The Mabinogion Vol. 2

Transcribed from the 1902 Fisher Unwin edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
TRANSLATED FROM THE RED BOOK OF HERGEST BY LADY CHARLOTTE GUEST VOL. II. LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN 11 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS. MXCII
In this second volume, as in the first, I have given Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation exactly as she wrote it. It would have been easy to make it a more faithful reproduction of the Welsh by occasionally changing a word, or by making a phrase more simple in diction. But the reader would not have forgiven me for placing before him a translation that was not Lady Charlotte Guest’s. I have again ventured, however, after a careful comparison of the translation with the original, to put in the form of footnotes a more accurate or more literal rendering of passages which Lady Charlotte Guest did not read aright, passages which she has omitted, and passages the real meaning of which she seems to me to have failed to grasp.
The first two tales in this volume make up, with “The Dream of Rhonabwy,” the second volume of the original edition. “The Dream of Rhonabwy” was placed in my first volume, with “The Lady of
the Fountain” and “Peredur”—the two tales that form the first volume of the original edition. The oldest of the tales—the Mabinogion proper—will all be included in the third volume.
OWEN EDWARDS.
Llanuwchllyn, June 1902.
tributaries, and likewise earls and barons. For they were his invited guests at all the high festivals, unless they were prevented by any great hindrance. And when he was at Caerlleon, holding his Court, thirteen churches were set apart for mass. And thus were they appointed: one church for Arthur, and his kings, and his guests; and the second for Gwenhwyvar and her ladies; and the third for the Steward of the Household and the Suitors; and the fourth for the Franks, and the other officers; and the other nine churches were for the nine Masters of the Household, and chiefly for Gwalchmai; for he, from the eminence of his warlike fame, and from the nobleness of his birth, was the most exalted of the nine. And there was no other arrangement respecting the churches than that which we have mentioned above.