The White Trail is one of Seren Books' New Stories from the Mabinogion, a retelling of the medieval Welsh tale of Culhwch ac Olwen. This early Arthurian story described the quest of Culhwch (pronounced Kilhookh) for Olwen, a girl he had fallen violently in love with the moment he had heard about her. But to gain her hand he has to fulfill several impossible tasks set for him by Olwen's father, tasks he is only able to complete with the help of Arthur and his knights.

It is the longest of the native tales contained in the collection known as the Mabinogion and is a rich and complex narrative, with elements of folklore, fairytale, placename onomastics, Rabelaisian lists, black humour, grotesquery, puns and ritual all thrown in. A modern retelling will have to work very hard to include even a handful of these elements whilst also making it relevant and comprehensible to the reader. Fflur Dafydd makes a fair stab at this, to the extent that she reinterprets the action in a way that throws new light on the Dark Age tale but sensibly excises details that anchor Culhwch only to pre-modern times; on the other hand there are aspects of her narrative that for me technically don't work, whatever genre you choose to call it.

The closest genre that The White Trail approaches is magic realism. It makes sense to adopt this mode because its model can be similarly considered in its 11th-century context: at a time when Wales was nominally Christian Culhwch ac Olwen includes much primitive matter of a pagan nature involving ritual slaughter, magical beasts, giants and so on. To transform the fairytale feel into total realism would be to lose all sense of dream and wonder and magic, quite apart from rendering the story totally beyond credence.

The original was tripartite in structure: there was an introduction narrating the circumstances of Culhwch's birth, upbringing and his seeking help from his cousin Arthur to woo Olwen; this is followed by Olwen's father Ysbaddaden Pencawr ("Chief Giant") setting tasks for Culhwch to achieve before the marriage can take place; finally, the tasks are accomplished with the help of Arthur and his men, the Giant overcome and killed and Olwen won at last. Dafydd retains a three-part structure for her version but refocuses the story by making Culhwch's father Cilydd (pronounced something like Killith) the main protagonist and the only character whose point of view we are party to: thus Cilydd dominates the first section, then Culhwch enters Cilydd's life, and finally Cilydd precipitates the climactic events that occur in Ysbaddaden's mansion.

At this point I should point out the significance of some of the various names we encounter, as they are not only inherent in the medieval tale but are transferred unchanged to The White Trail. Culhwch literally means 'narrow sow' but the reason he's given this name is because he's born, unexpectedly, in a pig-run. Cilydd's father takes his name simply from a traditional Welsh name for a fellow or companion. Cilydd's first wife Goleuddydd means 'light of day' -- so when she dies the light literally goes out of his life. Meanwhile, the white flowers that bloom in Olwen's footsteps are supposed to explain the meaning of her name, 'white trail'; but I suspect that there might be older pan-Celtic roots behind it and that she originally took the form of a white swan (as in all those fairytales). Olwen's father Ysbaddaden (pronounced Usbah-thad-en) derives from Welsh ysbyddaden, which is the Welsh for 'hawthorn'; the tree is known for its prickles of course, but the haw or fruit of the hawthorn is known to have sedative properties, a fact which Fflur Dafydd seems to have grasped and used to some effect in the final section.

That's the background explanations done with, so now for some critique. Dafydd has successfully transplanted these principal characters to a modern-day Wales -- though a Wales with unidentified topography -- and has infused a degree of psychology into Cilydd's character. He is tormented first by his wife's disappearance, then by discovering she has died from some crude caesarian operation in a pigsty. His cousin Arthur, an unsuccessful private eye, promises to keep searching for the missing son. Cilydd, meanwhile, throws himself into supporting a missing-persons organisation but still finds himself in a downward spiral and so attempts suicide, with unforeseen repercussions. He now has guilt to add to his sense of deep loss.

The White Trail thus begins as a mystery story, but when we come to the sections with Culhwch and then Ysbaddaden it rapidly shifts into magic realism mode. Everything starts to blur into a dream-like state, with time becoming elastic, inexplicable phenomena manifesting themselves and a mysterious mansion in a forest taking on the semblance of a Celtic Otherworld, only with modern architecture. I didn't mind the gradual shift towards unreality but for me much of the prose didn't gel: the conversations were too static, I didn't engage with many of the characters, and character motivations though explained didn't seem credible. The outline of the 21st-century overlay sometimes disappeared into the fairytale narrative underlying it, meaning that I found this a less than convincing piece of fiction.

I felt that the author's hope of a retelling "charging on ahead in bold realist strides with surreality [sic] trailing at its heels" was a brave attempt, but that it was actually reality that was trailing at the heels of that surrealism. I welcomed the spotlight on the figure of Cilydd but the view I had of the novella, sadly, was of staring down the wrong end of a telescope. But if it directs the reader -- as it does me -- back to its principal inspiration, Culhwch ac Olwen, then that I feel would be its main virtue.

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http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2013/02/201303-white-trail-fflur-dafydd.html ( )

An excellent read.

When I read the original in (modern) Welsh (http://www.librarything.com/work/58729/book/47628191), I was constantly amazed by the way these stories were told, quite matter-of-factly, it could have happened next door as it were, but at the same time the most strange and magical things start to happen and take over.
I think that Fflur Dafydd succeeded in conveying the same atmosphere while recreating a modern version of How Culhwch won Olwen: almost an everyday story to begin with, but the magic (hud a lledrith) slips in and gradually takes over.
I suspect that if you're Welsh and you grew up with these stories that you will enjoy it even more than I did. ( )