Mathew Francis ( Born 1956)

Rhiannon: ‘a woman wearing a shining garment of brocaded silk on a big, fine, pale white horse’..

This extract is taken from ‘The Mabinogi’, (Faber 2017), Francis’ retelling of the first four stories in the collection of eleven Medieval Welsh prose stories printed in English as The Mabinogion. The Mabinogi is the name given to the first four stories.

In this extract from the first story, Pwyll, who is prince of Dyfed, has been told that if he sits on Gorsedd Arberth, a hill overlooking his court, one of two things will happen: wounds or blows, or he will see a wonder. Because he is with an armed retinue he isn’t worried about being struck and wounded. As they sit on the hill, they see a rider approaching.

Although she seems to be ambling past, the boy sent to run after her cannot catch her. On the second day Pwyll sends a rider. No matter how fast threader drives his horse, she increases the gap between them without changing her pace.

On the third day Pwyll himself tries to catch her, and is failing miserably when he asks her to stop.

Gladly she says, and it would have been better for your horse if you’d asked a lot sooner.

Francis’ poem is not a translation, but a retelling that stays close to the original. But he captures the dreamlike quality of the original, and suggests that what we’re reading is both event and metaphor.

You can read a brief discussion the whole book here: here

(Clicking on the link will take you to a page on WWW.Liamguilar.com).

If you want to read a prose version of The Mabinogion in modern English, Sioned Davis’ version for Oxford World Classics (2008/2018) is justifiably famous.