“I come from battle and conflictWith 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,223Gwyn 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.[pg 354]“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,224the son of Lleynawg.“I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,From the east to the north:I am the escort of the grave.“I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,From the east to the south:I am alive, they in death.”Myrddin, or MerlinA 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 calledClas 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[pg 355]without any other thing, by enchantment so strong that it may never be undone while the world endureth.”225Finally 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.226Nynniaw and PeibawThe two personages called Nynniaw and Peibaw who figure in the genealogical table play a very slight part in Cymric mythology, but one story in which they appear is interesting in itself and has an excellent moral. They are represented227as 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.[pg 356]“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 wordMabinogi, 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 hisrépertoire. Strictly speaking, theMabinogiin 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 HadesThe first of them is the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, and relates how that prince got his title ofPen 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.[pg 357]Pwyll, 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 Faëry—the red-haired man, the red-eared hound are always associated with magic.228Pwyll, 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[pg 358]in 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.229“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[pg 359]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.”The Wedding of Pwyll and RhiannonNear 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[pg 360]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 Hēn,230and 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 Hēn.Pwyll kept his tryst, with a following of a hundred[pg 361]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 in 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 the full of his bag of food might be given him from[pg 362]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 Hēn.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 stone to all the lords and ladies of[pg 363]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.The Penance of RhiannonNow Pwyll was still without an heir to the throne, and his nobles urged him to take another wife.“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 Pryderi231Now at this time there lived a man named Teirnyon of Gwent Is Coed, who had the most beautiful mare in[pg 364]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[pg 365]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 BranwenBendigeid 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 Llyr, and his[pg 366]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.232When the strangers landed they saluted Bran and explained their business. Matholwch,233King 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 or the Irish king.Next day Evnissyen came by chance to where the[pg 367]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.The Magic CauldronMatholwch accepted these terms, but not very cheerfully, and Bran now offered another treasure, namely, a magic cauldron which had the property that if a slain man were cast into it he would come forth well and sound, only he would not be able to speak. Matholwch and Bran then talked about the cauldron, which originally, it seems, came from Ireland. There was a lake in that country near to a mound (doubtless a fairy mound) which was called the Lake of the Cauldron. Here Matholwch had once met a tall and ill-looking fellow with a wife bigger than himself, and the cauldron[pg 368]strapped on his back. They took service with Matholwch. At the end of a period of six weeks the wife gave birth to a son, who was a warrior fully armed. We are apparently to understand that this happened every six weeks, for by the end of the year the strange pair, who seem to be a war-god and goddess, had several children, whose continual bickering and the outrages they committed throughout the land made them hated. At last, to get rid of them, Matholwch had a house of iron made, and enticed them into it. He then barred the door and heaped coals about the chamber, and blew them into a white heat, hoping to roast the whole family to death. As soon, however, as the iron walls had grown white-hot and soft the man and his wife burst through them and got away, but the children remained behind and were destroyed. Bran then took up the story. The man, who was called Llassar Llaesgyvnewid, and his wife Kymideu Kymeinvoll, come across to Britain, where Bran took them in, and in return for his kindness they gave him the cauldron. And since then they had filled the land with their descendants, who prospered everywhere and dwelt in strong fortified burgs and had the best weapons that ever were seen.So Matholwch received the cauldron along with his bride, and sailed back to Ireland, where Branwen entertained the lords and ladies of the land, and gave to each, as he or she took