A collection of eleven “stories” from early medieval Wales. Some long, some short, all showing their origins as oral tales. No matter your taste, it’s all here: witches, heroes, maidens, giants, kings, dragons, and an utterly extraordinary magical boar. There are quests and more quests: romance, honor, war, revenge, and, oh, love too. I found the tales a bit more uneven than I expected, but it is not surprising, I think, when you learn the "collection" is a modern accident. Brilliant translation (Sioned Davies) with extraordinarily detailed (often overdetailed) notes. ( )

paperback

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Something of a mixed bag.

The first branch of the Mabinogi is a masterpiece. It really is world-class literature. Knarled and ancient. The kind of world where you can can stroll into a clearing and find yourself in another land. The other three branches have great elements in them but they aren’t quite pulled together into proper stories. I did wonder if the author had suffered a stroke.

Some of the other stories (all of which are by different authors) suffer from the same problem. I wonder if what we’re looking at are some sort of aide memoir for storytellers and bards. They’re certainly not a pleasure to read in their current forms. But not all the stories are like that. It’s well worth reading because there are a couple of gems.

The other point of interest are five early Arthurian stories. Two of these seem to be entirely Welsh and the other three are adaptations of Chétien de Troyes’ romances Erec and Enid, Yvain and Perceval, though Perceval also seems to have quite a bit of Welsh material. It’s particularly interesting to read them back to back with their progenitors. ( )

I guess this was a good book to read for awhile while sick.

While I like the stories, this edition is the reason I'm giving this three stars. NO GLOSSARY? They had a brief how translate the words in the beginning, but I think it was needed at the end with all the characters mentioned. Got confusing and the Welsh names don't help.

What I liked best was this version's of Arthur. Not the best Arthurian book, but it was interesting he was already a hero and just a king at this point. He's not the main focus of the stories either. I would have some prior knowledge of earlier takes of Arthur before reading this book though.

If you can, I would find a better edition than Penguins if it out there. I usually like Penguins books, but this one lacks some stuff that would have been helpful. ( )