I've read translations of the Mabinogion and found it very difficult going, but I've read in several places that these are the most appropriate novelizations of the Mabinogion. I've long wanted to read the series, as I am generally a fan of well done novelizations of mythic tales, but they were not easy to get a hold of. I finally put them on my Amazon wish list and my wife and kids got them for me this year for Christmas and my birthday,
Walton does not disappoint, the work is fresh and interesting, but sticks fairly closely to the tale, simply putting it in terms the modern reader can better understand and filling it with scholarship that explains the culture that produced it. But that makes the tale seem very dry, and it is anything but that! From the very beginning it is filled with sex, violence, sacrifice, political intrigue, and even some fairly deep metaphysics.
At first, I found it hard to deal with Arawn, as I was used to viewing him as a villain on par with Sauron as depicted in Lloyd Alexander's masterful Chronicles of Prydain; seeing him in a more benevolent role here is jarring, even though my knowledge of Welsh mythology prepared me for it.
But what really sets this work apart is the constant sense of impending, unavoidable doom. The work devolves, especially at the end, into true horror, getting nearly as depressing in places as Frodo's march through Mordor, but without the high purpose and sense of hope that lie at the foundation of Tolkien's work.
The center of the novel is the struggle for a mysterious magical Cauldron which grants the king who possesses it great military power, but at a truly horrific cost to his kingdom. It is truly powerful - and the tale cannot conclude without resolving the Cauldron's fate. Like Tolkien's One Ring, then, the Cauldron is not a true McGuffin (a story object whose only real purpose is to drive the plot). Indeed, it is very like the Ring, in both power and its persistent corruption of those who encounter it.
The third book is The Song of Rhiannon, covering the "Manawydan fab Llŷr." This work starts very evocatively, as Manawydan and Pryderi return from the disastrous war with the Irish. The third branch is generally titled after Manawydan, but Walton chooses to title it after Rhiannon, and includes the tale of Pryderi's birth here rather then in the first novel as it appears in the first Branch of the Mabinogi. Rhiannon is a focus of the tale, but Manawydan is the point of view character. I found him fascinating, definitely my favorite character in the series to date and the closest thing to a recognizably moral character.
The feminist subtext in this book is very strong as Rhiannon makes several interesting choice regarding her bedmates, and the matriarchal nature of the "Old Tribes" is on full display. The politics she adds to the work are interesting but how accurate her view of ancient Welsh or Celt culture and society is I can't say.
Walton's novel was published in 1974, the Fleetwood Mac song came out in 1975; it was not based on Walton's novel and I doubt Stevie Nicks had heard of the novel or its title when she was writing the song. Nonetheless it is remarkable how well the song fits the Rhiannon of the Mabinogion.
The Island of the Mighty is the fourth and final book in Walton's series, covering the fourth branch, "Math fab Mathonwy", of the Mabinogi. Despite being the title character of the Branch, Math is not the protagonist. Instead the protagonists are Gwydion and Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Math's heirs.
Walton does not disappoint, the work is fresh and interesting, but sticks fairly closely to the tale, simply putting it in terms the modern reader can better understand and filling it with scholarship that explains the culture that produced it. But that makes the tale seem very dry, and it is anything but that! From the very beginning it is filled with sex, violence, sacrifice, political intrigue, and even some fairly deep metaphysics.
Walton limits herself to the four Branches of the Mabinogi that form the Mabinogion's core, leaving out the various tales and romances that are also present in the extant copies left to us.
She starts with "Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed", the first of the four Branches, in Prince of Annwn. Her tale follows the original in a seemingly straight forward way, starting in media res, as Pwyll meets with Arawn, Lord of Annwn, and in some sense a personification of Death.
Pwyll encounters and fights, sort of several mythological creatures, including possibly a tarrasque, based on a Celtic scuplture. She ties the work in here with several other mythologies, especially some Near Eastern, and hints at the coming of Christianity.
Reading this first was interesting, it was the last of Walton's Tetralogy written, thought it covers the first Branch and these branch are internally chronological. I was surprised by how much religious and political commentary Walton fit into the work. She was an early feminist and that permeates all of the work. She was also raised a Quaker, and I doubt if that explains the hostility to Near Eastern Religions, including Christianity, that is also apparent in this book. Oddly, she also left out the final third of the "Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed", which dealt with the birth and early childhood of Pryderi, Pwyll's son with Rhiannon
Next was The Children of Llyr , which covers "Branwen ferch Llŷr", the second Branch. This work was very different from the first book, somewhat more down to earth, though clearly still in the world of myth and folklore. The stories start to look less like a fairy tale and more like an epic fantasy. The Sons of Llyr make excellent protagonists, flawed but endearing, and the antagonists are very human, with redeeming qualities that grant them humanity despite their horrific choices.
Reading this first was interesting, it was the last of Walton's Tetralogy written, thought it covers the first Branch and these branch are internally chronological. I was surprised by how much religious and political commentary Walton fit into the work. She was an early feminist and that permeates all of the work. She was also raised a Quaker, and I doubt if that explains the hostility to Near Eastern Religions, including Christianity, that is also apparent in this book. Oddly, she also left out the final third of the "Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed", which dealt with the birth and early childhood of Pryderi, Pwyll's son with Rhiannon
But what really sets this work apart is the constant sense of impending, unavoidable doom. The work devolves, especially at the end, into true horror, getting nearly as depressing in places as Frodo's march through Mordor, but without the high purpose and sense of hope that lie at the foundation of Tolkien's work.
