What we call the Mabinogion today is a collection of eleven stories from the Red Book of Hergest, one of the Four Ancient Books of Wales, and the White Book of Rhydderch, another medieval Welsh manuscript. Strange and otherworldly, the Four Branches of the Mabinogi are unquestionably the jewels of this collection of medieval Welsh mythology and folklore. In volume they make up only a little over a third of the book, but trust me — this is what you are here for. Despite many of the surface similarities between Welsh and some Irish tales, they are just that: surface. The Welsh tales go in vastly different directions, have singular and unique progressions and ideas that set them apart from stories that might have shared similar origins long ago. Mabinogi', derived from the word 'mab', originally meant 'boyhood' or 'youth' but gradually came to mean 'tale of a hero's boyhood' and eventually, simply, 'a tale'. Richard Carpenter, Robin of Sherwood. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Puffin Books, 1984 ISBN 9780140316902 (pp. 157-8)

I cannot say why I resonate with some cultures and times more than others - why, for example, I love the literature of Sumer but not Egypt. I can say that I am grateful that we have the Mabinogion to puzzle over, to study, and to treasure as an invaluable source of information about the literature and history of the Welsh, even if I do not deeply respond to it on an artistic level to the same degree as, say, The Book of Invasions, with which it was approximately contemporaneous. Pryderi and Rhiannon's imprisonment, by Albert Herter. From Thomas Wentworth Higginson's Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the AtlanticAnd so images of stories from the Mabinogion are relatively scarce online, with most illustrations coming from various republications of Charlotte Guest’s translation that use the same drawings by S. Williams (I don’t have more detail!). So I went for a little bit of a hunt for some more obscure public domain images. ones. I didn’t turn up a lot for this story but below are a few I uncovered, illustrated variously by John D. Batten in More Celtic Fairy Tales and by T.H Robinson in Y llyfr cyntaf Pryderi fab Pwyll.

A major illustrated edition of the classic fantasy with over 50 full-colour paintings by the celebrated artist of The Lord of the Rings. It first came to general literary prominence in the mid 19th century, when Lady Charlotte Guest published her translation of 11 medieval Welsh folk tales under the title The Mabinogion. THE MABINOGION embraces much of ancient and early British culture, combining the numinous world of Celtic mythology, Arthurian legend and feudal Europe's Age of Chivalry. Indeed, scholars have identified that it was out of THE MABINOGION that the Arthurian legends were born. The collection comprises eleven medieval Welsh folk tales, or, as I think of them, fragments, transcribed orally down the centuries and with consequent distortion. It must be that the significance of many of the details has been lost, details, and repetition of detail, that would have been expected and eagerly listened for as the tales were recited. Those clearest to understand are the three final tales, which are Arthurian, and are different versions of the tales in Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain, Perceval, and Erec and Enide, the last of which I have reviewed separately on GR. The Welsh equivalents of the heroes' names are Owein, Peredur and Geraint. “Peredur” is likened by Jeffrey Gantz to “Pryderi” in an earlier Welsh tale in the same volume, forming part of the first ‘branch’ of the tales. There are four branches, from South Wales, North Wales, tales from broader sources, and Arthurian. There are connections to and counterparts with early Irish tales, and even, in The Dream of Maxen, with Rome. The geography of the tales is fluid, which again reflects the borrowed or common elements.Before Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain or the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes, there was The Mabinogion, the extraordinary collection of ancient Welsh mythology and legend regarded by many as Britain's earliest known prose literary work. Lee made cover paintings for the 1983 Penguin edition of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. [2] [3] He also did the artwork for Alive!, a 2007 CD by the Dutch band Omnia, released during the Castlefest festival. [3] On the bank of the river he saw a tall tree: from roots to crown one half was aflame and the other green with leaves”. . . .

Lee worked as a conceptual designer on the films Legend, Erik the Viking, King Kong and the television mini-series Merlin. [5] The art book Faeries, produced in collaboration with Brian Froud, was the basis of a 1981 animated feature of the same name. [9] [10] Full of magical creatures, legendary heroes, and tales of love, revenge, and political struggle, The Mabinogion is one of the essential masterpieces of world literature. For almost a millennium its stories have inspired and fascinated writers and artists – among them the great contemporary master of fantastic art, Alan Lee. The stories have had newer stuff (and values) multilayered over the original, French appearing over Celtic, but some common themes still shine through. Some characters, who appear briefly or in minor character might have had bigger roles and their own stories in the past. Some historical people appear, sometimes under Welsh-name versions. For that year's work he won the annual World Fantasy Award, Best Artist, at the 1998 World Fantasy Convention. [17] I don’t think many people majored in Arthurian studies or German or French to get a better grip on the story. No one has anything to say on them and mentioning one over the other is more than a game of favorites.

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A single character, Pryderi links all four branches. In the first tale he's born and fostered, inherits a kingdom and marries. In the second he's scarcely mentioned, but in the third he's imprisoned by enchantment and then released. In the fourth he falls in battle.

As Peredur pauses in meditation, he is approached by knight after knight from Arthur’s court, each hoping to speak with him. Wishing to instead remain in his meditation, he defeats these men in combat, until Gwalchmei rouses him from his trance with friendly words, and a welcoming demeanor. In these two episodes we begin our look at the renowned collection of medieval Welsh tales, the Mabinogion. In artworks, Rhiannon has inspired some entrancing images. A notable example is Alan Lee 1987, and 2001, who illustrated two major translations of the Mabinogi, and his pictures have attracted their own following. For the 60th anniversary edition of The Hobbit, Tolkien's 1937 classic, Lee won his second Chesley Award for Interior Illustration (he is a finalist eight times through 2011). [16] Rhiannon is included in various Celtic neopaganism traditions since the 1970s, with varying degrees of accuracy in respect to the original literary sources.

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How does a person even presume to review a book that has survived 700 years, containing stories that survived close to their current form without anyone writing them down for a further 300 years? Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed is the first tale collected here. I only took one King Arthur oriented class in college, and we didn’t have to read this one there. All the other instances of Arthurian literature I read on my own time. Froud, Brian; Lee, Alan (1979). David Larkin (ed.). Faeries. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. ISBN 9780553346343.