What do you think?
Rate this book
The Assembly of the Severed Head
A small monastic outpost in 13th Century Wales is rocked to its core when a gruesome discovery is made on the nearby shoreline: a severed human head. It’s the first of several to wash up along the surrounding coast, and not long after, the holy brothers stumble across the smouldering ruins of a bardic school with a pile of decapitated bodies inside. Only one survivor, barely alive, is found hiding nearby.
He is Cian Brydydd Mawr, the greatest bard of his age, who holds in his head the four ‘branches’ of an ancient, epic Welsh myth cycle: The Mabinogion. Physically weak but strong willed, he asks the monks to put aside their rigid Christian doctrine and commit his tales (which they see as pagan relics) to parchment. It takes the intervention of a king to persuade them. And as the old poet tells his tales of spirits and shape-shifters, spells and curses, passion and vengeance, no-one in his audience will ever be the same again.
He is Cian Brydydd Mawr, the greatest bard of his age, who holds in his head the four ‘branches’ of an ancient, epic Welsh myth cycle: The Mabinogion. Physically weak but strong willed, he asks the monks to put aside their rigid Christian doctrine and commit his tales (which they see as pagan relics) to parchment. It takes the intervention of a king to persuade them. And as the old poet tells his tales of spirits and shape-shifters, spells and curses, passion and vengeance, no-one in his audience will ever be the same again.
390 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2018
7 people are currently reading
778 people want to read
About the author
Hugh Lupton
40 books12 followersHugh Lupton is a prominent figure in the tradition of oral storytelling.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
July 4, 2018
There are several versions available of the Welsh epic mythological cycle The Mabinogion but Hugh Lupton’s is strikingly different and effective. For Mabinogion geeks like myself the texts as they have come down to us in modern Welsh and English translations are a mine of wonder and magic about the soul of the country where I live. However, for the less obsessive, the stories’ stubborn refusal to explain themselves and the lack of context given in the surviving manuscripts can make them hard to get into.
Hugh Lupton’s solution is neat and inspired. Instead of treating the material as existing in some nebulous, Celtic, distant past he places it in a very clear historic period. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth was prince of Gwynedd in north Wales and married to the illegitimate daughter of the English King John. At the time Wales had not been completely conquered by the descendants of the Norman invaders although King John planned to weaken his Welsh son-in-law’s political and military power. The story starts with military defeat for Llywelyn, occupation of much of his land and the massacre of the bards in a bardic school, leaving only one old bard who had all the old stories in his head and not long left to live.
This book weaves the final great storytelling performances of the old bard with the political machinations of the time, Llywelyn’s reassertion of his power against the invaders and a touching love story that combines both urgency and tenderness.
The precarious balance of the genders is a clear theme in this book. The old bard must have both male and female listeners present and the great characters of Blodeuwedd, Rhiannnon and Branwen have a clear and determined presence in this telling. As has Siwan, Llywelyn’s Norman-French wife, who has gone completely native and allies herself with her husband’s people against her brother John, the English king.
Unlike much of the rest of European courtly literature of the time there is almost no overt Christianity in the stories. The word ‘God’ exists primarily as part of a greeting or oath and there is no priestly caste in the stories, Christian, pagan or otherwise. It is possible that there was a Druidic content in the stories before they were committed to vellum but, personally, I find it a relief that these stories are a priest-free zone. However, the Wales of the Middle Ages was a deeply Catholic country and the tensions between the Catholic and Mabinogi world views are a central part of the weave of this retelling of these stories.
The use of the old stories by the characters to understand the world together and the regular reminders that this is public material that demands orality to function is another central theme, as is the intimate connection between the stories and the Welsh landscape and how the songlines of the Mabinogion are woven into the mountains, lakes and rivers of this land.
The Catholic and Mabinogion worlds live uneasily side by side in this book and the characters have to negotiate their way between them. The small group of listeners are provoked to comment on and discuss the stories and sometimes interject in the actual telling, just as contemporary storytelling audiences do. All are pulled into the stories the old bard tells, even the monk who, against his better judgement, is writing them down.
Although set in the distant, historic past the medieval characters in this novel have to navigate issues that contemporary readers will resonate with. Juggling competing and ultimately incompatible world views on a daily basis, war and dislocation, struggles for linguistic and political hegemony and pitting hope against fear.
The book is lively, readable and the author alternates from a clear, clipped style not that different from the way the surviving manuscripts tell the tales, to a more openend-out and fully detailed style that we expect from the novel form. The changing focus from the Mabinogion stories to the lives of those who are living their lives as they listen to them in this book helps to save the old material from languishing in the Literary Treasure cupboard and reinvigorates them as tools for living in difficult times and a reminder that we are living, in the words of the Welsh poet Waldo Williams, ‘mewn cwmwl tystion’/‘in a cloud of witnesses’.
