Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race Part 26

It must not be forgotten that (as Miss Jessie L. Weston has emphasised in her invaluable studies on the Arthurian saga) Gautier de Denain, the earliest of the continuators or re-workers of Chrestien de Troyes, mentions as his authority for stories of Gawain one Bleheris, a poet born and bred in Wales. This forgotten bard is believed to be identical with _famosus ille fabulator, Bledhericus,_ mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis, and with the Brris quoted by Thomas of Brittany as an authority for the Tristan story.

*Conclusion as to the Origin of the Arthurian Saga*

In the absence, however, of any information as to when, or exactly what, Bleheris wrote, the opinion must, I think, hold the field that the Arthurian saga, as we have it now, is not of Welsh, nor even of pure Breton origin. The Welsh exiles who colonised part of Brittany about the sixth century must have brought with them many stories of the historical Arthur. They must also have brought legends of the Celtic deity Artaius, a G.o.d to whom altars have been found in France. These personages ultimately blended into one, even as in Ireland the Christian St. Brigit blended with the pagan G.o.ddess Brigindo.(210) We thus get a mythical figure combining something of the exaltation of a G.o.d with a definite habitation on earth and a place in history. An Arthur saga thus arose, which in its Breton (though not its Welsh) form was greatly enriched by material drawn in from the legends of Charlemagne and his peers, while both in Brittany and in Wales it became a centre round which cl.u.s.tered a ma.s.s of floating legendary matter relating to various Celtic personages, human and divine.

Chrestien de Troyes, working on Breton material, ultimately gave it the form in which it conquered the world, and in which it became in the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries what the Faust legend was in later times, the accepted vehicle for the ideals and aspirations of an epoch.

*The Saga in Wales*

From the Continent, and especially from Brittany, the story of Arthur came back into Wales transformed and glorified. The late Dr. Heinrich Zimmer, in one of his luminous studies of the subject, remarks that In Welsh literature we have definite evidence that the South-Welsh prince, Rhys ap Tewdwr, who had been in Brittany, brought from thence in the year 1070 the knowledge of Arthurs Round Table to Wales, where of course it had been hitherto unknown.(211) And many Breton lords are known to have followed the banner of William the Conqueror into England.(212) The introducers of the saga into Wales found, however, a considerable body of Arthurian matter of a very different character already in existence there. Besides the traditions of the historical Arthur, the _dux bellorum_ of Nennius, there was the Celtic deity, Artaius. It is probably a reminiscence of this deity whom we meet with under the name of Arthur in the only genuine Welsh Arthurian story we possess, the story of Kilhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion. Much of the Arthurian saga derived from Chrestien and other Continental writers was translated and adapted in Wales as in other European countries, but as a matter of fact it made a later and a lesser impression in Wales than almost anywhere else. It conflicted with existing Welsh traditions, both historical and mythological; it was full of matter entirely foreign to the Welsh spirit, and it remained always in Wales something alien and una.s.similated. Into Ireland it never entered at all.

These few introductory remarks do not, of course, profess to contain a discussion of the Arthurian sagaa vast subject with myriad ramifications, historical, mythological, mystical, and what notbut are merely intended to indicate the relation of that saga to genuine Celtic literature and to explain why we shall hear so little of it in the following accounts of Cymric myths and legends. It was a great spiritual myth which, arising from the composite source above described, overran all the Continent, as its hero was supposed to have done in armed conquest, but it cannot be regarded as a special possession of the Celtic race, nor is it at present extant, except in the form of translation or adaptation, in any Celtic tongue.

*Gaelic and Cymric Legend Compared*

The myths and legends of the Celtic race which have come down to us in the Welsh language are in some respects of a different character from those which we possess in Gaelic. The Welsh material is nothing like as full as the Gaelic, nor so early. The tales of the Mabinogion are mainly drawn from the fourteenth-century ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled The Red Book of Hergest.

One of them, the romance of Taliesin, came from another source, a ma.n.u.script of the seventeenth century. The four oldest tales in the Mabinogion are supposed by scholars to have taken their present shape in the tenth or eleventh century, while several Irish tales, like the story of Etain and Midir or the Death of Conary, go back to the seventh or eighth. It will be remembered that the story of the invasion of Partholan was known to Nennius, who wrote about the year 800. As one might therefore expect, the mythological elements in the Welsh romances are usually much more confused and harder to decipher than in the earlier of the Irish tales. The mythic interest has grown less, the story interest greater; the object of the bard is less to hand down a sacred text than to entertain a princes court. We must remember also that the influence of the Continental romances of chivalry is clearly perceptible in the Welsh tales; and, in fact, comes eventually to govern them completely.

