Four Branches of the Mabinogi

The Four Branches of the Mabinogi or  are the earliest prose stories in the literature of Britain. Originally written in Wales in Middle Welsh, but widely available in translations, the  is generally agreed to be a single work in four parts, or "branches." The interrelated tales can be read as mythology, political themes, romances, or magical fantasies. They appeal to a wide range of readers, from young children to the most sophisticated adult. The tales are popular today in book format, as storytelling or theatre performances; they appear in recordings and on film, and continue to inspire many reinterpretations in artwork and modern fiction.

Overview
The  are known as the Four Branches of the , or  in Welsh. The tales were compiled from oral tradition in the 11th century. They survived in private family libraries via medieval manuscripts, of which two main versions and some fragments continue to survive today. Early modern scholarship of the  saw the tales as a garbled Welsh mythology which prompted attempts to salvage or reconstruct them. Since the 1970s the tales have become recognised as a complex secular literature, though rooted in and containing elements of Welsh Mythology, with powerfully explored characters, political, ethical and gendered themes, as well as imaginative fantasies. The style of writing is admired for its deceptive simplicity and controlled wordpower, as well as intricate doublets where mirrorings have been compared to Celtic knotwork. The world displayed within the  extends across Wales, to Ireland, and into England. It presents a legendary Britain as a united land under a king, yet with powerful separate princedoms, where native Welsh law,  (magic), and romance, combine in a unique synergy. Possible authors who have been proposed for the Four Branches include  and .

Each Branch contains several tale episodes in a sequence, and each Branch is titled with the name of a leading protagonist. These titles are  and , but this is a modern custom; the Branches are not titled in the mediaeval manuscripts. Only one character appears in all four Branches, , though he is never dominant or central to any of the Branches.

  Prince of  tells of the heroic and magical sojourn of  in , his shapeshifting, chastity and a duel, which all establish a mighty alliance. The formidable  courts him, and he helps her win her freedom to marry him. The strange abduction at birth of their baby son follows, with his rescue, fostering and restoration by the good lord  of the Kingdom of Gwent. The child is named .
  Daughter of  follows 's marriage to the King of Ireland, who abuses her due to insult by her half brother, . A tragically genocidal war develops fomented by , in which a Cauldron which resurrects the dead figures, and the giant king Bran's head survives his death in an enchanted idyll.  is merely named as a war survivor, and  dies, heartbroken.
  Son of  brother of , heir to the throne of Britain, becomes 's good friend during the war.  arranges his friend's marriage to . The land of  is devastated. Journeys in England setting up craft businesses follow. An enchanted trap removes  and  becomes a farmer. He cannily negotiates their release, as well as the restoration of the land, by confronting the villain behind it all. 
  Son of  is a dark sequence of deception and treachery: war with , the death of , the double rape of a virgin girl, and the rejection of an unwanted hero son by proud  her magician brother is the architect of all these destinies. He adds an artificially incubated pregnancy, and a synthetic woman. She, , creates a treacherous love triangle, murder in a peculiar manner.  makes a shamanic journey of redemption.

The Branches

First branch: , Prince of 

, " Prince of ", hunting on his own land, meets the shining  or "Hounds of ", and takes another man's kill, a stag, for himself. , the king of , is greatly offended. As recompense,  switches bodies with  and dwells in  to vanquish 's adversary.  chastely shares the queen's bed for a year.  defeats 's enemy , and is then rewarded with an alliance between his land of , and  then returns home to  where he finds it has been well ruled by  in the past year.

