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The Mabinogi: A Book of Essays. Edited by C.W. Sullivan III. New York and London: Garland Publishing. xxi + 38pp. $15.00. ISBN 0 81531482 5
The Four Branches of the Mabinogi (Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi) form a distinct group within the corpus of eleven medieval Welsh prose tales known generally as The Mabinogion. They have been the focus of much research over the years. The purpose of this collection of essays, as stated in the preface, is "to provide both an overview of the major critical approaches to the Four Branches and a selection of the best essays dealing with the Four Branches" (p. xi).
The sixteen essays, published within the last twenty-six years, are divided into four sections. The first, entitled "Origins," includes Rachel Bromwich's essay on Lady Charlotte Guest and her translation of The Mabinogion, together with the invaluable discussion on dating the Four Branches by T.M. Charles-Edwards. In the second section, "Comparative Analyses," Juliette Wood and Sarah Larratt Keefer look to the Calumniated Wife theme and to Scottish selkie legends respectively, to clarify material in the four tales. Patrick Ford draws on analogues elsewhere in the Celtic realms to...