What a delightful find. Simple language, evocative imagining of the legends. Reminded me of a translation of the stories of Cuchulain I read (some time ago, can't remember author, argh). Plenty of gender conflict material here with the Old Tribes matrilineal (ignorant of father's role in child creation) and the New Tribes patrilineal. Evangeline Walton 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4. My favourite of Walton's Mabinogion retellings thus far, I think because the conflict here is primarily internal rather than a series of battles in which relatively unsympathetic characters take part. There's still plenty of action, but the action here is more metaphorical - when Pwyll is fighting the bird-demon, for instance, it's clear that the bird is representative of self-doubt rather than a straight-up feathery monster. And because the story is so focused on Pwyll's internal journey, I ended up feeling more for him than I do for most of Walton's other characters - while realising that this series is well-written, I've felt little emotional response to the previous books. I actually cared about what was happening here (on top of admiring the technique of it all) so that was an improvement. Evangeline Walton The first of a tetralogy of short novels, published in an omnibus edition. A little hard to follow at times, but a good story. The main problem was the profusion of typos. I'm talking big typos too, like a word misspelled in the title of one of the books in the inside flap of the dust jacket. I mean, seriously? Here's the punchline: the publisher of this edition is Overlook Press. Yes, they overlooked quite a lot. Ba-dum-chah. You can't make this stuff up. Evangeline Walton This story is actually great, the main character is very well-writen. Evangeline Walton I had high hopes for this book. I loved the Mabinogion, mostly because the strong female characters. In this book all character were equally bland. Pwyll is just another hero, like many others, and Rhiannon is placed on a pedestal, causing a severe lack of personality. The numerous musings, philosophical and otherwise, slowed the story down enormously.
Conclusion: Don't let this book fool you. The Mabinogion is one of the coolest mythologies out there. Evangeline Walton
review ☆ PDF, eBook or Kindle ePUB Õ Evangeline Walton
From the back cover:
Evangeline Walton is the author of Prince of Annwn, The Children of Llyr, The Song of Rhiannon and The Island of the Mighty - each a branch of the epic Welsh book of mythology, The Mabinogion.
The Saturday Review said about her work: These books are not only the best fantasies of the 20th century, but also great works of fiction. They are actual retellings of the diverse legends of The Mabinogion in novel form...dealing with Good and Evil...and the nature of love. Prince of Annwn (Mabinogion Tetralogy #1)
I had no idea what to expect from this book, except that the other three novels in Walton's Mabinogion chronicles are part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series and all of them have an incredibly good reputation. I was not disappointed. At the beginning of the book it mentioned earth was a shadow of Arawn's world, which called up memories of Zelazny's Amber. I was also reminded of Michael Moorcock's work and the dreamlike quality of Lord Dunsany. One of the first impressions I had was the solidity of the writing. I knew I was in good hands right away. I don't often find that so obvious so early on in a novel. It happened in the first few pages. The Mabinogion is Welsh mythology from the 5th or 6th century. But tis tale is timeless and speaks to our world today. Excellent. Evangeline Walton This may be the most mythical of the Mabinogion, with a story about a Welsh prince exchanging places with Arawn, god of the underworld. He discovers Arawn was kind of hoping he'd defeat an invading foreign god, Havgan, while he's there, since Arawn couldn't do it the first time around. If you were wondering whether Pwyll manages to defeat Havgan, I... won't spoil it for you that he does, but I will just say it's more a question of what Pwyll has to sacrifice in order to do so ;)
The second part of this story is Pwyll's seeking of a goddess, Rhiannon, as a wife. He enters the realm of the gods by way of a dangerous pathway, avoids death at the hands of a murderous druid, and tricks his main competitor, a native inhabitant of the gods' realm, in order to win freedom for Rhiannon to marry him.
The stories are interesting, the characters plausible and understandable, and I certainly enjoyed my first exposure to Welsh cultural background. Evangeline Walton I absolutely enjoyed the descriptions of ominous happenings, Walton’s evocative language, and the straightforward attitude toward sex, but I found the stories too simplistic. I would like to read more basic retellings of Welsh mythology in a Bullfinchish manner rather than continue this series that fills out the stories beyond their original telling. I love the classic Greek story of Hercules and his young companions competing against the universal constructs, but flesh that 3 page story out to novel length and I’m snoring. If the original Welsh tales were larger in scope like the Homeric/Aeneid works this would be fine, but they more resemble the basic Greek and Norse mythology tellings than those epic works. Evangeline Walton Evangeline Walton first wrote the Mabinogion Tetralogy in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Only the fourth book in the sequence was published at the time, under the title The Virgin and the Swine. The series was rediscovered in the early 1970s; The Virgin and the Swine was reprinted as The Island of the Mighty, and the other three books saw publication for the first time. Prince of Annwn is the first in the sequence but was the last to be published. It was a nominee for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature in 1975. I read it as part of a challenge at Fantasy Literature.