The center of the novel is the struggle for a mysterious magical Cauldron which grants the king who possesses it great military power, but at a truly horrific cost to his kingdom. It is truly powerful - and the tale cannot conclude without resolving the Cauldron's fate. Like Tolkien's One Ring, then, the Cauldron is not a true McGuffin (a story object whose only real purpose is to drive the plot). Indeed, it is very like the Ring, in both power and its persistent corruption of those who encounter it.
The third book is The Song of Rhiannon, covering the "Manawydan fab Llŷr." This work starts very evocatively, as Manawydan and Pryderi return from the disastrous war with the Irish. The third branch is generally titled after Manawydan, but Walton chooses to title it after Rhiannon, and includes the tale of Pryderi's birth here rather then in the first novel as it appears in the first Branch of the Mabinogi. Rhiannon is a focus of the tale, but Manawydan is the point of view character. I found him fascinating, definitely my favorite character in the series to date and the closest thing to a recognizably moral character.
The feminist subtext in this book is very strong as Rhiannon makes several interesting choice regarding her bedmates, and the matriarchal nature of the "Old Tribes" is on full display. The politics she adds to the work are interesting but how accurate her view of ancient Welsh or Celt culture and society is I can't say.
Walton's novel was published in 1974, the Fleetwood Mac song came out in 1975; it was not based on Walton's novel and I doubt Stevie Nicks had heard of the novel or its title when she was writing the song. Nonetheless it is remarkable how well the song fits the Rhiannon of the Mabinogion.
Gwydion especially is the protagonist but he is really an anti-hero, which I found shocking (though Arawn's characterization should have warned me), because, as mentioned with Arawn above, I associate him with Gwydion the battle leader in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series, where he is something of an Aragorn figure, very noble and wise. Here, Gwydion is handsome, charming, intelligent, but also arrogant, demanding, and over-all, very hard for modern readers to like. It doesn't help that he makes morally questionable decisions again and again. He generally suffers consequences for his bad choices, however, which always help humanize a character.
Pryderi does appear in the opening chapters, he is the only character to appear in all four Branches, but shifting the focus away from Pwyll and his family is a bit shocking, though completely true to the original text.
Pryderi does appear in the opening chapters, he is the only character to appear in all four Branches, but shifting the focus away from Pwyll and his family is a bit shocking, though completely true to the original text.
There is a LOT more feminist politics in this work, so much that I am shocked it was published in 1936, Walton was very ahead of her time. There is just so much to unpack here on body autonomy, the nature of life, parenthood, self-will... it's an engrossing novel, but it is impossible to read it and not ponder these issues. Much of this, of course, is straight from the original text of the Mabinogi, but she coul have easily chosen to downplay it or rationalize it way, removing the ethical and philosophical implications. Instead, Walton puts them front and center in her tale, demanding the reader consider these questions. Her sheer intellectual integrity on this point is impressive.
Her one weakness as a writer lies in the fight scenes, they are always truncated and simple and se doesn't seem capable of painting a picture of the fight. In contrast, magic, dialogue, and inner turmoil are her métier. The final scene of Arianrhod was moving and effective, a prime example of well she wrote scenes of magic. The end of the tale is also moving, in part because the final 'duel' was a very one-sided affair so she could work around her weakness on fight scenes by focusing on the interplay of the characters.
Her one weakness as a writer lies in the fight scenes, they are always truncated and simple and se doesn't seem capable of painting a picture of the fight. In contrast, magic, dialogue, and inner turmoil are her métier. The final scene of Arianrhod was moving and effective, a prime example of well she wrote scenes of magic. The end of the tale is also moving, in part because the final 'duel' was a very one-sided affair so she could work around her weakness on fight scenes by focusing on the interplay of the characters.
None of that really mattered, I found this work a fitting conclusion to the series, and the series as a whole certainly lived up to its hype. I feel like I have a far firmer grasp on Welsh mythology then I had before, and a deeper understanding of Western culture broadly.
Though she started writing in the first half of the Twentieth century, Walton didn't become known until the second half. She first published The Island of the Mighty in 1936, as "The Virgin and the Swine" but the work received little notice, she later started a trilogy on Theseus only to find Mary Renault beating her to the punch with a master-work. She didn't become well known until her Mabinogion Tetralogy was published by the Ballantine Books Adult Fantasy series (we certainly owe that series a great deal!). In the Seventies her work received the acclaim it deserved, she won several awards, and more of her work has since been published, I certainly intend to track down novel Witch House and her Theseus novel, The Sword is Forged.
Her home-grown feminism is well established, I wasn't shocked to discover a 2013 doctoral dissertation on the topic, "The Daughters of Modron:
Evangeline Walton’s Feminist Re-visioning of the Mabinogi."
Walton herself was a scholar, although home-schooled and self-taught her mastery of Celtic literature is clear. It is especially obvious in "Celtic Myth in the Twentieth Century" published in Mythlore (Vol. 3, No. 3, 1976), it is apparent from context that this was a lecture she gave, most likely at a convention or conference but my cursory search hasn't determined when and where exactly.
In that lecture, Walton notes the lack of morality in the Mabinogion and how oddthat is to modern eyes, the quote seems an excellent place to end this essay:
"In mythology you never find our modern preoccupation with good and evil—a preoccupation that doesn't seem to have made us noticeably good yet. And perhaps you find it least of all in the Celtic. Yeats says—this time in his Celtic Twilight—that fantasy and caprice would lose the freedom which is their breath of life if they were to unite with either good or evil."
Post-script: This post is not particularly detailed, of course, regarding the Mabinogion Tetralogy. If you are looking for a more in-depth look that really delves into the various mythologies and plots in the novels, the four blog posts found here on The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head are very well done, though I found the over-all blog organization a bit confusing.
All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.
All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.
