Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein

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The Welsh version of the Seven Sages narrative, Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein, derives from the French Version A Sept Sages tradition, according to Gadsden (2021). It survives in three manuscripts dating from the late fourteenth to late fifteenth centuries, as well as several early modern and modern manuscripts dating from the 16th to 19th centuries. One of the three medeival manuscripts, Jesus College 111, is know as the Llyfr Coch Hergest (The Red Book of Hergest), and is 'considered to be one of the greatest medieval literary treasures of Wales, containing as it does early Welsh vernacular poetry, historical texts, the Mabinogi, the Charlemagne cycle, medical instructions, agricultural advice, prophecies, proverbs, a substantial amount of ‘hengerdd’, the earliest Welsh poetry and a text on grammar' (Gadsden 2021 p. 37). Across all three medieval manuscripts, the Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein sits alongside a mixture of instructional or religious texts, short poems, Arthurian material, traditional Welsh legends, and proverbs.

Though the Welsh Seven Sages is much shorter than any of its potential French parent texts, the Welsh redactor - identified in one manuscript as 'Llewelyn Offeiriad' (Llewelyn the Priest) - was clearly conversant in French literary style. The Chwedleu echoes stylistic elements of the French parent text, but blended with traditional Welsh narrative forms and structures (sometimes replicating passages from earlier Welsh texts word for word). The redactor also introduced several distinctive elements into the text that distinguish it from other Version A texts. This is immediately obvious from the embedded tales. After the first six tales, which follow the expected Version A pattern, the text then includes Ramus - a tale unique to the Chwedleu, replacing Avis - and also a distinctive version of Roma. The rest of the tales are in an unconventional order, and, according to Gadsden, 'some are modified, with their moral or message shifting, thereby altering their impact' (p. 65). This includes the rare event of a story - Roma - that is traditionally told by the Empress instead being told by one of the sages.

Other noteworthy details unique to the Chwedleu include the fact that the Emperor's first wife is given a name, Eua, or Eve (possibly a misreading of a passage from Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 2137, according to Gadsden, p. 65). The text includes a unique digression in which the Empress searches for information about whether or not the Emperor can sire children, and learns (to her joy) of the existence of his son from a witch ('a horrid, toothless, one-eyed hag', Gadsden 2021 p. 247) - a passage lifted from the traditional tale Culhwch ac Olwen. The Chwedleu omits the name of the young seer who solves the mystery in Sapientes, which the French text gives as Merlin; however, a Welsh literary audience would already have been familiar with the figure of 'Myrddin' as a Wild Man of the Woods character (predating Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini), so the choice to leave the seer-child anonymous may have been an expedient way of avoiding confusion. A similar aim may have underscored the decision to omit Avis, Gadsden suggests (2021, p. 124). Gadsden notes that the well-known tale of Branwen, from the second branch of the Mabinogi, features a wronged wife whose is saved from torture by a talking starling who truly reports her innocence. This is, of course, the inverse of Avis - Gadsden suggests that the familiarity with this narrative may have prompted the Welsh redactor to omit the tale. Taken in sum, the Welsh text seems to have been intentionally adapted to suit the late medieval Welsh literary audience.

Though not discussed in Gadsden's work (which, as the most recent, and only extensive English scholarship devoted to the material, has been a key source for this database), the Early Modern Welsh manuscripts appear to have continued the narrative and codicological trends of the earlier Middle Welsh texts. The five sixteenth-century manuscripts discussed by Henry Lewis, and edited in his two editions (Lewis, Y Seithwyr Doethion (1925) and Lewis, Modern Welsh Versions (1929)) appear to follow the same story-order found in the earlier mansucripts, including their anomalous stories. These versions of the Ystori Saith Doethion Rufain also usually are found in miscellanies, in company with a range of other Welsh texts.

General Information
Language within Version
Narrative / Scholarly Group
Parent Versions	A (Seven Sages)
Child Versions	Early Modern and Modern Welsh Version A, Middle Welsh Version A
Author	Llewelyn the Priest
Title	Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein
Siglum of the version of the Seven Sages	Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein
Version Number
Branch of the tradition	West

Language & Composition
Original language of version	Middle Welsh
Translated into (languages)	Welsh
Place of composition	Wales, UK
Date of composition	1375 - 1415
Source for date of composition	Gadsden (2021)

Literature & Editions
Modern research literature	Gadsden (2020), Evans (1903), Huws (2000), Try (2015), Gadsden (2021), Lewis (1925, 1958, 1967), Lewis (1925), Lewis (1929)
Modern Editions	Gadsden, Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein (2021), Lewis, Chwedleu Seith Doethn Rufein (1925, 1958, 1967), Lewis, Y Seithwyr Doethion (1925), Lewis, Modern Welsh Versions (1929)

Recorded branch of this secondary version

A (Seven Sages) French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages Group U Group V Group W Group X Group Y Group Z German Version A: Allegatio/Libellus Latin Version A: Allegatio/Libellus Middle English Version A Midland Version Y Group Northern English Southern English Old Swedish Version A: Sju vise mästare Old Swedish Redaction A Old Swedish Redaction B Older Scots Version A: Buke of the Sevyne Sagis Scots Gaelic Version A Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Early Modern and Modern Welsh Version A Middle Welsh Version A

Connected prints
No connected prints

Adaptations
Adapted from (version)	French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages
Adapted into (version)
Source for composition and adaptation information	Gadsden (2021)

Languages in Use
Language of text	Welsh
Regional or specific language of version	Middle Welsh

Notes
Note
Notes on motifs
Notes on the frame

Pattern of embedded stories in this version
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Connected manuscripts

Manuscript Language Location Date of Production Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Cardiff MS 2.83 (RMWL MS 6) Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1550 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Cardiff MS 3.4 (RMWL Cardiff MS 5) Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1527 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Cwrtmawr MS 20A Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1750 - 1782 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanover MS 13075B Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1580 - 1600 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 117 Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1544 - 1552 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 171 Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1574 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 2. Latin Middle Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1451 - 1475 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 92 Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1500 - 1800 Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Peniarth MS 120 Welsh Aberystwyth, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 1775 - 1800 Oxford Bodleian Library Jesus College MS. 111 Welsh Oxford, Bodleian Library 1375 - 1415 Oxford Bodleian Library Jesus College MS. 20 Welsh Oxford, Bodleian Library 1400 - 1425