Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race Part 31

*The Grail a Talisman of Abundance*

The character of a cornucopia, a symbol and agent of abundance and vitality, clings closely to the Grail in all versions of the legend. Even in the loftiest and most spiritual of these, the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, this quality is very strongly marked. A sick or wounded man who looked on it could not die within the week, nor could its servitors grow old: though one looked on it for two hundred years, his hair would never turn grey. The Grail knights lived from it, apparently by its turning into all manner of food and drink the bread which was presented to it by pages. Each man had of it food according to his pleasure, _ son gr_from this word _gr, grable_, the name Gral, which originated in the French versions, was supposed to be derived.(245) It was the satisfaction of all desires. In Wolframs poem the Grail, though connected with the Eucharist, was, as we have seen, a stone, not a cup. It thus appears as a relic of ancient stone-worship. It is remarkable that a similar Stone of Abundance occurs also in the Welsh Peredur, though not as one of the mysteries of the castle. It was guarded by a black serpent, which Peredur slew, and he gave the stone to his friend Etlyn.

*The Celtic Cauldron of Abundance*

Now the reader has by this time become well acquainted with an object having the character of a talisman of abundance and rejuvenation in Celtic myth. As the Cauldron of the Dagda it came into Ireland with the Danaans from their mysterious fairy-land. In Welsh legend Bran the Blessed got it from Ireland, whither it returned again as part of Branwens dowry. In a strange and mystic poem by Taliesin it is represented as part of the spoils of Hades, or Annwn, brought thence by Arthur, in a tragic adventure not otherwise recorded. It is described by Taliesin as lodged in Caer Pedryvan, the Four-square Castle of Pwyll; the fire that heated it was fanned by the breath of nine maidens, its edge was rimmed with pearls, and it would not cook the food of a coward or man forsworn:(246)

Am I not a candidate for fame, to be heard in song In Caer Pedryvan, four times revolving?

The first word from the cauldron, when was it spoken?

By the breath of nine maidens it was gently warmed.

Is it not the cauldron of the chief of Annwn? What is its fashion?

A rim of pearls is round its edge.

It will not cook the food of a coward or one forsworn.

A sword flashing bright will be raised to him, And left in the hand of Lleminawg.

And before the door of the gate of Uffern(247) the lamp was burning.

When we went with Arthura splendid labour Except seven, none returned from Caer Vedwyd.(248)

More remotely still the cauldron represents the Sun, which appears in the earliest Aryo-Indian myths as a golden vessel which pours forth light and heat and fertility. The lance is the lightning-weapon of the Thunder G.o.d, Indra, appearing in Norse mythology as the hammer of Thor. The quest for these objects represents the ideas of the restoration by some divine champion of the wholesome order of the seasons, disturbed by some temporary derangement such as those which to this day bring famine and desolation to India.

Now in the Welsh Peredur we have clearly an outline of the original Celtic tale, but the Grail does not appear in it. We may conjecture, however, from Gautiers continuation of Chrestiens poem that a talisman of abundance figured in early Continental, probably Breton, versions of the legend. In one version at leastthat on which Wolfram based his Parzivalthis talisman was a stone. But usually it would have been, not a stone, but a cauldron or vessel of some kind endowed with the usual attributes of the magic cauldron of Celtic myth. This vessel was a.s.sociated with a blood-dripping lance. Here were the suggestive elements from which some unknown singer, in a flash of inspiration, transformed the ancient tale of vengeance and redemption into the mystical romance which at once took possession of the heart and soul of Christendom. The magic cauldron became the cup of the Eucharist, the lance was invested with a more tremendous guilt than that of the death of Peredurs kinsman.(249) Celtic poetry, German mysticism, Christian chivalry, and ideas of magic which still cling to the rude stone monuments of Western Europeall these combined to make the story of the Grail, and to endow it with the strange attraction which has led to its re-creation by artist after artist for seven hundred years. And who, even now, can say that its course is run at last, and the towers of Montsalvat dissolved into the mist from which they sprang?

*The Tale of Taliesin*

Alone of the tales in the collection called by Lady Charlotte Guest the Mabinogion, the story of the birth and adventures of the mythical bard Taliesin, the Amergin of Cymric legend, is not found in the fourteenth-century ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled The Red Book of Hergest. It is taken from a ma.n.u.script of the late sixteenth or seventeenth century, and never appears to have enjoyed much popularity in Wales. Much of the very obscure poetry attributed to Taliesin is to be found in it, and this is much older than the prose. The object of the tale, indeed, as Mr. Nutt has pointed out in his edition of the Mabinogion, is rather to provide a sort of framework for stringing together scattered pieces of verse supposed to be the work of Taliesin than to tell a connected story about him and his doings.

