The Mabinogion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eleven stories of Celtic mythology and Arthurian romance known as The Mabinogion, most of which were told and retold for generations before being written down in C14th. Among them are stories of Pwyll and Rhiannon and their son Pryderi, of Culhwch and Olwen, of the dream of the Emperor Macsen, of Lludd and Llefelys, of magic and giants and imagined history. With common themes but no single author, they project an image of the Island of Britain before the Anglo-Saxons and Normans and before Edward I’s conquest of Wales. They came to new prominence, worldwide, from C19th with the translation into English by Lady Charlotte Guest aided by William Owen Pughe.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Sioned Davies No other episodes
  Professor in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University
• Helen Fulton 3 episodes
  Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol
• Juliette Wood 11 episodes
  Associate Lecturer in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University

Reading list

• The Mabinogi: Legend and Landscape of Wales
  John K. Bollard (trans.)
• Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain
  Rachel Bromwich (ed.) Google Books →
• The Arthur of the Welsh: Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature
  Rachel Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman & Brynley F. Roberts (eds) Google Books →
• The Mabinogion
  Sioned Davies (trans.) Google Books →
• Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children's Fantasy: Idealization, Identity, Ideology
  Dimitra Fimi Google Books →
• Urban Culture in Medieval Wales
  Helen Fulton (ed.)
• Dafydd ap Gwilym and the European Context
  Helen Fulton Google Books →
• The Owl Service
  Alan Garner Google Books →
• Wales and the Welsh in the Middle Ages
  Ralph Griffiths and Phillip Schofield (eds) Google Books →
• Lady Charlotte Guest: An Extraordinary Life
  Revel Guest and Angela V John Google Books →
• A Guide to Welsh Literature, vol. 1
  A. O. H. Jarman and Gwilym Rees Hughes (eds) Google Books →
• The Literature of Wales
  Dafydd Johnston Google Books →
• The Meat Tree: New Stories from the Mabinogion
  Gwyneth Lewis Google Books →
• The Woman Made of Flowers: Blodeuwedd 1947
  Saunders Lewis (trans. Joseph P. Clancy) Google Books →
• The Arthurian Place Names of Wales
  Scott Lloyd Google Books →
• The Mabinogi, Writers of Wales Series
  Proinsias Mac Cana Google Books →
• The Welsh and the Medieval World: Travel, Migration and Exile
  Patricia Skinner (ed.) Google Books →
• The Mabinogi: A Book of Essays
  C. W. Sullivan III (ed.)
• An Introduction to Welsh Literature
  Gwyn Williams Google Books →
• The Holy Grail: History and Legend
  Juliette Wood Google Books →

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Programme ID: b0b1p5k7

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1p5k7

Auto-category: 800 (Literature)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, English soldiers killed Llewelyn, the last sovereign prince of Wales, in 1282.