Mabinogi Study

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====== The Mabinogion ======
**//The Mabinogion//** is a loose collection of eleven or twelve prose stories originally written in mediaeval Welsh ([[Middle Welsh]]), widely available in translation.\\
The name however is a mistake, going back about 700 years.
 
{{ ::mabinogion.png?400|MS. Llyfr Gwyn: from p. 33. NLW}}An important **part** of the collection is the set of four closely linked tales: [[The Mabinogi]] the central topic of this site.

So there is //The Mabinogion// (11 tales) and the Mabinogi (4 sets of tales).\\
//The Mabinogion// ** always includes** the Mabinogi.

 The Mabinogi's sections (its Branches) end by saying '**And so ends this //mabinogi//**.'\\
 But one of them, the ending of the First Branch, says it as '//**mabynnogion**//' modernised as '//**mabinogion**//'.

From at least the 18thC onwards scholars often assumed this was a plural word because **-//on// or -//ion//** is a Welsh plural ending. So '//**mabinogion**//' was used as a **title** for this loose collection of eleven tales when published together.
 
It was not finally established that the word //mabinogion// was a mistake until the first half of the 20thC. However after 200 years of using it, the name became established, Many found it convenient to continue with it to refer to the larger collection of eleven tales.
 
It can help to remember that the longer word **//mabinogion//** is the larger collection of eleven tales. This always includes the smaller **//mabinogi//** of four tales, which is a smaller word. The smaller //mabinogi// is also found published on its own.

==== More Notes ====
 
~ An example of the **correct** wording is '//A llyna ual y teruyna y geing honn o'r Mabinyogi//','And so ends this //mabinogi//'.((Second Branch: PKM p. 27, Line 12.))\\ 
~ The old** error //mabynnogyon//** is mediaeval in origin. It only appears once at the end of the First Branch, nowhere else. The line which shows the error is  //Ac uelly y teruyna y geing honn or mabynnogyon//.((First Branch, PKM p. 27, Line 27-28.))\\ 
~ These statements about the end point of 'this mabinogi' are often referred to as a '**colophons**' i.e. a publisher's note explaining something about the work.\\
~ One theory is that the scribe who was copying the manuscript was tired, so made a slip in spelling. Just above the line the word //dyledogyon//, 'noblemen', appears, which possibly confused a tired copyist with its ending. This was then faithfully recopied onwards in later manuscripts.\\ 
~ The pioneering first publication of a Mabinogi story in print by [[s:pughe|William Owen Pughe]] in 1795, used 'mabinogion' in its title.(('The Mabinogion, or Juvenile Amusements, being Ancient Welsh Romances,' in the //Cambrian Register// (1795). This was the first episode of //Pwyll//, a bilingual Welsh-English text.)) Pughe then used  '//mabinogi//' in titles for other stories he published later.\\ 
~ The famous 19thC [[s:guest|Charlotte Guest]] is often thought to have pioneered the title //The Mabinogion// in 1838, but in fact she was following existing Welsh tradition.\\ 
~ Guest's publications included a Taliesin tale, making her collection a total of 12 stories. All other publications of //The Mabinogion// collection omit this, because the Taliesin tale survives in a different manuscript. The standard group is therefore eleven tales.\\ 
~ [[s:ford|Patrick Ford]] in 1977 made a strong move to separate the 'Native Tales' from the later Anglo-Norman ones. His translation is therefore titled //The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales//. Ford does include Taliesin, on the grounds it is a native tale, but not the three Romances, or the two Dream tales.\\  
~ [[s:sdavies|Sioned Davies]] in 2007/ 2008 returned to using the title //The Mabinogion// for the eleven tales, because she felt it was an established convenience.

==== Further Reading ====
 
[[s:bollard|John K. Bollard]] gives an excellent and detailed analysis of this issue about the name and the manuscript error. He explains there is little to connect the tales of The Mabinogion together as they had different authors, were created at different times, and in different styles.\\ John K. Bollard, ‘What Is The Mabinogi?  What Is “The Mabinogion”?’, (2007).\\ <https://sites.google.com/site/themabinogi/mabinogiandmabinogion>
Mabinogi Study

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