The Mabinogion is a collection of medieval folktales. First written down in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the Red Book of Hergest is now housed in the library of Jesus College, Oxford. It was first translated into English by an English woman named Lady Charlotte Guest (1812-1895) and first published in 1849.
Margery Hargest Jones endeavoured to translate it into more modern English so that it would be easier to understand while retaining the medieval sense of mystery.
The twelve stories deal with medieval themes of magic, enchantment and the 'Otherworld'. It takes place in Wales when Arthur was king before the days of Camelot.
The Taliesin adaptation was not written until the sixteenth century, but it is included here because Lady Charlotte included it in her book of The Mabinogion.
Robin Hood was a legendary English outlaw and folk-hero who appears in ballads from the thirteenth century. He lived through the reign of Henry II, Richard I and John. He feuded with the Sheriff of Nottingham and lived in Sherwood Forest with a band of followers, his ‘Merry Men’. They robbed the rich to give to the poor. Among Robin’s companions were Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett and Alan-A-Dale.
It is said that Robin was born in about 1160 at Locksley, Nottinghamshire. Ancient ballads abound with anecdotes of his personal courage, skill in archery, generosity and great popularity. He protected women and children with knightly chivalry. The first literary mention of Robin Hood was in William Langland’s celebrated poem Piers Plowman (c. 1377).
In this volume, Margery Hargest Jones – whose previous books for Austin Macauley have covered some of the most iconic folk tales of the British Isles, from the Mabinogion and King Arthur to Robin Hood – now tells, or re-tells, some of her favourite stories. Three of these are given in full, while the other four are compressed into intriguing and resonant summary form.
The title story, ‘The Aged Infant’, is set in the author’s native Wales and concerns a devoted mother’s troubles with a changeling child. The next, ‘The Miraculous Watermelon’, reads like one of the piquantly comic tales from The Arabian Nights. The final tale in this section, ‘Caravan Joe’, details how the eponymous character deals with the mischievous inhabitants of Squirrel Wood.
The four subsequent summaries range from a simple anecdote about Larry the Lamb and other much-loved characters of ‘ToyTown’ to a mini-epic in which the Nordic hero Sigmund battles with a she-wolf.
"Since the appearance of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'Historia Regum Britanniae' around 1135, The Arthurian legends had rapidly acquired popularity in England as well as in France, where Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France developed the tradition at a highly sophisticated level.
In no time at all, King Arthur had come to embody every contemporary ideal of knighthood and kingship. Many stories were told, most of them mythical, but in their day they were accepted as historical fact and eagerly retold by writers and poets.
Whilst Geoffrey of Monmouth had collected old Celtic legends and written the first popular account of King Arthur, Robert Wace was the first to mention the Round Table, where no one Knight had precedence.
By the 1170s, as a result of royal interest, the Arthurian legends had become enormously popular, both at Court and throughout England, and indeed Christendom. It became fashionable for knights and ladies to emulate the chief characters, whose Chivalric ethic reflected the aristocratic values of the twelfth century."
Adapted and taken from the book by Alison Weir called 'Eleanor of Aquitaine, By the Wrath of God, Queen of England', published by Jonathan Cape.
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