In this connection I will ask you to notice also the intense feeling for color, which, in some of the following Mabinogion, spreads an almost Oriental luxuriance of tint over the scenes. The Lady of the Fountain (the first Mabinogi of the following collection), for example, shows us King Arthur reclining upon green rushes, with a cushion of red satin under his elbow, Guenever and her ladies grouped at the other end of the hall, mantles of flame-colored satin, gilded bows, gold-headed arrows winged with peacocks' feathers, gold-banded garments, shoes of variegated leather, twenty-four youths with golden hair, rooms with all the panels painted in gorgeous colors, the coal-black savage, white whalebone (ivory of the narwhal's tooth, probably), and the like. Or we have a quaint extravagant scene like that in the Mabinogi of Peredur (the modern Percival of the Arthur series): where, upon a certain occasion, Peredur was observed with his eyes fixed upon a certain spot, sunken in deep meditation. All attempts to get his attention failed; he was cuffed, boxed, even overthrown; until, after a final catastrophe (for which see the story), Peredur explains that he is studying certain effects of color produced by the following circumstances; after spending the night in a hermit's cell, "in the morning he arose, and, when he went forth, behold a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and a hawk had killed a wild fowl in front of the cell, and the noise of the horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. And Peredur stood and compared the blackness of the raven, and the whiteness of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady that best he loved, which was blacker than jet, and to her skin, which was whiter than snow, and to the two red spots upon her cheeks, which were redder than the blood upon the snow appeared to be."
The glowing picture of the young knight starting for Arthur's court in Kilhwch and Olwen; the dainty composition of the maiden Blodeuwedd, who was constructed by magic out of certain flowers in order to be a bride for Gwyddion, who was cursed by Arianrod with the curse that he should never have a wife of the present human race,—these and many similar bright-colored passages in the Mabinogion will strike the most cursory reader in confirmation of the feeling for color alleged. While I am scarcely prepared to attribute so much weight to any foreign element as to agree with Mr. Henry Morley in believing that but for the Keltic influence England would not have produced a Shakespere; or with Mr. Matthew Arnold, that English poetry got nearly all its turn for catching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonderfully near and vivid way, beside possibly other qualities, from a Keltic source: yet I think we can safely say that our literature has certainly enriched itself with Bard's wisdom, has certainly warmed itself with the fire and color of Keltic fancy, and has perhaps spiritualized its feeling for nature with that subtle wood-loneliness which Mr. Arnold calls "the natural magic" of the Kelt.
The Welsh proper names are apt to make such an uncouth impression upon those unacquainted with their true sounds, that perhaps the most helpful matter to which I can devote the brief remainder of this Introduction is the pronunciation of Welsh. The following rules, in which of course all attempt at minute accuracy is sacrificed to brevity, and only approximate sounds are aimed at, will at least result in showing such names to be often musical and pleasing, even to the English ear. The letters which cause most perplexity are w, ll, y, and ch. W is usually sounded like oo in pool, as already explained under the name "Kilhwch," pronounced Kilhooch; though where it precedes a vowel this sound (oo) of course practically becomes the English consonantal w; for example, oo-et, rapidly pronounced, would merge into wet; and so in "Llywarch" or "Gwyddion," the w before the a or y may be considered as having simply the force of the English w. Y, if long, is like German ü, or French u in une; nearly English ee in seen. Y short, much like our short u, except in the last syllable of words, where it is more like our short i. Ll is like Spanish ll in llanos, but with an aspirated sound made by forcing the breath through the back teeth so vigorously as to impress the English ear with the sound of a strongly-lisped s. If the organs be arranged so as to pronounce the y in yield, and the sound lh vigorously forced upon that position, something like Welsh ll results. Ch is guttural, as in Scotch loch, German ach. The vowels a, e, i, mostly occur in the following names as short English a, e, i; o, as long o; and u, as a rapidly pronounced French u. The often occurring aw is like ou in English our, or German au in haus. Dd is nearly th in then, only with more of d than t blended with the h sound. C is always k, Cynon equals Kynon; there is no soft c in Welsh. F is always v; it is only ff which sounds like our f in fan. G always hard, as in get. Th as in English thanks; never as in then.
All other letters may be sounded as in English. It is possible, I should add, that even Welshmen may find theoretical fault with some of these directions; but they are given here as very nearly reproducing the practical impression made upon English ears by actual Welsh current talk. No one need go outside of his own experience to discover how greatly the sounds of current discourse differ from theoretical methods of pronunciation.
Such is the general sound of the Welsh tongue. It will be helpful if I add—in view of many books which are now appearing as results of the fresh interest lately aroused in old Gælic language and literature—that the sounds here given belong to the tongue of that special division of the Kelts known as the Cymric (pronounced Kymric) Kelts, in distinction from their neighbors of ancient Ireland and Scotland, known as the Gædhilic, or Gælic. The derivation of the names "Wales" and "Welsh" is much disputed, and may be regarded as unsettled. They are, at any rate, much later than "Cambria" and "Cymric," which all Welshmen claim to be the true names for their country and nation, building upon that ancient tradition perpetuated by Geoffrey of Monmouth, that after the death of Brutus, the original founder of Britain, his three sons divided the kingdom between them; the eldest, Locrinus, taking the part now known as England, but called after him "Locria" (or, variously, "Locgria," "Locris," &c.) in all old chronicles; the next son, Albanach (Albany), taking the parts north of the Humber; and the third son, Camber, taking the part between the Irish seas and the rivers Severn and Dee, whence it was called after him, "Cambria," now known as Wales.
Hence the Welsh now call themselves "Cymru," usually reproduced in English by "Cymry," and their language "Cymraec," or "Cymraeg," usually reproduced in English by "Cymric."
The present work contains nearly all the Mabinogion originally given; and, as in the other works of this series, the original text is scrupulously preserved, except occasionally to hasten the long-lagging action of a story,—in which case the interpolation is always placed in brackets,—and except where the demands of modern reserve required excision. An Italicized word in brackets is always the meaning of the word immediately before it, as in the Froissart and the King Arthur.
In now leaving this beautiful book with my young countrymen, I find myself so sure of its charm as to feel no hesitation in taking authority to unite the earnest expression of their gratitude with that of my own to Lady Charlotte Guest, whose talents and scholarship have made these delights possible; and I can wish my young readers few pleasures of finer quality than that surprised sense of a whole new world of possession which came with my first reading of these Mabinogion, and made me remember Keats's
"... watcher of the skies