This review first appeared in PLANET magazine under the title : Hedges of Mist

Tales of Arthur Translated by John K Bollard with Photographs by Anthony Griffiths Gomer £19.99

This third volume in the ‘Legend and Landscape of Wales’ series completes the coverage of the eleven medieval Welsh stories collected together in translation as ‘The Mabinogion’. The decision to divide these into three groups for the purpose of publishing the translations of John Bollard alongside photographs by Anthony Griffiths might have been determined by considerations of space and presentation as the texts are extensively supplemented by the photographs in a format that makes them attractive objects as well as scholarly works. They sit as nicely on a coffee table or display case as they do on a bookshelf. But the division has a textual rationale too. Certainly the Four Branches of the Mabinogi can be regarded as a distinct collection of tales within ‘The Mabiniogion’. These tales formed the first volume while the second Companion Tales to the Mabinogi included How Culhwch Got Olwen and the so called ‘native tales’. This third volume contains the three remaining Arthurian tales, often seen to be cognate with or influenced by the French Arthurian romances, but nevertheless a specifically Welsh expression of this material. It might, superficially, be thought that Culhwch belongs with these ‘Tales of Arthur’, as it is the earliest complete Arthurian tale. But given the division into three books, textually it belongs with the Companion Tales.

The idea of showing photographs of the places associated with the tales is a good one in that it is sometimes noted that the Welsh tales are often located in specific places in contrast to the more typical scenario in medieval romances where a knight rides off into an enchanted landscape notable mainly for its lack of location in any known place. The Four Branches and Culhwch, in particular, provided many opportunities for the photographer to engage in his own research, seeking out places, some firmly identified, others speculative, to illustrate the texts. Tales of Arthur must have posed more of problem in this respect, as the tales collected here have more in common with those romances where the locations are much less specific. True, in each tale the knights (and unlike the tales in the earlier volumes these are knights) set off from Arthur’s court at Caer Llion on Usk. So we are given several shots of the modern town and/or the Roman ruins at Caerleon from various angles. But Anthony Griffiths has had to be more inventive in constructing contextual shots to illustrate the continuing narratives in this volume. A spectacular double-page spread of a mist-wreathed Elan Valley illustrates ‘the hedge of mist’ into which Geraint rides to participate in the enchanted games. Similarly there are many shots of locations with Arthurian associations in the place names. Although these have no necessary connection with the texts, it is argued in the Introduction that these show the extent to which Arthurian associations are embedded in the landscape of Wales. This, in turn, highlights a feature of all three volumes in the series in which the texts and the photographs interact to present a mythic geography of Wales rather than simply a collection of stories with pictures.

So in spite of a lack of specific connection the photographs do illustrate the texts and can be said to have a deeper relationship with them than the merely representational. They are, in addition, a visual feast in themselves. John Bollard’s translations keep very close to the originals in style as well as content, following the trend of other recent translations in attempting to capture something of the remnant oral story-teller’s art. So, for instance, phrases such as “This what everyone did then …” often introduce narrative developments and the conversational mode of the original Welsh is maintained in moving from past tense narration to the present tense to achieve greater vividness in the telling. Bollard’s care to reflect tone as well as meaning leads to footnotes (tastefully in-lined in the centrefold) that give the reader precise information and sometimes supply an original phrase to make the point. I was glad to have these notes though I wondered, at times, if the likely readership for these illustrated texts would necessarily require them. But the reader who cares to consult them is led to an understating of decisions taken about grammatical matters and should therefore come away from reading the translations with a better sense of the style and presentation of the originals. The general introduction provides a good contextual lead-in to the tales with a more detailed interpretive discussion at the end of the volume in an ‘Afterword’ section. In combining precise attention to detail in translation, supporting illustration and overall design this volume, like its predecessors, is exemplary.… (mais)