Читать книгу 366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore - Carl McColman - Страница 52

Welsh mythology, unfortunately, is neither as comprehensive nor as coherent as its Irish counterpart. Although the oldest manuscripts are about the same age as those preserved in Ireland, the stories they contain seem either younger, or more thoroughly tampered with. Post-Celtic religious and social ideas permeate the Welsh tradition, making these tales an interesting bridge between the more purely pagan myths of Ireland, and the high chivalry of the Arthurian legends—which grew out of Welsh myth but found their fullest expression in the courts of medieval France.

The key story cycle in the Welsh tradition is the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, often misspelled as Mabinogion, thanks to an error on the part of one of the first translators to render these tales into modern English. In this collection of myths we meet goddesses like Rhiannon, gods like Bran, heroes like Pwyll, and druids like Gwydion. The tales of the Mabinogi repeatedly explore mother—son relationships, leading many to feel that it represents an initiation into a cult of the mother goddess and her beloved son—god. Often included in modern translations of the Mabinogi are several other stories and romances, including one of the earliest tales of the Holy Grail, several heroic quests, and the moving, shamanistic tale of the birth of the great bard Taliesin.