The Mabinogion : A window to an earlier culture? - Hero Cycles and the Bronze Age

Whilst re-reading "The Lady of the Fountain" recently,  I was struck by the description of the weaponry, specifically where it mentions the 'swords of bright gold, with white whale bone hilts.'

Obviously this does not sound anything like a medieval sword, let alone an iron age sword, and these stories were primarily written in the middle ages & were considered a medieval view on the celtic Iron Age period. To me, it brought an image of a bright, bronze blade from the Bronze Age, possibly with a hilt made from horn or bone.
Arthur himself was meant to have a smaller blade besides Excalibur, called Carnwennan, translated as"little white hilt."

This is the thought now over in Ireland-that the popular Irish Hero Cycles like The Book of Invasions give us a glimpse of the Bronze Age period and  not in fact Iron Age "celtic" society at all. Why not the same for the Welsh legends, which are closely related in many respects?

Another few interesting elements in THE LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN,  besides the usual female spirit of the water, is that there was a STONE next to the fountain,  which when struck in a certain manner in turn brought thunder. Again, this act seems to be harkening to a more primitive period of antiquity, and is not especially tied into the heroism and derring do of the story at all. It's definitely invoking & remembering something far older, barely understood in the era of those who wrote it down.

Geoffrey of Monmouth Stained Glass Window at a church in Monmouth. Engendered as the major establisher of the Arthurian canon. Was he writing from extracts of oral tradition or just simply a medieval fantasy writer? He was closer than certain truths than many would have you believe.