A Century of Welsh Myth in Children's Literature (review)

When most people hear "Welsh myth," they think of Arthurian legends. While tales of King Arthur have certainly influenced many magnificent children's books, there is another body of legends even more uniquely Welsh: the tales of the Mabinogi. It is these stories on which Donna White has focused in her well-written and insightful book.

Today, only fragments remain of what must once have been a rich and complex native Welsh mythology. Like other Celtic peoples, such as the continental Gauls, the Welsh did not write down (most likely for religious reasons) their stories at the time when they were still meaningful. The Roman Empire established a written language in much of Celtic Europe, but people who were literate in Latin were not usually the ones holding to the old beliefs. The lone exception to this Celtic silence is Ireland, which the Romans never reached. There, it was Christianity that brought writing, and the first written Irish language was Irish itself, not Latin. The happy result is a large body of native Irish tales and epic cycles that still exist today. By contrast, virtually all that remains of Welsh myth can be found in a few late medieval manuscripts written well into the Christian era, long after their full significance was lost.

The Welsh stories that comprise the so-called Mabinogion come from these medieval manuscripts. They began their modern literary life when Lady Charlotte Guest translated them into English in the mid-nineteenth century. Symptomatic of the mysterious and fragmentary nature of surviving Welsh myth, the very word mabinogion is of unknown origin and meaning. The first four stories in this group of tales seem to have been referred to as mabinogi, which might or might not mean "the tales of a hero's youth." As at least one frustrated scholar has noted, it is as good a collective name as any to refer to the tales.

From our studies of Irish parallels and from other evidence in Welsh writings, we can assume that many of the characters in the Mabinogi were originally gods or similarly exalted beings. For example, the young hero Lieu was probably the same person as Irish Lugh, also known throughout Celtic Europe as Lug, a deity of such importance that the cities of London, Leyden, and Lyons seem to have been named for him. The Welsh Manawydan vab Llyr seems to be parallel to Manannan mac Lir, the Irish god of the sea. But in the tales of the Mabinogi, these people are portrayed as men and women, royal to be sure, with some unusual powers, but mainly exhibiting the human traits of greed, decency, impetuousness, protectiveness toward their children, desire for unsuitable partners, and thirst for revenge.

In her study, White begins by analyzing various old and recent translations and retellings of the Mabinogion. Even more interesting to lovers of children's literature, White then explores literary works based on the tales, such as Alan Garner's The Owl Service, Lloyd Alexander's five Prydain chronicles, and lesser-known works by Jenny Nimmo, Louise Lawrence, Kenneth Morris, and others. White shows, for example, how Lloyd Alexander grafted some elements directly from the Mabinogi (such as the Black Cauldron), adapted others to his purposes (Arawn, Alexander's principal villain, was in the original Welsh story an honorable otherworld king), and completely invented others (such as the unforgettable Eilonwy). White also explores the depths of Alan Garner's dark novel The Owl Service, showing the subtle ways in which Garner has incorporated motifs from the original tales into a contemporary Welsh setting. White also points out the strong influences that Robert Graves' The White Goddess has had on both Alexander and Garner as well as on Jenny Nimmo, author of The Snow Spider. Graves, a poet entranced by the possibilities of Celtic myth, created The White Goddess in hopes of expanding the understanding of Celtic mythology. While this book is eyed somewhat askance by serious Celtic scholars (Graves did a lot...