Editing Mabinogion (section)

==Etymology==
The name first appears in 1795 in [[William Owen Pughe]]'s translation of ''[[Pwyll]]'' in the journal ''Cambrian Register'' under the title "The Mabinogion, or Juvenile Amusements, being Ancient Welsh Romances".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=uO9ZDgAAQBAJ&dq=%22The+Mabinogion%2C+or+Juvenile+Amusements%2C+being+Ancient+Welsh+Romances.%22&pg=PT19 Peter Stevenson, ''Welsh Folk Tales''. The History Press, 2017, np]</ref> The name appears to have been current among Welsh scholars of the London-Welsh Societies and the regional [[eisteddfod]]au in Wales. It was inherited as the title by the first publisher of the complete collection, [[Lady Charlotte Guest]].

The form ''mabynnogyon'' occurs once at the end of the first of the ''[[Four Branches of the Mabinogi]]'' in one manuscript. It is now generally agreed that this one instance was a mediaeval scribal error which assumed 'mabinogion' was the plural of 'mabinogi', which is already a [[Welsh language|Welsh]] plural occurring correctly at the end of the remaining three branches.<ref>S Davies trans. ''The Mabinogion'' (Oxford 2007) pp. ix–x</ref>

The word ''mabinogi'' itself is something of a puzzle, although clearly derived from the Welsh ''mab'', which means "son, boy, young person".<ref>I. Ousby (ed.), ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (Cambridge 1995), p. 579</ref> As early as 1632 the lexicographer [[John Davies (Mallwyd)|John Davies]] quotes a sentence from ''[[Math fab Mathonwy]]'' with the notation "Mabin" in his ''Antiquae linguae Britannicae ... dictionarium duplex'', article "Hob". [[Eric P. Hamp]], of the earlier school traditions in mythology, found a suggestive connection with [[Maponos]], "the Divine Son", a [[Gallo-Roman religion|Gaulish deity]].

Sioned Davies suggests the title ''Mabinogi'' properly applies only to the Four Branches,<ref>Sioned Davies (translator). ''The Mabinogion'' (Oxford 2007), p. ix–x.</ref> which is a tightly organised quartet very likely by one author, where the other seven stories are very diverse. Each of these four tales ends with the [[colophon (publishing)|colophon]] "thus ends this branch of the Mabinogi" (in various spellings), hence the name.<ref>Sioned Davies (translator), ''The Mabinogion'' (Oxford 2007), p. x.</ref>