Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference)

by James MacKillop

  Hunting in the wild brings unexpected challenges. A ferocious but gleaming white boar charges them one day, drawing all the hunting dogs in his train. Worse, the boar heads for a fort and disappears, taking the dogs with him. Always impetuous, Pryderi also enters the fort, but against Manawydan’s advice. Hearing of this Rhiannon is cross with her husband for allowing her son to rush into what appears to be an enchanted snare. Rhiannon then goes in search of Pryderi. Inside the fort she finds him clinging to a bowl but unable to speak. When she too touches the bowl, she is also struck dumb and immobile. A thunderclap sounds and, poof, the fort disappears. This sets Cigfa to sobbing for her lost husband. Manawydan, always a comforting counsellor, offers to be a helpful companion to her. Cigfa then finds herself travelling with a man not her husband and not a blood relative, in effect her husband’s stepfather. Like Pwyll in the first branch, however, he is an honourable respecter of a woman’s marriage vows.

  When Manawydan and Cigfa return to England, they are a celibate couple. Once again they enter the trade of shoemaking and follow the same cycle as on their first enterprise. Acclaim for their craftsmanship leads to commercial success, followed by the jealousy of English shoemakers, recriminations, and, eventually, return to Dyfed. After a period of fishing and hunting without dogs, they till the soil in three crofts sown with wheat. This brings a new trouble. The first croft is devastated before Manawydan can bring in a single harvest. On the following night the same fate befalls the second croft. Before he loses the third croft, Manawydan keeps watch on the third night. The culprits are revealed to be an enormous host of mice ravaging the field. Manawydan suddenly grabs one of the tiny creatures and thunders that he will hang this one. Cigfa upbraids him for such trifling behaviour beneath his dignity, but Manawydan answers that he will execute them all if he can catch them. To solemnize the execution, Manawydan takes the mouse to the mound at Arberth the next day. Before the execution begins, three strangers, the first seen in seven years, arrive at the mound. Each one argues that it is unseemly to put to death such an insignificant creature as a mouse. Stepping forward, the first traveller, a shabbily dressed scholar, offers a ransom of one pound. Raising the ante, the second traveller, a priest, puts up three pounds. The grandest of the three, a bishop, offers a ransom of seven pounds. He quickly raises this to twenty-four pounds as well as his own horses and seven loads of baggage and seven horses to pull the loads. All this if only the mouse can be spared. Manawydan refuses to yield, which prompts the bishop to ask what else he could possibly want. The answer is immediate: ‘The release of Rhiannon and Pryderi and the removal of the magic enchantment from the seven cantrefs of Dyfed.’

  Astoundingly, the bishop agrees to Manawydan’s demands. He will pay any price because the mouse is really his pregnant wife, magically transformed. The ‘bishop’ is actually Llwyd, son of Cil Coed, a friend of Gwawl, whom Pwyll, Pryderi’s father, had humiliated with the game of ‘badger-in-the-bag’ in the first branch. Llwyd and his family have been harassing Dyfed because of the remembered hurt of that episode. The devastation of the crops, the enchantment of Dyfed and the entrapment of Rhiannon and Pryderi are all means of revenge. Contrite now, Llwyd promises never to trouble Dyfed again. Manawydan releases the mouse, who is immediately restored to her natural form as the fairest young woman anyone has ever seen. In return the herds, dwellings and habitations of Dyfed are now again as good as ever. Rhiannon and Pryderi are released from their servitude, and the two couples live together in happiness.

  MATH, SON OF MATHONWY; MABINOGI, BRANCH IV

  Action in the fourth branch shifts to the north, to Gwynedd, the medieval kingdom often at odds with Dyfed of the south. Featured here are Math, son of Mathonwy, and his niece and nephews, the children of Dôn. More complex and longer than the previous three, the fourth branch combines mythological, magical and human elements. Despite abrupt transitions, this branch is frequently the most appealing to modern readers. Novelistic episodes of intrigue and betrayal are peopled with arresting characters such as the unscrupulous enchanter Gwydion, the adulterous Blodeuedd and the heroic Lieu Llaw Gyffes.

