More commonly known as "The Mabinogion" ( a name popularized by Lady Charlotte Guest, from a possible error in the text), the Pedair Cainc Y Mabinogi (in Middle Welsh, Pedeir Keinc Y Mabinogi or The Four Branches of the Mabinogi) and accompanying stories come from two medieval Welsh manuscripts, primarily the Red Book of Hergest (about AD 1375-1425) and also the White Book of Rhydderch (about AD 1300-1325).

These tales were written with a medieval gloss on them (for example, mention of God, of "Lloegr" or England, as well as many social constructs, medieval in nature) and it is obvious to the studious eye that who-ever put the stories down onto paper was drawing from something far older than the Middle Ages. The Mabinogi is a kaleidoscope of characters and events, on the same level of other epics like the Poetic Eddas and the Kalevala. Whether the tales or elements in them hark back to the Celtic Iron Age, Bronze Age, or earlier, it is hard to say and takes a discerning eye--although we will probably never know for sure.

It is very likely that at some point the Mabinogi existed as part of local oral traditions from all over Wales (especially North Wales). We don't know if the stories were told together, or if they even were connected before the medieval scribe touched his vellum. Indeed, the present form we have here could have been an entirely new creative innovation, the author drawing from many stories and traditions, and unifying them. This is a more than reasonable assumption.

If we view the Mabinogi as the culmination of a long oral tradition, we realize that it is not the definitive guide to Welsh mythology, only one door of many into the Welsh psyche. For these reasons, anyone who wishes to truly enter into the stories and their depths needs to do a great deal of research both academically and also intuitively.

And indeed, as the Mabinogi grows more and more often in the minds and hearts of people, it is bound to change again. It already is, with numerous theater productions and movies coming out. Change is as natural as breathing. If the Mabinogi never changed, fixed in written script forever, it would be dead, no more alive than the hide it was written on.

It can only come back to life if we remember it, if we put it in the Cauldron and pull it out anew. The Cauldron lives in our souls, in our psyche, that great deep well of memory and magic from which none can drink without being irrevocably transformed. As we interact with the Mabinogi at a collective memory level, we find it also interacts back with us.

That is when we begin to discover the true and perhaps older nature of Y Mabinogi.