The Red Book of Hergest
Llyfr Coch Hergest

Written on vellum, 13 3/8" x 8 1/4", 362 folios. Bicolumnar, numbered 1--1442. Mostly written between 1375-1425, it is the work of on Hywel Fychan fab Hywel Goch of Fuellt, for his employer, Hopcyn ap Tomas ap Einion of Ynys Tawe. So called for the red leather binding, rebound again in moroccan leather added in 1851, and for the house of Hergest, Herfordshire, where it was compiled. Presented in 1701 to Jesus College, Oxford, by a Rev. T. Wilkins, of Llanbleithain, Glamorgan in Wales. It is best known as the source of the Mabinogion, as well as having much of its poetry reproduced in The Four Ancient Books of Wales. Images of the great text can be found here.

In 2007, the entirety of the prose texts from the manuscript were put online by the "Rhyddiaith Gymraeg 1350–1425" (Welsh Prose) project by the University of Wales. The hyperlinks below in the Cymraeg column will redirect to that site. The poetry, however, is hosted on the present site, with translations by Skene.

The majority of the translations I am using here are from The Four Ancient Books of Wales, by W. F. Skene, 1868. Unfortunately, they are probably not the most accurate translations, but they are the only ones which, to my knowledge, are public domain. (Even at that I'm not sure, though the book is well out of print.)

The contents of the book are thus:

NOTES 1. This text is provided via Google Books. As such, you will likely have to set up a free account at Google in order to view the book. I will eventually have time to scan the text myself, and host the translation on my site.

© Mary Jones 2015