Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race

[Starla St. Germaine]

The Well of Tradaban

Keelta, who knows every brook and hill and rath and wood in the country, thereon takes Patrick by the hand and leads him away " till," as the writer says, "right in front of them they saw a loch-well, sparkling and translucid. The size and thickness of the cress and of the fothlacht, or brooklime, that grew on it was a wonderment to them." Then Keelta began to tell of the fame and qualities of the place, and uttered an exquisite little lyric in praise of it :

"O Well of the Strand of the Two Women, beautiful are thy cresses, luxuriant, branching ; since thy produce

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is neglected on thee thy brooklime is not suffered to grow. Forth from thy banks thy trout are to be seen, thy wild swine in the wilderness ; the deer of thy fair hunting crag-land, thy dappled and red-chested fawns ! Thy mast all hanging on the branches of the trees ; thy fish in estuaries of the rivers; lovely the colours of thy purling streams, O thou that art azure-hued, and again green with reflections of surrounding copse-wood." [translation by S. H. O'Grady]

 

St. Patrick and Irish Legend

After the warriors have been entertained Patrick asks :

"Was he, Finn mac Cumhal, a good lord with whom ye were ?" Keelta praises the generosity of Finn, and goes on to describe in detail the glories of his household, whereon Patrick says :

"Were it not for us an impairing of the devout life, an occasion of neglecting prayer, and of deserting converse with God, we, as we talked with thee, would feel the time pass quickly, warrior !"

Keelta goes on with another tale of the Fianna, and Patrick, now fairly caught in the toils of the enchanter, cries "Success and benediction attend thee, Keelta ! This is to me a lightening of spirit and mind. And now tell us another tale."

So ends the exordium of the "Colloquy." As usual in the openings of Irish tales, nothing could be better contrived ; the touch is so light, there is so happy a mingling of pathos, poetry, and humour, and so much dignity in the sketching of the human characters introduced. The rest of the piece consists in the exhibition of a vast amount of topographical and legendary lore by Keelta, attended by the invariable "Success and benediction attend thee !" of Patrick.

They move together, the warrior and the saint, on

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Patrick's journey to Tara, and whenever Patrick or some one else in the company sees a hill or a fort or a well he asks Keelta what it is, and Keelta tells its name and a Fian legend to account for it, and so the story wanders on through a maze of legendary lore until they are met by a company from Tara, with the king at its head, who then takes up the role of questioner. The "Colloquy," as we have it now, breaks off abruptly as the story how the Lia Fail was carried off from Ireland is about to be narrated. [see p. 105] The interest of the "Colloquy" lies in the tales of Keelta and the lyrics introduced in the course of them. Of the tales there are about a hundred, telling of Fian raids and battles, and love-makings and feastings, but the greater number of them have to do with the intercourse between the Fairy Folk and the Fianna. With these folk the Fianna have constant relations, both of love and of war. Some of the tales are of great elaboration, wrought out in the highest style of which the writer was capable. One of the best is that of the fairy Brugh, or mansion of Slievenamon, which Patrick and Keelta chance to pass by, and of which Keelta tells the following history:

 

The Brugh of Slieyenamon

One day as Finn and Keelta and five other champions of the Fianna were hunting at Torach, in the north, they roused a beautiful fawn which fled before them, they holding it in chase all day, till they reached the mountain of Slievenamon towards evening, when the fawn suddenly seemed to vanish underground. A chase like this, in the Ossianic literature, is the common prelude to an adventure in Fairyland. Night now fell rapidly, and with it came heavy snow and storm, and, searching for shelter, the Fianna discovered in the

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wood a great illuminated Brugh, or mansion, where they sought admittance. On entering they found themselves in a spacious hall, full of light, with eight-and-twenty warriors and as many fair and yellow-haired maidens, one of the latter seated on a chair of crystal, and making wonderful music on a harp. After the Fian warriors have been entertained with the finest of viands and liquors, it is explained to them that their hosts are Donn, son of Midir the Proud, and his brother, and that they are at war with the rest of the Danaan Folk, and have to do battle with them thrice yearly on the green before the Brugh. At first each of the twenty-eight had a thousand warriors under him. Now all are slain except those present, and the survivors have sent out one of their maidens in the shape of a fawn to entice the Fianna to their fairy palace and to gain their aid in the battle that must be delivered to-morrow. We have, in fact, a variant of the well-known theme of the Rescue of Fairyland. Finn and his companions are always ready for a fray, and a desperate battle ensues which lasts from evening till morning, for the fairy host attack at night. The assailants are beaten off, losing over a thousand of their number ; but Oscar, Dermot, and mac Luga are sorely wounded. They are healed by magical herbs and more fighting and other adventures follow, until, after a year has passed, Finn compels the enemy to make peace and give hostages, when the Fianna return to earth and rejoin their fellows. No sooner has Keelta finished his tale, standing on the very spot where they had found the fairy palace on the night of snow, than a young warrior is seen approaching them. He is thus described : "A shirt of royal satin was next his skin ; over and outside it a tunic of the same fabric; and a fringed crimson mantle, confined with a bodkin

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of gold, upon his breast; in his hand a gold-hilted sword, and a golden helmet on his head." A delight in the colour and material splendour of life is a very marked feature in all this literature. This splendid figure turns out to be Donn mac Midir, one of the eight-and-twenty whom Finn had succoured, and he comes to do homage for himself and his people to St. Patrick, who accepts entertainment from him for the night ; for in the "Colloquy" the relations of the Church and of the Fairy World are very cordial.

 

[Starla St. Germaine]

The Three Young Warriors

Nowhere in Celtic literature does the love of wonder and mystery find such remarkable expression as in the "Colloquy." The writer of this piece was a master of the touch that makes, as it were, the solid framework of things translucent; and shows us, through it, gleams of another world, mingled with ours yet distinct, and having other laws and characteristics. We never get a clue as to what these laws are. The Celt did not, in Ireland at least, systematise the unknown, but let it shine for a moment through the opaqueness of this earth and then withdrew the gleam before we understood what we had seen. Take, for instance, this incident in Keelta's account of the Fianna. Three young warriors come to take service with Finn, accompanied by a gigantic hound. They make their agreement with him, saying what services they can render and what reward they expect, and they make it a condition that they shall camp apart from the rest of the host, and that when night has fallen no man shall come near them or see them.

Finn asks the reason for this prohibition, and it is this: of the three warriors one has to die each night, and the other two must watch him; therefore they would not

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he disturbed. There is no explanation of this; the writer simply leaves us with the thrill of the mystery upon us.

 

The Fair Giantess

Again, let us turn to the tale of the Fair Giantess. One day Finn and his warriors, while resting from the chase for their midday meal, saw coming towards them a towering shape. It proved to be a young giant maiden, who gave her name as Vivionn (Bebhionn) daughter of Treon, from the Land of Maidens. The gold rings on her fingers were as thick as an ox's yoke, and her beauty was dazzling. When she took off her gilded helmet, all bejewelled, her fair, curling golden hair broke out in seven score tresses, and Finn cried "Great gods whom we adore, a huge marvel Cormac and Ethné and the women of the Fianna would esteem it to see Vivionn, the blooming daughter of Treon." The maiden explained that she had been betrothed against her will to a suitor named AEda, son of a neighbouring king; and that hearing from a fisherman, who had been blown to her shores, of the power and nobleness of Finn, she had come to seek his protection. While she was speaking, suddenly the Fianna were aware of another giant form close at hand. It was a young man, smooth-featured and of surpassing beauty, who bore a red shield and a huge spear. Without a word he drew near, and before the wondering Fianna could accost him he thrust his spear through the body of the maiden and passed away. Finn, enraged at this violation of his protection, called on his chiefs to pursue and slay the murderer. Keelta and others chased him to the sea-shore, and followed him into the surf, but he strode out to sea, and was met by a great galley which bore him away to unknown regions. Returning, discomfited, to Finn, they found the girl

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dying. She distributed her gold and jewels among them, and the Fianna buried her under a great mound, and raised a pillar stone over her with her name in Ogham letters, in the place since called the Ridge of the Dead Woman.

In this tale we have, besides the element of mystery, that of beauty. It is an association of frequent occurrence in this period of Celtic literature ; and to this, perhaps, is due the fact that although these tales seem to come from nowhither and to lead nowhither, but move in a dream-world where there is no chase but seems to end in Fairyland and no combat that has any relation to earthly needs or objects, where all realities are apt to dissolve in a magic light and to change their shapes like morning mist, yet they linger in the memory with that haunting charm which has for many centuries kept them alive by the fireside of the Gaelic peasant.

 

St. Patrick, Oisin, and Keelta

Before we leave the " Colloquy " another interesting point must be mentioned in connexion with it. To the general public probably the best-known things in Ossianic literature - I refer, of course, to the true Gaelic poetry which goes under that name, not to the pseudo-Ossian of Macpherson - are those dialogues in which the pagan and the Christian ideals are contrasted, often in a spirit of humorous exaggeration or of satire. The earliest of these pieces are found in the manuscript called "The Dean of Lismore's Book," in which James Macgregor, Dean of Lismore in Argyllshire, wrote down, some time before the year 1518, all he could remember or discover of traditional Gaelic poetry in his time. It may be observed that up to this period, and, indeed, long after it, Scottish and Irish Gaelic were one language and one literature, the great written monuments of which were in Ireland, though they

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belonged just as much to the Highland Celt, and the two branches of the Gael had an absolutely common stock of poetic tradition. These Oisin-and-Patrick dialogues are found in abundance both in Ireland and in the Highlands, though, as I have said, "The Dean of Lismore's Book " is their first written record now extant. What relation, then, do these dialogues bear to the Keelta-and-Patrick dialogues with which we make acquaintance in the "Colloquy" ? The questions which really came first, where they respectively originated, and what current of thought or sentiment each represented, constitute, as Mr. Alfred Nutt has pointed out, a literary problem of the greatest interest; and one which no critic has yet attempted to solve, or, indeed, until quite lately, even to call attention to. For though these two attempts to represent, in imaginative and artistic form, the contact of paganism with Christianity are nearly identical in machinery and framework, save that one is in verse and the other in prose, yet they differ widely in their point of view.

In the Oisin dialogues [examples of these have been published, with translations, in the "Transactions of the Ossianic Society"] there is a great deal of rough humour and of crude theology, resembling those of an English miracle-play rather than any Celtic product that I am acquainted with. St. Patrick in these ballads, as Mr. Nutt remarks, " is a sour and stupid fanatic, harping with wearisome monotony on the damnation of Finn and all his comrades; a hard taskmaster to the poor old blind giant to whom he grudges food, and upon whom he plays shabby tricks in order to terrify him into acceptance of Christianity." Now in the "Colloquy" there is not one word of all this. Keelta embraces Christianity with a wholehearted reverence, and salvation is not denied to the friends and companions of his youth.

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Patrick, indeed, assures Keelta of the salvation of several of them, including Finn himself. One of the Danaan Folk, who has been bard to the Fianna, delighted Patrick with his minstrelsy. Brogan, the scribe whom St. Patrick is employing to write down the Fian legends, says: " If music there is in heaven, why should there not be on earth ? Wherefore it is not right to banish minstrelsy." Patrick made answer : "Neither say I any such thing"; and, in fact, the minstrel is promised heaven for his art.

Such are the pleasant relations that prevail in the "Colloquy" between the representatives of the two epochs. Keelta represents all that is courteous, dignified, generous, and valorous in paganism, and Patrick all that is benign and gracious in Christianity ; and instead of the two epochs standing over against each other in violent antagonism, and separated by an impassable gulf, all the finest traits in each are seen to harmonise with and to supplement those of the other.

 

Tales of Dermot

A number of curious legends centre on Dermot O'Dyna, who has been referred to as one of Finn mac Cumhal's most notable followers. He might be described as a kind of Gaelic Adonis, a type of beauty and attraction, the hero of innumerable love tales; and, like Adonis, his death was caused by a wild boar.

 

The Boar of Ben Bulben

The boar was no common beast. The story of its origin was as follows: Dermot's father, Donn, gave the child to be nurtured by Angus Og in his palace on the Boyne. His mother, who was unfaithful to Don n, bore another child to Roc, the steward of Angus. Donn, one day, when the steward's child ran between his knees to escape from some hounds that were fighting on the

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floor of the hall, gave him a squeeze with his two knees that killed him on the spot, and he then flung the body among the hounds on the floor. When the steward found his son dead, and discovered (with Finn's aid) the cause of it, he brought a Druid rod and smote the body with it, whereupon, in place of the dead child, there arose a huge boar, without ears or tail ; and to it he spake: "I charge you to bring Dermot O'Dyna to his death"; and the boar rushed out from the hall and roamed in the forests of Ben Bulben in Co. Sligo till the time when his destiny should be fulfilled.