Hugh Lupton’s solution is neat and inspired. Instead of treating the material as existing in some nebulous, Celtic, distant past he places it in a very clear historic period. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth was prince of Gwynedd in north Wales and married to the illegitimate daughter of the English King John. At the time Wales had not been completely conquered by the descendants of the Norman invaders although King John planned to weaken his Welsh son-in-law’s political and military power. The story starts with military defeat for Llywelyn, occupation of much of his land and the massacre of the bards in a bardic school, leaving only one old bard who had all the old stories in his head and not long left to live.
This book weaves the final great storytelling performances of the old bard with the political machinations of the time, Llywelyn’s reassertion of his power against the invaders and a touching love story that combines both urgency and tenderness.
The precarious balance of the genders is a clear theme in this book. The old bard must have both male and female listeners present and the great characters of Blodeuwedd, Rhiannnon and Branwen have a clear and determined presence in this telling. As has Siwan, Llywelyn’s Norman-French wife, who has gone completely native and allies herself with her husband’s people against her brother John, the English king.
Unlike much of the rest of European courtly literature of the time there is almost no overt Christianity in the stories. The word ‘God’ exists primarily as part of a greeting or oath and there is no priestly caste in the stories, Christian, pagan or otherwise. It is possible that there was a Druidic content in the stories before they were committed to vellum but, personally, I find it a relief that these stories are a priest-free zone. However, the Wales of the Middle Ages was a deeply Catholic country and the tensions between the Catholic and Mabinogi world views are a central part of the weave of this retelling of these stories.
The use of the old stories by the characters to understand the world together and the regular reminders that this is public material that demands orality to function is another central theme, as is the intimate connection between the stories and the Welsh landscape and how the songlines of the Mabinogion are woven into the mountains, lakes and rivers of this land.
The Catholic and Mabinogion worlds live uneasily side by side in this book and the characters have to negotiate their way between them. The small group of listeners are provoked to comment on and discuss the stories and sometimes interject in the actual telling, just as contemporary storytelling audiences do. All are pulled into the stories the old bard tells, even the monk who, against his better judgement, is writing them down.
Although set in the distant, historic past the medieval characters in this novel have to navigate issues that contemporary readers will resonate with. Juggling competing and ultimately incompatible world views on a daily basis, war and dislocation, struggles for linguistic and political hegemony and pitting hope against fear.
The book is lively, readable and the author alternates from a clear, clipped style not that different from the way the surviving manuscripts tell the tales, to a more openend-out and fully detailed style that we expect from the novel form. The changing focus from the Mabinogion stories to the lives of those who are living their lives as they listen to them in this book helps to save the old material from languishing in the Literary Treasure cupboard and reinvigorates them as tools for living in difficult times and a reminder that we are living, in the words of the Welsh poet Waldo Williams, ‘mewn cwmwl tystion’/‘in a cloud of witnesses’.
October 19, 2018
A wonderful book
I have for sometime had a love of the Mabinogion. I have read several translations, watched film versions of some of the tales, and listened to audio versions.
Over the years, I have heard people question just how old the tales really are and just how related to the “old ways” they are, especially as they were written down in the 12th century by Christian monks. I have also listened to a radio programme about the tales where an academic who had written a translation, scoffed at the idea the tales have references to Gods or Goddesses. Sometimes it seems to me that academics are so intent on getting the language of the translations right, that they don’t actually let the tales speak.
This book is different, it recognises that the oral tradition is as important as the written word. The story takes place in a small 13th Century monastery in Wales. Severed heads are washed up near the monastery and when the monks investigate , they realise this is the result of an attack on a Bardic College nearby. All but one, and old Bard, are murdered. The surviving Bard is badly wounded and is nursed back to health at the monastery. The Monks are asked by Prince Llwelyn to write down the tales as told by the surviving bard. They are not happy about spending time on tales of the old ways and would rather be writing holy scripture, but agree to provide a scribe to write the tales. This is the genius of the book, for the old Bard demands an audience to tell the tales to rather than just recite them to a scribe.
The Christian Scribe questions this approach:
“I do not understand why you could not dictate your matter to me alone, it would save time”
The Bard answers “Do you think I could tell these stories in the way that i have if I was speaking to you alone? this matter is fed by its listeners just as a tree is fed by the soil in which it grows. Every Cyfarwydd (storyteller) sends out roots and is given sustenance by his audience.”
And So the old bard tells his tales and you as the reader become one of the audience listening to the stories unfold. The stories told are the four branches of the Mabinogian, interspersed with some of the other tales that are connected.
There is a story within the telling of the tales. when the bard pauses to recover his strength or to allow the scribe to fully write what has been told, we see the effect that these old tales start to have on the small audience.
If you are unfamiliar with the Mabinogion and wish to know some of he tales, this is as good a place to start as any. In this book you hear the tales told to you as they were always meant to be. If you are familiar withe the Mabinogion, and love the tales, I am sure you will also find this book a treasure.