The story of the birth of the hero is the most interesting thing in the tale. There lived, it was said, in the time of Arthur of the Round Table,(250) a man named Tegid Voel of Penllyn, whose wife was named Ceridwen. They have a son named Avagddu, who was the most ill-favoured man in the world. To compensate for his lack of beauty, his mother resolved to make him a sage. So, according to the art of the books of Feryllt,(251) she had recourse to the great Celtic source of magical influencea cauldron. She began to boil a cauldron of inspiration and science for her son, that his reception might be honourable because of his knowledge of the mysteries of the future state of the world. The cauldron might not cease to boil for a year and a day, and only in three drops of it were to be found the magical grace of the brew.

She put Gwion Bach the son of Gwreang of Llanfair to stir the cauldron, and a blind man named Morda to keep the fire going, and she made incantations over it and put in magical herbs from time to time as Feryllts book directed. But one day towards the end of the year three drops of the magic liquor flew out of the cauldron and lighted on the finger of Gwion. Like Finn mac c.u.mhal on a similar occasion, he put his finger in his mouth, and immediately became gifted with supernatural insight. He saw that he had got what was intended for Avagddu, and he saw also that Ceridwen would destroy him for it if she could. So he fled to his own land, and the cauldron, deprived of the sacred drops, now contained nothing but poison, the power of which burst the vessel, and the liquor ran into a stream hard by and poisoned the horses of Gwyddno Garanhir which drank of the water. Whence the stream is called the Poison of the Horses of Gwyddno from that time forth.

Ceridwen now came on the scene and saw that her years labour was lost. In her rage she smote Morda with a billet of firewood and struck out his eye, and she then pursued after Gwion Bach. He saw her and changed himself into a hare. She became a greyhound. He leaped into a river and became a fish, and she chased him as an otter. He became a bird and she a hawk. Then he turned himself into a grain of wheat and dropped among the other grains on a threshing-floor, and she became a black hen and swallowed him. Nine months afterwards she bore him as an infant; and she would have killed him, but could not on account of his beauty, so she wrapped him in a leathern bag, and cast him into the sea to the mercy of G.o.d.

*The Luck of Elphin*

Now Gwyddno, of the poisoned horses, had a salmon weir on the strand between Dyvi and Aberystwyth. And his son Elphin, a needy and luckless lad, one day fished out the leathern bag as it stuck on the weir. They opened it, and found the infant within. Behold a radiant brow!(252) said Gwyddno. Taliesin be he called, said Elphin. And they brought the child home very carefully and reared it as their own. And this was Taliesin, prime bard of the Cymry; and the first of the poems he made was a lay of praise to Elphin and promise of good fortune for the future. And this was fulfilled, for Elphin grew in riches and honour day after day, and in love and favour with King Arthur.

But one day as men praised King Arthur and all his belongings above measure, Elphin boasted that he had a wife as virtuous as any at Arthurs Court and a bard more skilful than any of the Kings; and they flung him into prison until they should see if he could make good his boast. And as he lay there with a silver chain about his feet, a graceless fellow named Rhun was sent to court the wife of Elphin and to bring back proofs of her folly; and it was said that neither maid nor matron with whom Rhun conversed but was evil-spoken of.

Taliesin then bade his mistress conceal herself, and she gave her raiment and jewels to one of the kitchenmaids, who received Rhun as if she were mistress of the household. And after supper Rhun plied the maid with drink, and she became intoxicated and fell in a deep sleep; whereupon Rhun cut off one of her fingers, on which was the signet-ring of Elphin that he had sent his wife a little while before. Rhun brought the finger and the ring on it to Arthurs Court.

Next day Elphin was fetched out of prison and shown the finger and the ring. Whereupon he said: With thy leave, mighty king, I cannot deny the ring, but the finger it is on was never my wifes. For this is the little finger, and the ring fits tightly on it, but my wife could barely keep it on her thumb. And my wife, moreover, is wont to pare her nails every Sat.u.r.day night, but this nail hath not been pared for a month. And thirdly, the hand to which this finger belonged was kneading rye-dough within three days past, but my wife has never kneaded rye-dough since my wife she has been.

Then the King was angry because his test had failed, and he ordered Elphin back to prison till he could prove what he had affirmed about his bard.

*Taliesin, Prime Bard of Britain*

Then Taliesin went to court, and one high day when the Kings bards and minstrels should sing and play before him, Taliesin, as they pa.s.sed him sitting quietly in a corner, pouted his lips and played Blerwm, blerwm with his finger on his mouth. And when the bards came to perform before the King, lo ! a spell was on them, and they could do nothing but bow before him and play Blerwm, blerwm with their fingers on their lips. And the chief of them, Heinin, said: O king, we be not drunken with wine, but are dumb through the influence of the spirit that sits in yon corner under the form of a child. Then Taliesin was brought forth, and they asked him who he was and whence he came. And he sang as follows:

Primary chief bard am I to Elphin, And my original country is the region of the summer stars; Idno and Heinin called me Merddin, At length every being will call me Taliesin.