leave,“either a clasp or a ring or a royal jewel to keep, such as it was honourable to be seen departing with.”And when the year was out Branwen bore a son to Matholwch, whose name was called Gwern.The Punishment of BranwenThere occurs now an unintelligible place in the story. In the second year, it appears, and not till then,[pg 369]the men of Ireland grew indignant over the insult to their king committed by Evnissyen, and took revenge for it by having Branwen degraded to the position of a cook, and they caused the butcher every day to give her a blow on the ears. They also forbade all ships and ferry-boats to cross to Cambria, and any who came thence into Ireland were imprisoned so that news of Branwen's ill-treatment might not come to the ears of Bran. But Branwen reared up a young starling in a corner of her kneading-trough, and one day she tied a letter under its wing and taught it what to do. It flew away towards Britain, and finding Bran at Caer Seiont in Arvon, it lit on his shoulder, ruffling its feathers, and the letter was found and read. Bran immediately prepared a great hosting for Ireland, and sailed thither with a fleet of ships, leaving his land of Britain under his son Caradawc and six other chiefs.The Invasion of BranSoon there came messengers to Matholwch telling him of a wondrous sight they had seen; a wood was growing on the sea, and beside the wood a mountain with a high ridge in the middle of it, and two lakes, one at each side. And wood and mountain moved towards the shore of Ireland. Branwen is called up to explain, if she could, what this meant. She tells them the wood is the masts and yards of the fleet of Britain, and the mountain is Bran, her brother, coming into shoal water,“for no ship can contain him”; the ridge is his nose, the lakes his two eyes.234The King of Ireland and his lords at once took counsel together how they might meet this danger; and the plan they agreed upon was as follows: A huge[pg 370]hall should be built, big enough to hold Bran—this, it was hoped, would placate him—there should be a great feast made there for himself and his men, and Matholwch should give over the kingdom of Ireland to him and do homage. All this was done by Branwen's advice. But the Irish added a crafty device of their own. From two brackets on each of the hundred pillars in the hall should be hung two leather bags, with an armed warrior in each of them ready to fall upon the guests when the moment should arrive.The Meal-bagsEvnissyen, however, wandered into the hall before the rest of the host, and scanning the arrangements“with fierce and savage looks,”he saw the bags which hung from the pillars.“What is in this bag?”said he to one of the Irish.“Meal, good soul,”said the Irishman. Evnissyen laid his hand on the bag, and felt about with his fingers till he came to the head of the man within it. Then“he squeezed the head till he felt his fingers meet together in the brain through the bone.”He went to the next bag, and asked the same question.“Meal,”said the Irish attendant, but Evnissyen crushed this warrior's head also, and thus he did with all the two hundred bags, even in the case of one warrior whose head was covered with an iron helm.Then the feasting began, and peace and concord reigned, and Matholwch laid down the sovranty of Ireland, which was conferred on the boy Gwern. And they all fondled and caressed the fair child till he came to Evnissyen, who suddenly seized him and flung him into the blazing fire on the hearth. Branwen would have leaped after him, but Bran held her back. Then there was arming apace, and tumult and shouting,[pg 371]and the Irish and British hosts closed in battle and fought until the fall of night.Death of EvnissyenBut at night the Irish heated the magic cauldron and threw into it the bodies of their dead, who came out next day as good as ever, but dumb. When Evnissyen saw this he was smitten with remorse for having brought the men of Britain into such a strait:“Evil betide me if I find not a deliverance therefrom.”So he hid himself among the Irish dead, and was flung into the cauldron with the rest at the end of the second day, when he stretched himself out so that he rent the cauldron into four pieces, and his own heart burst with the effort, and he died.The Wonderful HeadIn the end, all the Irishmen were slain, and all but seven of the British besides Bran, who was wounded in the foot with a poisoned arrow. Among the seven were Pryderi and Manawyddan. Bran then commanded them to cut off his head.“And take it with you,”he said,“to London, and there bury it in the White Mount235looking towards France, and no foreigner shall invade the land while it is there. On the way the Head will talk to you, and be as pleasant company as ever in life. In Harlech ye will be feasting seven years and the birds of Rhiannon will sing to you. And at Gwales in Penvro ye will be feasting fourscore years, and the Head will talk to you and be uncorrupted till ye open the door looking towards Cornwall. After that ye may no longer tarry, but set forth to London and bury the Head.”Then the seven cut off the head of Bran and went[pg 372]forth, and Branwen with them, to do his bidding. But when Branwen came to land at Aber Alaw she cried,“Woe is me that I was ever born; two islands have been destroyed because of me.”And she uttered a loud groan, and her heart broke. They