mabinogi
A Welsh mythological tale; sometimes extended to include similar tales of medieval European traditions.
I recollect a Mabinogi, or mythological tale, respecting this piece of water, which runs thus: - In ancient times a door in a rock near tins lake was found open upon a certain day every year.
Such tales considered collectively, especially the main sequence of four tales written in Middle Welsh, more commonly known as the Mabinogion or the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
Here the confusion is between the raid on Annwyn by Pryderi which, as I hope on a later occasion to show, is the basic myth of Branwen, and the deliverance of Gweir from Caer Siddi, but under all the confusion is the definite connexion of Gweir with the ‘tale of Pwyll and Pryderi’ which I take to represent a stage in the cyvarwyddyd on which the first and third Branches were founded; in short, Gweir is one of the protagonists of the mabinogi tradition, the saga of Pryderi.
Where it comes from
Originally arising through erroneous interpretations of Middle Welsh terms; the scribal error mabynnogyon being construed as the plural for Welsh mabinogi, which is already plural. See citation 1887 below. More information at Mabinogion.
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry mabinogi (CC BY-SA 4.0).