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The ''Mabinogion'' (; (:mabɪˈnɔɡjɔn)) is the earliest prose literature of Britain. The stories were compiled in the 12th–13th century from earlier oral traditions by medieval Welsh authors. The two main source manuscripts were created c. 1350–1410, as well as some earlier fragments. But beyond their origins, first and foremost these are fine quality storytelling, offering high drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy, sensitivity, and humour; refined through long development by skilled performers. The title covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types. There is a classic hero quest: Culhwch and Olwen. Historic legend in Lludd and Llefelys glimpses a far off age, and other tales portray a King Arthur very different from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defy categorisation. The list is so diverse a leading scholar has challenged them as a true collection at all.〔Bollard, John Kenneth. 2007. “What Is The Mabinogi? What Is ‘The Mabinogion’?.” https://sites.google.com/site/themabinogi/mabinogiandmabinogion〕 Early scholars from the 18th century to the 1970s predominantly viewed the tales as fragmentary pre-Christian Celtic mythology,〔Notably Matthew Arnold; William J. Gruffydd.〕 or in terms of international folklore.〔Jackson, Kenneth Hurlstone. 1961. The International Popular Tale and the Early Welsh Tradition. The Gregynog Lectures. Cardiff: CUP.〕 There are certainly traces of mythology, and folklore components, but since the 1970s〔Bollard 1974; Gantz 1978; Ford 1981.〕 an understanding of the integrity of the tales has developed, with investigation of their plot structures, characterisation, and language styles. They are now seen as a sophisticated narrative tradition, both oral and written, with ancestral construction from oral storytelling,〔See various works by Sioned Davies e.g. 1. Davies, Sioned. 1998. “Written Text as Performance: The Implications for Middle Welsh Prose Narratives.” In Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies, 133–48. and 2. Davies, Sioned. 2005. “‘He Was the Best Teller of Tales in the World’: Performing Medieval Welsh Narrative.” In Performing Medieval Narrative, 15–26. Cambridge: Brewer.〕 and overlay from Anglo-French influences. The first modern publications were English translations of several tales by William Owen Pughe in journals 1795, 1821, 1829.〔1. Pughe, William Owen. 1795. “The Mabinogion, or Juvenile Amusements, Being Ancient Welsh Romances.” Cambrian Register, 177–87. 2. Pughe, William Owen. 1821. “The Tale of Pwyll.” Cambro-Briton Journal 2 (18): 271–75. . 3. Pughe, William Owen. 1829. “The Mabinogi: Or, the Romance of Math Ab Mathonwy.” The Cambrian Quarterly Magazine and Celtic Repository 1: 170–79.〕 However it was Lady Charlotte Guest 1838 -45 who first published the full collection, and bilingually in both Welsh and English. She is often assumed to be responsible for the name "Mabinogion" but this was already in standard use since the 18th century. The later Guest translation of 1877 in one volume, has been widely influential and remains actively enjoyed today.〔Available online since 2004. Guest, Charlotte. 2004. “The Mabinogion. (Gutenberg, Guest).” Gutenberg. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=5160.〕 The most recent translation in a single volume is by Sioned Davies, a compact, thoughtfully readable version.〔Davies, Sioned. 2007. The Mabinogion. Oxford: OUP.〕 John Bollard has published a series of volumes between with his own translation, with copious photography of the sites in the stories.〔1. Bollard, John Kenneth. 2006. Legend and Landscape of Wales: The Mabinogi. Llandysul, Wales: Gomer Press. 2. Bollard, John Kenneth. 2007. Companion Tales to The Mabinogi. Llandysul, Wales: Gomer Press. 3. Bollard, John Kenneth. 2010. Tales of Arthur: Legend and Landscape of Wales. Llandysul, Wales: Gomer Press. Photography by Anthony Griffiths.〕 The tales continue to inspire new fiction,〔For example the Seren series 2009 -2014, but the earliest reinterpretations were by Evangeline Walton starting 1936..〕 dramatic retellings,〔e.g. Robin Williams; Daniel Morden.〕 visual artwork, spiritual vision, and vigorous research. 〔 〕 ==Etymology== The name first appears in 1795 in William Owen Pughe's translation in the journal ''Cambrian Register'': "The Mabinogion, or Juvenile Amusements, being Ancient Welsh Romances." The name appears to have been current among Welsh scholars of the London Welsh Societies and the regional Welsh eisteddfodau. It was inherited as the title by the first publisher of the complete collection, Lady Charlotte Guest. The form ''mabynnogyon'' occurs once at the end of the first of the ''Four Branches of the Mabinogi'' in one manuscript. It is now generally agreed that this one instance was a mediaeval scribal error which assumed 'mabinogion' was the plural of 'mabinogi.' But 'mabinogi' is already a Welsh plural, which occurs correctly at the end of the remaining three branches. The word ''mabinogi'' itself is something of a puzzle, although clearly derived from the Welsh ''mab'', which means "son, boy, young person". Eric P. Hamp of the earlier school traditions in mythology, found a suggestive connection with Maponos a Celtic deity of Gaul, ("the Divine Son"). The "Mabinogi" properly applies only to the Four Branches, which is a tightly organised quartet very likely by one author, where the other seven are so very diverse (see below). Each of these four tales ends with a colophon meaning "thus ends this branch of the Mabinogi" (in various spellings), hence the name. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mabinogion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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