Talk:Culhwch and Olwen

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[edit] And now for something completely different

Apologies to Monty Python for this section title, but it seemed fitting at the time it was written (which is now!). This note is by way of suggesting article improvement, and is not intended as criticism. I have no intent of changing the article itself, so that it fits my perspective; with consensus, the article may be changed in the course of time.

The article should include relevant translations, including descriptions, for the sake of reader understanding. The omission of those translations and descriptions has the affect that the same story will actually become two different stories, one for those with an understanding, and another for those without an understanding. It can surely be done more compactly than I have attempted below.

Also, I would disagree with the article suggestion that the story is a backdrop for lists and other such. Rather, it looks like those lists and other such were injected, likely by a transcriber with his own agenda, with perhaps a storyteller's enhancements from time to time (that is in the tradition of Welsh storytelling). In all, it does indeed seem to be a simple folk story.

• Culhwch - This is a metaphor for a poor boy, and should not be read literally. "Hwch" is the Welsh word for a sow (perhaps once used without gender implication), and "Cul" is the word for narrow. Wild boar excavate burrows. "Culhwch" is a Welsh word for such a burrow, and when used as a name, it associates the person with the burrow, whether due to low social standing or due to circumstance. Metaphorically, it refers to one of humble origins. The name also exists in Gaelic, spelled differently but pronounced similarly, and having similar connotations. When used in self-description, it implies success despite humble origins, in the sense of having an indomitable spirit, and is a source of family heritage.

• Olwen - There is a particular plant that sends out runners underground, and at intervals a runner sends up a shoot, and at each such location, a flower grows. It looks like a trace that follows the course of the runner. In the nature of peoples everywhere, whimsical stories arise. The Welsh word for a track or trace is "ôl", "gwyn" is the word for "white or fair", and "Olwen" means "White Trace" or "Fair Trace". So if one is walking along and sees this trace of flowers, one might whimsically say "Ah, Olwen has passed by here." Also in the nature of peoples everywhere, characters develop and evolve in their description: Olwen is a woman so wonderful that everywhere she steps, a flower grows; and every man who sees her falls in love with her, sometimes upon merely hearing her name; but she has a father who cannot abide suitors, because he has been told that he will die if ever she would marry.

This is a story of "poor boy makes good and wins the fair lady", common in many cultures. In the US it is called a Horatio Alger story. From the article Synopsis, one gets no sense of the culture that produced the story. The names of people, places, and things are untranslated and undescribed, when all have cultural (and relevant) meaning. The use of "king" in reference to Arthur is contentious, but that is a battle properly waged and edit-warred elsewhere, rather than within a single instance of usage, such as within this article.

Unrelated to this article but inherent in all such articles, I would suggest that lack of translation and description is a major source of honest disagreement between those who read a story with an understanding of proper meanings and culture, and those who read the same story without that understanding. The sides are both well-intentioned, but they're talking about different things, to the point that they're really talking about different stories.

I've gone on for too long, so that you've probably stopped reading this note long before reaching this point. 24.178.228.14 (talk) 21:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)