I was with my Lord in the highest sphere, On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of h.e.l.l; I have borne a banner before Alexander; I know the names of the stars from north to south

I was in Canaan when Absalom was slain, I was in the court of Don before the birth of Gwydion.

I was at the place of the crucifixion of the merciful Son of G.o.d; I have been three periods in the prison of Arianrod.

I have been in Asia with Noah in the ark, I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I have been in India when Roma was built.

I am now come here to the remnant of Troia.(253)

I have been with my Lord in the a.s.ss manger, I strengthened Moses through the waters of Jordan; I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene; I have obtained the Muse from the cauldron of Ceridwen.

I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth; And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish.

Then was I for nine months In the womb of the witch Ceridwen; I was originally little Gwion, And at length I am Taliesin.(254)

While Taliesin sang a great storm of wind arose, and the castle shook with the force of it. Then the King bade Elphin be brought in before him, and when he came, at the music of Taliesins voice and harp the chains fell open of themselves and he was free. And many other poems concerning secret things of the past and future did Taliesin sing before the King and his lords, and he foretold the coming of the Saxon into the land, and his oppression of the Cymry, and foretold also his pa.s.sing away when the day of his destiny should come.

*Conclusion*

Here we end this long survey of the legendary literature of the Celt. The material is very abundant, and it is, of course, not practicable in a volume of this size to do more than trace the main current of the development of the legendary literature down to the time when the mythical and legendary element entirely faded out and free literary invention took its place. The reader of these pages will, however, it is hoped, have gained a general conception of the subject which will enable him to understand the significance of such tales as we have not been able to touch on here, and to fit them into their proper places in one or other of the great cycles of Celtic legend. It will be noticed that we have not entered upon the vast region of Celtic folk-lore. Folk-lore has not been regarded as falling within the scope of the present work. Folk-lore may sometimes represent degraded mythology, and sometimes mythology in the making. In either case, it is its special characteristic that it belongs to and issues from a cla.s.s whose daily life lies close to the earth, toilers in the field and in the forest, who render with simple directness, in tales or charms, their impressions of natural or supernatural forces with which their own lives are environed. Mythology, in the proper sense of the word, appears only where the intellect and the imagination have reached a point of development above that which is ordinarily possible to the peasant mindwhen men have begun to co-ordinate their scattered impressions and have felt the impulse to shape them into poetic creations embodying universal ideas. It is not, of course, pretended that a hard-and-fast line can always be drawn between mythology and folk-lore; still, the distinction seems to me a valid one, and I have tried to observe it in these pages.

After the two historical chapters with which our study has begun, the object of the book has been literary rather than scientific. I have, however, endeavoured to give, as the opportunity arose, such results of recent critical work on the relics of Celtic myth and legend as may at least serve to indicate to the reader the nature of the critical problems connected therewith. I hope that this may have added somewhat to the value of the work for students, while not impairing its interest for the general reader. Furthermore, I may claim that the book is in this sense scientific, that as far as possible it avoids any adaptation of its material for the popular taste. Such adaptation, when done for an avowed artistic purpose, is of course entirely legitimate; if it were not, we should have to condemn half the great poetry of the world. But here the object has been to present the myths and legends of the Celt as they actually are. Crudities have not been refined away, things painful or monstrous have not been suppressed, except in some few instances, where it has been necessary to bear in mind that this volume appeals to a wider audience than that of scientific students alone. The reader may, I think, rely upon it that he has here a substantially fair and not over-idealised account of the Celtic outlook upon life and the world at a time when the Celt still had a free, independent, natural life, working out his conceptions in the Celtic tongue, and taking no more from foreign sources than he could a.s.similate and make his own. The legendary literature thus presented is the oldest non-cla.s.sical literature of Europe. This alone is sufficient, I think, to give it a strong claim on our attention. As to what other claims it may have, many pages might be filled with quotations from the discerning praises given to it by critics not of Celtic nationality, from Matthew Arnold downwards. But here let it speak for itself. It will tell us, I believe, that, as Maeldun said of one of the marvels he met with in his voyage into Fairyland: What we see here was a work of mighty men.

GLOSSARY AND INDEX

THE p.r.o.nUNCIATION OF CELTIC NAMES

To render these names accurately without the living voice is impossible.

But with the phonetic renderings given, where required, in the following index, and with attention to the following general rules, the reader will get as near to the correct p.r.o.nunciation as it is at all necessary for him to do.

I. GAELIC

Vowels are p.r.o.nounced as in French or German; thus _i_ (long) is like _ee, e_ (long) like _a_ in date, _u_ (long) like _oo_. A stroke over a letter signifies length; thus dun is p.r.o.nounced doon (not dewn).

_ch_ is a guttural, as in the word loch. It is never p.r.o.nounced with a _t_ sound, as in English chip.

_c_ is always like _k_.

_gh_ is silent, as in English.

II. CYMRIC

_w_, when a consonant, is p.r.o.nounced as in English; when a vowel, like _oc_.