The end of the book made me want to cry, what tales could we be missing today? Read it and you will understand my sadness.
Finally, I will leave you with this quote from the book, which I think is a perfect answer to those that think there are no Gods and Goddesses in the tales:
“you say that in forgotten times our grandfathers built altars to other Gods. why is there no mention of these Gods in your stories?.”
The Bard replies “These are the old Gods”
I have for sometime had a love of the Mabinogion. I have read several translations, watched film versions of some of the tales, and listened to audio versions.
Over the years, I have heard people question just how old the tales really are and just how related to the “old ways” they are, especially as they were written down in the 12th century by Christian monks. I have also listened to a radio programme about the tales where an academic who had written a translation, scoffed at the idea the tales have references to Gods or Goddesses. Sometimes it seems to me that academics are so intent on getting the language of the translations right, that they don’t actually let the tales speak.
This book is different, it recognises that the oral tradition is as important as the written word. The story takes place in a small 13th Century monastery in Wales. Severed heads are washed up near the monastery and when the monks investigate , they realise this is the result of an attack on a Bardic College nearby. All but one, and old Bard, are murdered. The surviving Bard is badly wounded and is nursed back to health at the monastery. The Monks are asked by Prince Llwelyn to write down the tales as told by the surviving bard. They are not happy about spending time on tales of the old ways and would rather be writing holy scripture, but agree to provide a scribe to write the tales. This is the genius of the book, for the old Bard demands an audience to tell the tales to rather than just recite them to a scribe.
The Christian Scribe questions this approach:
“I do not understand why you could not dictate your matter to me alone, it would save time”
The Bard answers “Do you think I could tell these stories in the way that i have if I was speaking to you alone? this matter is fed by its listeners just as a tree is fed by the soil in which it grows. Every Cyfarwydd (storyteller) sends out roots and is given sustenance by his audience.”
And So the old bard tells his tales and you as the reader become one of the audience listening to the stories unfold. The stories told are the four branches of the Mabinogian, interspersed with some of the other tales that are connected.
There is a story within the telling of the tales. when the bard pauses to recover his strength or to allow the scribe to fully write what has been told, we see the effect that these old tales start to have on the small audience.
If you are unfamiliar with the Mabinogion and wish to know some of he tales, this is as good a place to start as any. In this book you hear the tales told to you as they were always meant to be. If you are familiar withe the Mabinogion, and love the tales, I am sure you will also find this book a treasure.
The end of the book made me want to cry, what tales could we be missing today? Read it and you will understand my sadness.
Finally, I will leave you with this quote from the book, which I think is a perfect answer to those that think there are no Gods and Goddesses in the tales:
“you say that in forgotten times our grandfathers built altars to other Gods. why is there no mention of these Gods in your stories?.”
The Bard replies “These are the old Gods”
August 22, 2019
This book is at the edge of oral storytelling and the written word. It carries in its pages flavours of both, and is the richer for it. The four branches of the Mabinogi were meant to told and heard, but needed to be written as well for preservation. In this novel is a beautifully written and totally engrossing retelling of the Mabinogi and an imagining of how it may have come to be committed to parchment.
If you have read a scholarly translation of the Mabinogi text and been left a little at sea or confused, or never read of these stories before – this both is an excellent introduction and a untangling of translations made into an elegant and clarifying re-telling. If you do know the Mabinogi, then not only do you get a living version, you also get a historical framework in which we learn about the spirited resistance of the Welsh to the Norman invasion at the time of Llywelyn Fawr. We see how the Christian monks viewed the old knowledge as the devil’s work. We learn with fascination a little about the extraordinary technical processes involved in making the first books of vellum and parchment. All this sets us up to realise what a massive and significant undertaking the writing down of these stories would have been. We also gain insight into the immense power of the bard in the society of those times.
Simply this is a wonderful book.
If you have read a scholarly translation of the Mabinogi text and been left a little at sea or confused, or never read of these stories before – this both is an excellent introduction and a untangling of translations made into an elegant and clarifying re-telling. If you do know the Mabinogi, then not only do you get a living version, you also get a historical framework in which we learn about the spirited resistance of the Welsh to the Norman invasion at the time of Llywelyn Fawr. We see how the Christian monks viewed the old knowledge as the devil’s work. We learn with fascination a little about the extraordinary technical processes involved in making the first books of vellum and parchment. All this sets us up to realise what a massive and significant undertaking the writing down of these stories would have been. We also gain insight into the immense power of the bard in the society of those times.
Simply this is a wonderful book.
January 16, 2023
Lupton captures the art & the allure of stories & storytelling. This book contains not only the tales of the Mabinogion but also an examination of how stories are the history of a people & a look at how art imitates life & vice versa. Highly recommended. I loved it.
