1.
Welsh language
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Welsh is a member of the Brittonic branch of the Celtic languages. It is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, historically it has also been known in English as the British tongue, Cambrian, Cambric and Cymric. The United Kingdom Census 2011 counted 3.1 million residents of Wales, 27% of whom had been born outside Wales, and 73% of whom reported having no Welsh language skills. Of residents of Wales aged three and over, 19% reported being able to speak Welsh, and 77% of these were able to speak, read and this can be compared with the 2001 Census, in which 20. 8% of the population reported being able to speak Welsh. 787,854 of residents in Wales aged three and over had one or more skills in Welsh, in surveys carried out between 2004 and 2006, 57% of Welsh speakers described themselves as fluent in the written language. An estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people speak Welsh in England, Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Common Brittonic, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct language known as Cumbric. The Middle Welsh period is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, the name Welsh originated as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning foreign speech. The native term for the language is Cymraeg, and for the name of the country of Wales it is Cymru, Welsh evolved from Common Brittonic, the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Celtic Britons. Classified as Insular Celtic, the British language probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and was spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth. During the Early Middle Ages the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, evolving into Welsh and it is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around 550, Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to the Cynfeirdd or Early Poets – is generally considered to date to the Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was composed in the Hen Ogledd, raising further questions about the dating of the material. An 8th century inscription in Tywyn shows the language already dropping inflections in the declension of nouns, the next main period, somewhat better attested, is Old Welsh, poetry from both Wales and Scotland has been preserved in this form of the language. Both the works of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin were in this era, Middle Welsh is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion. It is also the language of the existing Welsh law manuscripts, Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The famous cleric Gerald of Wales tells, in his Descriptio Cambriae, during one of the Kings many raids in the 12th century, Henry asked an old man of Pencader, Carmarthenshire whether the Welsh people could resist his army
2.
Mabinogion
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The Mabinogion are the earliest prose literature of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from oral traditions. The two main source manuscripts were created c, 1350–1410, as well as some earlier fragments. The title covers a collection of prose stories of widely different types. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defy categorisation, the list is so diverse a leading scholar has challenged them as a true collection at all. Early scholars from the 18th century to the 1970s predominantly viewed the tales as fragmentary pre-Christian Celtic mythology and they are now seen as a sophisticated narrative tradition, both oral and written, with ancestral construction from oral storytelling, and overlay from Anglo-French influences. The first modern publications were English translations of several tales by William Owen Pughe in journals 1795,1821,1829, however it was Lady Charlotte Guest 1838–45 who first published the full collection, and bilingually in both Welsh and English. She is often assumed to be responsible for the name Mabinogion, indeed, as early as 1632 the lexicographer John Davies quotes a sentence from Math fab Mathonwy with the notation Mabin. in his Antiquae linguae Britannicae. The later Guest translation of 1877 in one volume, has been widely influential, the most recent translation is a compact version by Sioned Davies. John Bollard has published a series of volumes between with his own translation, with photography of the sites in the stories. The tales continue to inspire new fiction, dramatic retellings, visual artwork, the name first appears in 1795 in William Owen Pughes translation in the journal Cambrian Register, The Mabinogion, or Juvenile Amusements, being Ancient Welsh Romances. The name appears to have been current among Welsh scholars of the London-Welsh Societies and it was inherited as the title by the first publisher of the complete collection, Lady Charlotte Guest. The form mabynnogyon occurs once at the end of the first of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi in one manuscript and it is now generally agreed that this one instance was a mediaeval scribal error which assumed mabinogion was the plural of mabinogi. But mabinogi is already a Welsh plural, which occurs correctly at the end of the three branches. The word mabinogi itself is something of a puzzle, although derived from the Welsh mab. Eric P. Hamp of the school traditions in mythology, found a suggestive connection with Maponos the Divine Son. Mabinogi properly applies only to the Four Branches, which is a tightly organised quartet very likely by one author, each of these four tales ends with the colophon thus ends this branch of the Mabinogi, hence the name. Lady Charlotte Guests work was helped by the research and translation work of William Owen Pughe
3.
King Arthur
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King Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries AD. The details of Arthurs story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, the sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthurs name also occurs in early sources such as Y Gododdin. Arthur is a figure in the legends making up the so-called Matter of Britain. The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouths fanciful, how much of Geoffreys Historia was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul. The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot, in these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table. Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the lives on, not only in literature but also in adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics. The historical basis for the King Arthur legend has long debated by scholars. These culminate in the Battle of Badon, where he is said to have single-handedly killed 960 men, recent studies, however, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum. The other text that seems to support the case for Arthurs historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, the Annales date this battle to 516–518, and also mention the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have often used to bolster confidence in the Historias account. Problems have been identified, however, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonums account, the latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it even that early. They were more likely added at point in the 10th century. The Badon entry probably derived from the Historia Brittonum and this lack of convincing early evidence is the reason many recent historians exclude Arthur from their accounts of sub-Roman Britain. These modern admissions of ignorance are a recent trend, earlier generations of historians were less sceptical
4.