made her a four-sided grave on the banks of the Alaw, and the place was calledYnys Branwento this day.236The seven found that in the absence of Bran, Caswallan son of Beli had conquered Britain and slain the six captains of Caradawc. By magic art he had thrown on Caradawc the Veil of Illusion, and Caradawc saw only the sword which slew and slew, but not him who wielded it, and his heart broke for grief at the sight.They then went to Harlech and remained there seven years listening to the singing of the birds of Rhiannon—“all the songs they had ever heard were unpleasant compared thereto.”Then they went to Gwales in Penvro and found a fair and spacious hall overlooking the ocean. When they entered it they forgot all the sorrow of the past and all that had befallen them, and remained there fourscore years in joy and mirth, the wondrous Head talking to them as if it were alive. And bards call this“the Entertaining of the Noble Head.”Three doors were in the hall, and one of them which looked to Cornwall and to Aber Henvelyn was closed, but the other two were open. At the end of the time, Heilyn son of Gwyn said,“Evil betide me if I do not open the door to see if what was said is true.”And he opened it, and at once remembrance and sorrow fell upon them, and they set forth at once for London and buried the Head in the White Mount, where it remained[pg 373]until Arthur dug it up, for he would not have the land defended but by the strong arm. And this was“the Third Fatal Disclosure”in Britain.So ends this wild tale, which is evidently full of mythological elements, the key to which has long been lost. The touches of Northern ferocity which occur in it have made some critics suspect the influence of Norse or Icelandic literature in giving it its present form. The character of Evnissyen would certainly lend countenance to this conjecture. The typical mischief-maker of course occurs in purely Celtic sagas, but not commonly in combination with the heroic strain shown in Evnissyen's end, nor does the Irish“poison-tongue”ascend to anything like the same height of daimonic malignity.The Tale of Pryderi and ManawyddanAfter the events of the previous tales Pryderi and Manawyddan retired to the dominions of the former, and Manawyddan took to wife Rhiannon, the mother of his friend. There they lived happily and prosperously till one day, while they were at the Gorsedd, or Mound, near Narberth, a peal of thunder was heard and a thick mist fell so that nothing could be seen all round. When the mist cleared away, behold, the land was bare before them—neither houses nor people nor cattle nor crops were to be seen, but all was desert and uninhabited. The palace of Narberth was still standing, but it was empty and desolate—none remained except Pryderi and Manawyddan and their wives, Kicva and Rhiannon.Two years they lived on the provisions they had, and on the prey they killed, and on wild honey; and then they began to be weary.“Let us go into Lloegyr,”237[pg 374]then said Manawyddan,“and seek out some craft to support ourselves.”So they went to Hereford and settled there, and Manawyddan and Pryderi began to make saddles and housings, and Manawyddan decorated them with blue enamel as he had learned from a great craftsman, Llasar Llaesgywydd. After a time, however, the other saddlers of Hereford, finding that no man would purchase any but the work of Manawyddan, conspired to kill them. And Pryderi would have fought with them, but Manawyddan held it better to withdraw elsewhere, and so they did.They settled then in another city, where they made shields such as never were seen, and here, too, in the end, the rival craftsmen drove them out. And this happened also in another town where they made shoes; and at last they resolved to go back to Dyfed. Then they gathered their dogs about them and lived by hunting as before.One day they started a wild white boar, and chased him in vain until he led them up to a vast and lofty castle, all newly built in a place where they had never seen a building before. The boar ran into the castle, the dogs followed him, and Pryderi, against the counsel of Manawyddan, who knew there was magic afoot, went in to seek for the dogs.He found in the centre of the court a marble fountain beside which stood a golden bowl on a marble slab, and being struck by the rich workmanship of the bowl, he laid hold of it to examine it, when he could neither withdraw his hand nor utter a single sound, but he remained there, transfixed and dumb, beside the fountain.Manawyddan went back to Narberth and told the story to Rhiannon.“An evil companion hast thou been,”said she,“and a good companion hast thou lost.”[pg 375]Next day she went herself to explore the castle. She found Pryderi still clinging to the bowl and unable to speak. She also, then, laid hold of the bowl, when the same fate befell her, and immediately afterwards came a peal of thunder, and a heavy mist fell, and when it cleared off the castle had vanished with all that it contained, including the two spell-bound wanderers.Manawyddan then went back to Narberth, where only Kicva, Pryderi's wife, now remained. And when she saw none but herself and Manawyddan in the place,“she sorrowed so that she cared not whether she lived or died.”When Manawyddan saw this he said to her,“Thou art in the wrong if through fear of me thou grievest thus. I declare to thee were I in the dawn of youth I would keep my faith unto Pryderi, and unto thee also will I keep it.”