The Mabinogion.
Breeze Andrew
The Mabinogion. Trans. by Sioned Davies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. 2007. xxxviii + 293 pp. 12.99. [pounds sterling] isbn:
978-0-19-283242-9.
The Mabinogion is the inaccurate, but convenient, name of a
collection of Welsh stories, the oldest dating from the eleventh
century, the latest from the thirteenth. These eleven tales now appear
in a handsome volume for OxfordWorld's Classics, with a preface,
introduction, map, and sixty-seven pages of notes and indexes. It may be
said at once that the translation will have instant success. It will
bring the tales to thousands of new readers, while its commentary will
be a vital tool for scholars. Yet it has another, more startling function. Professor Davies cites (p. 239) my own arguments that the
finest of the stories, the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, showsigns of
having been composed by awoman,who (I maintain) can be identified as
Gwenllian, a Welsh princess active in the 1120s and 1130s. If so, the
implications of these arguments go far beyondWales. They mean the
discovery of a new woman writer of genius, swimming into the firmament
of World Literature.
Controversy on this matter will no doubt go on for years, but two
points can be made here. First, the evidence to attribute the Four
Branches to 'a cleric, or perhaps a court lawyer' (p. xxvi) is
flimsy. The stories never mention the Bible, saints, or Christian sites;
their references to baptism (pp. 18, 58) are muddled. That must rule out
a clerical author. As for the lawyer, it is curious that, while royal
characters abound, no professional judge or advocate figures in the
tales. Also strange are passages by a supposed legal (or clerical) male
on a wife's thoughts in the marriage bed (p. 7), a woman's
reaction to rape (p. 52), breastfeeding (p. 55), or a wife's ardent feelings on taking a lover (p. 59). Remarkable too is the way that women
consistently overcome their (somewhat ineffectual) menfolk in argument
and the like (pp. 7, 12-13, 14, 18, 19), or use literacy to escape male
violence (p. 28), or play a crucial role in diplomacy (p. 30).
Such features point, rather, to a female author, who would have
been of the highest social rank and thus an expert on Welsh government
in action, including even an invasion of Ireland (p. 28). This author
knew well the topography of Gwynedd and north Dyfed, where the court of
Arberth was surely near Cardigan (p. 230), close to Otherworld encounters on the river Cuch. The author was also, uniquely, in favour
of the political advancement of both Gwynedd and Dyfed (pp. 21, 47, 64).
Striking in that context is a passage on the humanity shown to Dyfed
warriors after their defeat by Gwynedd forces (pp. 51-52). Hence my own
attribution of the tales to Gwenllian, a Gwynedd princess married to a
Dyfed prince.
Secondly, there is no evidence to date the Four Branches to
'between c. 1060 and 1120' (p. xxvii). What they say of
Oxford, for example, points to a later date. Oxford was not then an
'important political and administrative centre' (p. 253).
Domesday shows much of it was in ruin. Its resurgence began only with
Henry I's visits in the 1120s.
It is none the less certain that, by fuelling debate on this and
other questions, Sioned Davies's splendid volume inaugurates a new
age of Mabinogion studies (although it is bound to vex Professor Liam
Breatnach of Dublin that his name is misspelt as 'Bretnach'
(p. 261)).
Andrew Breeze
University of Navarre, Pamplona
