The Mabinogion

by Sioned Davies

Genres: Mythology

Unknown Binding

About the author

Sioned Davies is Chair of Welsh at Cardiff University. Her special interest is the interplay between orality and literacy, together with the performance aspects of medieval Welsh narrative. Her publications include Crefft y Cyfarwydd (Cardiff, 1995), which is a study of narrative techniques in the Mabinogion, The Four Branches of the Mabinogi (Llandysul, 1993), and a co-edited volume, The Horse in Celtic Culture: Medieval Welsh Perspectives (Cardiff, 1997).

Reviews

[James Traxler · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

What led me to this was when I was contemplating re-reading the Alan Garner books (The Owl Service, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, et al), and I heard that they took elements from the The Mabinogion. My memories of Mr. Garner's books were that they were so wonderful - let's even say magical - so, I thought I'd get some background before I re-engaged with them.

I started reading the Lady Charlotte Guest translation of The Mabinogion, but I wasn't too impressed, so I switched to Sioned Davies, which is so much better. Really quite intriguing. The reference notes are also very interesting and well worth a read. I did go back to Guest for the 'Taliesin' story, as it wasn't in Davies' volume (because it is a later text), but it wasn't really up to much. Davies was probably right to leave that one out.