Celts
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The history of pre-Celtic Europe remains very uncertain. According to one theory, the root of the Celtic languages, the Proto-Celtic language, arose in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe. Thus this area is called the Celtic homeland. The earliest undisputed examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions beginning in the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names, Insular Celtic languages are attested beginning around the 4th century in Ogham inscriptions, although it was clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century, coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge, survive in 12th century recensions. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a cohesive cultural entity. They had a linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from the culture of the surrounding polities. By the 6th century, however, the Continental Celtic languages were no longer in wide use, Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels and the Celtic Britons of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their historical territories, and Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival. The first recorded use of the name of Celts – as Κελτοί – to refer to a group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC. In the fifth century BC Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the head of the Danube, the etymology of the term Keltoi is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *kʲel ‘to hide’, IE *kʲel ‘to heat’ or *kel ‘to impel’, several authors have supposed it to be Celtic in origin, while others view it as a name coined by Greeks. Linguist Patrizia De Bernardo Stempel falls in the group. Yet he reports Celtic peoples in Iberia, and also uses the ethnic names Celtiberi and Celtici for peoples there, as distinct from Lusitani, pliny the Elder cited the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed. Latin Gallus might stem from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name originally and its root may be the Proto-Celtic *galno, meaning “power, strength”, hence Old Irish gal “boldness, ferocity” and Welsh gallu “to be able, power”. The tribal names of Gallaeci and the Greek Γαλάται most probably have the same origin, the suffix -atai might be an Ancient Greek inflection. Proto-Germanic *walha is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae and this means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin Gallia, though it does refer to the same ancient region
5.
Red Book of Hergest
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The Red Book of Hergest is a large vellum manuscript written shortly after 1382, which ranks as one of the most important medieval manuscripts written in the Welsh language. It preserves a collection of Welsh prose and poetry, notably the tales of the Mabinogion, the manuscript derives its name from the colour of its leather binding and from its association with Hergest Court between the late 15th and early 17th century. The manuscript was written between about 1382 and 1410, one of the several copyists responsible for the manuscript has been identified as Hywel Fychan fab Hywel Goch of Buellt. He is known to have worked for Hopcyn ap Tomas ab Einion of Ynysforgan, Swansea, according to scholar Daniel Huws, it is by far the heaviest of the medieval books in Welsh, the largest in its dimensions and the thickest. The Vaughans of Tretower, then in Breconshire, obtained it, ownership is suggested by two odes dedicated to Sir Thomas Vaughan and his sons, which were written into the manuscript by Welsh poet Lewys Glyn Cothi at Tretower. The Red Book soon passed into the possession of the Vaughans of Hergest Court, Sir John Price of Brecon reports to have seen the manuscript in 1550, presumably at Hergest. In the late 1560s, William Salesbury found the manuscript in the possession of Sir Henry Sidney at Ludlow, by the early 17th century, the Red Book had passed to the Mansels of Margam, hence back in Glamorgan. It was possibly brought into the marriage between Henrys granddaughter Catherine Sidney and Sir Lewis Mansel, who is reported to have owned it in 1634. The manuscript is found in the collection of Thomas Wilkins, a Welsh clergyman and antiquarian. In 1697, Wilkins was visited by Edward Lhuyd, who spent some time copying a manuscript which might well have been the Red Book, in 1701, two years after Wilkins death, his son Thomas Wilkins the Younger donated the manuscript to Jesus College, Oxford. Internal evidence, a note by the latter Wilkins, suggests that Edward Lhuyd then held the manuscript on loan and it is now kept at the Bodleian Library on behalf of Jesus College, Oxford, and catalogued as MS111. The rest of the manuscript contains poetry, especially from the period of poetry known as Poetry of the Princes, including the cycles Canu Llywarch Hen, Canu Urien. The Red Book is similar in content to the White book of Rhydderch, both are now thought, however, to descend from a lost common ancestor or ancestors. J. R. R. Tolkien borrowed the title for the Red Book of Westmarch, but there is also a Red Book of Worcester - nearer to Tolkiens home. White Book of Hergest White Book of Rhydderch Red book of Hergest, in Meic Stephens, The new companion to the literature of Wales. Parry, Thomas, A history of Welsh literature, Thomas, Richard Biography of Thomas Wilkins, Welsh Biography Online Thomas, Graham C. G. Llyfr Coch Hergest. Santa Barbara, Denver and Oxford, ABC Clio. pp. 1172–3, Oxford Jesus College 111, An Electronic Edition. The Scribes of the Red Book of Hergest, report on Manuscripts in the Welsh Language
6.