*Gaelic and Continental Romance*

In many respects the Irish Celt antic.i.p.ated the ideas of these romances.

The lofty courtesy shown to each other by enemies,(213) the fantastic pride which forbade a warrior to take advantage of a wounded adversary,(214) the extreme punctilio with which the duties or observances proper to each mans caste or station were observed(215)all this tone of thought and feeling which would seem so strange to us if we met an instance of it in cla.s.sical literature would seem quite familiar and natural in Continental romances of the twelfth and later centuries.

Centuries earlier than that it was a marked feature in Gaelic literature.

Yet in the Irish romances, whether Ultonian or Ossianic, the element which has since been considered the most essential motive in a romantic tale is almost entirely lacking. This is the element of love, or rather of woman-worship. The Continental fabulist felt that he could do nothing without this motive of action. But the lady-love of the English, French, or German knight, whose favour he wore, for whose grace he endured infinite hardship and peril, does not meet us in Gaelic literature. It would have seemed absurd to the Irish Celt to make the plot of a serious story hinge on the kind of pa.s.sion with which the mediaeval Dulcinea inspired her faithful knight. In the two most famous and popular of Gaelic love-tales, the tale of Deirdre and The Pursuit of Dermot and Grania, the women are the wooers, and the men are most reluctant to commit what they know to be the folly of yielding to them. Now this romantic, chivalric kind of love, which idealised woman into a G.o.ddess, and made the service of his lady a sacred duty to the knight, though it never reached in Wales the height which it did in Continental and English romances, is yet clearly discernible there. We can trace it in Kilhwch and Olwen, which is comparatively an ancient tale. It is well developed in later stories like Peredur and The Lady of the Fountain. It is a symptom of the extent to which, in comparison with the Irish, Welsh literature had lost its pure Celtic strain and become affectedI do not, of course, say to its lossby foreign influences.

*Gaelic and Cymric Mythology: Nudd*

The oldest of the Welsh tales, those called The Four Branches of the Mabinogi,(216) are the richest in mythological elements, but these occur in more or less recognisable form throughout nearly all the mediaeval tales, and even, after many trans.m.u.tations, in Malory. We can clearly discern certain mythological figures common to all Celtica. We meet, for instance, a personage called Nudd or Lludd, evidently a solar deity. A temple dating from Roman times, and dedicated to him under the name of Nodens, has been discovered at Lydney, by the Severn. On a bronze plaque found near the spot is a representation of the G.o.d. He is encircled by a halo and accompanied by flying spirits and by Tritons. We are reminded of the Danaan deities and their close connexion with the sea; and when we find that in Welsh legend an epithet is attached to Nudd, meaning of the Silver Hand (though no extant Welsh legend tells the meaning of the epithet), we have no difficulty in identifying this Nudd with Nuada of the Silver Hand, who led the Danaans in the battle of Moytura.(217) Under his name Lludd he is said to have had a temple on the site of St. Pauls in London, the entrance to which, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, was called in the British tongue _Parth Lludd_, which the Saxons translated _Ludes Geat_, our present Ludgate.

G.o.dS OF THE HOUSE OF DON

Manogan Mathonwy +---------+------+ Beli-------+------Don Math (Death, (Mother-G.o.ddess, (wealth, Irish Bil) Irish Dana) increase) +----------------+------+--+--------+-------+--------+--------+------+ Gwydion-----+----Arianrod Amaethon Nudd Nynniaw (Science and ("Silver- (agriculture) or Ludd and Peibaw light; slayer circle," Dawn- (Sky-G.o.d) of Pryderi) G.o.ddess) Gilvaethwy Govannan Penardun (smith-craft, (_m_. Llyr) Irish Goban) +--------+---+---------+ Gwyn Nwyvre Llew Dylan (Warder of (atmosphere, Llaw (Sea-G.o.d) Hades, called s.p.a.ce) Gyffes "Avalon" in (Sun-G.o.d, Somerset) the Irish Lugh)

G.o.dS OF THE HOUSE OF LLYR

Iweriad --+-- Llyr --+-- Penardun --+-- Euroswydd (=Ireland--_i.e.,_ (Irish (dau. of western land Lir) Don) of Hades) +---------+---------+ +--------+----------+ Branwen--+--Matholwch Nissyen Evnissyen (Love- (King of G.o.ddess) Ireland) Bran Manawyddan---Rhiannon (giant G.o.d (Irish Mana- of Hades nan, G.o.d of Pwyll--+--Rhiannon a minstrel; the Sea, (Head of afterwards enchanter) Hades) Urien) Gwern Pryderi---Kicva (Lord of Hades)