But Dermot grew up into a splendid youth, tireless in the chase, undaunted in war, beloved by all his comrades of the Fianna, whom he joined as soon as he was of age to do so.

[Starla St. Germaine]

How Dermot Got the Love Spot

He was called Dermot of the Love Spot, arid a curious and beautiful folk-tale recorded by Dr. Douglas Hyde [taken down from the recital of a peasant in Co. Galway and published at Rennes in Dr. Hyde's "An Sgeuluidhe Gaodhlach," vol. ii. (no translation).] tells how he got this appellation. With three comrades, Goll, Conan, and Oscar, he was hunting one day, and late at night they sought a resting-place. They soon found a hut, in which were an old man, a young girl, a wether sheep, and a cat. Here they asked for hospitality, and it was granted to them. But, as usual in these tales, it was a house of mystery.

When they sat down to dinner the wether got up and mounted on the table. One after another the Fianna strove to throw it off, but it shook them down on the floor. At last Goll succeeded in flinging it off the table, but him too it vanquished in the end, and put them all under its feet. Then the old man bade the cat lead

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the wether back and fasten it up, and it did so easily. The four champions, overcome with shame, were for leaving the house at once; but the old man explained that they had suffered no discredit - the wether they had been fighting with was the World, and the cat was the power that would destroy the world itself, namely, Death.

At night the four heroes went to rest in a large chamber, and the young maid came to sleep in the same room; and it is said that her beauty made a light on the walls of the room like a candle. One after another the Fianna went over to her couch, but she repelled them all. "I belonged to you once," she said to each, "and I never will again." Last of all Dermot went. "O Dermot," she said, "you, also, I belonged to once, and I never can again, for I am Youth; but come here and I will put a mark on you so that no woman can ever see you without loving you." Then she touched his forehead, and left the Love Spot there; and that drew the love of women to him as long as he lived.

 

The Chase of the Hard Gilly

The Chase of the Gilla Dacar is another Fian tale in which Dermot plays a leading part. The Fianna, the story goes, were hunting one day on the hills and through the woods of Munster, and as Finn and his captains stood on a hillside listening to the baying of the hounds, and the notes of the Fian hunting-horn from the dark wood below, they saw coming towards them a huge, ugly, misshapen churl dragging along by a halter a great raw-boned mare. He announced himself as wishful to take service with Finn. The name he was called by, he said, was the Gilla Dacar (the Hard Gilly), because he was the hardest servant ever a lord had to get service or obedience from. In spite of this

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unpromising beginning, Finn, whose principle it was never to re use an suitor, took him into service ; and the Fianna now began to make their uncouth comrade the butt of all sorts of rough jokes, which ended in thirteen of them, including Conan the Bald, all mounting up on the Gilla Dacar's steed. On this the newcomer complained that he was being mocked, and he shambled away in great discontent till he was over the ridge of the hill, when he tucked up his skirts and ran westwards, faster than any March wind, toward the sea-shore in Co. Kerry. Thereupon at once the steed, which had stood still with drooping ears while the thirteen riders in vain belaboured it to make it move, suddenly threw up its head and started off in a furious gallop after its master. The Fianna ran alongside, as well as they could for laughter, while Conan, in terror and rage, reviled them for not rescuing him and his comrades. At last the thing became serious. The Gilla Dacar plunged into the sea, and the mare followed him with her thirteen riders, and one more who managed to cling to her tail just as she left the shore; and all of them soon disappeared towards the fabled region of the West.

 

Dermot at the Well

Finn and the remaining Fianna now took counsel together as to what should be done, and finally decided to fit out a ship and go in search of their comrades. After many days of voyaging they reached an island guarded by precipitous cliffs. Dermot O'Dyna, as the most agile of the party, was sent to climb them and to discover, if he could, some means of helping up the rest of the party. When he arrived at the top he found himself in a delightful land, full of the song of birds and the humming of bees and the murmur of streams,

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but with no sign of habitation. Going into a dark forest, he soon came to a well, by which hung a curiously wrought drinking-horn. As he filled it to drink, a low, threatening murmur came from the well, but his thirst was too keen to let him heed it and he drank his fill. In no long time there came through the wood an armed warrior, who violently upbraided him for drinking from his well. The Knight of the Well and Dermot then fought all the afternoon without either of them prevailing over the other, when, as evening drew on, the knight suddenly leaped into the well and disappeared. Next day the same thing happened; on the third, however, Dermot, as the knight was about to take his leap, flung his arms round him, and both went down together.

[Starla St. Germaine]

The Rescue of Fairyland

Dermot, after a moment of darkness and trance, now found himself in Fairyland. A man of noble appearance roused him and led him away to the castle of a great king, where he was hospitably entertained. It was explained to him that the services of a champion like himself were needed to do combat against a rival monarch of Faery. It is the same motive which we find in the adventures of Cuchulain with Fand, and which so frequently turns up in Celtic fairy lore. Finn and his companions, finding that Dermot did not return to them, found their way up the cliffs, and, having traversed the forest, entered a great cavern which ultimately led them out to the same land as that in which Dermot had arrived. There too, they are informed, are the fourteen Fianna who had been carried off on the mare of the Hard Gilly. He, of course, was the king who needed their services, and who had taken this method of decoying some thirty of the flower of Irish fighting men to his side. Finn and his men go into the battle with the best of goodwill,

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and scatter the enemy like chaff; Oscar slays the son of the rival king (who is called the King of "Greece"). Finn wins the love of his daughter, Tasha of the White Arms, and the story closes with a delightful mixture of gaiety and mystery. "What reward wilt thou have for thy good services?" asks the fairy king of Finn. "Thou wert once in service with me," replies Finn, "and I mind not that I gave thee any recompense. Let one service stand against the other." " Never shall I agree to that," cries Conan the Bald. "Shall I have nought for being carried off on thy wild mare and haled over-sea?" "What wilt thou have?" asks the fairy king. "None of thy gold or goods," replies Conan "but mine honour hath suffered, and let mine honour be appeased. Set thirteen of thy fairest womenfolk on the wild mare, O King, and thine own wife clinging to her tail, and let them be transported to Erin in like manner as we were dragged here, and I shall deem the indignity we have suffered fitly atoned for." On this the king smiled and, turning to Finn, said : "O Finn, behold thy men." Finn turned to look at them, but when he looked round again the scene had changed - the fairy king and his host and all the world of Faery had disappeared, and he found himself with his companions and the fair-armed Tasha standing on the beach of the little bay in Kerry whence the Hard Gilly and the mare had taken the water and carried off his men. And then all started with cheerful hearts for the great standing camp of the Fianna on the Hill of Allen to celebrate the wedding feast of Finn and Tasha.

 

Effect of Christianity on the Development of Irish Literature

This tale with its fascinating mixture of humour, romance, magic, and love of wild nature, may be taken a typical specimen of the Fian legends at their best.

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As compared with the Conorian legends they show, as I have pointed out, a characteristic lack of any heroic or serious element. That nobler strain died out with the growing predominance of Christianity, which appropriated for definitely religious purposes the more serious and lofty side of the Celtic genius, leaving for secular literature only the elements of wonder and romance. So completely was this carried out that while the Finn legends have survived to this day among the Gaelic-speaking population, and were a subject of literary treatment as long as Gaelic was written at all, the earlier cycle perished almost completely out of the popular remembrance, or survived only in distorted forms ; and but for the early manuscripts in which the tales are fortunately enshrined such a work as the "Tam Bo Cuailgné" - the greatest thing undoubtedly which the Celtic genius ever produced in literature - would now be irrecoverably lost.

 

The Tales of Deirdre and of Grania

Nothing can better illustrate the difference between the two cycles than a comparison of the tale of Deirdre with that with which we have now to deal - the tale of Dermot and Grania. The latter, from one point of view, reads like an echo of the former, so close is the resemblance between them in the outline of the plot. Take the following skeleton story: "A fair maiden is betrothed to a renowned and mighty suitor much older than herself. She turns from him to seek a younger lover, and fixes her attention on one of his followers, a gallant and beautiful youth, whom she persuades, in spite of his reluctance, to fly with her. After evading pursuit they settle down for a while at a distance from the defrauded lover, who bides his time, till at last, under cover of a treacherous reconciliation, he procures the death of his younger rival and retakes

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possession of the lady." Were a student of Celtic legend asked to listen to the above synopsis, and to say to what Irish tale it referred, he would certainly reply that it must be either the tale of the Pursuit of Dermot and Grania, or that of the Fate of the Sons of Usna but which of them it was it would be quite impossible for him to tell. Yet in tone and temper the two stories are as wide apart as the poles.

 

Grania and Dermot

Grania, in the Fian story, is the daughter of Cormac mac Art, High King of Ireland. She is betrothed to Finn mac Cumhal, whom we are to regard at this period as an old and war-worn but still mighty warrior. The famous captains of the Fianna all assemble at Tara for the wedding feast, and as they sit at meat Grania surveys them and asks their names of her father's Druid, Dara. "It is a wonder," she says, "that Finn did not ask me for Oisin, rather than for himself." "Oisin would not dare to take thee," says Dara. Grania, after going through all the company, asks "Who is that man with the spot on his brow, with the sweet voice, with curling dusky hair and ruddy cheek ?" "That is Dermot O'Dyna," replies the Druid, "the white-toothed, of the lightsome countenance, in all the world the best lover of women and maidens." Grania now prepares a sleepy draught, which she places in a drinking-cup and passes round by her handmaid to the king, to Finn, and to all the company except the chiefs of the Fianna. When the draught has done its work she goes to Oisin. "Wilt thou receive courtship from me, Oisin ?" she asks. "That will I not," says Oisin, "nor from any woman that is betrothed to Finn." Grania, who knew very well what Oisin's answer would be, now turns to her real mark, Dermot. He at first refuses to have

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anything to do with her. "I put thee under bonds [geise], O Dermot, that thou take me out of Tara to-night." "Evil are these bonds, Grania," says Dermot; "and wherefore hast thou put them on me before all the kings' sons that feast at this table?" Grania then explains that she has loved Dermot ever since she saw him, years ago, from her sunny bower, take part in and win a great hurling match on the green at Tara. Dermot, still very reluctant, pleads the merits of Finn, and urges also that Finn has the keys of the royal fortress, so that they cannot pass out at night. "There is a secret wicket-gate in my bower," says Grania. "I am under geise not to pass through any wicket-gate," replies Dermot, still struggling against his destiny. Grania will have none of these subterfuges - any Fian warrior, she has been told, can leap over a palisade with the aid of his spear as a jumping-pole; and she goes oft to make ready for the elopement. Dermot, in great perplexity, appeals to Oisin, Oscar, Keelta, and the others as to what he should do. They all bid him keep his geise - the bonds that Grania had laid on him to succour her-and he takes leave of them with tears.

Outside the wicket-gate he again begs Grania to return. "It is certain that I will not go back," says Grania, "nor part from thee till death part us." "Then go forward, O Grania," says Dermot. After they had gone a mile, "I am truly weary, O grandson of Dyna," says Grania. "It is a good time to be weary," says Dermot, making a last effort to rid himself of the entanglement, "and return now to thy household again, for I pledge the word of a true warrior that I will never carry thee nor any other woman to all eternity." "There is no need," replies Grania, and she directs him where to find horses and a chariot, and Dermot, now finally

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accepting the inevitable, yokes them, and they proceed on their way to the Ford of Luan on the Shannon. [now Athlone (Atha Luian)

 

The Pursuit

Next day Finn, burning with rage, sets out with his warriors on their track. He traces out each of their halting-places, and finds the hut of wattles which Dermot has made for their shelter, and the bed of soft rushes, and the remains of the meal they had eaten. And at each place he finds a piece of unbroken bread or uncooked salmon - Dermot's subtle message to Finn that he has respected the rights of his lord and treated Grania as a sister. But this delicacy of Dermot's is not at all to Grania's mind, and she conveys her wishes to him in a manner which is curiously paralleled by an episode in the tale of Tristan and Iseult of Brittany, as told by Heinrich von Freiberg. They are passing through a piece of wet ground when a splash of water strikes Grania. She turns to her companion:

"Thou art a mighty warrior, O Dermot, in battle and sieges and forays, yet meseems that this drop of water is bolder than thou." This hint that he was keeping at too respectful a distance was taken by Dermot. The die is now cast, and he will never again meet Finn and his old comrades except at the point of the spear.

