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is continued in the final chapter of analysis, Kulhwch ac Olwen, where the material is examined in relation to rites of passage, marriage, and kinship systems. A classic Freudian exploration of this myth has been undertaken by Layard (1975), and by examining his theories, this chapter highlights the value of the neostructuralist approach over psychological analysis for helping us to appreciate a medieval-Welsh perspective. Indeed, throughout, I have taken care to ground the analysis in ethnographic data and have included a brief preliminary chapter, which presents an overview of the material’s context. Of course, each of these topics could be, and indeed has been, the subject of a book-length study in itself (Charles-Edwards 1993; Walker 1990; Williams 1993). The purpose of the preliminary chapter is simply to provide a basic ethnographic grounding to the subsequent analysis and ensure that from the beginning, we are placing ourselves in ‘the heart of the community’ (Lévi-Strauss 1994, 1).
One obvious consequence of working with a historical society is that the valuable tool of participant observation is lost; we are distanced from the ethnographic accounts in an undesirable way and have to rely on often biased accounts. Fortunately, the people whose myths we are exploring, like those which Kunin examined, were largely literate and, therefore, they have left in their own words their own vision of how their society cohered (through the various law tracts), and through the texts that I examine, their voices can be clearly heard. Therefore, as I am working with versions of the myths recorded by the people themselves, there can be little danger of the myths being in any way distorted. These issues are explored in the methodology chapter, which opens the book proper and clears the way for the subsequent analysis.
The methodology chapter is intended to give a brief explanation of the approach that will be used to analyse the material and to clarify some issues regarding terms such as myth. It is in no way intended to be an exhaustive presentation of the structuralist technique or of Lévi-Strauss’ approach. It does however, like the context chapter, provide signposts for further reading on these topics.