The Mabinogion · 192 of 192 · tr. Lady Charlotte Guest

Tale TALIESINm

containing the Graal in Welsh, as early as the time of Henry I.

I had hoped to have added this to the present collection; but the death of Col.

Vaughan, to whom I applied, and other subsequent circumstances, have prevented me from obtaining access to it.

[2] Hades.

[3] The word “Pryder” or “Pryderi” means anxiety.

[4] The version in the Greal adds, “And their coin was fairy money;” literally, dwarf’s money: that is, money which, when received, appeared to be good coin, but which, if kept, turned into pieces of fungus, &c.

[5] This dialogue consists of a series of repartees with a play upon words, which it is impossible to follow in the translation.

[6] Taliesin.

[7] The mention of Gwyddno Garanhir instead of Elphin ab Gwyddno in this place is evidently an error of some transcriber of the MS.

Themes

◆Animismcosmology

The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.

The passage references 'fairy money' and 'dwarf's money,' implying a worldview where supernatural beings possess agency over material objects.

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◆Renunciation Of Wealthethics

The spiritual danger of attachment to material possessions; wealth as a spiritual obstacle.

The description of fairy money turning to fungus if kept serves as a motif warning against the retention or attachment to material wealth.

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◆Shapeshifting Transformationtheology

Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.

The text describes money that transforms into 'pieces of fungus' if kept, illustrating a magical alteration of form.

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