The tale now loses much of the originality and charm of its opening scene, and recounts in a somewhat mechanical manner a number of episodes in which Dermot is attacked or besieged by the Fianna, and rescues himself and his lady by miracles of boldness or dexterity, or by aid of the magical devices of his foster-father, Angus Og. They are chased all over Ireland, and the dolmens in that country are popularly associated

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with them, being called in the traditions of the peasantry "Beds of Dermot and Grania"

Grania's character is drawn throughout with great consistency. She is not an heroic woman - hers are not the simple, ardent impulses and unwavering devotion of a Deirdre. The latter is far more primitive. Grania is a curiously modern and what would be called "neurotic" type - wilful, restless, passionate, but full of feminine fascination.

 

Dermot and Finn Make Peace

After sixteen years of outlawry peace is at last made for Dermot by the mediation of Angus with King Cormac and with Finn. Dermot receives his proper patrimony, the Cantred of O'Dyna, and other lands far away in the West, and Cormac gives another of his daughters to Finn. "Peaceably they abode a long time with each other, and it was said that no man then living was richer in gold and silver, in flocks and herds, than Dermot O'Dyna, nor one that made more preys." [how significant is this naive indication that the making of foray: on his neighbours was regarded in Celtic Ireland as the natural and laudable occupation of a country gentleman ! Compare Spenser's account of the ideals fostered by the Irish bards of his time, "View of the Present State of Ireland," p. 641 (Globe edition).] Grania bears to Dermot four sons and a daughter.

But Grania is not satisfied until "the two best men that are in Erin, namely, Cormac son of Art and Finn son of Cumhal," have been entertained in her house. "And how do we know," she adds, "but our daughter might then get a fitting husband?" Dermot agrees with some misgiving; the king and Finn accept the invitation, and they and their retinues are feasted for a year at Rath Grania.

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The Vengeance of Finn

Then one night, towards the end of the year of feasting, Dermot is awakened from sleep by the baying of a hound. He starts up, "so that Grania caught him and threw her two arms about him and asked him what he had seen." "It is the voice of a hound," says Dermot, "and I marvel to hear it in the night." "Save and protect thee," says Grania ; "it is the Danaan Folk that are at work on thee. Lay thee down again." But three times the hound's voice awakens him, and on the morrow he goes forth armed with sword and sling, and followcd by his own hound, to see what is afoot.

On the mountain of Ben Bulben in Sligo he comes across Finn with a hunting-party of the Fianna. They are not now hunting, however; they are being hunted; for they have roused up the enchanted boar without ears or tail, the Boar of Ben Bulben, which has slain thirty of them that morning. "And do thou come away," says Finn, knowing well that Dermot will never retreat from a danger ;"for thou art under geise not to hunt pig."

"How is that?" says Dermot, and Finn then tells him the weird story of the death of the steward's son and his revivification in the form of this boar, with its mission of vengeance. "By my word," quoth Dermot, "it is to slay me that thou hast made this hunt, O Finn ; and if it be here that I am fated to die, I have no power now to shun it."

The beast then appears on the face of the mountain, and Dermot slips the hound at him, but the hound flies in terror. Dermot then slings a stone which strikes the boar fairly in the middle of his forehead but does not even scratch his skin. The beast is close on him now, and Dermot strikes him with his sword, but the weapon flies in two and not a bristle of the boar is cut.

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In the charge of the boar Dermot falls over him, and is carried for a space clinging to his back; but at last the boar shakes him off to the ground, and making "an eager, exceeding mighty spring" upon him, rips out his bowels, while at the same time, with the hilt of the sword still in his hand, Dermot dashes out the brains of the beast, and it falls dead beside him.

 

Death of Dermot

The implacable Finn then comes up, and stands over Dermot in his agony. "It likes me well to see thee in that plight, O Dermot," he says, "and I would that all the women in Ireland saw thee now; for thy excellent beauty is turned to ugliness and thy choice form to deformity." Dermot reminds Finn of how he once rescued him from deadly peril when attacked during a feast at the house of Derc, and begs him to heal him with a draught of water from his hands, for Finn had the magic gift of restoring any wounded man to health with a draught of well-water drawn in his two hands. "Here is no well," says Finn. "That is not true," says Dermot, "for nine paces from you is the best well of pure water in the world." Finn, at last, on the entreaty of Oscar and the Fianna, and after the recital of many deeds done for his sake by Dermot in old days, goes to the well, but ere he brings the water to Dermot's side he lets it fall through his fingers. A second time he goes, and a second time he lets the water fall, "having thought upon Grania," and Dermot gave a sigh of anguish on seeing it. Oscar then declares that if Finn does not bring the water promptly either he or Finn shall never leave the hill alive, and Finn goes once more to the well, but it is now too late; Dermot is dead before the healing draught can reach his lips. Then Finn takes the hound of Dermot, the

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chiefs of the Fianna lay their cloaks over the dead man, and they return to Rath Grania. Grania, seeing the hound led by Finn, conjectures what has happened, and swoons upon the rampart of the Rath. Oisin, when she has revived, gives her the hound, against Finn's will, and the Fianna troop away, leaving her to her sorrow. When the people of Grania's household go out to fetch in the body of Dermot they find there Angus Og and his company of the People of Dana, who, after raising three bitter and terrible cries, bear away the body on a gilded bier, and Angus declares that though he cannot restore the dead to life, "I will send a soul into him so that he may talk with me each day."

 

The End of Grania

To a tale like this modern taste demands a romantic and sentimental ending; and such has actually been given to it in the retelling by Dr. P. W. Joyce in his "Old Celtic Romances," as it has to the tale of Deirdre by almost every modern writer who has handled it. [Dr. John Todhunter, in his "Three Irish Bardic Tales," has alone, I think, kept the antique ending of the tale of Deirdre.] But the Celtic story-teller felt differently. The tale of the end of Deirdre is horribly cruel, that of Grania cynical and mocking; neither is in the least sentimental. Grania is at first enraged with Finn, and sends her sons abroad to learn feats of arms, so that they may take vengeance upon him when the time is ripe. But Finn, wily and far-seeing as he is portrayed in this tale, knows how to forestall this danger. When the tragedy on Ben Bulben has begun to grow a little faint in the shallow soul of Grania, he betakes himself to her, and though met at first with scorn and indignation he woos her so sweetly and with such tenderness that at last he brings

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her to his will, and he bears her back as a bride to the Hill of Allen. When the Fianna see the pair coming towards them in this loving guise they burst into a shout of laughter and derision, "so that Grania bowed her head in shame." "We trow, O Finn," cries Oisin, that thou wilt keep Grania well from hence-forth." So Grania made peace between Finn and her sons, and dwelt with Finn as his wife until he died.

 

Two Streams of Fian Legends

It will be noticed that in this legend Finn does not appear as a sympathetic character. Our interest is all on the side of Dermot. In this aspect of it the tale is typical of a certain class of Fian stories. Just as there were two rival clans within the Fian organisation - the Clan Bascna and the Clan Morna - who sometimes came to blows for the supremacy, so there are two streams of legends seeming to flow respectively from one or other or these sources, in one of which Finn is glorified, while in the other he is belittled in favour of Goll mac Morna or any other hero with whom he comes into conflict.

 

End of the Fianna

The story of the end of the Fianna is told in a number of pieces, some prose, some poetry, all of them, however, agreeing in presenting this event as a piece of sober history, without any of the supernatural and mystical atmosphere in which nearly all the Fian legends are steeped.

After the death of Cormac mac Art his son Cairbry came to the High-Kingship of Ireland. He had a fair daughter named Sgeimh Solais (Light of Beauty), who was asked in marriage by a son of the King of the Decies. The marriage was arranged, and the Fianna claimed a ransom or tribute of twenty ingots of gold, which, it is said, was customarily paid to them on these occasions.

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It would seem that the Fianna had now grown to be a distinct power within the State, and an oppressive one, exacting heavy tributes and burdensome privileges from kings and sub-kings all over Ireland. Cairbry resolved to break them; and he thought he had now a good opportunity to do so. He therefore refused payment of the ransom, and summoned all the provincial kings to help him against the Fianna, the main body of whom immediately went into rebellion for what they deemed their rights. The old feud between Clan Bascna and Clan Morna now broke out afresh, the latter standing by the High King, while Clan Bascna, aided by the King of Munster and his forces, who alone took their side, marched against Cairbry.

 

The Battle of Gowra

All this sounds very matter-of-fact and probable, but how much real history there may be in it it is very hard to say. The decisive battle of the war which ensued took place at Gowra (Gabhra), the name of which survives in Garristown, Co. Dublin. The rival forces, when drawn up in battle array, knelt and kissed the sacred soil of Erin before they charged. The story of the battle iii the poetical versions, one of which is published in the Ossianic Society's " Transactions," and another and finer one in Campbell's "The Fians," ["Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition," Argyllshire Series. The tale was taken down in verse, word for word, from the dictation of Roderick mac Fadyen in Tiree, 1868.] is supposed to be related by Oisin to St. Patrick. He lays great stress on the feats of his son Oscar:

"My son urged his course
Through the battalions of Tara
Like a hawk through a flock of birds,
Or a rock descending a mountain-side,"

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[Starla St. Germaine]

The Death of Oscar

The fight was à outrance, and the slaughter on both sides tremendous. None but old men and boys, it is said, were left in Erin after that fight. The Fianna were in the end almost entirely exterminated, and Oscar slain. He and the King of lreland, Cairbry, met in single combat, and each of them slew the other. While Oscar was still breathing, though there was not a palm's breadth on his body without a wound, his father found him:

"I found my own son lying down
On his left elbow, his shield by his side;
His right hand clutched the sword,
The blood poured through his mail.

"Oscar gazed up at me -
Woe to me was that sight !
He stretched out his two arms to me,
Endeavouring to rise to meet me.

"I grasped the hand of my son
And sat down by his left side;
And since I sat by him there,
I have recked nought of the world."

When Finn (in the Scottish version) comes to bewail his grandson, he cries:

"Woe, that it was not I who fell
In the fight of bare sunny Gavra,
And you were east and west
Marching before the Fians, Oscar."

But Oscar replies :

"Were it you that fell
In the fight of bare sunny Garn,
One sigh, east or west,
Would not he heard for you from Oscar.

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No man ever knew
A heart of flesh was in my breast,
But a heart of the twisted horn
And a sheath of steel over it.

"But the howling of dogs beside me,
And the wail of the old heroes,
And the weeping of the women by turn,
'Tis that vexes my heart."

Oscar dies, after thanking the gods for his father's safety, and Oisin and Keelta raise him on a bier of spears and carry him off under his banner, "The Terrible Sheaf," for burial on the field where he died, and where a great green burial mound is still associated with his name. Finn takes no part in the battle. He is said to have come "in a ship" to view the field afterwards, and he wept over Oscar, a thing he had never done save once before for his hound, Bran, whom he himself killed by accident. Possibly the reference to the ship is an indication that he had by this time passed away, and came to revisit the earth from the oversea kingdom of Death.

There is in this tale of the Battle of Gowra a melancholy grandeur which gives it a place apart in the Ossianic literature. It is a fitting dirge for a great legendary epoch. Campbell tells us that the Scottish crofters and shepherds were wont to put off their bonnets when they recited it. He adds a strange and thrilling piece of modern folk-lore bearing on it. Two men, it is said, were out at night, probably sheep-stealing or on some other predatory occupation, and telling Fian tales as they went, when they observed two giant and shadowy figures talking to each other across the glen. One of the apparitions said to the other "Do you see that man down below? I was the second door-post of battle on the day of Gowra, and that man there knows all about it better than myself."

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The End of Finn

As to Finn himself, it is strange that in all the extant mass of the Ossianic literature there should be no complete narrative of his death. There are references to it in the poetic legends, and annalists even date it, but the references conflict with each other, and so do the dates. There is no clear light to be obtained on the subject from either annalists or poets. Finn seems to have melted into the magic mist which enwraps so many of his deeds in life. Yet a popular tradition says that he and his great companions, Oscar and Keelta and Oisin and the rest, never died, but lie, like Kaiser Barbarossa, spell-bound in an enchanted cave where they await the appointed time to reappear in glory and redeem their land from tyranny and wrong.