ARTHUR AND HIS KIN

Anlawdd +--------------------+----+----------------------------------+ Yspaddaden Custennin Kilwydd -+- Goleuddydd Olwen +---------+-----------+ Kilhwch --- Olwen Goreu Erbin Igerna -+- Uther Ben (= Bran) Geraint +-------+-----------------------+ Arthur Lot -----+---- Gwyar (=Gwydion) (=Llud) (Gore, a war-G.o.ddess) +--------------------------+-------------+-------+ Gwalchmai Medrawt Gwalchaved (Falcon of May, (=Dylan, (Falcon of Summer, = LLew Llaw later Sir later Sir Galahad; Gyffes, later Mordred) orig. identical Sir Gawain) with Gwalchmai)

*Llyr and Manawyddan*

Again, when we find a mythological personage named Llyr, with a son named Manawyddan, playing a prominent part in Welsh legend, we may safely connect them with the Irish Lir and his son Mananan, G.o.ds of the sea.

Llyr-cester, now Leicester, was a centre of the worship of Llyr.

*Llew Llaw Gyffes*

Finally, we may point to a character in the Mabinogi, or tale, ent.i.tled Math Son of Mathonwy. The name of this character is given as Llew Llaw Gyffes, which the Welsh fabulist interprets as The Lion of the Sure Hand, and a tale, which we shall recount later on, is told to account for the name. But when we find that this hero exhibits characteristics which point to his being a solar deity, such as an amazingly rapid growth from childhood into manhood, and when we are told, moreover, by Professor Rhys that Gyffes originally meant, not steady or sure, but long,(218) it becomes evident that we have here a dim and broken reminiscence of the deity whom the Gaels called Lugh of the Long Arm,(219) _Lugh Lamh Fada_.

The misunderstood name survived, and round the misunderstanding legendary matter floating in the popular mind crystallised itself in a new story.

These correspondences might be pursued in much further detail. It is enough here to point to their existence as evidence of the original community of Gaelic and Cymric mythology.(220) We are, in each literature, in the same circle of mythological ideas. In Wales, however, these ideas are harder to discern; the figures and their relationships in the Welsh Olympus are less accurately defined and more fluctuating. It would seem as if a number of different tribes embodied what were fundamentally the same conceptions under different names and wove different legends about them.

The bardic literature, as we have it now, bears evidence sometimes of the prominence of one of these tribal cults, sometimes of another. To reduce these varying accounts to unity is altogether impossible. Still, we can do something to afford the reader a clue to the maze.

*The Houses of Don and of Llyr*

Two great divine houses or families are discerniblethat of Don, a mother-G.o.ddess (representing the Gaelic Dana), whose husband is Beli, the Irish Bil, G.o.d of Death, and whose descendants are the Children of Light; and the House of Llyr, the Gaelic Lir, who here represents, not a Danaan deity, but something more like the Irish Fomorians. As in the case of the Irish myth, the two families are allied by intermarriagePenardun, a daughter of Don, is wedded to Llyr. Don herself has a brother, Math, whose name signifies wealth or treasure (_cf._ Greek Pluton, _ploutos_), and they descend from a figure indistinctly characterised, called Mathonwy.

*The House of Arthur*

Into the pantheon of deities represented in the four ancient Mabinogi there came, at a later time, from some other tribal source, another group headed by Arthur, the G.o.d Artaius. He takes the place of Gwydion son of Don, and the other deities of his circle fall more or less accurately into the places of others of the earlier circle. The accompanying genealogical plans are intended to help the reader to a general view of the relationships and attributes of these personages. It must be borne in mind, however, that these tabular arrangements necessarily involve an appearance of precision and consistency which is not reflected in the fluctuating character of the actual myths taken as a whole. Still, as a sketch-map of a very intricate and obscure region, they may help the reader who enters it for the first time to find his bearings in it, and that is the only purpose they propose to serve.

