Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race Part 56

214 See p. 233, and a similar case in the authors High Deeds of Finn, p. 82.

215 See p. 232, and the tale of the recovery of the Tain, p. 234.

216 Pwyll King of Dyfed, Bran and Branwen, Math Sor of Mathonwy, and Manawyddan Son of Llyr.

217 See p. 107.

218 Hibbert Lectures, pp. 237-240.

219 See pp. 88, 109, &c. Lugh, of course, = Lux, Light. The Celtic words _Lamh_ and _Llaw_ were used indifferently for hand or arm.

220 Mr. Squire, in his Mythology of the British Islands, 1905, has brought together in a clear and attractive form the most recent results of studies on this subject.

221 Finn and Gwyn are respectively the Gaelic and Cymric forms of the same name, meaning fair or white.

222 Mythology of the British Islands, p. 225.

223 The sense appears to be doubtful here, and is variously rendered.

224 Lloegyr = Saxon Britain.

225 Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, quoting from the ancient saga of Merlin published by the English Text Society, p. 693.

226 Mythology of the British Islands, pp. 325, 326; and Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 155 _sqq_.

227 In the Iolo MSS., collected by Edward Williams.

228 See, _e.g._, pp. 111, 272.

229 We see here that we have got far from primitive Celtic legend. The heroes fight like mediaeval knights on horseback, tilting at each other with spears, not in chariots or on foot, and not with the strange weapons which figure in Gaelic battle-tales.

230 Hen, the Ancient; an epithet generally implying a h.o.a.ry antiquity a.s.sociated with mythological tradition.

231 p.r.o.nounced Pry-dairy.

232 Evidently this was the triangular Norman shield, not the round or oval Celtic one. It has already been noticed that in these Welsh tales the knights when they fight tilt at each other with spears.

233 The reader may p.r.o.nounce this Matholaw.

234 Compare the description of Mac Cecht in the tale of the Hostel of De Derga, p. 173.

235 Where the Tower of London now stands.

236 These stories, in Ireland and in Wales, always attach themselves to actual burial-places. In 1813 a funeral urn containing ashes and half-burnt bones was found in the spot traditionally supposed to be Branwens sepulchre.

237 Saxon Britain.

238 This is a distorted reminiscence of the practice which seems to have obtained in the courts of Welsh princes, that a high officer should hold the kings feet in his lap while he sat at meat.

239 Hawthorn, King of the Giants.

240 The G.o.ds of the family of Don are thus conceived as servitors to Arthur, who in this story is evidently the G.o.d Artaius.

241 She of the White Track. Compare the description of Etain, pp. 157, 158.

242 There is no other mention of this Kenverchyn or of how Owain got his raven-army, also referred to in The Dream of Rhonabwy. We have here evidently a piece of antique mythology embedded in a more modern fabric.

243 Like the Breton Tale of Peronnik the Fool, translated in Le Foyer Brton, by Emile Souvestre. The syllable _Per_ which occurs in all forms of the heros name means in Welsh and Cornish a bowl or vessel (Irish _coire_see p. 35, note). No satisfactory derivation has in any case been found of the latter part of the name.

244 They are nourished by a stone of most n.o.ble nature ... it is called _lapsit exills_; the stone is also called the Grail. The term _lapsit exills_ appears to be a corruption for _lapis ex celis_, the stone from heaven.

245 The true derivation is from the Low Latin _cratella_, a small vessel or chalice.

246 A similar selective action is ascribed to the Grail by Wolfram. It can only be lifted by a pure maiden when carried into the hall, and a heathen cannot see it or be benefited by it. The same idea is also strongly marked in the story narrating the early history of the Grail by Robert de Borron, about 1210: the impure and sinful cannot benefit by it. Borron, however, does not touch upon the Perceval or quest portion of the story at all.

247 Hades.

248 Caer Vedwyd means the Castle of Revelry. I follow the version of this poem given by Squire in his Mythology of the British Islands, where it may be read in full.

249 The combination of objects at the Grail Castle is very significant.

They were a sword, a spear, and a vessel, or, in some versions, a stone. These are the magical treasures brought by the Danaans into Irelanda sword, a spear, a cauldron, and a stone. See pp. 105, 106.

250 The Round Table finds no mention in Cymric legend earlier than the fifteenth century.

251 Vergil, in his medival character of magician.

252 Taliesin.

253 Alluding to the imaginary Trojan ancestry of the Britons.

254 I have somewhat abridged this curious poem. The connexion with ideas of transmigration, as in the legend of Tuan mac Carell (see pp.

97-101), is obvious. Tuans last stage, it may be recalled, was a fish, and Taliesin was taken in a salmon-weir.