Next,  encounters , a beautiful and powerful maiden on a shining magical horse. They are strangely unreachable by anyone, for as they attempt to approach,  and her horse get further away. Finally, they ask her to stop in which she complies and it is revealed that  has chosen  as her husband, which he welcomes. On  and 's wedding day in the court of  appears in disguise and tricks  into giving him the entire wedding feast and  then guides  through a cunning strategy using her magic bag which can never be filled, to extricate her from her betrothal to the princely  is trapped in the bag and beaten by 's men until he agrees to 's terms, including foregoing vengeance.

 eventually bears  a son and heir, but the child disappears the night he is born. 's maids, in fear of their lives, accuse her of killing and eating her own baby.  negotiates a penalty where she must sit at the castle gate every day for seven years telling her terrible tale to strangers and offer them a ride on her back. Meanwhile, the child is rescued from its monstrous abductor by . He and his wife adopt the boy who grows heroically apace, and adores horses. They called him  ( 'Golden Hair', ).  sees the boy's resemblance to , so he restores the boy to  for a happy ending.  is vindicated as is 's loyalty to her. Their son is renamed  "Loss", as is custom from his mother's first words to him:  puns on anxiety and labour. In due course,  inherits the rule of .

Second Branch: , Daughter of  

In the second branch, , sister of Brân the Blessed, king of Britain, is requested by and given in marriage to , king of Ireland. 's half-brother , angered that no one consulted him, insults  by mutilating all his valuable horses so horribly they become useless.  the Blessed gives  compensation in the form of new horses and treasure, then added a magical cauldron () which can restore the dead to life, although the revived persons will always remain unable to speak. The legend of this cauldron, when the two kings compare its lore, is that it came from Ireland.

In Ireland,  and  have a son, . The Irish nobles continue to be hostile because of what  did.  allows them to sway him, and casts  away to serf in the kitchens, struck on the face every day by a low-caste butcher.  trains a starling to take a message to  across the Irish Sea. He musters his host and crosses the sea to war on  is so huge he wades across with his ships beside him.  persuades the Irish to sue for peace by building a colossal building to house , which he has never had before.
   
The Irish hide two hundred warriors in the house, hanging in bags on its pillars.  shrewdly suspects treachery and disbelieves the Irish story these are bags of flour. He crushes the skull of each hidden warrior, singing after he does it. Later, at the feast,  deliberately seeks to create discord. He throws his infant nephew  on the fire and kills him. Fighting breaks out and the Irish use the Cauldron to revive their dead.  hides among the corpses to get in the Cauldron, stretches and cracks it, dying as he does so.

The war had become a genocide. Five pregnant women survive to repopulate Ireland. Only Seven Survivors remained of the British host, besides . One is 's other brother, and his good friend , mortally wounded by a poisoned spear, bids the survivors to cut off his head, and take it to bury at the White Tower in London. He prophesies his head will be their good companion and advise them, while they will sojourn for many years of idyllic feasting, first at  in , then on the isle of  in . But on arriving back in Britain,  dies of grief for the many who have died.

 means 'raven';  means 'white raven'; and  means 'trouble, strife'.

Third Branch: , son of  

 of  returns from the Irish War as one of its few survivors, to reunite with his mother , and his wife . He brings with him his beloved war comrade, , the heir to the kingship of all Britain. But 's rights as heir to Britain have been usurped by , and he does not want more war.  establishes him as the lord of , including marriage to , a union which both partners welcome. The four of them,  and her new husband , become very good friends indeed, and travel the land of  admiring how bountiful it is.

Together they sit the , as  once did. A clap of thunder, a bright light, and magical mist descend. Afterwards the land is devastated of all other life except wild animals. The four live by hunting, but after two years they want more, so they travel to England. In three towns in turn they craft saddles, shields and shoes of such quality that the local craftsmen cannot compete, so their envy becomes dangerous.  dislikes the lower class way of life, and  stops him from fighting their enemies. Instead  insists on moving away. After three attempts like this, they return to .

Once more living as hunters  and  follow a shining white boar to a strange castle. , against 's advice, follows his hounds inside to become trapped there by a golden bowl.  waits, then reports to  who rebukes his failure to rescue his friend. But when she follows her son she too becomes trapped. Alone with  reassures her he will respect her virtue. After another attempt in England as shoemakers, the pair return to , and  farms three fields of wheat next to . But his first field's harvest is cut down by thieves, and his second. He sits vigil at night, and sees a horde of mice eating the ripe corn. He catches a slow, fat one. Against 's protest he sets up a miniature gibbet to hang it as a thief.

