I really enjoyed reading the Four Branches of Mabinogion. I appreciated how they were sequential and yet each story could stand alone. When reading them, I felt as if was reading Celtic Literature solely from the fact of the characters names. Each name had such an odd way of peeling that made the names feel ancient. Along with each name being unique, each character had a title, emphasizing the importance of that character. Adding a title to a name allows for the story teller to stress the importance of that character. A saying I once heard, and this is not the exact wording, went along the lines of believing in a name gave that name power. Believing in the names of these character and their names gave them power that was felt throughout the narrative and the dialogue among the characters.
Something that seems especially “Celtic” was the normality of some of the characters having magical power. Not everyone had powers, which then just emphasizes that characters importance in the story. Benedict Crows, from branch two, being a giant, and Gwydion, from branch four, being a very complex magician were the two characters that really stood out to me because of how little their characteristics were glorified. It is as if it should not matter that that have magical qualities and should be taken as normal.
When Listening to the interview I found it helpful when they mentioned that stories weren’t just bedtime stories. These stories were told around a great hall full of people who have been eating and drinking and enjoying their time together. It made me think that even though one person might have written these stories, what was published is not the original story. The stories have been changed over time from the amount of times they have been retold before it was recorded. Makes me thing about how many times someone put in new details to the story to fit the situation they were A story is told to reflect the situation around the story teller, which is never the same for story tellers.
Cassandra's Celtic Blog 