  Math reigns in Gwynedd while Pryderi has come to power in Dyfed with portions of allied nearby kingdoms. Vital to Math’s stability on his throne is his participation in a seemingly bizarre custom. Unless he is away for war, he must, when seated, keep his feet in the lap of a chosen virgin, Goewin, who is renowned for her beauty. Why this should be so is never hinted at in the text, but modern commentators have many suggestions. M. J. Green (1993) asserts that Math may represent the survival of a sacral kingship in which the life-force of the land is concentrated in the undissipated and undiluted sexuality of the virgin. Or there may be a parallel with the concept of the ritual marriage between the king and a female incarnation of sovereignty, a personified force of the territory, in order that the land may be prosperous and fertile. The king has no romantic attachment to the foot-holder. Other members of the court, including Math’s nephews Gilfaethwy and Gwydion, do have their eyes on her. Because he has supernatural powers, Gwydion perceives that Gilfaethwy is smitten with Goewin and so devises a complicated plan to allow his brother to be with his heart’s desire. His scheme turns on a taste for pork. Pigs are new to Wales at this time, and their meat is proclaimed sweeter than beef. Gwydion promises to scout out some of the precious comestible by taking ten companions and going in disguise as a bard to Dyfed, where Pryderi is raising a herd. Although the delegation charms Pryderi, the Dyfed king is looking for comparable exchange before he will hand over such prized beasts. The enchanter Gwydion at last turns to magic; he ensorcells Pryderi with twelve phantom steeds and twelve phantom hounds and then leaves immediately with the pigs. Next morning when Pryderi realizes he has been defrauded, the two petty kingdoms are at war. Math’s subsequent departure for the battlefield means that he must leave foot-holder Goewin behind, which allows Gilfaethwy his moment with her. As virtuous as she is lovely, Goewin refuses. He then forces his affection upon her dishonourably. Elsewhere the war ends quickly when Gwydion slays Pryderi in single combat.

  The outrage committed on Goewin yields consequences. When she confesses to Math that she is no longer a virgin, the king marries her to spare her further shame. His anger is directed toward his nephews instead. He has them transformed successively into a pair of deer, pigs and wolves. Simultaneously their sexes are changed so that one must be female while the other is male. As stag and hind in their first year they produce the fawn Hyddwn, the second as boar and sow gives Hychdwn Hir [tall piglet], and their third as wolf and bitch, Bleiddwn [wolf cub]. Their three-year punishment ended, the brothers return to human form, cleansed and anointed, to rejoin the court.

  So well restored to good graces is Gwydion that he may again advise the court, even on such delicate matters as finding a new virgin foot-holder. He nominates his own sister, Arianrhod, the daughter of Dôn. Math says he will accept her after she has passed an infallible test of virginity. A magician’s rod is placed on the floor, and she must step across it. Arianrhod agrees but fails spectacularly. As her foot crosses over the rod, a golden-haired infant drops from her womb and gives out a loud cry. In humiliation Arianrhod bolts for the door, dropping another little thing on the way, which Gwydion seizes. The sturdy, golden-haired infant dropped in the test is named Dylan [ocean, wave], and immediately leaves for the sea. In maturity he will be described as dark and will bear the epithet Eil Ton [son of wave] and can swim as well as any fish. The cryptic ‘thing’ dropped by Arianrhod as she flees turns out to be another child. Gwydion, the unacknowledged father of both infants, nurtures this second boy away from prying eyes, until one day he decides to present him to his mother. Arianrhod is furious to see the boy, a reminder of her foiled deception. After scolding Gwydion for bringing him, she rages that she does not want the boy to have a name until she herself decides what would be appropriate. In an attempt to have the mother view the child with more equanimity, Gwydion has him work as a shoemaker, and in that guise he th
rows a stone with accuracy and skill. Suitably impressed, Arianrhod admiringly calls the stone-thrower Lleu Llaw Gyffes [light/fair one of the sure/steady hand]. Returned to anger when she realizes Lleu’s true identity, she swears that he cannot have weapons until she gives them to him. But she soon has to swallow this threat when her palace appears threatened and she acknowledges that she does indeed have to give Lieu weapons. In a third fit of anger, Arianrhod proclaims that young Lleu cannot have a bride of any race on this earth. Gwydion and Math respond by constructing a wife of fragrant materials: oak, broom and meadowsweet. Her name Blodeuedd [flower face] is appropriately descriptive. She and Lleu are instantly taken with one another and make love on the first night.