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[Starla St. Germaine]

Chapter VII: The Voyage of Maldun

BESIDES the legends which cluster round great heroic names, and have, or at least pretend to have, the character of history, there are many others, great and small, which tell of adventures lying purely in regions of romance) and out of earthly space and time. As a specimen of these I give here a summary of the "Voyage of Maeldun," a most curious and brilliant piece of invention, which is found in the manuscript entitled the "Book of the Dun Cow" (about 1100) and other early sources, and edited, with a translation (to which I owe the following extracts), by Dr. Whitley Stokes in the " Revue Celtique" for 1888 and 1889. It is only one of a number of such wonder-voyages found in ancient Irish literature, but it is believed to have been the earliest of them all and model for the rest, and it has had the distinction, in the abridged and modified form given by Joyce in his "Old Celtic Romances," of having furnished the theme for the "Voyage of Maeldune ' to Tennyson, who made it into a wonderful creation of rhythm and colour, embodying a kind of allegory of Irish history. It will be noticed at the end that we are in the unusual position of knowing the name of the author of this piece of primitive literature, though he does not claim to have composed, but only to have "put in order," the incidents of the "Voyage." Unfortunately we cannot tell when he lived, but the tale as we have it probably dates from the ninth century. Its atmosphere is entirely Christian, and it has no mythological significance except in so far as it teaches the lesson that the oracular injunctions of wizards should be obeyed. No adventure or even detail, of importance is omitted in

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the following summary of the story, which is given thus fully because the reader may take it as representing a large and important section of Irish legendary romance. Apart from the source to which I am indebted, the "Revue Celtique," I know no other faithful reproduction in English of this wonderful tale.

The "Voyage of Maeldun" begins, as Irish tales often do, by telling us of the conception of its hero.

There was a famous man of the sept of the Owens of Aran, named Ailill Edge-of-Battle, who went with his king on a foray into another territory. They encamped one night near a church and convent of nuns. At midnight Ailill, who was near the church, saw a certain nun come out to strike the bell for nocturns, and caught her by the hand. In ancient Ireland religious persons were not much respected in time of war, and Ailill did not respect her. When they parted, she said to him: "Whence is thy race, and what is thy name ?" Said the hero : "Ailill of the Edge-of~Battle's my name, and I am of the Owenacht of Aaan, in Thomond."

Not long afterwards Ailill was slain by reavers from Leix; who burned the church of Doocloone over his head.

In due time a son was born to the woman and she called his name Maeldun. He was taken secretly to her friend, the queen of the territory, and by her Maeldun was reared. "Beautiful indeed was his form, and it is doubtful if there hath been in flesh any one so beautiful as he. So he grew up till he was a young warrior and fit to use weapons. Great, then was his brightness and his gaiety and his playfulness. In his play he outwent all his comrades in throwing balls, and in runnig and leaping and putting stones and racing horses."

One day a proud young warrior who had been

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defeated by him taunted him with his lack of knowledge of his kindred and descent. Maeldun went to his foster-mother, the queen, and said : "I will not eat nor drink till thou tell me who are my mother and my father." "I am thy mother," said the queen, "for none ever loved her son more than I love thee." But Maeldun insisted on knowing all, and the queen at last took him to his own mother, the nun, who told him: "Thy father was Ailill of the Owens of Aran." Then Maeldun went to his own kindred, and was well received by them ; and with him he took as guests his three beloved foster-brothers, sons of the king and queen who had brought him up.

After a time Maeldun happened to be among a company of young warriors who were contending at putting the stone in the graveyard of the ruined church of Doocloone. Maeldun's foot was planted, as he heaved the stone, on a scorched and blackened flagstone; and one who was by, a monk named Briccne, [here we have evidently a reminiscence of Briccriu of the Poisoned Tongue, the mischief-maker of the Ultonians] said to him : "It were better for thee to avenge the man who was burnt there than to cast stones over his burnt bones."

"Who was that?" asked Maeldun.

"Ailill, thy father," they told him.

"Who slew him?" said he.

"Reavers from Leix," they said, "and they destroyed him on this spot."

Then Maeldun threw down the stone he was about to cast, and put his mantle round him and went home; and he asked the way to Leix. They told him he could only go there by sea. [the Arans are three islands at the entrance of Galway Bay. They are a perfect museum of mysterious ruins,]

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At the advice of a Druid he then built him a boat, or coracle, of skins lapped threefold one over the other; and the wizard also told him that seventeen men only must accompany him, and on what day he must begin the boat and on what day he must put out to sea.

So when his company was ready he put out and hoisted the sail, but had gone only a little way when his three foster-brothers came down to the beach and entreated him to take them. "Get you home," said Maeldun, "for none but the number I have may go with me." But the three youths would not be separated from Maeldun, and they flung themselves into the sea. He turned back, lest they should be drowned, and brought them into his boat. All, as we shall see, were punished for this transgression, and Maeldun condemned to wandering until expiation had been made.

Irish bardic tales excel in their openings. In this case, as usual, the mise-en-scène is admirably contrived. The narrative which follows tells how, after seeing his father's slayer on an island, but being unable to land there, Maeldun and his party are blown out to sea, where they visit a great number of islands and have many strange adventures on them. The tale becomes, in fact, a cento of stories and incidents, some not very interesting, while in others, as in the adventure of the Island of the Silver Pillar, or the Island of the Flaming Rampart, or that where the episode of the eagle takes place, the Celtic sense of beauty, romance, and mystery find an expression unsurpassed, perhaps, in literature.

In the following rendering I have omitted the verses given by Joyce at the end of each adventure. They merely recapitulate the prose narrative, and are not found in the earliest manuscript authorities.

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The Island of the Slayer

Maeldun and his crew had rowed all day and half the night when they came to two small bare islands with two forts in them, and a noise was heard from them of armed men quarrelling. "Stand off from me, cried one of them, "for I am a better man than thou. 'Twas I slew Ailill of the Edge-of-Battle and burned the church of Doocloone over him, and no kinsman has avenged his death on me. And thou hast never done the like of that."

Then Maeldun was about to land, and German [pronounced "Ghermawn " - the "G" hard] and Diuran the Rhymer cried that God had guided them to the spot where they would be. But a great wind arose suddenly and blew them off into the boundless ocean, and Maeldun said to his foster-brothers : "Ye have caused this to be, casting yourselves on board in spite of the words of the Druid." And they had no answer, save only to be silent for a little space.

 

The Island of the Ants

They drifted three days and three nights, not knowing whither to row, when at the dawn of the third day they heard the noise of breakers, and came to an island as soon as the sun was up. Here, ere they could land, they met a swarm of ferocious ants, each the size of a foal, that came down the strand and into the sea to get at them ; so they made off quickly, and saw no land for three days more.

 

The Island of the Great Birds

This was a terraced island, with trees all round it, and great birds sitting on the trees. Maeldun landed first alone, and care fully searched the island for any

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evil thing, but finding none, the rest followed him, and killed and ate many of the birds, bringing others on board their boat.

 

The Island of the Fierce Beast

A great sandy island was this, and on it a beast like a horse, but with clawed feet like a hound's. He flew at them to devour them, but they put off in time, and were pelted by the beast with pebbles from the shore as they rowed away.

 

The Island of the Giant Horses

A great, flat island, which it fell by lot to German and Diuran to explore first. They found a vast green racecourse, on which were the marks of horses' hoofs, each as big as the sail of a ship, and the shells of nuts of monstrous size were lying about, and much plunder. So they were afraid, and took ship hastily again, and from the sea they saw a horse-race in progress and heard the shouting of a great multitude cheering on the white horse or the brown, and saw the giant horses running swifter than the wind. [Horse-racing was a particular delight to the ancient Irish, and ii mentioned in a ninth-century poem in praise of May as one of the attractions of that month. The name of the month of May given in an ancient Gaulish calendar means "the month of horse-racing."] So they rowed away with all their might, thinking they had come upon an assembly of demons.

 

The Island of the Stone Door

A full week passed, and then they found a great, high island with a house standing on the shore. A door with a valve of stone opened into the sea, and through it the sea-waves kept hurling salmon into the house. Maeldun and his party entered, and found the house

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empty of folk, but a great bed lay ready for the chief to whom it belonged, and a bed for each three of his company, and meat and drink beside each bed. Maeldun and his party ate and drank their fill, and then sailed off again.

 

The Island of the Apples

By the time they had come here they had been a long time voyaging, and food had failed them, and they were hungry. This island had precipitous sides from which a wood hung down, and as they passed along the cliffs Maeldun broke off a twig and held it in his hand. Three days and nights they coasted the cliff and found no entrance to the island, but by that time a cluster of three apples had grown on the end of Maeldun's rod, and each apple sufficed the crew for forty days.

 

The Island of the Wondrous Beast

This island had a fence of stone round it, and within the fence a huge beast that raced round and round the island. And anon it went to the top of the island, and then performed a marvellous feat, viz., it turned its body round and round inside its skin, the skin remaining unmoved, while again it would revolve its skin round and round the body. When it saw the party it rushed at them, but they escaped, pelted with stones as they rowed away. One of the stones pierced through Maeldun': shield and lodged in the keel of the boat.

 

The Island of the Biting Horses

Here were many great beasts resembling horses, that tore continually pieces of flesh from each other's sides, So that all the island ran with blood. They rowed hastily away, and were now disheartened and full of

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complaints, for they knew not where they were, nor how to find guidance or aid in their quest.

 

The Island of the Fiery Swine

With great weariness, hunger, and thirst they arrived at the tenth island, which was full of trees loaded with golden apples. Under the trees went red beasts, like fiery swine, that kicked the trees with their legs, when the apples fell and the beasts consumed them. The beasts came out at morning only, when a multitude of birds left the island, and swam out to sea till nones, when they turned and swam inward again till vespers, and ate the apples all night.

Maeldun and his comrades landed at night, and felt the soil hot under their feet from the fiery swine in their caverns underground. They collected all the apples they could, which were good both against hunger and thirst, and loaded their boat with them and put to sea once more, refreshed.

 

The Island of the Little Cat

The apples had failed them when they came hungry and thirsting to the eleventh island. This was, as it were, a tall white tower of chalk reaching up to the clouds, and on the rampart about it were great houses white as snow. They entered the largest of them, and found no man in it, but a small cat playing on four stone pillars which were in the midst of the house, leaping from one to the other. It looked a little on the Irish warriors, but did not cease from its play. On the walls of the houses there were three rows of objects hanging up one row of brooches of gold and silver, and one of' neck-torques of gold and silver, each as big as the hoop of a cask, and one of great swords with gold and silver hilts. Quilts and shining garments lay in the

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room, and there, also, were a roasted ox and a flitch of bacon and abundance of liquor. "Hath this been left for us?" said Maeldun to the cat. It looked at him a moment, and then continued its play. So there they ate and drank and slept, and stored up what remained of the food. Next day, as they made to leave the house, the youngest of Maeldun's foster-brothers took a necklace from the wall, and was bearing it out when the cat suddenly "leaped through him like a fiery arrow," and he fell, a heap of ashes, on the floor. Thereupon Maeldun, who had forbidden the theft of the jewel, soothed the cat and replaced the necklace, and they strewed the ashes of the dead youth on the sea-shore, and put to sea again.

 

The Island of the Black and the White Sheep

This had a brazen palisade dividing it in two, and a flock of black sheep on one side and of white sheep on the other. Between them was a big man who tended the flocks, and sometimes he put a white sheep among the black, when it became black at once, or a black sheep among the white, when it immediately turned white. [the same phenomenon is recorded as being witnessed by Peredur in the Welsh tale of that name in the "Mabinogion,"] By way of an experiment Maeldun flung a peeled white wand on the side of the black sheep. It at once turned black, whereat they left the place in terror, and without landing.

 

The Island of the Giant Cattle

A great and wide island with a herd of huge swine on it. They killed a small pig and roasted it on the spot, as it was too great to carry on board. The island rose up into a very high mountain, and Diuran and German went to view the country from the top of it.

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On their way they met a broad river. To try the depth of the water German dipped in the haft of his spear, which at once was consumed as with liquid fire. On the other bank was a huge man guarding what seemed a herd of oxen. He called to them not to disturb the calves, so they went no further and speedily sailed away.

 

The Island of the Mill

Here they found a great and grim-looking mill, and a giant miller grinding corn in it. "Half the corn of your country, he said, "is ground here. Here comes to be ground all that men begrudge to each other." Heavy and many were the loads they saw going to it, and all that was ground in it was carried away west wards. So they crossed themselves and sailed away.

 

The Island of the Black Mourners

An island full of black people continually weeping and lamenting. One of the two remaining foster-brothers landed on it, and immediately turned black and fell to weeping like the rest. Two others went to fetch him; the same fate befell them. Four others then went with their heads wrapped in cloths, that they should not look on the land or breathe the air of the place, and they seized two of the lost ones and brought them away perforce, but not the foster-brother. The two rescued ones could not explain their conduct except by saying that they had to do as they saw others doing about them.

 

The Island of the Four Fences

Four fences of gold, silver, brass, and crystal divided this island into our parts, kings in one, queens in another, warriors in a third, maidens in the fourth.