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
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Yvain, the Knight of the Lion is an Arthurian romance by French poet Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the narrative of that poem. It is a story of knight-errantry, in which the protagonist Yvain is first rejected by his lady for breaking a promise, and subsequently performs a number of heroic deeds in order to regain her favor. In the narrative, Yvain seeks to avenge his cousin Calogrenant who had defeated by an otherworldly knight Esclados beside a magical storm-making stone in the forest of Brocéliande. Yvain defeats Esclados and falls in love with his widow Laudine, with the aid of Laudines servant Lunete, Yvain wins his lady and marries her, but Gawain convinces him to leave Laudine behind to embark on chivalric adventure. Laudine assents but demands he return after one year, Yvain becomes so enthralled in his knightly exploits that he forgets to return to his wife within the allotted time, so she rejects him. Yvain goes mad with grief, is cured by a noblewoman, a lion he rescues from a dragon proves to be a loyal companion and a symbol of knightly virtue, and helps him defeat both a mighty giant and three fierce knights. After Yvain rescues Lunete from being burned at the stake, she helps Yvain win back his wife, the Life was written by Jocelyn of Furness in ca. 1185, and is slightly younger than Chrétiens text. Jocelyn states that he rewrote the life from an earlier Glasgow legend, the name of the main character Yvain, at least, ultimately harks back to the name of the historical Owain mab Urien. Yvain survives in eight manuscripts and two fragments and it comprises 6,808 octosyllables in rhymed couplets. Two manuscripts are illustrated, Paris BN MS fr.1433 and Princeton University Library Garrett MS125, the former incomplete with seven remaining miniatures and the latter with ten. Hindman discusses these illustrations as reflecting the development of the role of the knight, or the youthful knight-errant, during the transitional period from the high to the late medieval period. The poem was translated into a number of other languages, including the Middle English Ywain and Gawain, the Old Norwegian Chivaldric Ívens saga. The Valþjófsstaður door in Iceland, ca,1200, depicts a version of the Yvain story with a carving of a knight slaying a dragon that threatens a lion. The lion is shown wearing a rich collar and following the knight. The first modern edition was published in 1887 by Wendelin Foerster, Chrétien de Troyes, Owen, D. D. R. Arthurian Romances. Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, Lacy, Norris J. Chrétien de Troyes
7.
Erec and Enide
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Erec and Enide is the first of Chrétien de Troyes five romance poems, completed around 1170. It is one of three completed works by the author, consisting of about 7000 lines of Old French, the poem is one of the earliest known Arthurian romances in any language, predated only by the Welsh prose narrative Culhwch and Olwen. Chrétien de Troyes played a role in the formation of Arthurian romance and is influential up until the latest romances. Erec et Enide features many of the elements of Arthurian romance, such as Arthurian characters, the knightly quest. Many authors explicitly acknowledge their debt to Chrétien, while others, such as the author of Hunbaut, however, these tales are not always precisely true to Chrétiens original poem, such as in Geraint and Enid, in which Geraint suspects Enid of infidelity. Erec and Enide has come down to the present day in seven manuscripts, the poem comprises 6,878 octosyllables in rhymed couplets. A prose version was made in the 15th century, the first modern edition dates from 1856 by Immanuel Bekker, followed by an edition in 1890 by Wendelin Foerster. Approximately the first quarter of Erec and Enide recounts the tale of Erec son of Lac, and his marriage to Enide, an impoverished daughter of a Vavasor from Lalut. An unarmored Erec is keeping Guinevere company while other knights participate in a hunt near Cardigan when a strange knight and his dwarf approach the queen. At the Queens orders, Erec follows the knight, Yder, to a far off town where he meets, Erec defeats Yder, in a contest to win a falcon for the most beautiful lady in the town. Erec defends Enides beauty and she steps forward to take the bird and they return to Enides father, who gives permission for the two to marry. Erec refuses to accept gifts of new clothes for Enide, in spite of her appearance, the courtiers recognise Enides inherent nobility and Queen Guinevere dresses her in one of her own richly-embroidered gowns. The central half of the poem begins some time later when rumors spread that Erec has come to neglect his duties due to his overwhelming love for Enide. He overhears Enide crying over this and orders her to prepare for a journey to parts unknown and he commands her to be silent throughout, but she disobeys several times to warn him of danger. Erec and Enide displays the themes of love and chivalry that Chrétien continues in his later work, tests play an important part in character development and marital fidelity. Erecs testing of Enide is not condemned in the context of the story, especially when his behaviour is contrasted with some of the more despicable characters. Nevertheless, Enides faithful disobedience of his command to silence saves his life, another theme of the work is the Christianity, evidenced by the plots orientation around the Christian Calendar. When Erec first sets off, it is Easter, at Pentecost he marries Enide, furthermore, in the poem, Erec is killed and then resurrected on a Sunday, an allusion to the story of Jesus Christ
