Tales such as Pwyll, the prince of Dyfed's descent into the otherworld, or of Branwen's story filled with abuse and heartache, are seared onto my mind from the numerous times we went over them in school. Yet, despite having studied many of these legends to death, I am still surprised by them whenever I read them again.

Those with an interest in Celtic mythology, Paganism, or modern Witchcraft might meet some familiar faces within the pages of the Mabinogi. It is within these tales we are introduced to characters such as Rhiannon, Gwyn ap Nudd, and Arianrhod, all of which are revered and worshipped as deities by many modern day Pagans. It is within the pages of the Mabinogi one would seek out the source material surrounding these enigmatic entities.

Beyond the Mabinogi there is also an abundance of Welsh poetry and prose to look to. The story of Taliesin’s birth recounts the legend of Cerridwen, the Celtic goddess of inspiration, a practitioner of the magical arts whose cauldron bubbles with the very spirit of Awen divine inspiration. The Kat Godeu, or the battle of the trees, recites a tale of a wizard summoning an army of trees and provides us a glimpse into the virtues and qualities of native Welsh trees.

There is no better place to start when seeking Welsh magic, than in the myths, legends, prose and poetry of this land. I personally recommend that those who wish to learn more of the magic of Wales get their hands on a copy of the Mabinogi and immerse themselves in the legends themselves. Mythology can inspire and inform our magical practise in profound ways.

Chapter: Welsh Folklore and Fairy Tales

Beyond the vast amount of ancient literature and mythology within the Welsh continuum, Wales also has a rather enchanting folkloric landscape. Welsh folklore is filled to the brim with fairies, fantastical creatures, terrifying entities, and cunning magical practitioners.

In comparison to mythology, folklore is often overlooked or simply seen as whimsical stories, but the truth is the magical practitioner can gain a wealth of wisdom and inspiration from folklore.

The teacher and folklorist W. Jenkyn Thomas recorded numerous Welsh folk tales during his life in the late 19th to the early 20th century, and in these tales recorded various aspects of magical lore.

For example, in the book More Welsh Folk Tales, published in 1957, not only does Thomas record various stories about the virtues and magical properties of certain sacred wells in Wales, but also records tales surrounding fairies, conjurers, and even the Welsh version of familiar spirits. In a chapter dedicated to familiar spirits, he describes how some magicians and conjurers employed familiar spirits to work with them, and often kept these spirits in physical objects such as books.

There seems to be an abundance of Welsh folk tales that cover a wide array of magical practises, from examples of how to deal with fairies, to an explanation of how traditional Welsh herbalism was passed down to the Welsh from a fairy (in the legend of Llyn y Fan Fach and the physicians of Myddfai).

The works of W. Jenkyn Thomas, Elias Owen, and Wirt Sikes, to name a few should, certainly be on the bookshelves of any seeker of Welsh magical lore. These tales are more than just whimsical bedtime stories, if you know how to look at them with the eye of a seeker.

Chapter: Welsh Folk Magic As I progressed in developing a magical and spiritual practise that was rooted in my land, I began wondering what magical traditions stemmed from my locale. I grew up hearing folk tales about Witches or listening to local lore about healing wells and sacred lakes, and so when I began exploring Witchcraft and learnt about various forms of folk magical practises from across the world my first question was, "What does Welsh folk magic look like?"

To no surprise, I learnt that there was a rather strong history of folk magical practises rooted to many parts of Wales. I began digging up old Welsh books written by folklorists, priests, and historians, which outlined various quirky traditions, superstitions, and beliefs found across the country. I learnt that my ancestors believed that dipping a bundle of pine into freshly collected spring water and splashing it onto your face and body on New Year's Day was a cleansing and blessing custom. There was a collection of practises in Wales called Rhamanta, which were forms of divination that focused on love and relationships, some of which were rituals to summon an apparition of your future spouse. Black cats were considered bewitched animals, and if a family took in a black cat and took care of it well, it would keep all disease and sickness away. The prickly furze and the rowan tree were considered protective plants that would keep away trickster fairies and malevolent spirits. Beliefs such as these are found throughout Welsh history, deviating slightly from region to region, amplifying each region's individualistic approach to folk magic and superstition.

Historically speaking, Wales was left virtually untouched by the Witch hysteria that ravaged England and most of Europe. At a time when our neighbours the English were persecuting numerous innocent people under the guise of dealing with "Witches," the Welsh did not succumb to the hysteria. Witch trials did happen in Wales, but very rarely and usually in areas that were highly anglicised or influenced by England in some way. There were more Witch trials per county in England than there were in the entirety of Wales as a country, and in those few trials only five people were ever executed in Wales over a period of almost two hundred years.

There are numerous theories as to why the Welsh did not succumb to the fear of Witches in the same volume as neighbouring countries, from the ideas that the Welsh people of the early modern period were more concerned about thieves or even fairies to care much about Witches, to a theory that the Welsh refused to allow England to tell them what to do.

In Wales during the period of the Witch trials, we did not even have a native term to describe Witches—during the rare trials the courts referred to the accused as Wits or Witshes when conversing in the Welsh language, and obvious borrowing of the English Witch. In modern Welsh, the most common word used to describe a Witch is Gwrach, but this term is more aligned with the fairy tale archetype of the hag, or a folkloric ogre, and so was not utilised in formal court spaces.