Also of note, Lupton is currently crowd-sourcing funding for his next book through Unbound. (One option is to stay in North Norfolk, England, for a weekend in a yurt with fireside tales on a Saturday night! That would be so amazingly fun.) While I can't make the yurt weekend, I've already ordered Lupton's next book.
Also of note, Lupton is currently crowd-sourcing funding for his next book through Unbound. (One option is to stay in North Norfolk, England, for a weekend in a yurt with fireside tales on a Saturday night! That would be so amazingly fun.) While I can't make the yurt weekend, I've already ordered Lupton's next book.
April 26, 2024
This brought to life the Mabinogi is such a breathtaking way, adding even more magic to the myths and placing them within a carefully constructed and compelling historical context. Superbly written and thoroughly researched.
July 7, 2021
Really 4.5 stars, but I loved this and am feeling generous. Lupton is a storyteller by trade, and it shows. It's a novel; it's a plausible explanation for the existence of the Welsh mythological cycle the Mabinogion; it's the perfect marriage of the oral and written storytelling traditions. I first encountered these tales as a kid, so imagining myself in that chilly room listening to Cian Brydydd Mawr regale his audience with bawdy, affecting, mystical accounts of the conjunctions of our world and Annwn got me in both the head and the heart. Worth noting that this is not the murder mystery the blurb would lead you to expect, but something funnier, darker, and stranger.
April 14, 2023
Content warnings (the majority of these are explicit and descriptive, there are a lot so all are hidden under a spoiler tag):
I’d gone to my favourite bookshop, asked for recommendations for Welsh mythology after Legendborn left me feeling disappointed and craving something that properly respects Welsh legends. Got this book shown to me, I had never heard of it before but the description sounded interesting so I got it. Cut to me finishing it and *damn* this was amazing and literally perfectly what I needed!
Set in 13th century Wales, a bard convinces a monastery to record his stories - the Mabinogion branches and some additional tales - before he dies. In order to tell the tales, he needs an audience to listen: A woman, a child, a man and a writing monk.
The book consists of 2 parts essentially, the mythology stories and the “present” day (I got no better way to describe it haha) part with both switching between each other periodically throughout the book. The book is split up by dates in the “present” day so there’s no chapters or similar, the stories are told by the bard are written in a poem type of prose, it’s odd to start with but honestly I very quickly came to love it. It’s written so beautifully, the flow just works so well. The only issue is that I wish we had more time in the “present” day, there needs to be more backstory and general just, exploration with the characters - especially at the end.
The book is also very heavy with historical accuracy, and if you’re not comfortable reading Welsh then you might spend a bit longer reading this than you normally would for a book of this size. There’s footnotes and references to explain historical/regional context to different parts of the stories and it’s honestly great if you love all that side of things, especially if you wish to see some of the differences between the christian overlay that was added later to the tales and the older versions without it.
If you couldn’t tell from the sheer amount of content warnings though, this book isn’t for a general audience or one I would go completely blind into if you are at all sensitive to any potential big content warnings as this does have a lot in it at varying severities. That isn’t added by the author, the original Mabinogion tales are very fucked up to put it lightly.
I’d gone to my favourite bookshop, asked for recommendations for Welsh mythology after Legendborn left me feeling disappointed and craving something that properly respects Welsh legends. Got this book shown to me, I had never heard of it before but the description sounded interesting so I got it. Cut to me finishing it and *damn* this was amazing and literally perfectly what I needed!
Set in 13th century Wales, a bard convinces a monastery to record his stories - the Mabinogion branches and some additional tales - before he dies. In order to tell the tales, he needs an audience to listen: A woman, a child, a man and a writing monk.
The book consists of 2 parts essentially, the mythology stories and the “present” day (I got no better way to describe it haha) part with both switching between each other periodically throughout the book. The book is split up by dates in the “present” day so there’s no chapters or similar, the stories are told by the bard are written in a poem type of prose, it’s odd to start with but honestly I very quickly came to love it. It’s written so beautifully, the flow just works so well. The only issue is that I wish we had more time in the “present” day, there needs to be more backstory and general just, exploration with the characters - especially at the end.
The book is also very heavy with historical accuracy, and if you’re not comfortable reading Welsh then you might spend a bit longer reading this than you normally would for a book of this size. There’s footnotes and references to explain historical/regional context to different parts of the stories and it’s honestly great if you love all that side of things, especially if you wish to see some of the differences between the christian overlay that was added later to the tales and the older versions without it.
If you couldn’t tell from the sheer amount of content warnings though, this book isn’t for a general audience or one I would go completely blind into if you are at all sensitive to any potential big content warnings as this does have a lot in it at varying severities. That isn’t added by the author, the original Mabinogion tales are very fucked up to put it lightly.
January 23, 2025
4.5 for the excellent storytelling
August 2, 2018
I thoroughly enjoyed the way the author went about the telling of some of Welsh Mythology. This was a book I found hard to put down. As I read, I felt like I was there listening and seeing the tales. The author is well versed in the mythologies of different cultures and is an excellent storyteller. I plan on reading more of his work.