The four novels are based upon four related tales from Welsh mythology, known as the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Prince of Annwn is an adaptation of the first “branch,” “Pwyll Prince of Dyfed.” Walton expands upon the original tale, fleshing out descriptions and journeys and character motivations, but keeps the essential elements of the story and strives for a similar prose. In her own words, “My own method has always been to try to put flesh and blood on the bones of the original myth; I almost never contradict sources, I only add and interpret.”
In “Pwyll Prince of Dyfed,” Pwyll has a series of encounters with the uncanny. He meets Arawn — king of Annwn, the land of the dead — and switches places with him for a year. He meets his otherworldly bride, Rhiannon. Then, he and Rhiannon lose their son for a time, and Rhiannon is unjustly blamed for his disappearance until the child is returned. Prince of Annwn includes the first two of these plotlines but not the third.
Walton’s Wales is a time and place in flux. The female-centered paganism of the Old Tribes is giving way to the male-centered paganism of the New Tribes. Christianity has not yet arrived but is on the horizon. Pwyll is a man of the New Tribes, typical of his people in some ways and atypical in others. He’s a manly-man; his favorite pursuits are hunting, fighting, and wooing fair women. He firmly believes, too, that men should rule. Yet he loves women and has more respect for them than many of his peers, and questions some of the teachings of the New Tribes’ druids. He’s a sympathetic character, possessing all manner of human weakness but doing his best to live up to his sense of honor.
With his internal conflicts and doubts, he makes a great character through which to experience the story and its themes. Prince of Annwn is a good yarn, but it also makes you think. Walton raises a number of questions. Can human belief shape reality? When is innovation beneficial, and when is it destructive? Is death a thing to be feared? How does one know whether one has chosen the right side of a fight? These ideas, and more, are explored through Pwyll’s thoughts and his conversations with others.
The writing style is deceptively simple. Walton never takes very long to describe anything, and she doesn’t use a lot of twenty-dollar words. Sometimes the writing seems almost dry, and then suddenly you’ll find yourself reading a passage that, in a few brief sentences, perfectly captures the beauty or dread or wonder of whatever Walton is depicting. Imagery of light and color is particularly well-done. This isn’t heavy prose that feels like a seven-course meal; it’s more reminiscent of the simple fare Pwyll enjoys in Rhiannon’s orchard: a perfect apple and a cup of pure, clear water.
--Pwyll did not want to meet those eyes, but he could not escape them. Through their shining blackness cold seemed to stream through his blood and bones. Knowledge streamed with it, knowledge that he could neither understand nor keep. His brain reeled away from that awful wisdom, that poured into it as into a cup, and overturned it, and was spilled again.
--A woman sat there, and it was from her that the light in that place came. Her body shone like the sun; her one thin garment hid it no more than water would. Her hair shone, it streamed red gold to her noble, high-arched feet, which were tender and rosy white as the apple blossoms. But when Pwyll tried to look at her face, he could not, his eyes fell, so he knew that She was no woman but a Goddess, and that that place lived through the living Glory that was Herself.
--A great road of light cleft the dark sky, fell in purifying brilliance upon the lintel where that monstrous Bird had sat, enthroned. Down that glorious pathway flew three singing birds, and one was white, and one was green, and one was gold as morning.
As mentioned above, Walton leaves off the final episode of the story, in which Pwyll and Rhiannon have a son, Pryderi, who goes missing. This makes the ending feel a bit abrupt to a reader familiar with the original, and is my only disappointment in Prince of Annwn. I wanted to see what Walton would do with this part of the story. I wonder if it appears in one of the other three books.
I’ll certainly be seeking out the others as soon as possible. Prince of Annwn is an excellent read, whether you’re new to the Mabinogion or already familiar with it. It’s also a valuable piece of fantasy history. I’d been meaning to read it for years, and only regret taking so long to get around to it. Evangeline Walton Prince of Annwn is the first in a series of retellings of the Four Branches of the Mabinogion. Evangeline Walton wasn't Welsh, but nonetheless she made herself very familiar with the sources, and while she added to the story, there was nothing that I could see that wasn't in the spirit of it. She expanded and humanised the stories of the Mabinogion, giving Pwyll more of a journey and an arc of character growth, and adding a conflict between older faiths and new ones. At times there was a bit of endorsement of the 'Universal Spirit' idea: In essence all Gods are the same, and one; but few mortals have glimpsed that Untellable Glory, and no human mind may hold it. Which, given that I'm a Unitarian Universalist, appeals to me.
Evangeline Walton's prose is clear and easy to read, and while at times there's a touch of the archaic about the phrasing and such, it doesn't get ridiculous or bogged down in it, and sometimes Pwyll's thoughts are refreshingly modern and direct. There are some beautiful passages, too. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the tetralogy. Evangeline Walton