A scholar, a priest and a bishop in turn offer him money if he will spare the mouse which he refuses. When asked what he wants for the mouse's life he first demands an explanation. The bishop tells him he is , friend of the wronged , the mouse is 's shapeshiften wife, and the devastation of  is to avenge  bargains to release of  and , and the lifting of the curse on .

Fourth Branch: , son of  

 in North Wales is ruled by the magician king , whose feet must be held by a virgin at all times except while he is at war. 's nephew  is infatuated with , the royal maiden foot-holder, so 's brother  plots to aid him. He deceives  of  with magical sham gifts of horses and dogs, in exchange for 's valuable swine, a gift from  makes war in revenge, so  leaves  without his protection.  and  rape her, and  kills  in single combat.  marries  in compensation for her rape. He punishes the two brothers by shapeshifting them into animal pairs who must mate and bear young; first deer, then boars, then wolves. The sons they bear become 's foster sons, and after three years the brothers are reconciled with .

 suggests his sister  as the new footholder.  magically tests her virginity requiring her to step over his wand. She immediately gives birth to a son, , who takes to the sea. She also drops a scrap of life which  scoops up and incubates in a chest by his bed.  is deeply shamed and angered so she utterly rejects the boy. She swears a doom upon him that he cannot have a name, nor warrior arms, unless she gives them to him.  tricks her into naming the boy  (Bright Skillful Hand) by speaking to him, not knowing who he is as he is shapeshifted. More shapeshifting fakes a military attack so  gives them arms - dressing and arming  herself.

's third curse is  may not marry a human woman.  and  construct a beautiful wife for him from oak blossom, broom flowers, and meadowsweet, naming her  (Flower Face). But  and  fall deeply in love.  tells her to find out the secret of 's protected life, which she does in the trust of her marriage bed. She begs  to explain so she can know how to protect him. The method is complicated, taking a year of almost impossible effort but  completes it and  falls to his spear, transforms into an eagle and departs.  and  then live together.

 pursues a quest to find , who far away in eagle form perches up a tree, dying.  tracks a sow which he finds eating maggots falling from 's rotting body.  sings a magical  (poem) gradually bringing  back to humanity.  offers to compensate ; but  insists on returning the blow as it was struck against him.  is cowardly and attempts to evade it using a stone shield.  kills  with his spear, which pierces him through the stone.  punishes  by transforming her into an owl, a pariah among birds.

See also
 Mabinogion, a larger collection of British/Welsh medieval literary tales

Resources

Introductory
ONLINE - FREE translation in English, a page for each Branch, by Will Parker. Includes footnotes.
BOOK John Bollard's edition in English, 'Legend and Landscape of Wales: The Mabinogi' 2007. Illustrated with photographs of the sites in the tales. (See Translations)
BOOK Sioned Davies translation 'The Mabinogion' 2008. (See Translations)
VIDEO Cybi. (1996) The Mabinogion. Partly free on YouTube, fuller version of the retelling on DVD, by Cybi the laughing monk. Valley Stream.
RECORDING Jones, Colin. 2008. “Mabinogion, the Four Branches.” Recordings of the Guest text, with background music. The first episode is free on the site.
Ifor Williams, 'Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi, Allan o Lyfr Gwyn Rhydderch' 1930, 1951. In Welsh. Scanned at online. 
Tales from the Mabinogion, trans. Gwyn Thomas. Illustrated by Margaret Jones. 2006.

Key Resources for Study

Morgain, Shan. (2013) The Mabinogi Bibliography. Comprehensive annotated bibliography, searchable on tags; can derive citations. Includes much material on the wider Mabinogion, and some background context e.g. history, language.
Parker, Will. (2002) “Bibliographic Essay. The Four Branches of the Mabinogi, A Medieval Celtic Text; English Language Scholarship 1795-1997.” Mabinogi.net. A survey of Mabinogi scholarship from the 19thC to the end of the 20thC.
Parker, Will. (2003) Annotated translation of the Four Branches. Mabinogi.net. Translations made for his book (Parker, Will. (2005) The Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Dublin: Bardic Press. See www.mabinogi.net for Parker's articles.