February 13, 2022
Over the years I've read, heard and seen many versions of the tales of the Mabinogi including the wonderful Seren series, New Stories From the Mabinogion and the retelling of the story of Blodeuedd, Lleu and Gronw at the heart of Alan Garner's The Owl Service which was so influential in the days of my youth, but this, undoubtedly stands out as the clearest and heartfelt retelling of the stories that I've yet to come across.
The novel itself is a telling of the possible events around the first writing down of the oral tales and in this we both hear the tales as they would have been told by the great bards of the 11th and 12th centuries a get to see the tales as they are influenced by the listeners and by the scibes who set them down. Itself an interesting musing on the nature, permanence and impermanence of stories.
The tales here are the tales of Britain, the Matter of the Island of the Mighty, and as such transcend their traditional Welsh roots. By the 13th Century - indeed, by the 8th Century, and really even arlier still - all that remains of the people of the Island of the Mighty have been pushed to the borderland and the far west so at this time the people of Wales are the people of Britain as opposed to the Saxons and the Normans, but the tales of the Mabinogi belong just as much to the people of the Lost Lands of Lloegyr as they do to those in Dyfed, Gwynedd and Seisyllwg. London features in two of the the tales, emphasising their reach, and even the legend of the ravens at the Tower of London has its roots in the tree of the Mabinogi. The tales also seem to go further than that with echoes of Norse, Greek and Egyptian mythology as well as the cyclical similarity to the nativity/Easter, birth/death/rebirth cycle at the heart of Christian tradition which is heavily commented upon in the novel.
The narrative structure, as well as much of the content, mirrors the Arthur tales as retold by Bernard Cornwell, which is only proper since they share much of the same source material, and in the best nature of the oral tradition have been picked up by multiple storytellers to be told in their own way.
"Without our stories or our songs
how will we know where we've come from?"
The novel itself is a telling of the possible events around the first writing down of the oral tales and in this we both hear the tales as they would have been told by the great bards of the 11th and 12th centuries a get to see the tales as they are influenced by the listeners and by the scibes who set them down. Itself an interesting musing on the nature, permanence and impermanence of stories.
The tales here are the tales of Britain, the Matter of the Island of the Mighty, and as such transcend their traditional Welsh roots. By the 13th Century - indeed, by the 8th Century, and really even arlier still - all that remains of the people of the Island of the Mighty have been pushed to the borderland and the far west so at this time the people of Wales are the people of Britain as opposed to the Saxons and the Normans, but the tales of the Mabinogi belong just as much to the people of the Lost Lands of Lloegyr as they do to those in Dyfed, Gwynedd and Seisyllwg. London features in two of the the tales, emphasising their reach, and even the legend of the ravens at the Tower of London has its roots in the tree of the Mabinogi. The tales also seem to go further than that with echoes of Norse, Greek and Egyptian mythology as well as the cyclical similarity to the nativity/Easter, birth/death/rebirth cycle at the heart of Christian tradition which is heavily commented upon in the novel.
The narrative structure, as well as much of the content, mirrors the Arthur tales as retold by Bernard Cornwell, which is only proper since they share much of the same source material, and in the best nature of the oral tradition have been picked up by multiple storytellers to be told in their own way.
"Without our stories or our songs
how will we know where we've come from?"
July 20, 2018
THE ASSEMBLY OF THE SEVERED HEAD by Hugh Lupton. By a distance the best book I have read this year. An ode to traditional storytelling, it is a wonderfully original retelling of the Welsh myths of the Mabinogi.
In 1211, Dafydd, a lay brother at a monastry on the Welsh coast, finds a head washed up on the beach. Over the following days dozens more are fished out of the sea or found on the shore. They are all bards. King John has ordered the mutilations to hurt his enemy Lord Llewellyn, storytelling's most ardent fan. But one bard survives, the great poet Cian Brydydd Mawr, though gravely injured.
There follows a race against time to secure the great tales of the Mabinogi on vellum before their last known teller perishes.
This brilliant novel not only tells of the myths but also the lives of those (often fictional) men and women through whom they survive. Wildly entertaining, brilliantly educational and full of love, humour and many grisly deaths.
It will appeal to lovers of storytelling, books and Game of Thrones alike. A spellbinding, fresh and illuminating novel.
In 1211, Dafydd, a lay brother at a monastry on the Welsh coast, finds a head washed up on the beach. Over the following days dozens more are fished out of the sea or found on the shore. They are all bards. King John has ordered the mutilations to hurt his enemy Lord Llewellyn, storytelling's most ardent fan. But one bard survives, the great poet Cian Brydydd Mawr, though gravely injured.
There follows a race against time to secure the great tales of the Mabinogi on vellum before their last known teller perishes.
This brilliant novel not only tells of the myths but also the lives of those (often fictional) men and women through whom they survive. Wildly entertaining, brilliantly educational and full of love, humour and many grisly deaths.
