The Mabinogion are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier fragments. The title covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types, offering drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy and humour, and created by various narrators over time. There is a classic hero quest, "Culhwch and Olwen"; a historic legend in "Lludd and Llefelys", complete with glimpses of a far off age; and other tales portray a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defies categorisation. The stories are so diverse that it has been argued that they are not even a true collection.
The Two Kings (sculptor Ivor Roberts-Jones, 1984) near Harlech Castle, Wales. Bendigeidfran carries the body of his nephew Gwern.
Ceridwen by Christopher Williams (1910)
The opening few lines of the Mabinogi, from the Red Book of Hergest, scanned by the Bodleian Library
The Panel of the Mabinogi (watercolour and gouache on silk) by George Sheringham (1884–1937)
Culhwch and Olwen is a Welsh tale that survives in only two manuscripts about a hero connected with Arthur and his warriors: a complete version in the Red Book of Hergest, c. 1400, and a fragmented version in the White Book of Rhydderch, c. 1325. It is the longest of the surviving Welsh prose tales. Lady Charlotte Guest included this tale among those she collected under the title The Mabinogion.
The opening lines of Culhwch and Olwen, from the Red Book of Hergest Kilydd mab Kelydon Wledig a fynnei wraig kyn mwyt ac ef. Sef gwraig a vynna oedd Goleudyd merch Anlawd Wledig.
Culhwch at Ysbaddaden's court. An illustration by E. Wallcousins in Celtic Myth & Legend, Charles Squire, 1920 "Horses shall I have, and chivalry; and my Lord and kinsman Arthur will obtain for me all these things. And I shall gain thy daughter, and thou shalt lose thy life." "Go forward...and when thou hast compassed all these marvels, thou shalt have my daughter for thy wife."
Questioning the Ouzel of Cilgwri in Culhwch and Olwen by Shirley Jones (2016)
