Bitching about Medieval Literature

To wrap up the podcast, this episode celebrates the wonderful work of translators, in particular, the wonderful work of Maria Devana Headley in 'Beowulf: A New Translation'. With a mixture of poetry extracts and prose summaries, we tell the story of Beowulf, AND nerd out about translation, all in under an hour.

WARNINGS: Some gore in the various monster fights

The final episode of the Mabinogion has everything: curses, magical disguises, trickery, women made out of flowers, secret love affairs, betrayal, poetry, hero children, shoemaking, riddles, gory revenge, and of course, misogyny. Join us, for the second last time, as we wrap up the Fourth Branch.

WARNINGS: A woman is publically asked to undergo a magical virginity check, which reveals she is not a virgin by causing her to instantly 'drop' a healthy baby and a 'small something'. 

This week, we have the first half of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, in which we meet the ruling family of Gwynedd, in the north. One of the king's nephews is wasting away for love of the king's footholder (no, literally, that's her job), so the king's OTHER nephew starts a war to get the king out of town. When the king comes back and uncovers the whole story, he demonstrates why you shouldn't piss off magic users and assault their household.

WARNINGS: Rape. The plot of this episode revolves around making it possible for one character to rape the woman he has been lusting over. This is directly discussed in timestamp 11:25-11:54 and timestamp 16:29-17:18. There is a fairly fucked up punishment for the two brothers involved in plotting the assault: they are transformed into a series of animals and enchanted so that they breed with each other for three years in a row.

Pryderi and his wife are hanging out with Rhiannon and her second husband, Manawydan, when suddenly all the people, domesticated animals, and signs of civilisation disappear from Dyfed. They proceed to do not very much about it for several years, until Manawydan gets cranky about his wheat disappearing and decides to take revenge on a mouse.

WARNING: Animal cruelty. Protagonist intends to (but does not actually) hang a mouse. Like, from a mini-gallows.

In this story, the king of Ireland comes to visit the king of Britain to ask for his sister's hand in marriage. This would have been fine, except the king's half-brother Efnysien exists. There's no happy ending for this one - by the end of the story, almost all of the named characters are dead.

WARNINGS. Animal cruelty: A character maims a large number of horses - I give verbal warning before this happens. Horrifying execution methods: in a story told by Matholowch, a group of people are trapped in an iron house which is heated up around them - only two escape. Domestic-ish violence: a king decides to punish his wife for the past actions of her family by making her work in the kitchens and get hit by a butcher every day. Graphically described gore: A character kills a bunch of hidden enemies by crushing their skulls with his bare hands - I give verbal warning before this happens. Murder of a child: A character throws his young nephew into a fire, shocking and distressing literally everyone - I give verbal warning before this happens.

We return to the adventures of Pwyll and Rhiannon: how their firstborn child mysteriously disappeared, Rhiannon got framed for it, and a random nobleman eventually worked out that his mysterious foundling might be Pwyll's kid.

WARNINGS. Animal cruelty, gaslighting, innocent people getting punished, weird punishments: When the baby goes missing, the women who were supposed to be watching him and Rhiannon decide to kill a puppy and make it look like Rhiannon ate the baby. They insist to Rhiannon that she DID kill the child, and frame her for the crime. Rhiannon is punished by being made to tell the story to strangers over and over again, and carry them on her back.

The prince of Dyfed pisses off the king of the otherworld and swaps places with him to earn his forgiveness. It also teaches him a few lessons about kingship. Later, he decides to go to a place where mysterious things happen, a mysterious woman shows up, and he manages to almost completely ruin things before she salvages the situation on his behalf.

WARNINGS: Risk of sex by deception. A character in disguise does NOT sleep with the wife of the guy he's impersonating, which surprises both the guy and his wife when they find out about it. Violence.  A guy is trapped in a bag and a whole lot of people come by and kick the bag around.

In which a dude called Rhonabwy has a weird dream.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Unhygenic environment: the protagonist takes shelter in a hut where the floor is covered in cow droppings and urine, which is described in more detail than necessary. Gore/Violence: a battle between people and ravens where both are described getting injured, dismembered, killed in a fair amount of detail.

In the final part of Geraint's adventures, he defeats a few more people, nearly gets killed by some giants, and then realises he's been an ass when he hears Elen's distress at his injury. He doesn't apologise, though.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Gore, in the various combat scenes. Also, when Elen thinks Geraint is almost dead, a dude gets frustrated and hits her. Geraint is generally not much of a shit to Elen in this episode, but he also doesn't apologise.

Geraint's dad calls him home to take over his kingdom, and after a few years of glorious tournaments, Geraint runs out of people to fight and slips into a life of decadent idleness. When Enid mourns this change in him, Geraint completely misinterprets her, decides she's cheating on him, and starts a new quest out of spite. 

CONTENT WARNINGS: Controlling relationship. Geraint decides (without evidence) that Enid is unfaithful, makes her go on a quest with him into the wilderness with basically no supplies, orders her to be silent, berates her when she isn't, puts her in dangerous situations, repeatedly threatens her in a way she takes seriously. Threats of sexual assault. Various people they encounter on Geraint's quest plan to kill Geraint and take Enid for themselves, and Enid overhears these plans each time. When she refuses an earl's proposition, he threatens to kill her husband, take her, and then throw her aside whenever he loses interest.