The lack in a native term for a Witch, however, does not mean that the Welsh did not have a native term to describe those who were learned practitioners of the magical arts. In fact, the Welsh language has an abundance of terms to describe magical specialists, those who made a career out of aiding the community with their magical expertise: Dewin, Consuriwr, Dyn Hysbys, Gwiddan, Rheibies, Swyngyfareddwyr, Planedydd, Daroganwr…These are just a handful of terms that were used to describe those who were skilled in the magical arts of conjuration, divination, blessing, cursing.

I find it very interesting and not common knowledge that witch trials were n it as prevalent in Wales in the 18th century and beyond. It reiterates to me that spiritual ideas that aren’t anglicised, still exist in European culture and predate Christianity and the Romans. Cultures that have come from druidic ways of living, using nature guides are the oldest forms of Welsh information gathering, a thus a significant way of knowing the world, is through what can be seen, heard, felt, and believed to be seen in nature. As a way to inform practice, the cultural connotations of deep knowledge and knowledge travelled under oppression of language and of cultural, usually moves in folk practices. This is a hotbed topic for the contemporary sphere of art making that is slowly growing momentum towards de-colonial thought, nature-feminisms and many ecological lens. My bodies of research highlight the ability to draw out knowledge from ancient peoples, and ancient stories, to reengage with knowledge that isn't empirical, anglicised and colonial in nature.

[irelandseyeonmythology]

DIAS Black Friday Sale

Once a year, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), offers a sale for Black Friday -- DIAS is one of the major publishers for Celtic Studies, many of the best studies of medieval Irish material have come through there.

Some books that I recommend, personally:

Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law (26.25 Euro, normally 35) (THE introduction to law in medieval Ireland)

"", Early Irish Farming (26.25 Euro, normally 35) (Everything you wanted to know about day to day life in medieval Ireland but were afraid to ask. Literally. Everything.)

Medieval Irish Prose

Fergus Kelly, Audacht Morainn (18.75 Euro, normally 25)

Are you planning on becoming a medieval Irish king? Do you want to know what you should do to involve the total destruction of the natural order? Then this is the text for you! Now with English translation!

In all seriousness, this text is used a LOT with regards to studies of ideal kingship in medieval Ireland.

Cecile O'Rahilly, The Táin from the Book of Leinster (26.25 Euro, usually 35)

I'll be real with you, lads: I hate Cú Chulainn. I hate him. I hate his smug, misogynistic face. His creepy multi-pupiled eyes. The shitty way he treats Emer. The way that his presence is like this black hole in the study of medieval Irish literature that means that the Ulster Cycle can get a prestigious yearly conference held in its honor while the other cycles are left with either crumbs or outright dismissal. I think the Táin is boring and episodic as a piece of lit and I've never found anything overly redeeming about it over any other piece of medieval Irish literature, especially since imo other pieces of literature do women (and homoeroticism) much better and get much less praise for it.

...that being said. It's important. It IS iconic, both as a piece of medieval Irish literature and, in general, to Irish literature. Its status as The Irish Iliad means that, if you want to study medieval Irish stuff...you have to read the Táin. And this is a version of the Táin that you might not have gotten, translated and edited by a master of Old Irish, with commentary.

"", Táin Bó Cúailnge: recension I (10 Euro, normally 35)

See above.

Early Irish History and Genealogy

T.F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and Genealogy (30 Euro, normally 40)

So. On the record, a lot of what he says here is absolutely not currently believed in the field. Just. No. BUT. There's a reason why I always recommend him anyway, and it's because if you're serious about doing a study of Irish Mythology, whatever we take that to mean...you will not be able to avoid this man. His ideas were very popular for decades and still often are to people who don't really focus on mythology. It's better to know where these ideas come from and to identify them than not, and O'Rahilly, in his defense, had an *excellent* knowledge of his sources. It's dense, it's difficult (rather like the author himself, from the accounts I've heard), but it's necessary if you really want to attack this.

Joan Radner, Fragmentary Annals of Ireland (22.50, normally 30)

There is so much weird shit in the Fragmentary Annals. So much.

Welsh

Patrick Sims Williams, Buchedd Beuno: The Middle Welsh Life of St Beuno (22.50 Euro, normally 30)

I know what you're thinking: "Why the FUCK are they recommending this book about a random Welsh saint? Answer: Because this is how I learned Middle Welsh. The introduction to Welsh at the front of the book + the VERY good index at the back is still one of the best ways to learn Middle Welsh. Also if anyone was watching the Green Knight film and going "Why is there a lady with her head chopped off?" this answers that question.

 R. L. Thomson, Pwyll Pendeuic Dyuet: the first of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, edited from the White Book of Rhydderch, with variants from the Red Book of Hergest (15 Euro, normally 20)

Once you've gotten enough of a hang of Middle Welsh to know the basics, it's time to dive into the classics, and what better way to do it than with the Mabinogi, starting at the very beginning, with the First Branch? Personally, I dislike a lot of Thomson's orthographic decisions, but, hey, it's the First Branch, and that's Middle Welsh orthography for you.

Ian Hughes, Math uab Mathonwy (22.50 Euro, normally 30)

The Fourth Branch, my beloved. Incest, rape, bestiality (well...pseudo bestiality, really), creating a new life while not being willing to deal with the consequences of it...it truly has it all. Not for the faint of heart, but absolutely worth the read if you can stomach it because imo it handles its themes very well and it's incredibly haunting.

And a lot more -- go in, shop around, see what's available. Even with the older books, they're often things that we're still referencing in some way into the present.

[cicelythereaper]

from the medieval welsh englyn poem claf abercuawg (ed. jenny rowland, my translation)

the untamed englyn series