Peredur - Peredur Son of Efrawg (Middle Welsh Arthurian Romance)

Peredur Son of Efrawg (Middle Welsh Arthurian Romance)

The Peredur who is most familiar to a modern audience is the character of this name who made his entrance as a knight in the Arthurian world of Middle Welsh prose literature. The earliest such Arthurian text, Culhwch and Olwen, does not mention Peredur in any of its extended catalogues of famous and less famous warriors. He is, however, the protagonist of a later Middle Welsh text, Peredur son of Efrawg, which is one of the three Arthurian Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion, along with Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain and Geraint and Enid. It is generally acknowledged that the text is related to Chrétien de Troyes' unfinished Old French poem Perceval (c. 1181 x 1191), but the nature of this relation has been a topic of lively debate, notably the question if and to what extent the Welsh tale was adapted from Perceval. The earliest four manuscripts in which Peredur is contained are: Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 7, MS Peniarth 14, the White Book of Rhydderch (MSS Peniarth 4 and 5), and the Red Book of Hergest (Oxford, Jesus College MS 111). On orthographic grounds, Glenys Goetinck postulates a date in the 12th century, before the composition of Chrétien's poem, suggesting that Peredur is to be understood as an independent creation. Many other scholars, however, have favoured a later date. John Carey argues that "verbal parallels between the two stories are so close as to make it seem undeniable that the former drew upon the latter ."

If Peredur corresponds with Chrétien's work in broad outlines, it also significantly diverges from it. In a large series of episodes, Peredur son of Efrawg tells the story of Peredur's education as a knight. It begins with his birth and secluded upbringing as a naive boy by his widowed mother. When he meets a group of knights, he joins them on their way to King Arthur's court. Once there, he is ridiculed by Cei and sets out on further adventures, promising to avenge Cei's insults to himself and those who defended him. While travelling he meets two of his uncles. The first, who is analogous to the Gornemant of Perceval, trains him in arms and warns him not to ask the significance of what he sees. The second uncle is analogous to Chrétien's Fisher King, but what Peredur sees being carried before him in his uncle's castle is not a "grail" (Old French graal), but a salver containing a man's severed head. The text agrees with the French poem in listing a bleeding lance among the items which are carried in procession. The young knight does not ask about significance of these items and proceeds to further adventure, including a stay with the Nine Witches of Gloucester and the encounter with the woman who was to be his true love, Angharad Golden-Hand. Peredur returns to Arthur's court, but soon embarks on another series of adventures that do not correspond to material in Perceval. Eventually, the hero learns the severed head at his uncle's court belonged to his cousin, who had been killed by the Nine Witches of Gloucester. Peredur avenges his family and is celebrated as a hero. Several elements in the story, such as the severed head on a salver, a hunt for a unicorn, the witches of Gloucester and a magical board of gwyddbwyl, have all been described as identifiably Celtic ingredients which are not otherwise present in Chrétien's story. Goetinck sees in Peredur a variant on the Celtic theme of the sovereignty goddess, who personifies the country and has to be won sexually by the rightful king or heir in order to secure peace and prosperity for the kingdom. N. Petrovskaia has recently suggested an alternative interpretation, linking the figure of the Empress with Empress Matilda.

This Peredur makes brief cameo appearances elsewhere. The romance Geraint and Enid includes Peredur son of Efrawg in a list of warriors accompanying Geraint, along with many of the greatest nobles of King Arthur's domain. A comparable list in the last pages of Breuddwyd Rhonabwy ("The Dream of Rhonabwy") refers to a Peredur Paladr Hir ("of the Long Spear-Shaft"), whom Peter Bartrum identifies as the same figure.