Because everyone needs animated films involving severed heads

[rymenhild]

I just discovered, in a comment thread at boingboing (which follows a hilarious post, by the way), that a Welsh TV channel has made an animated film of the Mabinogion. Y Mabinogi, or The Otherworld, apparently exists in both English and Welsh, and includes Ioan Gruffudd as the voice of Bendigeidfran (although I don't know whether he's cast in both the English and Welsh versions).

I must see this film, if only because the movie website has a shot of Bendigeidfran's head on a stretcher. Alas, it appears that there are no DVDs being sold. I checked iTunes and found a great bilingual retelling of the making of Blodeuwedd, but no animated Four Branches. Youtube searches for "Y Mabinogi" or "Otherworld" bring up video game clips and scenes from unrelated anime. Can any of you help me find the movie? (I'd prefer either the English version or, even better, Welsh with subtitles!)

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

Oh, that would be fun!

I finally read the Mabinogion while on vacation. Found the four branches fascinating and need to read them again. Will probably do so without rereading all the Arthurian stuff afterwards, which was far less interesting, to me. (But then, I've never been much of an Arthurian girl, so this only confirms what I knew!)

I also I think I nominate the tales for the most pleasant and cheerful use of a severed head in literature ever.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

I also I think I nominate the tales for the most pleasant and cheerful use of a severed head in literature ever.

Okay. Clearly I need to finish the Mabinogion. I had intended to, anyway, but you just pushed it up on the priority list.

Also, I am with you on Arthurian tales.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

He is a very cheerful severed head, and an excellent conversationalist. He and his friends have a dinner party that lasts eighty years, and it's really a great party, because everyone there has magically forgotten that they just came from a miserable battle in Ireland and almost all of their friends and family members are dead.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait, I might have read that bit, then. Or else you told me about it.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by the Welsh treatments of the Arthurian material -- they differ from Chretien's versions in intriguing ways -- but I do like the Four Branches better myself.

Did you get as far as the Dream of Rhonabwy? It may be Arthurian, but it's as utterly bizarre and awesome as the weirder parts of the Four Branches. Symbolic board game wars! People noted for wisdom and courtesy randomly splashing other people in the river! All sorts of complicated political satire!

[janni.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes--that board game competition was pretty cool! As was the raven/man war behind it.

I got all the way through, because I was feeling stubborn that way, and also because if I put it aside I'd have had to carry the larger and heavier Iliad that was my only other vacation reading instead. :-)

[darcydodo]

No, but I do think I recall seeing that the video game you mention is the first video game to be based on Welsh mythology. :)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Really? Is it any good?

I love the icon, by the way.

[darcydodo]

I have absolutely no idea.

And thanks. :)

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Do you mean this one?

[darcydodo]

I honestly have no idea. :)

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I've caught up on my RSS/Atom feeds and found what I think rymenhild saw, an ITM link to this review of a game released last month.

I suspect any "first such" claim automatically re: games, actually, since game reviewers are very, very bound by when they became aware of gaming markets. (Markets, plural :P and age, to some extent.)

[darcydodo]

Yes, that was the one!

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

It's a bad day for Welsh.

I'm vaguely tempted to add the Mabinogion to my shelf of audiobooks. How readable is it? My concentration's not great at the moment.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Yes - that BBC article inspired the boingboing link.

How readable is the Mabinogion? Well, that really depends on the translation. The best for your purposes is probably Sioned Davies' recent translation, which is in fluent English and really focuses on showing how the stories sound like oral narratives. That said, it's probably not available as an audiobook yet. Most of the older translations either cut out the interesting parts or slavishly imitate the Welsh grammar in ways that make the English nearly incomprehensible.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

I don't get a choice about the translation here. The RNIB recording has Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, Dent 1993, as the author, by which I assume they mean the translators. (The RNIB catalogue commits a number of crimes against literacy.) Any use?

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Jones and Jones is the Everyman edition, which most people who've read it in English have read. I read it after reading Patrick Ford's but before actually studying any Welsh, which means I no longer remember whether I found bits incomprehensible, but certainly it didn't hurt me. :) Were I you, I'd go for it.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

I liked the Jones & Jones translation. It would be interesting to listen to the audiobook version!

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I think that's the one I actually haven't read. Listen to thistleingrey and ayelle instead!

[fire-and-a-rose.livejournal.com]

I will check around and see if I can find it on some sites I know. :)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Thank you for hunting!

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Frustratingly enough, the uni library doesn't seem to have it. :p I expect I can find it around though--there is a very Welsh bookshop in the centre of town where I seem to remember seeing it, I think--but I don't have a way to rip it to my computer. If I can sort that out, though...heck, if nothing else I have a friend who works for S4C, I'm sure SOMEONE here has it.

I remember going on a quest for it a few years back and couldnt find anything then, either. :(

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, you have Extra Resources! If you do find it, please let me know. :D

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

If all else fails, do you have a way to play a region 2 DVD? Because it might be simpler to, you know, buy it and post it over to you. ;)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Hm. I don't actually know! I may have to do research. Is it purchasable on your end of the pond?

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I'm not absolutely certain. But I am pretty sure that if Siop y Pethe doesn't have it, that they'd be able to get it if it's at all available. They're the little very natioalistic welsh shop where they don't like speaking english even to tourists. ;)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Awesome. If you find it, I'll figure some solution for the regional coding.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Cool. We'll get it worked out! I'll still see if I can't find a copy I can borrow and rip (if I work out how to do THAT) first. ;)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

You are a tireless purveyor of Welsh culture.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I want to see it too! And I have to be a good little socialist and spread the wealth, right? ;)

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Once you have it ripped (the tutorials here tend to be pretty good), rymenhild should be able to play the resulting .avi (or format of your choice) without regard to region, if she uses a laptop. If you have a choice of encoding compression, XviD is good.

I, um, watch a lot of Asian dramas.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[liquoricesun.livejournal.com]

(sorry for procrastinating by stalking your lj!) but... if you ever found/ find it, can you let me know where??? (I tried in a very very nationalistic Welsh-language bookshop last year, but no luck... and when I met Sioned Davies, she promised it to me but then never sent it!!)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping ashkitty finds it somewhere. She's a lot closer to the source than I am! But if anyone around here finds it, I will certainly let you know.

And no problem about stalking my LJ. Come in and stay a while. There aren't that many fangirl palaeographers on LJ. (Although there are more of us than I ever would have expected!)