El Mabinogion, vol. 2

TRANSLATED FROM THE RED BOOK OF HERGEST BY LADY CHARLOTTE GUEST VOL. II. LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN 11 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS. MXCII {The salmon of Llyn Llyw. "And they heard a great wailing and lamenting from the dungeon.": p0.jpg} INTRODUCTION. In this second volume, as in the first, I have given Lady Charlotte Guest's translation exactly as she wrote it. It would have been easy to make it a more faithful reproduction of the Welsh by occasionally changing a word, or by making a phrase more simple in diction. But the reader would not have forgiven me for placing before him a translation that was not Lady Charlotte Guest's. I have again ventured, however, after a careful comparison of the translation with the original, to put in the form of footnotes a more accurate or more literal rendering of passages which Lady Charlotte Guest did not read aright, passages which she has omitted, and passages the real meaning of which she seems to me to have failed to grasp. The first two tales in this volume make up, with "The Dream of Rhonabwy," the second volume of the original edition. "The Dream of Rhonabwy" was placed in my first volume, with "The Lady of the Fountain" and "Peredur"--the two tales that form the first volume of the original edition. The oldest of the tales--the Mabinogion proper--will all be included in the third volume. OWEN EDWARDS. LLANUWCHLLYN, _June_ 1902. GERAINT THE SON OF ERBIN. {Picture: p7.jpg} Arthur was accustomed to hold his Court at Caerlleon upon Usk. And there he held it seven Easters, {7a} and five Christmases. And once upon a time he held his Court there at Whitsuntide. For Caerlleon was the place most easy of access in his dominions, both by sea and by land. And there were assembled {7b} nine crowned kings, who were his tributaries, and likewise earls and barons.…