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My old schoolteacher always told me to never, ever start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’. But, we do it all the time in conversation. And it is effective for emphasis. And apparently Charlotte Guest thought so too. Storytelling is conversational, and her ‘translation’ of the Mabinogion is retelling of the mediaeval Welsh tales, dedicated to her two young sons – Ivor, aged three, and newborn Merthyr. For some reason, she neglected her two daughters. But — I’m doing it again — then, later in life, she was a prominent anti-suffragist. I think my schoolteacher also had something against the conjunction of ‘but’ and ‘then’ because they are both conjunctions. Fortunately, in storytelling — and on the internet — Kachu Gwirion rules. The difference being that storytelling is equine and the internet bovine.
But — oops! Again. I digress: Charlotte Guest’s stories are a marvellous, for the most part, fast moving fantasy adventures written in the style to be read to young children. Even if the subject matter, is at times very unsuitable for modern parents. To be clear ‘became his bride’ does not mean ‘they got married’ — not to mention what goes on between Gwydion and his brother when they were turned into animals. They are badly written but read well aloud. The long lists of heroes’ names are boring on the page, but anyone who can recite them deserves a medal. Her use of mediaeval grammar and is erratic. She keeps the heroes original Welsh names, but often anglicises their spelling, sometimes to the point of their being unrecognisable. But, it doesn’t matter. If you want accuracy, read Geoffrey of Monmouth.
For me, the best stories in the collection are the four branches of the Mabinogi, and the least impressive are the Arthurian melodramas. But, these also have their roots in the earlier poems included in the Red and White Books. Many of these poems are attributed to Taliesin. Historians and antiquaries have been complaining for decades about Guest’s inclusion of the Hanes Taliesin in The Mabinogion. Why not? The White Book is incomplete, he appears in other stories, and Taliesin is himself a legendary character, who may, or may not, have been a contemporary of Arthur. And — in his duel with the other bards — he even claims to be Merlin.
Lady Charlotte Guest was born on 19th May 1812 as Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie, daughter of the 9th Earl of Lindsey, and died on 15th January 1895 as Lady Charlotte Schreiber. As Lady Charlotte Bertie, she was already an accomplished linguist, reading English, Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, Latin, Greek, French and Italian before she married the industrialist and politician John Josiah Guest at the age of 21 on 29th July 1833.
She then learnt Welsh, and under the name of Lady Charlotte Guest became an antiquary, educational reformer, philanthropist, technical translator, and industrialist. It was in this period that she translated the mediaeval manuscripts which form the basis of her Mabinogion.
Most of the tales in the Mabinogion are included in the, partially incomplete, mid 14th Century Welsh manuscript known as the White Book of Rhydderch, and, in complete form in the slightly younger >Red Book of Hergest. Charlotte Guest added the Tales of Taliesin, from Elis Gruffydd’s 1552 Chronicle of the Six Ages
Author Illustation: unattributed, portrait of Lady Charlotte Guest (detail)
Cover Illustation: View of Castell Dinas Brân, Richard Wilson 1771 (Detail)