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On landing, a maiden gave them food like cheese, that tasted to each man as he wished it to be, and an Intoxicating liquor that put them asleep for three days. When they awoke they were at sea in their boat, and of the island and its inhabitants nothing was to be seen.

 

The Island of the Glass Bridge

Here we come to one of the most elaborately wrought and picturesque of all the incidents of the voyage. The island they now reached had on it a fortress with a brazen door, and a bridge of glass leading to it. When they sought to cross the bridge it threw them backward. [like the bridge to Skatha's dūn, p. 188] A woman came out of the fortress with a pail in her hand, and lifting from the bridge a slab of glass she let down her pail into the water beneath, and returned to the fortress. They struck on the brazen portcullis before them to gain admittance, but the melody given forth by the smitten metal plunged them in slumber till the morrow morn. Thrice over this happened, the woman each time making an ironical speech about Maeldun. On the fourth day, however, she came out to them over the bridge, wearing a white mantle with a circlet of gold on her hair, two silver sandals on her rosy feet, and a filmy silken smock next her skin.

"My welcome to thee, O Maeldun," she said, and she welcomed each man of the crew by his own name. Then she took them into the great house and allotted a couch to the chief, and one for each three of his men. She gave them abundance of food and drink, all out of her one pail, each man finding in it what he most desired. When she had departed they asked Maeldun if they should woo the maiden for him. "How would

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it hurt you to speak with her?" says Maeldun. They do so, and she replies: "I know not, nor have ever known, what sin is. Twice over this is repeated. "To-morrow," she says at last, "you shall have your answer." When the morning breaks, however, they find themselves once more at sea, with no sign of the island or fortress or lady.

 

The Island of the Shouting Birds

They hear from afar a great cry and chanting, as it were a singing of psalms, and rowing for a day and night they come at last to an island full of birds, black, brown, and speckled, all shouting and speaking. They sail away without landing.

 

The Island of the Anchorite

Here they found a wooded island full of birds, and on it a solitary man, whose only clothing was his hair. They asked him of his country and kin. He tells them that he was a man of Ireland who had put to sea [probably we are to understand that he was an anchorite seeking for an islet on which to dwell in solitude and contemplation. The western islands of Ireland abound in the ruins of hut, and oratories built by single monks or little communities.] with a sod of his native country under his feet. God had turned the sod into an island, adding a foot's breadth to it and one tree for every year. The birds are his kith and kin, and they all wait there till Doomsday, miraculously nourished by angels. He entertained them for three nights, and then they sailed away.

 

The Island of the Miraculous Fountain

This island had a golden rampart, and a soft white soil like down. In it they found another anchorite clothed only in his hair. There was a fountain in it

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which yields whey or water on Fridays and Wednesdays, milk on Sundays and feasts of martyrs, and ale and wine on the feasts of Apostles, of Mary, of John the Baptist, and on the high tides of the year.

 

The Island of the Smithy

As they approached this they heard from afar as it were the clanging of a tremendous smithy, and heard men talking of themselves. " Little boys they seem, said one, "in a little trough yonder." They rowed hastily away, but did not turn their boat, so as not to seem to be flying ; but after a while a giant smith came out of the forge holding in his tongs a huge mass of glowing iron, which he cast after them, and all the sea boiled round it, as it fell astern of their boat.

 

The Sea of Clear Glass

After that they voyaged until they entered a sea that resembled green glass. Such was its purity that the gravel and the sand of the sea were clearly visible through it; and they saw no monsters or beasts therein among the crags, but only the pure gravel and the green sand. For a long space of the day they were voyaging in that sea, and great was its splendour and its beauty. [Tennyson has been particularly happy in his description of these undersea islands]

 

 The Undersea Island

They next found themselves in a sea, thin like mist, that seemed as if it would not support their boat. In the depths they saw roofed fortresses, and a fair land around them. A monstrous beast lodged in a tree there, with droves of cattle about it, and beneath it an armed warrior. In spite of the warrior, the beast ever and

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anon stretched down a long neck and seized one of the cattle and devoured it. Much dreading lest they should sink through that mist-like sea, they sailed over it and away.

[Starla St. Germaine]

The Island of the Prophecy

When they arrived here they found the water rising in high cliffs round the island, and, looking down, saw on it a crowd of people, who screamed at them, " It is they, it is they," till they were out of breath. Then came a woman and pelted them from below with large nuts, which they gathered and took with them. As they went they heard the folk crying to each other:

"Where are they now?" "They are gone away. "They are not." " It is likely," says the tale, "that there was some one concerning whom the islanders had a prophecy that he would ruin their country and expel them from their land."

 

The Island of the Spouting Waters

Here a great stream spouted out of one side of the island and arched over it like a rainbow, falling on the strand at the further side. And when they thrust their spears into the stream above them they brought out salmon from it as much as they could and the island was filled with the stench of those they could not carry away.

 

The Island of the Silvern Column

The next wonder to which they came forms one of the most striking and imaginative episodes of the voyage. It was a great silvern column, four-square, rising from the sea. Each of its four sides was as wide as two oar-strokes of the boat. Not a sod of earth was at its foot, but it rose from the boundless

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ocean and its summit was lost in the sky. From that summit a huge silver net was flung far away into the sea, and through a mesh of that net they sailed. As they did so Diuran hacked away a piece of the net.

"Destroy it not," said Maeldun, "for what we see is the work of mighty men. Diuran said: "For the praise of God's name I do this, that our tale may be believed, and if I reach Ireland again this piece of silver shall be offered by me on the high altar of Armagh." Two ounces and a half it weighed when it was measured afterwards in Armagh.

"And then they heard a voice from the summit of yonder pillar, mighty, clear, and distinct. But they knew not the tongue it spake, or the words it uttered."

 

The Island of the Pedestal

The next island stood on a foot, or pedestal, which rose from the sea, and they could find no way of access to it. In the base of the pedestal was a door, closed and locked, which they could not open, so they sailed away, having seen and spoken with no one.

 

The Island of the Women

Here they found the rampart of a mighty dūn, enclosing a mansion. They landed to look on it, and sat on a hillock near by. Within the dūn they saw seventeen maidens busy at preparing a great bath. In a little while a rider, richly clad, came up swiftly on a racehorse, and lighted down and went inside, one of the girls taking the horse. The rider then went into the bath, when they saw that it was a woman. Shortly after that one of the maidens came out and invited them to enter, saying: "The Queen invites you. They went into the fort and bathed, and then sat down to meat, each man with a maiden over against him, and

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Maeldun opposite to the queen. And Maeldun was wedded to the queen, and each of the maidens to one of his men, and at nightfall canopied chambers were allotted to each of them. On the morrow morn they made ready to depart, but the queen would not have them go, and said: "Stay here, and old age will never fall on you, but ye shall remain as ye are now for ever and ever, and what ye had last night ye shall have always. And be no longer a-wandering from island to island on the ocean."

She then told Maeldun that she was the mother of the seventeen girls they had seen, and her husband had been king of the island. He was now dead, and she reigned in his place. Each day she went into the great plain in the interior of the island to judge the folk, and returned to the dūn at night.

So they remained there for three months of winter; but at the end of that time it seemed they had been there three years, and the men wearied of it, and longed to set forth for their own country.

"What shall we find there," said Maeldun, "that is better than this?"

But still the people murmured and complained, and at last they said: "Great is the love which Maeldun has for his woman. Let him stay with her alone if he will, but we will go to our own country." But Maeldnn would not be left after them, and at last one day, when the queen was away judging the folk, they went on board their bark and put out to sea. Before they had gone far, however, the queen came riding up with a clew of twine in her hand, and she flung it after them. Maeldun caught it in his hand, and it clung to his hand so that he could not free himself and the queen, holding the other end, drew them back to land. And they stayed on the island another three months.

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Twice again the same thing happened, and at last the people averred that Maeldun held the clew on purpose, so great was his love for the woman. So the next time another man caught the clew, but it clung to his hand as before; so Diuran smote off his hand, and it fell with the clew into the sea. "When she saw that she at once began to wail and shriek, so that all the land was one cry, wailing and shrieking." And thus they escaped from the Island of the Women.

 

The Island of the Red Berries

On this island were trees with great red berries which yielded an intoxicating and slumbrous juice. They mingled it with water to moderate its power, and filled their casks with it, and sailed away.

 

The Island of the Eagle

A large island, with woods of oak and yew on one side of it, and on the other a plain, whereon were herds of sheep, and a little lake in it ; and there also they found a small church and a fort, and an ancient grey cleric, clad only in his hair. Maeldun asked him who he was.

"I am the fifteenth man of the monks of St. Brennan of Birr," he said. "We went on our pilgrimage into the ocean, and they have all died save me alone.' He showed them the tablet (?calendar) of the Holy Brennan, and they prostrated themselves before it, and Maeldun kissed it. They stayed there for a season, feeding on the sheep of the island.

One day they saw what seemed to be a cloud coming up from the south-west. As it drew near, however, they saw the waving of pinions, and perceived that it was an enormous bird. It came into the island, and, alighting very wearily on a hill near the lake, it began

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eating the red berries, like grapes, which grew on a huge tree-branch as big as a full-grown oak, that it had brought with it, and the juice and fragments of the berries fell into the lake, reddening all the water. Fearful that it would seize them in its talons and bear them out to sea, they lay hid in the woods and watched it. After a while, however, Maeldun went out to the foot of the hill, but the bird did him no harm, and then the rest followed cautiously behind their shields, and one of them gathered the berries off the branch which the bird held in its talons, but it did them no evil, and regarded them not at all. And they saw that it was very old, and its plumage dull and decayed.

At the hour of noon two eagles came up from the south-west and alit in front of the great bird, and after resting awhile they set to work picking off the insects that infested its jaws and eyes and ears. This they continued till vespers, when all three ate of the berries again. At last, on the following day, when the great bird had been completely cleansed, it plunged into the lake, and again the two eagles picked and cleansed it. Till the third day the great bird remained preening and shaking its pinions, and its feathers became glossy and abundant, and then, soaring upwards, it flew thrice round the island, and away to the quarter whence it had come, and its flight was now swift and strong; whence it was manifest to them that this had been its renewal from old age to youth, according as the prophet said, Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. [Ps. Ciii, 5]

Then Diuran said : "Let us bathe in that lake and renew ourselves where the bird hath been renewed." "Nay," said another, "for the bird hath left his venom in it." But Diuran plunged in and drank of the water. From that time so long as he lived his eyes were strong

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and keen, and not a tooth fell from his jaw nor a hair from his head, and he never knew illness or infirmity.

Thereafter they bade farewell to the anchorite, and fared forth on the ocean once more.

 

The Island of the Laughing Folk

Here they found a great company of men laughing and playing incessantly. They drew lots as to who should enter and explore it, and it fell to Maeldun's foster-brother. But when he set foot on it he at once began to laugh and play with the others, and could not leave off; nor would he come back to his comrades. So they left him and sailed away. [this disposes of the last of the foster-brothers, who should not have joined the party.]

 

[Starla St. Germaine]

The Island of the Flaming Rampart

They now came in sight of an island which was not large, and it had about it a rampart of flame that circled round and round it continually. In one part of the rampart there was an opening, and when this opening came opposite to them they saw through it the whole island, and saw those who dwelt therein, even men and women, beautiful, many, and wearing adorned garments, with vessels of gold in their hands. And the festal music which they made came to the ears of the wanderers. For a long time they lingered there, watching this marvel, "and they deemed it delightful to behold."

 

The Island of the Monk of Tory

Far off among the waves they saw what they took to be a white bird on the water. Drawing near to it they found it to be an aged man clad only in the white hair

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of his body, and he was throwing himself in prostrations on a broad rock.

"From Torach [Tory Island, off the Donegal coast. There was there a monastery and a church dedicated to St. Columba] have come hither," he said, "and there I was reared. I was cook in the monastery there, and the food of the Church I used to sell for myself, so that I had at last much treasure of raiment and brazen vessels and gold-bound books and all that man desires. Great was my pride and arrogance.

"One day as I dug a grave in which to bury a churl who had been brought on to the island, a voice came from below where a holy man lay buried, and he said: 'Put not the corpse of a sinner on me, a holy, pious person !' "

After a dispute the monk buried the corpse elsewhere, and was promised an eternal reward for doing so. Not long thereafter he put to sea in a boat with all his accumulated treasures, meaning apparently to escape from the island with his plunder. A great wind blew him far out to sea, and when he was out of sight of land the boat stood still in one place. He saw near him a man (angel) sitting on the wave. "Whither goest thou?" said the man. "On a pleasant way, whither I am now looking," said the monk. "It would not be pleasant to thee if thou knewest what is around thee," said the man. " So far as eye can see there is one crowd of demons all gathered around thee, because of thy covetousness and pride, and theft, and other evil deeds. Thy boat hath stopped, nor will it move until thou do my will, and the fires of hell shall get hold of thee."

