'Mabinogi', derived from the word 'mab', originally meant 'boyhood' or 'youth' but gradually came to mean 'tale of a hero's boyhood' and eventually, simply, 'a tale'. The word 'mabinogion', which she assumed was the plural form of 'mabinogi', appears only once in the manuscripts she translated and is commonly dismissed as a transcription error. Ironically the title, The Mabinogion, is a relatively modern one, coined mistakenly by Lady Charlotte Guest herself. It is from this older, oral tradition of story telling that many of the fantastic and supernatural elements of the tales have come. Preserved in written form in the White Book of Rhydderch (1300-1325) and the Red Book of Hergest (1375-1425), portions of the stories were written as early as the second half of the 11th century, and some stories are much older still. The tales, which are outwardly concerned with the lives of various Welsh royal families - figures who represent the gods of an older, pre-Christian mythological order - are themselves much older in origin. It first came to general literary prominence in the mid 19th century, when Lady Charlotte Guest published her translation of 11 medieval Welsh folk tales under the title The Mabinogion. The book has been widely influential, giving rise to timeless literary figures such as Arthur and Merlin, and providing the basis of much European and world literature - the fantasy fiction genre, so popular today, was practically unknown before its publication.
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