It will appeal to lovers of storytelling, books and Game of Thrones alike. A spellbinding, fresh and illuminating novel.
February 5, 2022
A clear six-star book. The best novel I've read in a good few years. An ode to storytelling. A reimagining of how a spoken Welsh myth cycle, told by bards and passed on in person, came to be written down.
It opened my eyes to how much we've come to see the idea of a canonical written version of a story as *the story*, but how really there's another way of thinking about things: stories that change with each telling, whose audience influences their shape and flavour.
And it's just bloody well written.
It blew me away.
It opened my eyes to how much we've come to see the idea of a canonical written version of a story as *the story*, but how really there's another way of thinking about things: stories that change with each telling, whose audience influences their shape and flavour.
And it's just bloody well written.
It blew me away.
October 21, 2024
This book is one that flourishes in the framing device, and withers outside of it.
The retellings, recounted in the book by the only mildly interesting character, Cian Brydidd Mawr, are lively, descriptive, and more detailed tham the original Mabinogion tales making them an easier read than the sometimes dry initial tales. Lupton also weaves in other famous Welsh legends that exist outside the Mabinogion such as the tale of Cerridwen, which I found enjoyable.
Outside of the retellings, as we follow the brotherhood of monks caring for the poet and copying down his words, it is dull. Nothing but short sharp sentences. Distant. Bleak. Unemotional. You're lucky to find a single line of description, most of it is just action and sharp, bland dialogue. Olwen walks here. Olwen does this. The characters, baring the poet, rarely show any personality, and quite frankly when the retellings stop following the poet's inevitable death, I was tempted to stop reading and save myself the following boredom. I did hold on for the remaining pages, and found the joke where one character, upon reading the monk's copy, muses he recalls less mentions of god in the original tales a bit funny, but that was all.
The goal of this book was to, supposedly, give context to the time and place where the tales of the Mabinogion were written down, but quite frankly it seems like the author was as disinterested with that as I was. Half the time it feels like a first draft, all those short abrupt sentences simply initial notes that he planned to expand on later but never did.
Honestly, I would have much preferred this book if it was just a retelling of the tales, context be damned. As someone who does struggle reading the Mabinogion at times, I found the retellings a far smoother read. I enjoyed the little details sprinkled in, I enjoyed his expansion on the tales, and I just wish the rest of the book was as enjoyable. I will be frank, I think the retellings could have done with a little more detail, but overall I did enjoy those parts. If I ever reread this book, I will only be reading them.
It's a shame, I really, really wanted to like this book, but more often than not, found myself bored and disappointed.
The retellings, recounted in the book by the only mildly interesting character, Cian Brydidd Mawr, are lively, descriptive, and more detailed tham the original Mabinogion tales making them an easier read than the sometimes dry initial tales. Lupton also weaves in other famous Welsh legends that exist outside the Mabinogion such as the tale of Cerridwen, which I found enjoyable.
Outside of the retellings, as we follow the brotherhood of monks caring for the poet and copying down his words, it is dull. Nothing but short sharp sentences. Distant. Bleak. Unemotional. You're lucky to find a single line of description, most of it is just action and sharp, bland dialogue. Olwen walks here. Olwen does this. The characters, baring the poet, rarely show any personality, and quite frankly when the retellings stop following the poet's inevitable death, I was tempted to stop reading and save myself the following boredom. I did hold on for the remaining pages, and found the joke where one character, upon reading the monk's copy, muses he recalls less mentions of god in the original tales a bit funny, but that was all.
The goal of this book was to, supposedly, give context to the time and place where the tales of the Mabinogion were written down, but quite frankly it seems like the author was as disinterested with that as I was. Half the time it feels like a first draft, all those short abrupt sentences simply initial notes that he planned to expand on later but never did.
Honestly, I would have much preferred this book if it was just a retelling of the tales, context be damned. As someone who does struggle reading the Mabinogion at times, I found the retellings a far smoother read. I enjoyed the little details sprinkled in, I enjoyed his expansion on the tales, and I just wish the rest of the book was as enjoyable. I will be frank, I think the retellings could have done with a little more detail, but overall I did enjoy those parts. If I ever reread this book, I will only be reading them.
It's a shame, I really, really wanted to like this book, but more often than not, found myself bored and disappointed.
June 12, 2023
Hugh Lupton is a fantastic storyteller, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for introducing me to the wonderful world of traditional oral storytelling. His telling of Beowulf many years ago was mesmerizing and sucked me right in, and he's one of my favorite tellers.
In this book, Hugh re-tells a traditional Welsh story, The Four Branches of the Mabinogion, of which copies survive from the late 14th century (he tells us in the epilog). He embeds this as a telling in the traditional way, from a 13th century bard to an audience, a chunk at a time, over many sittings. The bard and audience members have their own lives and stories interwoven through it. This story about the bard and the audience was well written and easy to follow.
