Evangeline Walton's telling of the 4 parts of the Mabinogion has long been one of my favorite reads. She really fleshes out the characters & takes you into their world. I find this version a bit suspicious, as all the so-help-me-god comments suggest a christian time & these tales would have been long before that. In fact one of the key conflicts is the old vs. new tribes; the old tribes passing along the kingship to the king's sister's son & the new tribes wanting the succession to be father-to-son. But I'm glad to see that someone is recognizing how wonderful these stories are & recording them, whatever version. As a person who listens to a fair number of audiobooks, I'd suggest that you slow down a bit & give listeners time to process what they are hearing. And as for your Welsh pronunciation, I was taking a class in England over the summer & indicated an interest in Welsh mythology & language, so the instructor gave me a "Teach-YOurself-Welsh book. I handed it back a week later & said, "Not a chance, this is way too hard!" So I'm going to say that ANY attempt to pronounce the Welsh names is a mighty achievement, unless you are a native speaker! Bravo! I look forward to Part 2.
Thank you for the kind comments and suggestions :) Re the Christian elements, my understanding is that these stories were written up in the existing form in the late 14th century, so the Christian themes may have been introduced then. IIRC we don't really know how old the tales are, the Four Branches seems to be set in a vaguely post-Roman, pre-1100 Wales/Britain.
Evangeline Walton's telling of the 4 parts of the Mabinogion has long been one of my favorite reads. She really fleshes out the characters & takes you into their world. I find this version a bit suspicious, as all the so-help-me-god comments suggest a christian time & these tales would have been long before that. In fact one of the key conflicts is the old vs. new tribes; the old tribes passing along the kingship to the king's sister's son & the new tribes wanting the succession to be father-to-son. But I'm glad to see that someone is recognizing how wonderful these stories are & recording them, whatever version. As a person who listens to a fair number of audiobooks, I'd suggest that you slow down a bit & give listeners time to process what they are hearing. And as for your Welsh pronunciation, I was taking a class in England over the summer & indicated an interest in Welsh mythology & language, so the instructor gave me a "Teach-YOurself-Welsh book. I handed it back a week later & said, "Not a chance, this is way too hard!" So I'm going to say that ANY attempt to pronounce the Welsh names is a mighty achievement, unless you are a native speaker! Bravo! I look forward to Part 2.
Thank you for the kind comments and suggestions :) Re the Christian elements, my understanding is that these stories were written up in the existing form in the late 14th century, so the Christian themes may have been introduced then. IIRC we don't really know how old the tales are, the Four Branches seems to be set in a vaguely post-Roman, pre-1100 Wales/Britain.
Thanks for this. Diolch a mewn.
Happy New year 🎉
Happy new year!
Thank you 😊