{"id":4019,"date":"2012-04-02T11:59:15","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T17:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4019"},"modified":"2012-04-02T12:23:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T18:23:52","slug":"the-fifth-branch-of-the-mabinogion-some-plagiarizing-pagans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4019","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Fifth Branch’ of the Mabinogion & Some Plagiarizing Pagans"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2008, an English academic who works with ancient and modern Celtic languages created “a piece of Iolosim,” in other words, a pseudo-ancient tale in the spirit of the Welsh literary forger and Druid revivalist Iolo Morganwg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Written in Middle Welsh and “translated” into English, it purports to be a hitherto-unknown section of the Mabinogion<\/em><\/a>, a famous collection of medieval Welsh tales with possibly older roots.<\/p>\n

Imagine his surprise when he finds the whole thing<\/a>\u2014uncredited, of course\u2014on a website devoted to “Keltic mysteries<\/a>” and the revival of ancient Welsh Paganism, or some approximation thereof.<\/p>\n

The ancient ‘Legend of Amaethon Uab Don’ quoted here as evidence for this mystic cosmological bollocks was penned over a month or so by yours truly, c. 2008, while glugging back the diet coke in Jesus College Oxford computer room. The website of this bunch<\/a> of chumps not only has copied my entire text (in English and Middle Welsh)<\/a>, but also begins with a long and pompous screed<\/a> about how wicked it is to steal other people’s material.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyone who read the “Fifth Branch’s” introduction <\/a>carefully would have seen some signals that it was bogus\u2014there is no “Judas College” at Oxford University, for one thing\u2014but who reads carefully on the Internet when they are busy cutting and pasting?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2008, an English academic who works with ancient and modern Celtic languages created “a piece of Iolosim,” in other words, a pseudo-ancient tale in the spirit of the Welsh literary forger and Druid revivalist Iolo Morganwg. Written in Middle Welsh and “translated” into English, it purports to be a hitherto-unknown section of the Mabinogion, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137,38,5,174,162,22],"class_list":["post-4019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-celts","tag-paganism","tag-plagiarism","tag-wales","tag-weirdness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-12P","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":750,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=750","url_meta":{"origin":4019,"position":0},"title":"Who’s a Celt now? – 4","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1, Part 2, Part 3There is no gene for \"Celtic,\" and, as we have seen (if you followed the links), \"Celtic culture\" is largely an invention of the late 18th and 19th centuries--created by the English and\/or of Welsh, Irish, and other tradition-inventors who went to London to make\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=24","url_meta":{"origin":4019,"position":1},"title":"The Paganism Reader","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 10, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"A telephone call from Graham Harvey on the 9th confirms that our anthology of important Pagan texts is going into production at Routledge. Here is the latest version of the cover--really, Graham's name should come first, as it was his idea to collect important texts from the Pagan revival, reaching\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7469,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7469","url_meta":{"origin":4019,"position":2},"title":"“Trace What It Means To Be Celtic”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"In their book Pop Pagans: Paganism and Popular Music, Donna Weston and Andy Bennett use the term \"cardiac Celts . . . people who feel in their heart that they are Celtic.\" They are not the only ones who use it \u2014 but I wonder if this new British Museum\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":755,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=755","url_meta":{"origin":4019,"position":3},"title":"Who’s a Celt now? – 7","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A quirky translation of witches' chantsPart 1, Part 2, Part 3,Part 4, Part 5, Part 6Stephen Oppenheimer, the anthropologist who combines DNA, archaeological, and linguistic evidence to argue against any \"glorious Celtic heritage\" in England, further argues that Celtic languages were not widespread there before the Roman invasion.His work reminded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6716,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6716","url_meta":{"origin":4019,"position":4},"title":"New Publishing Opportunity in Euro-Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Headline: \"Genetic analysis reveals present-day Europeans descended from at least 3, not 2, groups of ancient humans.\" So how before someone writes a book on \"Ancient North Eurasian\" shamanic Paganism?\u00a0 Campfire, drum, bears . . . take it away.","rel":"","context":"In \"Europe\"","block_context":{"text":"Europe","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=europe"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":752,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=752","url_meta":{"origin":4019,"position":5},"title":"Who’s a Celt now? – 6","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,Part 4, Part 5Everything that we thought we knew about Celtic culture is probably wrong.But there is still language, right? If \"Celtic\" is not a genetic code, and it's not a spirituality, at least there are Celtic languages: Gaulish, Cornish, British-leading-to-Welsh, Irish and Scots Gaelic,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4019"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4024,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4019\/revisions\/4024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}