He came near to the boat, and laid his hand on the arm of the fugitive, who promised to do his will.

"Fling into the sea," he said, "all the wealth that is in thy boat."

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" It is a pity," said the monk, " that it should go to loss."

"It shall in nowise go to loss. There will be one man whom thou wilt profit."

The monk thereupon flung everything into the sea save one little wooden cup, and he cast away oars and rudder. The man gave him a provision of whey and seven cakes, and bade him abide wherever his boat should stop. The wind and waves carried him hither and thither till at last the boat came to rest upon the rock where the wanderers found him. There was nothing there but the bare rock, but remembering what he was bidden he stepped out upon a little ledge over which the waves washed, and the boat immediately left him, and the rock was enlarged for him. There he remained seven years, nourished by otters which brought him salmon out of the sea, and even flaming firewood on which to cook them, and his cup was filled with good liquor every day. "And neither wet nor heat nor cold affects me in this place."

At the noon hour miraculous nourishment was brought for the whole crew, and thereafter the ancient man said to them :

"Ye will all reach your country, and the man that slew thy father, O Maeldun, ye will find him in a fortress before you. And slay him not, but forgive him because God hath saved you from manifold great perils, and ye too are men deserving of death."

Then they bade him farewell and went on their accustomed way.

 

The Island of the Falcon

This is uninhabited save for herds of sheep and oxen. They land on it and eat their fill, and one of them sees there a large falcon. "This falcon," he says, " is

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like the falcons of Ireland." "Watch it," says Maddun, "and see how it will go from us." It flew off to the south-east, and they rowed after it all day till vespers.

 

The Home-corning

At nightfall they sighted a land like Ireland ; and soon came to a small island, where they ran their prow ashore. It was the island where dwelt the man who had slain Ailill.

They went up to the dūn that was on the island, and heard men talking within it as they sat at meat. One man said :

"It would be ill for us if we saw Maeldun now."

"That Maeldun has been drowned," said another.

"Maybe it is he who shall waken you from sleep to-night," said a third.

"If he should come now," said a fourth, "what should we do?"

"Not hard to answer that," said the chief of them.

"Great welcome should he have if he were to come, for he hath been a long space in great tribulation."

Then Maeldun smote with the wooden clapper against the door. "Who is there?" asked the door-keeper.

" Maeldun is here," said he.

They entered the house in peace, and great welcome was made for them, and they were arrayed in new garments. And then they told the story of all the marvels that God had shown them, according to the words of the "sacred poet," who said, Haec olim meminisse juvabit. ["One day we shall delight in the remembrance of these things." The quotation is from Vergil, " Aen." i 203 "Sacred poet" is a translation of the vates sacer, of Horace.]

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Then Maeldun went to his own home and kindred, and Diuran the Rhymer took with him the piece of silver that he had hewn from the net of the pillar, and laid it on the high altar of Armagh in triumph and exultation at the miracles that God had wrought for them. And they told again the story of all that had befallen them, and all the marvels they had seen by sea and land) and the perils they had endured.

The story ends with the following words :

"Now Aed the Fair [Aed Finn [This sage and poet has nor been identified from any other record. Praise and thanks to him, whoever he may have been.]], chief sage of Ireland, arranged this story as it standeth here ; and he did so for a delight to the mind, and for the folks of Ireland after him."

 

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[Starla St. Germaine]

Chapter VIII: Myths and Tales of the Cymry
Bardic Philosophy

THE absence in early Celtic literature of any world-myth, or any philosophic account of the origin and constitution of things, was noticed at the opening of our third chapter. In Gaelic literature there is, as far as I know, nothing which even pretends to represent early Celtic thought on this subject. It is otherwise in Wales. Here there has existed for a considerable time a body of teaching purporting to contain a portion, at any rate, of that ancient Druidic thought which, as Caesar tells us, was communicated only to the initiated, and never written down. This teaching is principally to be found in two volumes entitled "Barddas," a compilation made from materials in his possession by a Welsh bard and scholar named Llewellyn Sion, of Glamorgan, towards the end of the sixteenth century, and edited, with a translation, by J. A. Williams ap Ithel for the Welsh MS. Society. Modern Celtic scholars pour contempt on the pretensions of works like this to enshrine any really antique thought. Thus Mr. Ivor B. John: "All idea of a bardic esoteric doctrine involving pre-Christian mythic philosophy must be utterly discarded." And again: "The nonsense talked upon the subject is largely due to the uncritical invention of pseudo-antiquaries of the sixteenth to seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." ["The Mabinogion," pp.45 and 54] Still the bardic Order was certainly at one tune in possession of such a doctrine. That Order had a fairly continuous existence in Wales. And though no critical thinker would build with any

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confidence a theory of pre-Christian doctrine on a document of the sixteenth century, it does not seem wise to scout altogether the possibility that some fragments of antique lore may have lingered even so late as that in bardic tradition.

At any rate, "Barddas" is a work of considerable philosophic interest, and even if it represents nothing but a certain current of Cymric thought in the sixteenth century it is not unworthy of attention by the student of things Celtic. Purely Druidic it does not even profess to be, for Christian personages and episodes from Christian history figure largely in it. But we come occasionally upon a strain of thought which, whatever else it may be, is certainly not Christian, and speaks of an independent philosophic system.

In this system two primary existences are contemplated, God and Cythrawl, who stand respectively for the principle of energy tending towards life, and the principle of destruction tending towards nothingness. Cythrawl is realised in Annwn, [pronounced " Annoon." It was the word used in the early literature for Hades or Fairyland] which may be rendered, the Abyss, or Chaos. In the beginning there was nothing but God and Annwn. Organised life began by the Word - God pronounced His ineffable Name and the "Manred" was formed. The Manred was the primal substance of the universe. It was conceived as a multitude of minute indivisible particles - atoms, in fact - each being a microcosm, for God is complete in each of them, while at the same time each is a part of God, the Whole. The totality of being as it now exists is represented by three concentric circles. The innermost of them, where life sprang from Annwn, is called "Abred," and is the stage of struggle and evolution - the contest of life with Cythrawl. The next is

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the circle of " Gwynfyd," or Purity, in which life is manifested as a pure, rejoicing force, having attained its triumph over evil. The last and outermost circle is called "Ceugant," or Infinity. Here all predicates fail us, and this circle, represented graphically not by a bounding line, but by divergent rays, is inhabited by


God alone. The following extract from "Barddas," in which the alleged bardic teaching is conveyed in catechism form, will serve to show the order of ideas in which the writer's mind moved:

"Q. Whence didst thou proceed?

"A. I came from the Great World, having my beginning in Annwn.

"Q. Where art thou now? and how camest thou to what thou art?

"A. I am in the Little World, whither I came having traversed the circle of Abred, and now I am a Man, at its termination and extreme limits.

"Q. What wert thou before thou didst become a man, in the circle of Abred ?

"A. I was in Annwn the least possible that was capable of life and the nearest possible to absolute death; and I came in every form and through every

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form capable of a body and life to the state of man along the circle of Abred, where my condition was severe and grievous during the age of ages, ever since I was parted in Annwn from the dead, by the gift of God, and His great generosity, and His unlimited and endless love.

"Q. Through how many different forms didst thou come, and what happened unto thee?"

"A. Through every form capable of life, in water, in earth, in air. And there happened unto me every severity, every hardship, every evil, and every suffering, and but little was the goodness or Gwynfyd before I became a man. . . . Gwynfyd cannot be obtained without seeing and knowing everything, but it is not possible to see or to know everything without suffering everything. . . . And there can be no full and perfect love that does not produce those things which are necessary to lead to the knowledge that causes Gwynfyd."

Every being, we are told, shall attain to the circle of Gwynfyd at last. ["Barddas," vol. i , pp. 224 sqq.]

There is much here that reminds us of Gnostic or Oriental thought. It is certainly very unlike Christian orthodoxy of the sixteenth century. As a product of the Cymric mind of that period the reader may take it for what it is worth, without troubling himself either with antiquarian theories or with their refutations.

Let us now turn to the really ancient work, which is not philosophic, but creative and imaginative, produced by British bards and fabulists of the Middle Ages. But before we go on to set forth what we shall find in this literature we must delay a moment to discuss one thing which we shall not.

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The Arthurian Saga

For the majority of modern readers who have hot made any special study of the subject, the mention of early British legend will inevitably call up the glories of the Arthurian Saga - they will think of the fabled palace at Caerleon-on-Usk, the Knights of the Round Table riding forth on chivalrous adventure, the Quest of the Grail, the guilty love of Lancelot, flower of knighthood, for the queen, the last great battle by the northern sea, the voyage of Arthur, sorely wounded, but immortal, to the mystic valley of Avalon. But as a matter of fact they will find in the native literature of medieval Wales little or nothing of all this - no Round Table, no Lancelot, no Grail-Quest, no Isle of Avalon, until the Welsh learned about them from abroad ; and though there was indeed an Arthur in this literature, he is a wholly different being from the Arthur of what we now call the Arthurian Saga.

 

Nennius

The earliest extant mention of Arthur is to be found in the work of the British historian Nennius, who wrote his "Historia Britonum" about the year 800. He derives his authority from various sources - ancient monuments and writings of Britain and of Ireland (in connexion with the latter country he records the legend of Partholan), Roman annals, and chronicles of saints, especially St. Germanus. He presents a fantastically Romanised and Christianised view of British history, deriving the Britons from a Trojan and Roman ancestry. His account of Arthur, however, is both sober and brief. Arthur, who, according to Nennius, lived in the sixth century, was not a king ; his ancestry was less noble than that of many other British chiefs, who, nevertheless

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less, for his great talents as a military Imperator, or dux bellorum, chose him for their leader against the Saxons, whom he defeated in twelve battles, the last being at Mount Badon. Arthur's office was doubtless a relic of Roman military organisation, and there is no reason to doubt his historical existence, however impenetrable may be the veil which now obscures his valiant and often triumphant battlings for order and civilisation in that disastrous age.

 

[Starla St. Germaine]

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Next we have Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bishop of St. Asaph, who wrote his "Historia Regum Britaniniae" in South Wales in the early part of the twelfth century. This work is an audacious attempt to make sober history out of a mass of mythical or legendary matter mainly derived, if we are to believe the author, from an ancient book brought by his uncle Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, from Brittany. The mention of Brittany in this connexion is, as we shall see, very significant. Geoffrey wrote expressly to commemorate the exploits of Arthur, who now appears as a king, son of Uther Pendragon and of Igerna, wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, to whom Uther gained access in the shape of her husband through the magic arts of Merlin. He places the beginning of Arthur's reign in the year 505, recounts his wars against the Saxons, and says he ultimately conquered not only all Britain, but Ireland, Norway, Gaul, and Dacia, and successfully resisted a demand for tribute and homage irom the Romans. He held his court at Caerleon-on-Usk. While he was away on the Continent carrying on his struggle with Rome his nephew Modred usurped his crown and wedded his wife Guanhumara. Arthur, on this, returned, and after defeating the traitor at Winchester slew

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him in a last battle in Cornwall, where Arthur himself was sorely wounded (A.D. 542). The queen retired to a convent at Caerleon. Before his death Arthur conferred his kingdom on his kinsman Constantine, and was then carried off mysteriously to "the isle of Avalon" to be cured, and "the rest is silence." Arthur's magic sword "Caliburn" (Welsh Caladvwlch; see p. 224, note) is mentioned by Geoffrey and described as having been made in Avalon, a word which seems to imply some kind of fairyland, a Land of the Dead, and may be related to the Norse Valhall. It was not until later times that Avalon came to be identified with an actual site in Britain (Glastonbury). In Geoffrey's narrative there is nothing about the Holy Grail, or Lancelot, or the Round Table, and except for the allusion to Avalon the mystical element of the Arthurian saga is absent. Like Nennius, Geoffrey finds a fantastic classical origin for the Britons. His so-called history is perfectly worthless as a record of fact, but it has proved a veritable mine for poets and chroniclers, and has the distinction of having furnished the subject for the earliest English tragic drama, "Gorboduc," as well as for Shakespeare's "King Lear" ; and its author may be described as the father - at least on its quasi-historical side - of the Arthurian saga, which he made up partly out of records of the historical dux bellorum of Nennius and partly out of poetical amplifications of these records made in Brittany by the descendants of exiles from Wales, many of whom fled there at the very time when Arthur was waging his wars against the heathen Saxons. Geoffrey's book had a wonderful success. It was speedily translated into French by Wace, who wrote "Li Romans de Brut" about 1155, with added details from Breton sources, and translated from Wace's French into Anglo-Saxon by Layamon, who thus anticipated Malory's

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adaptations of late French prose romances. Except a few scholars who protested unavailingly, no one doubted its strict historical truth, and it had the important effect of giving to early British history a new dignity in the estimation of Continental and of English princes. To sit upon the throne of Arthur was regarded as in itself a glory by Plantagenet monarchs who had not a trace of Arthur's or of any British blood.

