Memory in Action: Narration, Communication and the Repertoire of a Passive Tradition-Bearer

Abstract

The subject of this article is memory and narration, with particular reference to one Welsh tradition-bearer. Wales, a westerly facing peninsula on the mainland of Britain, is just over 8,000 square miles in size and has a present population of just under three million. Its native language, Welsh, belongs to the Celtic, Indo-European group and was first spoken in the sixth century. Not surprisingly, it has a long and rich folk narrative tradition (Rhŷs 1901; Jones 1930; Parry 1955; Roberts 1988; Stephens 1998). The eleven classic tales known as the Mabinogion were described by Professors Gwyn and Thomas Jones as being amongst ‘the finest flowerings of the Celtic genius and, taken together, a masterpiece of our medieval European literature’ (Jones and Jones 1949, ix; see also Mac Cana 1977; Davies 1992, 1995). However, since the Middle Ages in Wales there have been no professional storytellers with a large repertoire of extended, heroic tales of magic (märchen), so characteristic of other countries, such as its Celtic neighbour, Ireland. Even so, there has been right down to our own day and age no shortage of brief local legends relating to the supernatural, brief socio-historical legends, and jokes and anecdotes, and the role of the ordinary storyteller in the community was and, to a very great extent, still is an important one (Gwyndaf 1987–88, 1989, 1990, 1992–93, 1994).