  The young couple’s wedded bliss is short-lived. They settle in the far cantref of Dinoding, where Math and Gwydion help them establish a household. Lleu then returns to Math’s court, leaving Blodeuedd by herself. One day a hunter named Gronw Pebyr stops nearby, and as soon as he and Blodeuedd lay eyes on each other they instantly fall in love. As she did with Lleu, Blodeuedd sleeps with her paramour as soon as she can. Alert to the dangers of their love affair, the adulterers agree that they must murder Lleu before he uncovers their deception. She knows that her husband is nearly invulnerable. Pretending an interest in his safety and welfare, she asks Lleu how he might be killed. Although most weapons are useless against him, Lleu recklessly allows that he can be killed only by a spear made over a year’s duration. Further, the spear must be hurled at him as he is bathing in a special kind of tub and only when one of his feet is touching a billy goat. Complicated as they are, Blodeuedd and her lover meet every one of the demands. Just as Gronw Pebyr is about to run the hero through, Lleu Llaw Gyffes lets out a horrible scream and takes flight in the shape of an eagle. Soon he is out of sight. Gronw Pebyr then shows himself to be more than a mere adulterer by adding Lleu’s castle and lands to his own property.

  News of the adultery and attempted murder weighs heavily on Math and Gwydion. After exhausting effort they track down Lleu in eagle shape. His magic now more benign, Gwydion puts his wand to the eagle and returns Lleu to his familiar human form. The hero is unexpectedly emaciated and weak. Finding the strumpet Blodeuedd as well, Gwydion is harsher. To shame her he turns her into an owl and condemns her never to show her face in light again. Aware of his guilt, Gronw Pebyr offers compensation for the thwarted murder. Lleu thinks it would be appropriate for him to return whatever blow was delivered to him. For his protection, Gronw Pebyr is allowed to hide behind a rock. It is not enough. Lleu’s thrust of the spear is so ferocious that it sunders the rock and pierces the adulterer’s back, ending his tawdry life. Lleu Llaw Gyffes retakes his possessions and rules them successfully. Later he becomes lord of all Gwynedd.

  Thus end the four branches of the Mabinogi.

  14

  Survivals in the Oral Traditions of Celtic Lands

  LEARNED TEXT AND HUMBLE SPEECH

  Great medieval narratives such as the Táin Βó Cuailnge and the Mabinogi command much of our attention in this volume. Their substantial bulk, artistic complexity and depth sustain extensive critical scrutiny. For all that we have discovered about them, most of their secrets remain to be unravelled. And they exist in written documents.

  If we think of post-classical Celtic mythology as consisting primarily of Irish and Welsh materials, it is because only in Ireland and Wales was there an early written literary tradition in the indigenous languages. In both Ireland and Wales there is also a huge body of oral literature, much of it collected from illiterate storytellers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In some of the stories characters from earlier written tradition, such as Fionn mac Cumhaill or Deirdre, appear again often strangely transmogrified. In oral tradition Fionn the hero of written narratives can be seen as a giant or as a clumsy buffoon. While mnemonic oral formulae among storytellers may allow for set passages to stay intact over many generations, it is also true that the more often and more widely a story is repeated the more often variations will occur in characterization and plot detail.

  So it is in Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Nova Scotia, the Isle of Man, Cornwall and Brittany, places with Celtic language traditions that produced no manuscripts from small learned castes in medieval times. Apart from Scottish Gaelic poetry published in the early sixteenth century, narrative lore in these five areas comes from nineteenth-and twentieth-century collectors who travelled among the illiterate peasantry. We can never be sure what status a story held within the society where it was collected. Was it mere entertainment or was it thought to contain an esteemed truth of the tribe? Nineteenth-century publication occurred before collection from oral sources had attained professional academic standards. We cannot always guess the collector’s limitations or biases. Given these limitations, the information received from collectors is often difficult to reconcile with what documents tell us. The Brahan Seer, a gifted practitioner of ‘second sight’, is one of the most widely known and cited figures in Scottish Gaelic oral tradition. But the two life records that support his existence are eighty-six years apart and could not possibly describe the same person. In oral tradition variations over time and place may produce tales of contradictory themes. In the Breton ‘Legend of the City of Ys’, the usual narrative point of view is somewhat misogynist, in that the villain is Dahut, the dissolute princess. In other versions her otherwise saintly father Gradlon may take this role, making a story of radically different import.