 

The Saga in Brittany : Marie de France

The Breton sources must next be considered. Unfortunately, not a line of ancient Breton literature has come down to us, and for our knowledge of it we must rely on the appearances it makes in the work of French writers. One of the earliest of these is the Anglo-Norman poetess who called herself Marie de France, and who wrote about 1150 and afterwards. She wrote, among other things, a number of "Lais" or tales, which she explicitly and repeatedly tells us were translated or adapted from Breton sources. Sometimes she claims to have rendered a writer's original exactly :

"Les contes que jo sai verais
Dunt Ii Bretun unt fait Ies lais
Vos conterai assez briefment;
Et ceif [sauf] di cest commencement
Selunc la letter è l'escriture."

Little is actually said about Arthur in these tales, but the events of them are placed in his time -- en cel tems tint Artus la terre - and the allusions, which include a mention of the Round Table, evidently imply a general knowledge of the subject among those to whom these Breton "Lais" were addressed. Lancelot is not mentioned, but there is a "Lai" about one Lanval, who is beloved by Arthur's queen, but rejects her because he has a fairy mistress in the "isle d'Avalon" Gawain is

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mentioned, and an episode is told in the "Lai de Chevrefoil" about Tristan and Iseult, whose maid, "Brangien," is referred to in a way which assumes that the audience knew the part she had played on Iseult's bridal night. In short, we have evidence here of the existence in Brittany of a well-diffused and well-developed body of chivalric legend gathered about the personality of Arthur. The legends are so well known that mere allusions to characters and episodes in them are as well understood as references to Tennyson's "Idylls" would be among us to-day. The "Lais" of Marie de France therefore point strongly to Brittany as the true cradle of the Arthurian saga, on its chivalrous and romantic side. They do not, however, mention the Grail.

 

Chrestien de Troyes

Lastly, and chiefly, we have the work of the French poet Chrestien de Troyes, who began in 1165 to translate Breton "Lais," like Marie de France, and who practically brought the Arthurian saga into the poetic literature of Europe, and gave it its main outline and character. He wrote a "Tristan" (now lost). He (if not Walter Map) introduced Lancelot of the Lake into the story ; he wrote a Conte del Graal, in which the Grail legend and Perceval make their first appearance, though he left the story unfinished, and does not tell us what the "Grail" really was. [strange as it may seem to us, the character of this object was by no means fixed from the beginning. In the poem of Wolfram son Eschenbach it is a stone endowed with magical properties. The word is derived by the early fabulists from gréable, something pleasant to possess and enjoy, and out of which one could have à son gré, whatever he chose of good things. The Grail legend will be dealt with later in connexion with the Welsh tale "Peredur."] He also wrote a long conte d'aventure entitled "Erec," containing the story of Geraint and Enid. These are the earliest poems

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we possess in which the Arthur of chivalric legend comes prominently forward. What were the sources of Chrestien ? No doubt they were largely Breton. Troyes is in Champagne, which had been united to Blois in 1019 by Eudes, Count of Blois, and reunited again after a period of dispossession by Count Theobald de Blois in 1128. Marie, Countess of Champagne, was Chrestien's patroness. And there were close connexions between the ruling princes of Blois and of Brittany. Alain II., a Duke of Brittany, had in the tenth century married a sister of the Count de Blois, and in the first quarter of the thirteenth century Jean I. of Brittany married Blanche de Champagne, while their daughter Alix married Jean de Chastillon, Count of Blois, in 1254. It is highly probable, therefore, that through minstrels who attended their Breton lords at the court of Blois, from the middle of the tenth century onward, a great many Breton "Lais" and legends found their way into French literature during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth Centuries. But it is also certain that the Breton legends themselves had been strongly affected by French influences, and that to the Matière de France, as it was called by medieval writers [distinguished by these from the other great storehouse of poetic legend, the Matière de Bretagne -- i.e., the Arthurian saga.] - i.e., the legends of Charlemagne and his Paladins - we owe the Table Round and the chivalric institutions ascribed to Arthur's court at Caerleo-on-Usk.

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Bleheris

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

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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 Bréris 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 god 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 goddess Brigindo [see p. 103]. We thus get a mythical figure combining something of the exaltation of a god 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 clustered a mass 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.

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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 Arthur's Round Table to Wales, where of course it had been hitherto unknown." [Cultur der Gegenwart," i. ix.] And many Breton lords are known to have followed the banner of William the Conqueror into England. [a list of them is given in Lobineau's " Histoire de Bretagne."] 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 unassimilated. Into ireland it never entered at all.

These few introductory remarks do not, of course, profess to contain a discussion of the Arthurian saga -- a vast subject with myriad ramifications, historical,

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mythological, mystical, and what not - but 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 manuscript entitled "The Red Book of Hergest." One of them, the romance of Taliesin, came from another source, a manuscript 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

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entertain a prince's 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 anticipated the ideas of these romances. The lofty courtesy shown to each other by enemies, [see, e.g., pp.243 snd 218, note] the fantastic pride which forbade a warrior to take advantage of a wounded adversary, [see p.233, and a similar case in the author's "High Deeds of Finn," p. 82] the extreme punctilio with which the duties or observances proper to each man's caste or station were observed [see p.232, and the tale of the recovery of the " Tain," p. 234] - all this tone of thought and feeling which would seem so strange to us if we met an instance of it in classical 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 passion with which the medieval Dulcinea inspired her faithful knight. In the two most famous and popular of Gaelic love-tales,

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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 goddess, 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 affected-I do not, of course, say to its loss - by foreign influences.

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Gaelic and Cymric Mythology: Nudd

The oldest of the Welsh tales, those called "The Four Branches of the Mabinogi" ["Pwyll King cf Dyfed," "Bran and Branwen," "Math Sor of Mathonwy," and "Manawyddan Son of LIyr."] are the richest in mythological elements, but these occur in more or less recognisable form throughout nearly all the medieval tales, and even, after many transmutations, in Malory. We can dearly 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 god. He is encircled by a halo and accompanied by flying spirits and by Tritons. We are reminded of the Danaan deities and their dose connexion with the

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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. [see p. 107] Under his name Lludd he is said to have had a temple on the site of St. Paul's 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.

 

Llyr and Manawyddan

Again, when we find a mythological personage named Llyr, with a son named Manawyddan, p laying a prominent part in Welsh legend, we may safely connect them with the Irish Lir and his son Mananan, gods of the sea. Llyr-cester, now Leicester, was a centre of the worship of Llyr.

 

LIew Llaw Gyffes

Finally, we may point to a character in the "Mabinogi," or tale, entitled "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," ["Hibbert Lecturces," pp. :237 -- 240] it becomes evident that we have here a dim and broken reminiscence of the deity whom the Gaels called Lugh

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of the Long Arm, [see pp. 83, 109, &c. Lugh, of course, = Lux, Light. The Celtic words Lamh and Llaw were used indifferently for hand or arm] 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.[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] 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 some-times 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 some thing to afford the reader a clue to the maze.

 

The Houses of Don and of Llyr

Two great divine houses or families are discernible-that of Don, a mother-goddess (representing the Gaelic Dana), whose husband is Beli, the Irish Bilé god 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

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two families are allied by intermarriage -- Penardun, 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 god 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, [Finn and Gwyn are respectively the Gaelic and Cymric forms of the same name, meaning fair or white] 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, assembles the souls of dead heroes in his shadowy kingdom, for although he belongs

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to the kindred of the Light-gods, 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." ["Mythology of the British Islands," p. 225] He figures as a god 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. Squire's 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, 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.

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"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, [Saxon Britain] 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."

 

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Myrddin, or Merlin

A deity named Myrddin holds in Arthur's mythological cycle the place of the Sky- and Sun-god, Nudd. One of the Welsh Triads tells us that Britain, before it was inhabited, was called Clas Myrddin, Myrddin's Enclosure. One is reminded of the Irish fashion of calling any favoured spot a "cattle-fold of the sun" - the 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 glass, 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

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without any other thing, by enchantment so strong that it may never be undone while the world endureth." [Rhys, "Hibbert Lectures," quoting from the ancient saga of Merlin published by the English Text Society, p.693] 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, Hellenised as was the wont of classical writers on barbaric myths, of a British story of the descent of the Sun-god into the western sea, and his imprisonment there by the powers of darkness, with the possessions and magical potencies belonging to Light and Life. ["Mythology of the British Islands," pp.325, 326 ; and Rhys, "Hibbert Lectures," p. 155 sqq.]

 

Nynniaw and Peibaw

The two personages called Nynniaw and Peibaw who 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 [in the "lolo MSS.," collected by Edward Williams] 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.

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"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.

 

The "Mabinogion"

We now come to the work in which the chief treasures of Cymric myth and legend were collected by Lady Charlotte Guest sixty years ago, and given to the world in a translation which is one of the masterpieces of English literature. The title of this work, the "Mabinogion," is the plural form of the word Mabinogi, which means a story belonging to the equipment of an apprentice-bard, such a story as every bard had necessarily to learn as part of his training, whatever more he might afterwards add to his répertoire. Strictly speaking, the Mabinogi in the volume are only the four tales given first in Mr. Alfred Nutt's edition, which were entitled the "Four Branches of the Mabinogi," and which form a connected whole. They are among the oldest relics of Welsh mythological saga.

 

Pwyll, Head of Hades

The first of them is the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, and relates how that prince got his title of Pen Annwn, or "Head of Hades" - Annwn being the term under which we identify in Welsh literature the Celtic Land of the Dead, or Fairyland. It is a story with a mythological basis, but breathing the purest spirit of chivalric honour and nobility.

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PwyIl, it is said, was hunting one day in the woods of Glyn Cuch when he saw a pack of hounds, not his own, running down a stag. These hounds were snow-white in colour, with red ears. If Pwyll had had any experience in these matters he would have known at once what kind of hunt was up, for these are the colours of Faery - the red-haired man, the red-eared hound are always associated with magic. [see, e.g. pp. 111, 272] Pwyll, however, drove off the strange hounds, and was setting his own on the quarry when a horseman of noble appearance came up and reproached him for his discourtesy. Pwyll offered to make amends, and the story now develops into the familiar theme of the Rescue of Fairyland. The stranger's name is Arawn, a king in Annwn. He is being harried and dispossessed by a rival, Havgan, and he seeks the aid of Pwyll, whom he begs to meet Havgan in single combat a year hence. Meanwhile he will put his own shape on Pwyll, who is to rule in his kingdom till the eventful day, while Arawn will go in Pwyll's shape to govern Dyfed. He instructs Pwyll how to deal with the foe. Havgan must be laid low with a single stroke-if another is given to him he immediately revives again as strong as ever.

Pwyll agreed to follow up the adventure, and accordingly went in Arawn's shape to the kingdom of Annwn. Here he was placed in an unforeseen difficulty. The beautiful wife of Arawn greeted him as her husband. But when the time came for them to retire to rest he set his face to the wall and said no word to her, nor touched her at all until the morning broke. Then they rose up, and Pwyll went to the hunt, and ruled his kingdom, and did all things as if he were monarch of the land. And whatever affection he showed to the queen

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public during the day, he passed every night even as this first.

At last the day of battle came, and, like the chieftains in Gaelic story, Pwyll and Havgan met each other in the midst of a river-ford. They fought, and at the first clash Havgan was hurled a spear's length over the crupper of his horse and fell mortally wounded. [we see here that we have got far from primitive Celtic legend. The heroes fight Like medieval 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] "For the love of heaven," said he, "slay me and complete thy work." " I may yet repent that," said Pwyll. "Slay thee who may, I will not." Then Havgan knew that his end was come, and bade his nobles bear him off; and Pwyll with all his army overran the two kingdoms of Annwn, and made himself master of all the land, and took homage from its princes and lords.

Then he rode off alone to keep his tryst in Glyn Cuch with Arawn as they had appointed. Arawn thanked him for all he had done, and added: "When thou comest thyself to thine own dominions thou wilt see what I have done for thee." They exchanged shapes once more, and each rode in his own likeness to take possession of his own land.