*Gwyn ap Nudd*

The deity named Gwyn ap Nudd is said, like Finn in Gaelic legend,(221) to have impressed himself more deeply and lastingly on the Welsh popular imagination than any of the other divinities. A mighty warrior and huntsman, he glories in the crash of breaking spears, and, like Odin, a.s.sembles the souls of dead heroes in his shadowy kingdom, for although he belongs to the kindred of the Light-G.o.ds, Hades is his special domain. The combat between him and Gwythur ap Greidawl (Victor, son of Scorcher) for Creudylad, daughter of Lludd, which is to be renewed every May-day till time shall end, represents evidently the contest between winter and summer for the flowery and fertile earth. Later, writes Mr. Charles Squire, he came to be considered as King of the _Tylwyth Teg_, the Welsh fairies, and his name as such has hardly yet died out of his last haunt, the romantic vale of Neath.... He is the Wild Huntsman of Wales and the West of England, and it is his pack which is sometimes heard at chase in waste places by night.(222) He figures as a G.o.d of war and death in a wonderful poem from the Black Book of Caermarthen, where he is represented as discoursing with a prince named Gwyddneu Garanhir, who had come to ask his protection. I quote a few stanzas: the poem will be found in full in Mr.

Squires excellent volume:

I come from battle and conflict With a shield in my hand; Broken is my helmet by the thrusting of spears.

Round-hoofed is my horse, the torment of battle, Fairy am I called,(223) Gwyn the son of Nudd, The lover of Crewrdilad, the daughter of Lludd

I have been in the place where Gwendolen was slain, The son of Ceidaw, the pillar of song, Where the ravens screamed over blood.

I have been in the place where Bran was killed, The son of Iweridd, of far-extending fame, Where the ravens of the battlefield screamed.

I have been where Llacheu was slain, The son of Arthur, extolled in songs, When the ravens screamed over blood.

I have been where Mewrig was killed, The son of Carreian, of honourable fame, When the ravens screamed over flesh.

I have been where Gwallawg was killed, The son of Goholeth, the accomplished, The resister of Lloegyr,(224) the son of Lleynawg.

I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain, From the east to the north: I am the escort of the grave.

I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain, From the east to the south: I am alive, they in death.

*Myrddin, or Merlin*

A deity named Myrddin holds in Arthurs mythological cycle the place of the Sky- and Sun-G.o.d, Nudd. One of the Welsh Triads tells us that Britain, before it was inhabited, was called _Clas Myrddin_, Myrddins Enclosure.

One is reminded of the Irish fashion of calling any favoured spot a cattle-fold of the sunthe name is applied by Deirdre to her beloved Scottish home in Glen Etive. Professor Rhys suggests that Myrddin was the deity specially worshipped at Stonehenge, which, according to British tradition as reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was erected by Merlin, the enchanter who represents the form into which Myrddin had dwindled under Christian influences. We are told that the abode of Merlin was a house of gla.s.s, or a bush of whitethorn laden with bloom, or a sort of smoke or mist in the air, or a close neither of iron nor steel nor timber nor of stone, but of the air without any other thing, by enchantment so strong that it may never be undone while the world endureth.(225) Finally he descended upon Bardsey Island, off the extreme westernmost point of Carnarvonshire ... into it he went with nine attendant bards, taking with him the Thirteen Treasures of Britain, thenceforth lost to men.

Professor Rhys points out that a Greek traveller named Demetrius, who is described as having visited Britain in the first century A.D., mentions an island in the west where Kronos was supposed to be imprisoned with his attendant deities, and Briareus keeping watch over him as he slept, for sleep was the bond forged for him. Doubtless we have here a version, h.e.l.lenised as was the wont of cla.s.sical writers on barbaric myths, of a British story of the descent of the Sun-G.o.d into the western sea, and his imprisonment there by the powers of darkness, with the possessions and magical potencies belonging to Light and Life.(226)

*Nynniaw and Peibaw*

The two personages called Nynniaw and Peibaw who figure in the genealogical table play a very slight part in Cymric mythology, but one story in which they appear is interesting in itself and has an excellent moral. They are represented(227) as two brothers, Kings of Britain, who were walking together one starlight night. See what a fine far-spreading field I have, said Nynniaw. Where is it? asked Peibaw. There aloft and as far as you can see, said Nynniaw, pointing to the sky. But look at all my cattle grazing in your field, said Peibaw. Where are they? said Nynniaw. All the golden stars, said Peibaw, with the moon for their shepherd. They shall not graze on my field, cried Nynniaw. I say they shall, returned Peibaw. They shall not. They shall. And so they went on: first they quarrelled with each other, and then went to war, and armies were destroyed and lands laid waste, till at last the two brothers were turned into oxen as a punishment for their stupidity and quarrelsomeness.