Essays

"Destiny, magic and chance, human strengths and weaknesses-The Mabinogion's stories are among the most compelling and beautiful in European literature. " Compsed in the golden age of Celtic story-telling in the eleventh century or earlier, they bring together the grotesque and the warmly human, the entertaining and the richly significant. Culhwch is here, perilously wooing the Giant's Daughter; Owain is here, winning the Lady of the fountain by Knightly feats of arms;and -a portent and a miracle both -King Arther is here for the first time as a prime mover in a significant prose narrative ('Culhwch and Olwen'), and thereafter as King and Emperor of what is still the world's most famous royal court. 'A magnificent acheivment...It is hard to think that in scholarship or as a piece of English prose the present translation will ever be bettered'-Sir Idris Bell, "The Welsh Review" 'Magisterial ...the authoritative translation, notable for its meticulous scholarship and a fine literary style' "Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales"