Peredur vab Efrawc: Edited Texts and Translations of the MSS Peniarth 7 and 14 Versions

Abstract

I present for the first time edited texts alongside English translations of the Middle Welsh Peredur vab Efrawc as it is preserved in NLW, MSS Peniarth 7 and 14 with accompanying introductory materials that treat the manuscripts, the interrelatedness among the four early manuscripts—specifically the problems associated with traditional methods of textual criticism—aspects of the language, and the date of the text. As such, I provide descriptions of Peniarth 7 and 14 along with the better known codices, the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest. Special attention is given to the former two. After noting the key orthographical features of the Peniarth 7 and 14 texts, I elaborate on certain of their phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects before broadening the discussion to include a consideration of dialects. I then move on to the vexed problem of manuscript filiation where, after highlighting some of the fundamental difficulties associated with this text in particular, I discuss some conceptual considerations with regard to textual variation in an attempt to bring us closer to the actual nature of manuscript relatedness. In a short discussion on the date of Peredur, I offer what I believe to be the safest time frame within which to consider the written composition of the text. The rest of the volume is occupied by the edited texts and their faithful English translations. To my mind, these editions and translations were much needed since the only edition of any Peredur text to appear with an English-language apparatus is that of the Red Book text by Kuno Meyer (1884), the ‘apparatus’ of which consists only of a Welsh to English glossary. To my understanding, the only English translations of these early Peredur texts are those by T.P. Ellis and John Lloyd in their The Mabinogion (1929).