The Mabinogion | Page 2

marks, and these proper names of persons and places, the
features of a story usually of earliest date and least likely to change?
These romances were found in England, France, Germany, Norway,
Sweden, and even Iceland, as early as the beginning of the thirteenth
and end of the twelfth century. The Germans, who propagated them
through the nations of the North, derived them certainly from France.
Robert Wace published his Anglo-Norman Romance of the Brut
d'Angleterre about 1155. Sir Tristan was written in French prose in
1170; and The Chevalier au Lion, Chevalier de l'Epee, and Sir Lancelot
du Lac, in metrical French, by Chrestien de Troyes, before 1200.
From these facts it is to be argued that the further back these romances
are traced, the more clearly does it appear that they spread over the
Continent from the North-west of France. The older versions, it may be
remarked, are far more simple than the later corruptions. In them there
is less allusion to the habits and usages of Chivalry, and the Welsh
names and elements stand out in stronger relief. It is a great step to be
able to trace the stocks of these romances back to Wace, or to his
country and age. For Wace's work was not original. He himself, a
native of Jersey, appears to have derived much of it from the "Historia
Britonum" of Gruffydd ab Arthur, commonly known as "Geoffrey of
Monmouth," born 1128, who himself professes to have translated from
a British original. It is, however, very possible that Wace may have had
access, like Geoffrey, to independent sources of information.
To the claims set up on behalf of Wace and Geoffrey, to be regarded as
the channels by which the Cymric tales passed into the Continental
Romance, may be added those of a third almost contemporary author.
Layamon, a Saxon priest, dwelling, about 1200, upon the banks of the

upper Severn, acknowledges for the source of his British history, the
English Bede, the Latin Albin, and the French Wace. The last-named
however is by very much his chief, and, for Welsh matters, his only
avowed authority. His book, nevertheless, contains a number of names
and stories relating to Wales, of which no traces appear in Wace, or
indeed in Geoffrey, but which he was certainly in a very favourable
position to obtain for himself. Layamon, therefore, not only confirms
Geoffrey in some points, but it is clear, that, professing to follow Wace,
he had independent access to the great body of Welsh literature then
current. Sir F. Madden has put this matter very clearly, in his recent
edition of Layamon. The Abbe de la Rue, also, was of opinion that
Gaimar, an Anglo-Norman, in the reign of Stephen, usually regarded as
a translator of Geoffrey of Monmouth, had access to a Welsh
independent authority.
In addition to these, is to be mentioned the English version of Sir
Tristrem, which Sir Walter Scott considered to be derived from a
distinct Celtic source, and not, like the later Amadis, Palmerin, and
Lord Berners's Canon of Romance, imported into English literature by
translation from the French. For the Auntours of Arthur, recently
published by the Camden Society, their Editor, Mr. Robson, seems to
hint at a similar claim.
Here then are various known channels, by which portions of Welsh and
Armoric fiction crossed the Celtic border, and gave rise to the more
ornate, and widely-spread romance of the Age of Chivalry. It is not
improbable that there may have existed many others. It appears then
that a large portion of the stocks of Mediaeval Romance proceeded
from Wales. We have next to see in what condition they are still found
in that country.
That Wales possessed an ancient literature, containing various lyric
compositions, and certain triads, in which are arranged historical facts
or moral aphorisms, has been shown by Sharon Turner, who has
established the high antiquity of many of these compositions.
The more strictly Romantic Literature of Wales has been less fortunate,
though not less deserving of critical attention. Small portions only of it

have hitherto appeared in print, the remainder being still hidden in the
obscurity of ancient Manuscripts: of these the chief is supposed to be
the Red Book of Hergest, now in the Library of Jesus College, Oxford,
and of the fourteenth century. This contains, besides poems, the prose
romances known as Mabinogion. The Black Book of Caermarthen,
preserved at Hengwrt, and considered not to be of later date than the
twelfth century, is said to contain poems only. {1}
The Mabinogion, however, though thus early recorded in the Welsh
tongue, are in their existing form by no means wholly Welsh. They are
of two tolerably distinct classes. Of these, the older contains few
allusions to Norman customs, manners, arts, arms, and luxuries.