The traditional story was good, but not the knock-your-socks-off excellent that I expect from Hugh. This may be down to the source material, of course.
It was a bit hard to keep the thread to see how all the pieces of the traditional story were connected. I'm not sure if that's because it was interrupted regularly by the story of the bard and his audience, or perhaps because the Welsh names (of people and places) were hard for me to wrap my head around, or perhaps I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.
It was also vaguely annoying that I'd already heard several parts of this before. I don't often mind re-hearing well-told tales, but I think the fact that I couldn't lose myself in these like I want (and do often, with either fiction books or storytelling performances, including Hugh's) is what made me mind it this time.
You'll probably have a much better experience reading this book if you've never heard Hugh tell. The power of expectations and all that.
In this book, Hugh re-tells a traditional Welsh story, The Four Branches of the Mabinogion, of which copies survive from the late 14th century (he tells us in the epilog). He embeds this as a telling in the traditional way, from a 13th century bard to an audience, a chunk at a time, over many sittings. The bard and audience members have their own lives and stories interwoven through it. This story about the bard and the audience was well written and easy to follow.
The traditional story was good, but not the knock-your-socks-off excellent that I expect from Hugh. This may be down to the source material, of course.
It was a bit hard to keep the thread to see how all the pieces of the traditional story were connected. I'm not sure if that's because it was interrupted regularly by the story of the bard and his audience, or perhaps because the Welsh names (of people and places) were hard for me to wrap my head around, or perhaps I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.
It was also vaguely annoying that I'd already heard several parts of this before. I don't often mind re-hearing well-told tales, but I think the fact that I couldn't lose myself in these like I want (and do often, with either fiction books or storytelling performances, including Hugh's) is what made me mind it this time.
You'll probably have a much better experience reading this book if you've never heard Hugh tell. The power of expectations and all that.
August 14, 2025
Excellent book. The author very plausibly imagines a scenario where the key oral Welsh tales are set to paper in a Christian world, and includes very captivating re-telling a of them.
It helps to have a knowledge of the Mabinogion already: direct telling and translations of the tales can be weird and out of kilter , and this story puts subtle explanations in as to why this might be. For example a key figure who is central to many of the stories is killed briefly by ‘enchantment and cunning’ in the original tale, which is a sudden and unsatisfying end, but might be explained by the scribe missing or forgetting that bit of the retelling.
This also offers an explanation as to why God is almost shoehorned into the tales, which are definitely not Christian.
And lastly, the author is not Welsh, but he has written convincing Welsh characters (unlike in Barbara Eskine’s latest; the Story Spinner), which I appreciate.
Note to publishers: the cover is dreadful. That combined with the title means I would never have picked this up if it hadn’t been recommended. I suspect a lot of people are passing on this book who would love it because of this.
It helps to have a knowledge of the Mabinogion already: direct telling and translations of the tales can be weird and out of kilter , and this story puts subtle explanations in as to why this might be. For example a key figure who is central to many of the stories is killed briefly by ‘enchantment and cunning’ in the original tale, which is a sudden and unsatisfying end, but might be explained by the scribe missing or forgetting that bit of the retelling.
This also offers an explanation as to why God is almost shoehorned into the tales, which are definitely not Christian.
And lastly, the author is not Welsh, but he has written convincing Welsh characters (unlike in Barbara Eskine’s latest; the Story Spinner), which I appreciate.
Note to publishers: the cover is dreadful. That combined with the title means I would never have picked this up if it hadn’t been recommended. I suspect a lot of people are passing on this book who would love it because of this.
August 2, 2022
I found this an odd book. I dislike the title, whilst the opening deals with the trauma of an attack on a monastic outpost, the title is distracting.
I thoroughly enjoyed the mythical storylines and the reflection of how Christianity contrasted with the cultural ways of Wales in the early 13th Century. Christianity so attached to 'you must not' did contrast with the openness of the Welsh poet who leads us through the story. It does plod along sometimes and makes jumps in the storytelling. It is a good idea to take a note of some names as you progress through the book for the Welsh nomenclature is unlike anything English speakers are used to and it is also as foreign as the Gaelic.
I felt enriched by having read this and connected to a part of the Kingdom that I have never before. My wife spends her time in the garden, I will now think of her as 'Blodeuwedd', woman of flowers. The book was worth reading for this metaphor alone.
I thoroughly enjoyed the mythical storylines and the reflection of how Christianity contrasted with the cultural ways of Wales in the early 13th Century. Christianity so attached to 'you must not' did contrast with the openness of the Welsh poet who leads us through the story. It does plod along sometimes and makes jumps in the storytelling. It is a good idea to take a note of some names as you progress through the book for the Welsh nomenclature is unlike anything English speakers are used to and it is also as foreign as the Gaelic.