At the court of Annwn the day was spent in joy and feasting, though none but Arawn himself knew that anything unusual had taken place. When night came Arawn kissed and caressed his wife as of old, and she pondered much as to what might be the cause of his change towards her, and of his previous change a year and a day before. And as she was thinking over these things Arawn spoke to her twice or thrice, but got no answer. He then asked her why she was silent. " I tell thee," she said, "that for a year I have not spoken so much in this

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place." "Did not we speak continually ?" he said. " Nay," said she, "but for a year back there has been neither converse nor tenderness between us." " Good heaven !" thought Arawn, "a man as faithful and firm in his friendship as any have I found for a friend." Then he told his queen what had passed. "Thou hast indeed laid hold of a faithful friend," she said.

And Pwyll when he came back to his own land called his lords together and asked them how they thought he had sped in his kingship during the past year. "Lord," said they, " thy wisdom was never so great, and thou wast never so kind and free in bestowing thy gifts, and thy justice was never more worthily seen than in this year." Pwyll then told them the story of his adventure. "Verily, lord," said they, "render thanks unto heaven that thou hast such a fellowship, and withhold not from us the rule which we have enjoyed for this year past." "I take heaven to witness that I will not withhold it," said Pwyll.

So the two kings made strong the friendship that was between them, and sent each other rich gifts of horses and hounds and jewels ; and in memory of the adventure Pwyll bore thenceforward the title of "Lord of Annwn."

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The Wedding of PwyII and Rhiannon

Near to the castle of Narberth, where Pwyll had his court, there was a mound called the Mound of Arberth, of which it was believed that whoever sat upon it would have a strange adventure either he would receive blows and wounds or he would see a wonder. One day when all his lords were assembled at Narberth for a feast Pwyll declared that he would sit on the mound and see what would befall.

He did so, and after a little while saw approaching

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him along the road that led to the mound a lady clad in garments that shone like gold, and sitting on a pure white horse. " is there any among you," said Pwyll to his men, "who knows that lady?" "There is not," said they. "Then go to meet her and learn who she is." But as they rode towards the lady she moved away from them, and however fast they rode she still kept an even distance between her and them, yet never seemed to exceed the quiet pace with which she had first approached.

Several times did Pwyll seek to have the lady overtaken and questioned, but all was in vain - none could draw near to her.

Next day Pwyll ascended the mound again, and once more the fair lady on her white steed drew near. This time Pwyll himself pursued her, but she flitted away before him as she had done before his servants, till at last he cried : "O maiden, for the sake of him thou best lovest, stay for me." " I will stay gladly," said she, "and it were better for thy horse had thou asked it long since."

Pwyll then questioned her as to the cause of her coming, and she said "I am Rhiannon, the daughter of Hevydd Hen, [Hen, "the Ancient"; an epithet generally implying a hoary antiquity associated with mythological tradition] and they sought to give me to a husband against my will. But no husband would I have, and that because of my love for thee ; neither will I yet have one if thou reject me." " By heaven !" said Pwyll, "if I might choose among all the ladies and damsels of the world, thee would I choose."

They then agree that in a twelvemonth from that day Pwyll is to come and claim her at the palace of Hevydd Hen.

Pwyll kept his tryst, with a following of a hundred

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knights, and found a splendid feast prepared for him, and he sat by his lady, with her father on the other side. As they feasted and talked there entered a tall, auburn-haired youth of royal bearing, clad in satin, who saluted Pwyll and his knights. Pwyll invited him to sit down. "Nay, I am a suitor to thee," said the youth; "to crave a boon am I come." "Whatever thou wilt thou shalt have," said Pwyll unsuspiciously, if it be in my power." "Ah," cried Rhiannon, wherefore didst thou give that answer ?" "Hath he not given it before all these nobles ?" said the youth; "and now the boon I crave is to have thy bride Rhiannon, and the feast and the banquet that are tn this place." Pwyll was silent. "Be silent as long as thou wilt," said Rhiannon. "Never did man make worse use of his wits than thou hast done." She tells him that the auburn-haired young man is Gwawl, son of Clud, and is the suitor to escape from whom she had fled to Pwyll.

Pwyll is bound in honour by his word, and Rhiannon explains that the banquet cannot be given to Gwawl, for it is not in Pwyll's power, but that she herself will be his bride in a twelvemonth; Gwawl is to come and claim her then, and a new bridal feast will be prepared for him. Meantime she concerts a plan with Pwyll, and gives him a certain magical bag, which he is to make use of when the time shall come.

A year passed away, Gwawl appeared according to the compact, and a great feast was again set forth, in which he, and not Pwyll, had the place of honour. As the company were making merry, however, a beggar clad in rags and shod with clumsy old shoes came into the hall, carrying a bag, as beggars are wont to do. He humbly craved a boon of Gwawl. It was merely that full of his bag of food might be given him from

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the banquet. Gwawl cheerfully consented, and an attendant went to fill the bag. But however much they put into it it never got fuller - by degrees all the good things on the tables had gone in; and at last Gwawl cried : "My soul, will thy bag never be full?"

"It will not, I declare to heaven," answered Pwyll - for he, of course, was the disguised beggar man - "unless some man wealthy in lands and treasure shall get into the bag and stamp it down with his feet, and declare, 'Enough has been put herein."' Rhiannon urged Gwawl to check the voracity of the bag. He put his two feet into it; Pwyll immediately drew up the sides of the bag over Gwawl's head and tied it up. Then he blew his horn, and the knights he had with him, who were concealed outside, rushed in, and captured and bound the followers of Gwawl. "What is in the bag ?" they cried, and others answered, "A badger," and so they played the game of "Badger in the Bag," striking it and kicking it about the hall.

At last a voice was heard from it. "Lord," cried Gwawl, "if thou wouldst but hear me, I merit not to be slain in a bag." "He speaks truth," said Hevydd Hen.

So an agreement was come to that Gwawl should provide means for Pwyll to satisfy all the suitors and minstrels who should come to the wedding, and abandon Rhiannon, and never seek to have revenge for what had been done to him. This was confirmed by sureties, and Gwawl and his men were released and went to their own territory. And Pwyll wedded Rhiannon, and dispensed gifts royally to all and sundry; and at last the pair, when the feasting was done, journeyed down to the palace of Narberth in Dyfed, where Rhiannon gave rich gifts, a bracelet and a ring or a precious atone to all the lords and ladies of

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her new country, and they ruled the land in peace both that year and the next. But the reader will find that we have not yet done with Gwawl.

 

[Starla St. Germaine]

The Penance of Rhiannon

Now Pwyll was still without an heir to the throne, and his nobles urged him to take another wile. "Grant us a year longer," said he, "and if there be no heir after that it shall be as you wish." Before the year's end a son was born to them in Narberth. But although six women sat up to watch the mother and the infant, it happened towards the morning that they all fell asleep, and Rhiannon also slept, and when the women awoke, behold, the boy was gone ! "We shall be burnt for this," said the women, and in their terror they concocted a horrible plot: they killed a cub of a staghound that had just been littered, and laid the bones by Rhiannon, and smeared her face and hands with blood as she slept, and when she woke and asked for her child they said she had devoured it in the night, and had overcome them with furious strength when they would have prevented her - and for all she could say or do the six women persisted in this story.

When the story was told to Pwyll he would not put away Rhiannon, as his nobles now again begged him to do, but a penance was imposed on her - namely, that she was to sit every day by the horse-block at the gate of the castle and tell the tale to every stranger who came, and offer to carry them on her back into the castle. And this she did for part of a year.

 

The Finding of Pryderi [prounounced "Pry-dair׳y"]

Now at this time there lived a man named Teirnyon of Gwent Is Coed, who had the most beautiflil mare in

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the world, but there was this misfortune attending her, that although she foaled on the night of every first of May, none ever knew what became of the colts. At last Teirnyon resolved to get at the truth of the matter, and the next night on which the mare should foal he armed himself and watched in the stable. So the mare foaled, and the colt stood up, and Teirnyon was admiring its size and beauty when a great noise was heard outside, and a long, clawed arm came through the window of the stable and laid hold of the colt. Teirnyon immediately smote at the arm with his sword, and severed it at the elbow, so that it fell inside with the colt, and a great wailing and tumult was heard outside. He rushed out, leaving the door open behind him, but could see nothing because of the darkness of the night, and he followed the noise a little way. Then he came back, and behold, at the door he found an infant in swaddling clothes and wrapped in a mantle of satin. He took up the child and brought it to where his wife lay sleeping. She had no children, and she loved the child when she saw it, and next day pretended to her women that she had borne it as her own. And they called its name Gwri of the Golden Hair, for its hair was yellow as gold; and it grew so mightily that in two years it was as big and strong as a child of six ; and ere long the colt that had been foaled on the same night was broken in and given him to ride.

While these things were going on Teirnyon heard the tale of Rhiannon and her punishment. And as the lad grew up he scanned his face closely and saw that he had the features of Pwyll Prince of Dyfed. This he told to his wife, and they agreed that the child should be taken to Narberth, and Rhiannon released from her penance.

As they drew near to the castle, Teirnyon and two knights and the child riding on his colt, there was

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Rhiannon sitting by the horse-block. "Chieftains," said she, " go not further thus ; I will bear every one of you into the palace, and this is my penance for slaying my own son and devouring him." But they would not be carried, and went in. Pwyll rejoiced to see Teirnyon, and made a feast for him. Afterwards Teirnyon declared to Pwyll and Rhiannon the adventure of the man and the colt, and how they had found the boy. "And behold, here is thy son, lady," said Teirnyon, "and whoever told that lie concerning thee has done wrong. All who sat at table recognised the lad at once as the child of Pwyll, and Rhiannon cried "I declare to heaven that if this be true there is an end to my trouble." And a chief named Pendaran said: "Well hast thou named thy son Pryderi [trouble], and well becomes him the name of Pryderi son of Pwyll, Lord of Annwn." It was agreed that his name should be Pryderi, and so he was called thenceforth.

Teirnyon rode home, overwhelmed with thanks and love and gladness ; and Pwyll offered him rich gifts of horses and jewels and dogs, but he would take none of them. And Pryderi was trained up, as befitted a king's son, in all noble ways and accomplishments, and when his father Pwyll died he reigned in his stead over the Seven Cantrevs of Dyfed. And he added to them many other fair dominions, and at last he took to wife Kicva, daughter of Gwynn Gohoyw, who came of the lineage of Prince Casnar of Britain.

 

The Tale of Bran and Branwen

Bendigeid Vran, or " Bran the Blessed," by which latter name we shall designate him here, when he had been made King of the Isle of the Mighty (Britain), was one time in his court at Harlech. And he had with him his brother Manawyddan son of LIyr, and his

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sister Branwen, and the two sons, Nissyen and Evnissyen, that Penardun his mother bore to Eurosswyd. Now Nissyen was a youth of gentle nature, and would make peace among his kindred and cause them to be friends when their wrath was at its highest; but Evnissyen loved nothing so much as to turn peace into contention and strife.

One afternoon, as Bran son of Llyr sat on the rock of Harlech looking out to sea, he beheld thirteen ships coming rapidly from Ireland before a fair wind. They were gaily furnished, bright flags flying from the masts, and on the foremost ship, when they came near, a man could be seen holding up a shield with the point upwards in sign of peace. [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]

When the strangers landed they saluted Bran and explained their business. Matholwch, [the reader may pronounce this "Matholaw."] King of Ireland, was with them; his were the ships, and he had come to ask for the hand in marriage of Bran's sister, Branwen, so that Ireland and Britain might be leagued together and both become more powerful. "Now Branwen was one of the three chief ladies of the island, and she was the fairest damsel in the world."

The Irish were hospitably entertained, and after taking counsel with his lords Bran agreed to give his sister to Matholwch. The place of the wedding was fixed at Aberffraw, and the company assembled for the feast in tents because no house could hold the giant form of Bran. They caroused and made merry in peace and amity, and Branwen became the bride of the Irish king.

Next day Evnissyen came by chance to where the

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horses of Matholwch were ranged, and he asked whose they were. "They are the horses of Matholwch, who is married to thy sister." "And is it thus," said he, "they have done with a maiden such as she, and, moreover, my sister, bestowing her without my consent? They could offer me no greater insult." Thereupon he rushed among the horses and cut off their lips at the teeth, and their ears to their heads, and their tails close to the body, and where he could seize the eyelids he cut them off to the bone.

When Matholwch heard what had been done he was both angered and bewildered, and bade his people put to sea. Bran sent messengers to learn what had happened, and when he had been informed he sent Manawyddan and two others to make atonement. Matholwch should have sound horses for every one that was injured, and in addition a staff of silver as large and as tall as himself, and a plate of gold the size of his face. "And let him come and meet me," he added, "and we will make peace in any way he may desire." But as for Evnissyen, he was the son of Bran's mother, and therefore Bran could not put him to death as he deserved.