Unimpressive. I could use some articles, something to sink my teeth into. ( )

This is a great companion to the Chronicles of Prydain. ( )

It is both the power and the weakness of great books like Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain that they make you want to know all there is to know about them. The greatness, because it causes you to look more deeply at the books. The weakness, because of course there is so much to remember that it is hard to track it all.

Enter this book. It takes almost all proper nouns in the Chronicles and gives their background -- primarily in the Prydain-universe, but it also gives some background on how Alexander came to use the names and ideas he did, plus there are references to the parts of the Mabinogion which inspired the Chronicles.

If there is one weakness in these books, it lies there. All references are to Lady Charlotte Guest's edition of the Mabinogion -- but, although this is the translation Alexander used, it is not the best -- plus citations are to a particular edition, and my edition of Guest, at least, does not match that pagination. I would have been much happier with the book if it had also cited one of the more modern, correct translations of the Mabinogion, and found a better way to do so.

And I wish that author Tunnell had made a greater effort to link Prydain with the real Wales -- he never mentions, e.g., that the Great Avren is the Severn. That link is obvious, but how many other connections do we miss in a casual reading?

If space was an issue, we could surely have dispensed with the plot summaries of the various Prydain stories. After all, no one is going to read this book without reading the Chronicles -- for one thing, it gives away all the endings!

Plus I wish Tunnell had used some mythological references other than Graves's The White Goddess, which has a lot more Graves in it than genuine mythology.

These are not nitpicks; they are genuine weaknesses in the books that might be corrected in a revised edition. Still, there is no substitute for this book, and I do not hesitate to recommend it to all "Friends of the Companions." ( )