Skip to main content

Reading Notes: Mabinogi Madness


For my second reading this week I chose the Mabinogi or the Mabinogion. I chose it because the description sounded interesting and the stories didn't seem to be any that I knew. I didn't realize that all of the first part of the unit was about the same character, but I am glad that it was. I haven't read many stories this year that are that continuous so I found it refreshing. I chose the picture above because this is what I imagined the horse that Arawn was ridding when he entered the clearing. Because this is such a long story, I would likely only write a story based on a portion of it. Because of this I chose to take notes over "Pwyll Goes Hunting" and "In the Stead of Arawn." Here are the notes I took while I was reading:
  • Pwyll, Prince of Dyved, Lord of the Seven Cantrevs of Dyved
  • Pwyll wanted to go hunting and chose to do so in Glyn Cuch
  • He got to Glyn Cuch let his dogs go and started after them
  • He hears other dogs barking that aren’t his dogs and they are coming from the opposite direction
  • When they get to the edge of a clearing Pwyll can see the other dog chasing down a stag
  • The dogs are white with red ears and red eyes
  • He drove off the other dogs to let his dogs at the stag
  • While he is doing this he sees a horseman coming
  • The horse is light grey and the rider is in grey woolen hunting gear
  • The rider is annoyed at Pwyll and refuses to great him
  • Pwyll asks why the man will not great him
  • The rider says because of Pwyll’s ignorance and lack of courtesy
  • Pwyll doesn’t understand how he has been discourteous
  • The rider points out that driving away the dogs that brought down the stag to let his own dogs have it is discourteous, and therefore the rider will do Pwyll dishonor
  • Pwyll wants to know how he can fix this, how he can make amends and become the rider’s friend
  • This is when Pwyll finds out the the rider is Arawn King of Annwyn
  • Arawn tells Pwyll that to gain his friendship he should trade places with him in his court and a year later when Arawn is set to fight another king, Arawn should strike him down but not deliver a final blow
  • Pwyll agrees, and Arawn makes Pwyll look just like him, and himself look just like Pwyll
  • They go to each other’s kingdoms and rule for a year
  • When it is time for Pwyll to go fight Arawn’s enemy, he does as he was told: he strikes him down but doesn’t kill him
  • After the men following the fallen man pledge allegiance to Pwyll
  • Then Pwyll’s nobles say he should be the lord of all and so he conquered the country
  • He then when to meet Arawn at the appointed time and place and both were restored to their proper forms 



Bibliography
The Mabinogion by Lady Charlotte Guest

Photo Credit
The Horse by Katrina_S via Pixabay 



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Feedback Strategies

Hello,  This week I learned more about feedback, and specifically ways to give better feedback. Here I would like to share with you some of the articles I read and what I found useful or interesting. "How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn" gave some general advice on what kinds of feedback should be given to help others. This included things that for the most part I had heard, such as making it goal oriented, actionable, and specific. Although this is good advice, it wasn't really things I hadn't heard before. Looking over at " Three Simple Frameworks for Feedback " I saw something that I wasn't really expecting. This article took some of the same ideas as "How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn" and provided specific tools (diagrams to be filled out, and phrases) that can help people put those ideas into action easily. I would definitely recommend taking a look at the ch...

Reading Notes: Lang European Fairy Tales II: Blue Beard

I am doing some week 15 assignments here during dead week to fill in some missing points. Because I read the first Lang unit last week and enjoyed it so much, I decided to read the second Lang unit this week. Of the stories that I read here are my notes over "Blue Beard" which I found quite exciting! Blue Beard was very rich, but considered ugly and terrifying for having a blue beard I would like to research to see if this is a reference to something else, because it is so strange  He also had had many wives previously and no one knew what happened to them  One of his neighbors had two daughters and he wanted to marry one of them  Neither of them wanted to marry him and kept playing him off on the other  To persuade them, Blue Beard invited the family and many others to one of his estates and they partied for a week After that, the younger sister decided he wasn't so bad and they were married  Blue Beard has to go away on business so he gives all...

Reading Notes: Persian Tales Part A

Hello!  This week I chose to read the Persian Tales unit and was not disappointed. Some of these fairy tales like “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” and “The Wolf-Aunt” reminded me of the Brother’s Grim Fairytales in their more original forms. The others seemed a little more child friendly like we might expect of fairytales today. Thinking of my story for this week, any of them could make a fun base for writing, but I think that the ones that would be the best to work with would be “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul,” “Nim Tanak,” or “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer.” For “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” I would make the circumstances of the boy’s death make more sense to a modern reader, not just based on a bet with his father that he willingly submits to. I would also want to somehow bring the boy back, maybe instead of the Bulbul growing out of the stalk, he does. Or maybe his father doesn’t kill him but hides him instead. Either way I would like for the boy to live. For “Nim T...