Mabinogi(on), was Re: Help (fwd)

["Stephanie M. Thorson" <smt2@st-andrews.ac.uk>]

Poster: "Stephanie M. Thorson" <smt2@st-andrews.ac.uk>

HRH Luned wrote:

> brave, I even have a couple of the Mabinogi in Middle Welsh.  By the
> way, all my Welsh & Celtic professors told me that the correct version
> of the tales is called Mabinogi not Mabinogion.  Don't flame me...I'm
> just repeating what the scholars in that field that I have known say.

Ah yes, the old Mabinogi/Mabinogion problem.  It breaks down rather like
this:

The name Mabinogi was originally applied to what are also known as the
Four Branches, which is to say the 4 tales which concern Pwyll, Rhiannon,
and their friends and relations.  <g>  So technically, a volume containing
those four stories is correctly titled the Mabinogi.

Now, when Lady Charlotte Guest first translated the Four Branches into
English, she also appended some other texts to them, like The Dream of
Rhonabwy, Owein, etc., and called the whole thing the Mabinogi_on_.  This
is a bit of a silly title as the -on suffix indicates a plural, but the
word Mabinogi is itself already a plural.  <sigh> However, it has since
become traditional to refer to an edition of the texts originally
translated by her as the Mabinogion, as distinct from the 4 Branches of
the Mabinogi proper. 

Clear as mud?  :-)

Alianora
*****************************************************************************
Stephanie M. Thorson			|  SCA: Lady Alianora Munro
Dept. of Scottish History		|  Clan White Wing
University of St Andrews		|  Tarkhan, Khanate Red Lion


=======================================================================
List Archives, FAQ, FTP:  http://merryrose.atlantia.sca.org/
            Submissions:  atlantia@atlantia.sca.org
        Admin. requests:  majordomo@atlantia.sca.org