  A certain fluidity of character and theme is hardly the only distinction of oral tradition. Prompted by the rise of television and mass communications after the middle of the twentieth century, many scholars have re-examined the transforming impact of literacy on the mind of Europe. Their attention has ranged from writing itself to the introduction of the printing press at the beginning of the Renaissance and the rise of mass literacy after the Industrial Revolution. In the view of Walter J. Ong, in Orality and Literacy (1982), writing changes the way we think as much as it changes what we think. His findings are as much diachronic as synchronic and can apply to medieval literacy as well as to modern, even when that literacy is drawn from a long-ago orality.

  There is a sociological dimension as well to the difference between medieval written stories and those collected from the unlettered. The ecclesiastics who produced the manuscripts in Ireland and Wales were but a tiny fraction of the population in which they lived. Their housing might have been intolerable by modern standards – unheated stone cells – but they usually came from the most privileged families. Along with reading their own languages, they also knew Latin and perhaps Greek, giving them access to worlds far beyond their own. The illiterates interviewed by nineteenth-century collectors could have been anyone who happened by. Such people subsisted on the impoverished fringes of Europe, the ‘Celtic Fringe’, while a few hundred miles away other minds were unravelling the mysteries of science or amassing unprecedented fortunes. Tied to archaic economies and inhibitive and repressive social structures, these were ‘folk’ rather than citizens.

  Collections from the oral traditions of the illiterate among the Celtic fringe came fairly late in the century. The impulse to rescue stories of the peasantry had begun at least a generation earlier on the continent with scholars such as the Brothers Grimm – Jakob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859). With the amassing of stories from dozens of languages came a new understanding of the stories’ nature. Earlier narratives collected from illiterate peasantry were thought to be ‘popular antiquities’: ‘popular’ because they were known among common people, and ‘antiquities’ because they were presumed to have been derived from ancient originals, perhaps in Greece and Rome. In the 1850s English collectors coined the term ‘folktale’ to imply that the phenomenon should be considered on its own, not as some degraded form of a learned original, whether we call it ‘mythology’ or not. Because they are not written down their age and origin are incalculable. Just as speech precedes writing, however, many could well be older th
an comparable stories recorded by learned elites.

  SCOTLAND

  Scotland comprises five traditional ethnic groups, only one of which has given its name to the nation. These are the Gaels or Scotti, who began migrating from Ireland about the fifth century. Scotti was one of several names for Irish people, especially in the northeast of that island. Before they arrived, the land in the north of Great Britain was known as Caledonia or Alba. In 844 the Gaelic leader Cináed mac Alpín [Kenneth MacAlpin] united with the neighbouring Picts (an indigenous, essentially Celtic-speaking people) to form Scotland. Eventually Scottish Gaelic hegemony extended over the Angles (i.e. English) in the southeast and the Britons (or Welsh) in the south and southwest kingdom of Rheged, as well as the many Norse enclaves. For several centuries Scottish Gaelic spread over the entire kingdom. Derived from Old Irish, it underwent so many changes in vocabulary and pronunciation as to become a separate language. Eventually it was replaced as the medium for law and commerce by the Scottish language, a linguistic cousin of English, often known as Scots, Broad Scots or Lallans. ‘Lallans’ means, literally, ‘Low Lands’, and denotes the more heavily populated, industrially advanced and prosperous areas of the country in the centre and south, including Edinburgh and Glasgow. Gaelic, no longer the national language, retreated behind the Grampian Line, a range of mountains that separate the Highlands and Hebridean Islands of Scotland from the rest of the country, where it continues to be spoken and written in the twenty-first century.