Welsh sources
For the Welsh text in Middle Welsh spelling see Williams, Ifor. (1930, 1951). Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi. Allan o Lyfr Gwyn Rhydderch. CUP. Classic text for modern students, and Welsh speakers, based on all the surviving MSS. This was the first modern use of the title Pedair Keinc y Mabinogi.

For the Welsh text in modernised spelling see J. M. Edwards, Mabinogion (o Lyfr Coch Hergest): Pwyll, Pendefig Dyfed, Branwen Ferch Llyr, Manawyddan fab Llyr, Math fab Mathonwy (Wrecsam: Hughes A'i Fab, 1921)

The Four Branches are edited individually in Middle Welsh with English glossary and notes as follows:
First Branch: R. L. Thomson, Pwyll Pendeuic Dyuet. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1957.
Second Branch: D. S. Thomson, Branwen Uerch Lyr. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976.
Third Branch: Patrick K. Ford, Manawydan uab Llyr. Belmont, Mass.: Ford and Bailie, 2000.
Fourth Branch: Patrick K. Ford, Math uab Mathonwy. Belmont, Mass.: Ford and Bailie, 1999.
For the Middle Welsh text closely copied from the mediaeval manuscripts (diplomatic editions) see: Rhys, John; and Evans, John Gwenogvryn. 1907,1973, 2010. The White Book of the Mabinogion: Welsh Tales and Romances Reproduced from the Peniarth Manuscripts. Series of Welsh Texts 7. Pwllheli. Also Evans transcript of the Llyfr Coch 1887.

The three mediaeval manuscripts which have survived into modern times, were scribed in the 13th and 14th centuries, later than the compilation period of the work in the 11th century. The text in all three does not greatly differ, but it is thought that they are not copies of each other, but of lost earlier originals. The oldest is only a fragment; Peniarth 6, c. 1225; containing parts of the Second and Third Branches. The other two are named by the colour of their covers: LLyfr Gwyn ("White Book") and Llyfr Coch ("Red Book").

The oldest complete version is the "White Book of Rhydderch" (Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch), one of the Peniarth Manuscripts. It was scribed c. 1350 by five different writers, probably commissioned by Ieuan ab Rhydderch ab Ieuan Llwyd near Ceredigion. It was then copied and studied by various Welsh scholars. About 1658, it was acquired by the antiquary Robert Vaughan and preserved in his famous library of Hengwrt near Dolgellau, Gwynedd. In 1859 it was passed to the Peniarth library by William Watkin Edward Wynne. Finally, John Williams presented it to the National Library of Wales in 1904, where it can be viewed today in two volumes.

The second complete version which has survived is the "Red Book of Hergest" (Llyfr Coch Hergest). The scribing was c. 1382–1410, in a time of unrest culminating in Owain Glyndŵr's uprising. The scribe has been identified as Hywel Fychan fab Hywel Goch of Buellt, who worked for Hopcyn ap Tomas ab Einion (fl. 1337–1408) near Swansea. The Hopcyn library changed hands due to war and politics several times, with owners including the Vaughans of Hergest. The MS. wandered on, sometimes slightly dubiously via 'borrowing'. Edward Lhuyd is one of many who copied it to study. In 1701 it was donated to Jesus College Oxford where it remains today. Here it was copied by the young Ioan Tegid when a student at University of Oxford c. 1815-17 for Charles Bosanquet. Later Tegid, as a senior bard and scholar, assisted Lady Charlotte Guest in her bilingual publication series, The Mabinogion, which brought the tales to the modern world. Her volume containing the Mabinogi was published in 1845, and her work is still popular today.

