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We are perfectly well aware that there have been and are Welsh scholars far better equipped than we are to present a new translation, and it may appear rash of us to attempt to supply the need; but, for one reason or another, ninety years have passed by since Lady Guest’s work, without any of them undertaking the task, and we have been unable to observe any sign of the task being undertaken in the present generation. Meanwhile there is an undoubted desire, steadily growing, in scholastic and scholarly circles, for a version more accurate in details than that which has hitherto been available. It is that demand which we attempt to meet in these volumes; and our hope is that, in spite of our personal limitations, the attempt will prove not altogether without utility.

Any one translating from Welsh into English literally is confronted with the difficulty that arises from the difference in the structures of the two languages. It is much easier to render literary Welsh into literary English than it is to do so into literal English. We have tried to preserve a correct balance, and to give a literal translation in a literary form, retaining, as far as possible, Welsh idioms, so long as they can be reproduced without violence to the genius of the English language.

As our primary object is to translate, we have been constrained to place upon ourselves a rigid limit both in our introductory notes and the notes at the foot of each page. We have, for example, made no attempt to discuss on the one hand the underlying mythological