Kath Filmer-Davies

I sincerely hope you will find more in this book than I do.

I say that, because presumably you are buying it, you are interested in Welsh folklore (let's not say "myth," since that can be misinterpreted) as well as in modern fantasy. I'm certainly interested in Welsh folklore, including the Mabinogion -- but of all the many fantasy books cited in here, the only ones I've read are Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. Indeed, I bought the book specifically because it was supposed to have very good insights into Alexander.

To give the book its due, Prydain is given unusually detailed attention in the chapter "The Place of the Pig-Keeper: To Know Oneself." No other author gets such a long chapter all to himself (although Stephen Lawhead may get more mentions overall). But the chapter on Prydain is... not superficial, exactly; for the most part, it understands the point of the books. But the details are often very inaccurate. For example, page 71 refers to "Arvon, which I assume is Caernarfon." But there is no reference to "Arvon" in the books (I verified my memory by checking Michael O. Tunnell's The Prydain Companion). I assume the reference to Avren -- the river Avren, which, however, has nothing to do with Caernarfon; the Avren is the Severn. There are many similar errors; the book really seems to be based on memories of a superficial reading.

And Filmer-Davies has not studied the history of the works; she clearly assumes they were written in the internal order of the events. But, in fact, the fifth book, The High King, was written before the fourth, Taran Wanderer. This doesn't affect the story itself, which flows smoothly, but it should affect how we understand the story: Alexander tried to write his tale without showing Taran having to learn that life is not always glory and romance, and that there is a difference between social role and being one's self. It didn't work. So Alexander had to go back and write Taran Wanderer, even though it means a whole book without Eilonwy, the brightest and most interesting character in the series (and Alexander's attempt to promote women's rights in a genre that all too often treated women as if it were still the Middle Ages. There have been women who criticized Eilonwy's role -- in the end, she sacrificed more than she should have had to for Taran -- but there is no question but that Alexander meant her to show that women deserved every right and honor that men deserved. As Alexander later said, he didn't know any stupid or incapable women!).

I think Filmer-Davies also fails to understand the Welsh element in the Chronicles. The "Welsh-ness" is indispensable to the Chronicles (anyone who has read Alexander's other works will know how much richer Prydain is than anything else he wrote) -- but the tales are not Welsh. Prydain is not a retelling of The Mabinogion, nor is it a retelling of the Arthur legend in any of its forms, even though it ends with an unknown becoming a King. The thematic elements are straight out of medieval romance, although with an egalitarianism that is more Welsh (or American, or Mongol for that matter!) than English. The Welsh elements give the story a Tolkien-esque richness that would not otherwise be there, but if Alexander had adopted (say) Maori myth, he probably could have told almost the same story, except that the names wouldn't be as pretty as those so-evocative Welsh words.

That's too much attention to pay to a chapter that is, after all, only a tenth of the book. But it's the only part I can judge fairly -- and it is, at best, erratic and unreliable. Which obviously implies that the rest, which I cannot judge, is also unreliable. Filmer-Davies is right that Welsh myth has had a lot of influence on modern fantasy (after all, she fills a whole book without even mentioning Evangeline Walton!). This is a topic that deserves a detailed study. But I fear that this is not it.… (plus d'informations)

The author of numerous scholarly articles devoted to the influence of Welsh mythology and folklore on modern fantasy literature, former University of Queensland professor Kath Filmer-Davies published this book-length study of the subject in 1996. Unlike Donna R. White and C.W. Sullivan, who have also published books on this topic, Filmer-Davies has some knowledge of the Welsh language, which gives her work an added depth of understanding, I think...

More than just a catalogue of the various authors who have adapted traditional Welsh tales for a new genre, Filmer-Davies' work seeks to examine the ways that this genre - fantasy fiction - addresses a fundamental human need: the desire for a sense of community, a sense of belonging. Many, many scholars have noted the use of folklore in fantasy fiction, and this book hones in on one of the most important sociological explanations for such borrowing/adaptation. As such, it dovetails very nicely with much of my own thinking on the subject, and was therefore both informative and reassuring.

Filmer-Davies discusses some well-known fantasy authors, both for children and adults, among them Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle, Alan Garner and Stephen Lawhead. She goes further however, and also traces the influence of Welsh tradition on writers of historical fiction, such as Sharon Penman, Edith Pargeter and Barbara Erskine. Here I found myself at something of a loss, as I am less familiar with this genre, although the general discussion was still enlightening. All in all, this was a thoughtful work, which has been very influential in the development of my own ideas on the subject, and my ambitions in the field.… (plus d'informations)