Welsh Icons United a 2014 exhibition at the National Library of Wales, guested the Llyfr Coch, the Red Book, as part of its display; thus bringing the two main Mabinogi MSS. under one roof for the first time. (12 October – 15 March 2014)

Translations into English
Pughe, William Owen. 1795. “The Mabinogion, or Juvenile Amusements, Being Ancient Welsh Romances.” Cambrian Register, 177–87. First publication, and English trans. of the first story in the First Branch. Also: Pughe, William Owen. 1829. “The Mabinogi: Or, the Romance of Math Ab Mathonwy.” The Cambrian Quarterly Magazine and Celtic Repository 1: 170–79. English trans. of the First Branch.
Guest, Charlotte; aka Charlotte Schreiber, trans. and editor. The Mabinogion. (1845 part of a series, bilingual; 1849 part of 3 vols bilingual; 1877 one vol. English only.) Llandovery, Wales; and London; simultaneously. Guest's trans. continue to introduce many to the stories today in her characteristically flowing style.
Ellis, Thomas Peter., and Lloyd, John; trans. (1929) The Mabinogion: A New Translation by T.P. Ellis and John Lloyd. Oxford: Clarendon Press. An accurate and useful edition for students.
Jones, Gwyn and Thomas Jones; trans. (1949) The Mabinogion. Everyman's Library, 1949; revised 1974, 1989, 1993. The first major edition to supplant Guest.
2001 Edition, (Preface by John Updike), . 
Gantz, Jeffrey; trans. (1976) The Mabinogion. London and New York: Penguin Books. . A popular edition for many years, still very readable pocket edition.
Ford, Patrick K. ; trans. (1977)The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press. . Focuses on the native tales of the Mabinogion, including the Mabinogi.
Parker, Will. 2003. “Mabinogi Translations." Very useful free online resource for instant access, and quick checks.
Bollard, John K. trans, and Griffiths, Anthony; photog. (2006) The Mabinogi: Legend and Landscape of Wales. Gomer Press, Llandysul. . An excellent introduction, clear, beautifully designed, with photographs of the Mabinogi sites today.
Davies, Sioned. (2007) The Mabinogion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . A modern edition in practical format, backed by solid scholarship.
J. R. R. Tolkien began work on a translation of Pwyll Prince of Dyfed. His translation is held at the Bodleian Library.

Modern Interpretations
Walton, Evangeline. "The Mabinogion Tetralogy." Prose retelling. "The Island of the Mighty" 1970, first publ. as "The Virgin and the Swine" 1936; "The Children of Llyr" 1971; "The Song of Rhiannon" 1972; "Prince of Annwn" 1974. As a tetralogy New York: Ballantine Books. .
Cybi. (1996) The Mabinogion. Partly free on YouTube and a fuller version of the retelling on DVD, by Cybi the laughing monk. Valley Stream. A lovely intro.
Hayes, Derek W. (2007). Otherworld. S4C / BBC Wales. Animation and video with leading musicians and actors, using cutting edge CGI tech. of the time, an impressive work. See artwork on the site.
Arberth Studios. (2008) Rhiannon: Curse Of The Four Branches (PC DVD). Not very closely based, more loosely inspired. 
Eames, Manon. (2008) Magnificent Myths of the Mabinogi. Stage performance of the full Mabinogi, in Aberystwyth. Staged in a slightly abridged version by Jill Williams at the Pontardawe Arts Centre, 2009. Each was performed by youth theatre.
Jones, Colin. 2008. Mabinogion, the Four Branches. Recordings of the Guest text, with atmospheric background music. The first episode is free on the site.
In 2009 Seren Books began publishing a radical new interpretation of the tales, as a series, setting them in modern times and in different countries. The series completed 2014. See here.
Damh the Bard has released three albums retelling the first three branches in a combination of song and spoken word with accompaniment. "Y Mabinogi - The First Branch" (2017), "Y Mabinogi - The Second Branch" (2018), "Y Mabinogi - The Third Branch" (2020). As of 2023, the final album is forthcoming. See here.

References

Medieval Welsh literature
Mabinogion
Welsh-language literature
Welsh mythology

gl:Mabinogion