Something that should be noted is..............look, okay, would I recommend her translation to anyone whoās interested in this stuff? No. I would not. Itās outdated, inaccurate, and VERY, VERY Victorian. There have been better translations made since hers, and it is the reason for the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE, which is people lumping pretty much all the Welsh prose texts in with the Mabinogi. (KING ARTHUR DOES NOT SHOW UP IN THE FOUR BRANCHES. HE. DOES. NOT. CULHWCH AC OLWEN IS NOT PART OF THE FOUR BRANCHES.)Ā
BUT. But. That being said, perspective: She was working in the 19th century, without any of the resources that we have now, and the scope of her project was MASSIVE. To put it into perspective: As a Celticist whoās trained intensively for the last two years in Middle Welsh, with a fully prepared edition, glossary, and editorās notes in front of me, I would do very well to get approximately 20 lines out of around..........600 or so of Pwyll done per week. Note: That is only the FIRST BRANCH of the Mabinogi. I had to do fifty lines of Brut y Brenhined this last week, relatively short because it was a two-column page, again, WITH a full edition, glossary, and notes, and that nearly killed me. I was working on overdrive for about three days to get it done, getting about 4-6 hours of sleep in 48 hours. Middle Welsh is actually quite meditative for me, most of the time, when my mind is in it, but it can be tedious, and parts of it donāt lend themselves well to English syntax. Itās the sort of thing I can do for about an hour or two and then have had enough for the week.
Thatās not including other resources that are generally considered essential to studying Middle Welsh, like modern digitization of manuscripts, Simon Evansā A Grammar of Middle Welsh, without any of our modern online dictionaries or glossaries that make dealing with the inconsistent orthography somewhat livable, without formally studying it. And she did that shit. For the ENTIRE MABINOGI, as well as a few other texts she lumped in. Honestly, a superhuman effort. Iām willing to say that I couldnāt do it. And, frankly, Iām not sure how many modern Celticists could, either. Not because weāre not good at our jobs, but because the landscape has changed SO MUCH since that time.Ā
I feel like thereās this Thing that happens in Celtic studies in particular where we get SO HYPED UP on reminding people that THESE SOURCES ARE VERY OLD, DONāT USE THEM, that we kind of....gloss over exactly how monumental they were at the time. And we pat ourselves on the shoulders because weāre Real Scholars, we have better sources than people who would rely on *Charlotte Guest.*Ā Itās EASY for us to talk shit, but could we have done the same in the exact same circumstances?Ā And, you know what? How many people got into Welsh studies because of her translation? How many people went on to read the Mabinogi in the original Middle Welsh because she paved the way? I can say, on my end, that I wouldnāt be where I am now if it wasnāt for people translating the Irish texts out, because that was what got me hooked. I wouldnāt recommend Lady Gregory to anyone really looking into seriously studying Old Irish for the same reasons I wouldnāt recommend Lady Guest, but I can acknowledge that, if I was to do half as much for the field as they did, I would be successful beyond my wildest dreams.Ā (Also, ngl, a part of me, however small, does wonder how we would treat them if they were done by aristocratic men as opposed to aristocratic women -- Iām not saying thatās the ONLY factor, Iām not saying itās a CONSCIOUS factor, but I am saying that the way theyāre often talked about is Silly Aristocratic Women Dabbling In Things They Didnāt Know About.)
(But also: For the sake of your local Celticistās sanity, DO please useĀ āMabinogiā when talking about the Four Branches,Ā āMabinogionā when talking about Lady Guestās, and remember that the Four Branches ARE the Mabinogi. I can respect her work while still wanting to tear my hair out at that particular bit of her legacy. Iām not going to come into anyoneās houses to beat them with a baseball bat, but it helps me to know what weāre talking about.)