{"id":243,"date":"2006-04-17T04:31:20","date_gmt":"2006-04-17T08:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=243"},"modified":"2018-08-23T01:22:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T05:22:20","slug":"14652-%c2%a0%c2%a0-evangeline-walton-prince-of-annwn-the-first-branch-of-the-mabinogion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=243","title":{"rendered":"14652.&nbsp;(Evangeline Walton) Prince of Annwn, the First Branch of the Mabinogion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mabino\u00adgion is a com\u00adpi\u00adla\u00adtion of Welsh leg\u00adend that we know from two medieval man\u00adu\u00adscripts, the <em>Llyfr Gwyn Rhy\u00add\u00adderch <\/em>(White Book of Rhy\u00add\u00adderch) and the <em>Llyfr Coch Hergest <\/em>(Red Book of Hergest). <span style=\"color: #000000;\">J. R. R. Tolkien was expert in these sources, and it\u2019s not sur\u00adpris\u00ading that there are echoes of the Mabino\u00adgion in the Lord of the Rings.<span id=\"more-243\"> <\/span>Evan\u00adge\u00adline Wal\u00adton worked more direct\u00adly with the Welsh mate\u00adr\u00adial. Prince of Annwn is pret\u00adty much a retelling of the first tale, \u201cPwyll, Prince of Dyfed\u201d. She attempts to strike a bal\u00adance between the orig\u00adi\u00adnal myth\u00adic style of sto\u00adry-telling and mod\u00adern nov\u00adel\u00adis\u00adtic tech\u00adniques. The result is very sat\u00adis\u00adfy\u00ading. It doesn\u2019t feel \u201cmod\u00adern\u201d, but it sat\u00adis\u00adfies the mod\u00adern taste for nar\u00adra\u00adtive sur\u00adprise and dra\u00adma. Her vocab\u00adu\u00adlary and phras\u00ading are well cho\u00adsen: she uses an \u201cele\u00advated\u201d, poet\u00adic prose with\u00adout sound\u00ading sil\u00adly, a very dif\u00adfi\u00adcult trick indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I\u2019ve read two dif\u00adfer\u00adent trans\u00adla\u00adtions of the Mabino\u00adgion (the Ganz and the Jones <span class=\"amp\">&amp;<\/span> Jones ver\u00adsions), so I\u2019m not sure how it comes across to some\u00adone who has nev\u00ader known the mythol\u00adogy. Wal\u00adton stays rea\u00adson\u00adably close to the orig\u00adi\u00adnal, though she throws in a few unre\u00adlated bits from the Irish epics for dra\u00admatic pur\u00adposes. Welsh mythol\u00adogy is as misty and dis\u00adcon\u00adcert\u00ading as the Welsh land\u00adscape: you can nev\u00ader tell what is sup\u00adposed to be real or dream, nat\u00adural or super\u00adnat\u00adural. I spent a week walk\u00ading through the Welsh moun\u00adtains, and I\u2019m still not sure what actu\u00adal\u00adly hap\u00adpened to me and what I halu\u00adci\u00adnat\u00aded. Walton\u2019s fan\u00adtasy cap\u00adtures that feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mabino\u00adgion is a com\u00adpi\u00adla\u00adtion of Welsh leg\u00adend that we know from two medieval man\u00adu\u00adscripts, the Llyfr Gwyn Rhy\u00add\u00adderch (White Book of Rhy\u00add\u00adderch) and the Llyfr Coch Hergest (Red Book of Hergest). J. R. R. Tolkien was expert in&nbsp;these&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=243\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9670,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/9670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}