I felt enriched by having read this and connected to a part of the Kingdom that I have never before. My wife spends her time in the garden, I will now think of her as 'Blodeuwedd', woman of flowers. The book was worth reading for this metaphor alone.
September 21, 2019
For me, this is a book that combines both a narrative novel retelling stories from Welsh myth, but that manages to pull off the 'story within a story'.
At the same time it shows how powerfully oral tales can affect the listening audience, including the reluctant and disbeliving scribe Iago, with lasting effect, both in terms of the tale being told, and how much such tales (even if they are 'about' mythological characters), captures the essential human nature of the flawed, brave, damaged characters and their essential humanity that is at the very core of the cycle of these and other stories.
If you just want to read a version of 'The Mabinogion', then its told in a conversational way by someone who, to my mind, understands them and the power of story intimately so probably quite true to the original.
At the same time it shows how powerfully oral tales can affect the listening audience, including the reluctant and disbeliving scribe Iago, with lasting effect, both in terms of the tale being told, and how much such tales (even if they are 'about' mythological characters), captures the essential human nature of the flawed, brave, damaged characters and their essential humanity that is at the very core of the cycle of these and other stories.
If you just want to read a version of 'The Mabinogion', then its told in a conversational way by someone who, to my mind, understands them and the power of story intimately so probably quite true to the original.
June 4, 2018
I was entirely unfamiliar with these myths, and though I recognised a few familiar tropes (things always coming in threes, for example) and bits of story that were recycled more famously elsewhere (such as a duel in which the combatants keep morphing into different animals, which put me in mind of *that scene* in The Sword in the Stone), I was still surprised by many of their twists and turns, including a number of upsetting deaths which prove that Game of Thrones didn’t invent anything in that regard. But I suspect that even someone who already knows the Mabinogi would get something out of this retelling.
For my full review, head over to my blog, Strange Bookfellows: https://strangebookfellowsblog.wordpr...
For my full review, head over to my blog, Strange Bookfellows: https://strangebookfellowsblog.wordpr...
June 21, 2019
I wish I could give this 6 stars! I love the Mabinogi in all its life, death, love, pain and confusion. It is the cultural heritage of Wales, of Britain even. This re-telling adds an easier, compelling aspect to the Mabinogi, bringing us closer to the stories in the branches, and the stories of the early medieval monks and storytellers that set them down in paper. We owe these people, their real equivalents, a huge debt.
March 17, 2024
"I have lived, I have loved, I have striven to give tongue to the music of what is."
An epic historical recounting of the Welsh legends and history. Every now and again I remember that tales of giants ruling Britain and enchanted cauldrons trapping princes who truly existed, or fae marrying kings and becoming the queens known to census, are the history of this island. And I'm always rather grateful that we live in such a place steeped in magic; a land based on fiction as well as fact.
An epic historical recounting of the Welsh legends and history. Every now and again I remember that tales of giants ruling Britain and enchanted cauldrons trapping princes who truly existed, or fae marrying kings and becoming the queens known to census, are the history of this island. And I'm always rather grateful that we live in such a place steeped in magic; a land based on fiction as well as fact.
September 23, 2018
A mixture of historical fiction and stories from the Mabinogion, this book is unlike anything I’ve read before. Like to stories it is based on it should be heard spoken aloud but read it is still amazing. A book for every Welsh person and anyone who loves myths and history. Read it, it deserves to be known much more.
February 4, 2019
I had the pleasure of hearing Hugh telling a couple of the stories in this reworking of the Mabinogion. The book replicates the oral tradition by setting it within a story (fictionalised) of how they were first written. It takes into account the Christianisation of stories much older than the missionary activity in Wales very deftly. Heartily recommended.
March 25, 2019
A brilliant retelling of the Mabinogion, that hardest of tales to tell let alone read, and an equally brilliant meeting of the written and the oral story, pinning down exactly how live oral storytelling works and how, maybe, these old stories first came to be written down. I stayed up till four in the morning to finish it!
January 3, 2019
Loved this novel about Welsh mythology and tales of the Mabinogion. Didn't know anything of Welsh mythology before and loved the way this book was written with the stories within the story. Couldn't put it down and read it in a few days.
May 5, 2020
This was the most powerful retelling of the Four Branches that I have yet read. I love the way it was embedded in the setting of medieval Wales, with all its associated political and structural challenges. Highly recommended.
December 6, 2018
Definitely the best book I've read this year.
October 4, 2019
I loved this book - I really felt like I was experiencing an oral tradition. And I was as absorbed by the framing story as the Mabinogion tales themselves!
May 22, 2021
Impressing and inspiring about cultural heritage and the powers of storytelling, and about the transition from oral to written literature. Needed a bit time to get into it, but loved it.
June 27, 2021
Didn't really expect to have such a good time with a book that was just a retelling of Welsh Folklore but turns out it's actually pretty great?
October 28, 2023
Wtf did everyone else read? Boring.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews