The Mabinogion (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Mabinogion They divide themselves naturally into four groups as follows: - (1) The Mabinogion proper, or, to speak accurately, the Mabinogi of the four-branches, viz. Pwyll, Branwen, Manawyddan and Math. (2) The two short, old-world Welsh tales of Maxen's Dream, and Lludd and Llevelys. (3) Stories of Arthur - viz. Kilhwch and Olwen, Rhonabwy's Dream the Lady of the Fountain, Peredur and Geraint. (4) The story of Taliesin. (1) The stories of the first group, in their underlying substance, are pre-Christian and pre-historic; in their present form they are quasi-mythological. There is no reason to doubt the theory that they are a survival of the ancient mythology of the Ce(2) The two tales of Maxen's Dream and Lludd and Llevelys carry us back to the Roman administration of Britain. They have a substratum of history. In the Mabinogi the story-teller strove, perhaps without knowing it, to give historical reality to myth; here he lets his imagination and fancy play around real persons. The two stories challenge comparison with the Historia Regum Britannia of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but it is not safe to assert that there is any real connection between them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."