Reclaiming the Spoils of Annwfyn: Regia Altera and the landscape of the Mabinogi

by Gerard Beggan

Using multidisciplinary research methods the origins of the famed Mabinogi legends were found at a pre-historic royal site in the west of Ireland. Contrary to scholarly interpretations, the Middle Welsh poem Preiddeu Annwn is a poetic account of a real event, that being an attack by Welsh Normans on an abbey at that site and the seizure of texts. These texts of legends and poetry were translated to Welsh, modified and woven into the Welsh landscape. These are now promulgated as medieval Welsh...