“Heaven reward thee,”she said,“and that is what I deemed of thee.”And thereupon she took courage and was glad.Kicva and Manawyddan then again tried to support themselves by shoemaking in Lloegyr, but the same hostility drove them back to Dyfed. This time, however, Manawyddan took back with him a load of wheat, and he sowed it, and he prepared three crofts for a wheat crop. Thus the time passed till the fields were ripe. And he looked at one of the crofts and said,“I will reap this to-morrow.”But on the morrow when he went out in the grey dawn he found nothing there but bare straw—every ear had been cut off from the stalk and carried away.Next day it was the same with the second croft. But on the following night he armed himself and sat up to watch the third croft to see who was plundering him. At midnight, as he watched, he heard a loud noise, and behold, a mighty host of mice came pouring into the croft, and they climbed up each on a stalk and nibbled[pg 376]off the ears and made away with them. He chased them in anger, but they fled far faster than he could run, all save one which was slower in its movements, and this he barely managed to overtake, and he bound it into his glove and took it home to Narberth, and told Kicva what had happened.“To-morrow,”he said,“I will hang the robber I have caught,”but Kicva thought it beneath his dignity to take vengeance on a mouse.Next day he went up to the Mound of Narberth and set up two forks for a gallows on the highest part of the hill. As he was doing this a poor scholar came towards him, and he was the first person Manawyddan had seen in Dyfed, except his own companions, since the enchantment began.The scholar asked him what he was about and begged him to let go the mouse—“Ill doth it become a man of thy rank to touch such a reptile as this.”“I will not let it go, by Heaven,”said Manawyddan, and by that he abode, although the scholar offered him a pound of money to let it go free.“I care not,”said the scholar,“except that I would not see a man of rank touching such a reptile,”and with that he went his way.As Manawyddan was placing the cross-beam on the two forks of his gallows, a priest came towards him riding on a horse with trappings, and the same conversation ensued. The priest offered three pounds for the mouse's life, but Manawyddan refused to take any price for it.“Willingly, lord, do thy good pleasure,”said the priest, and he, too, went his way.Then Manawyddan put a noose about the mouse's neck and was about to draw it up when he saw coming towards him a bishop with a great retinue of sumpter-horses and attendants. And he stayed his work and asked the bishop's blessing.“Heaven's blessing be unto thee,”said the bishop;“what work art thou[pg 377]upon?”“Hanging a thief,”replied Manawyddan. The bishop offered seven pounds“rather than see a man of thy rank destroying so vile a reptile.”Manawyddan refused. Four-and-twenty pounds was then offered, and then as much again, then all the bishop's horses and baggage—all in vain.“Since for this thou wilt not,”said the bishop,“do it at whatever price thou wilt.”“I will do so,”said Manawyddan;“I will that Rhiannon and Pryderi be free.”“That thou shalt have,”said the (pretended) bishop. Then Manawyddan demands that the enchantment and illusion be taken off for ever from the seven Cantrevs of Dyfed, and finally insists that the bishop shall tell him who the mouse is and why the enchantment was laid on the country.“I am Llwyd son of Kilcoed,”replies the enchanter,“and the mouse is my wife; but that she is pregnant thou hadst never overtaken her.”He goes on with an explanation which takes us back to the firstMabinogiof the Wedding of Rhiannon. The charm was cast on the land to avenge the ill that was done Llwyd's friend, Gwawl son of Clud, with whom Pryderi's father and his knights had played“Badger in the Bag”at the court of Hevydd Hēn. The mice were the lords and ladies of Llwyd's court.The enchanter is then made to promise that no further vengeance shall be taken on Pryderi, Rhiannon, or Manawyddan, and the two spell-bound captives having been restored, the mouse is released.“Then Llwyd struck her with a magic wand, and she was changed into a young woman, the fairest ever seen.”And on looking round Manawyddan saw all the land tilled and peopled as in its best state, and full of herds and dwellings.“What bondage,”he asks,“has there been upon Pryderi and Rhiannon?”“Pryderi has had the knockers of the gate of my palace about his neck,[pg 378]and Rhiannon has had the collars of the asses after they have been carrying hay about her neck.”And such had been their bondage.The Tale of Māth Son of MāthonwyThe previous tale was one of magic and illusion in which the mythological element is but faint. In that which we have now to consider we are, however, in a distinctly mythological region. The central motive of the tale shows us the Powers of Light contending with those of the Under-world for the prized possessions of the latter, in this case a herd of magic swine. We are introduced in the beginning of the story to the deity, Māth, of whom the bard tells us that he was unable to exist unless his feet lay in the lap of a maiden, except when the land was disturbed by war.238Māth is represented as lord of Gwynedd, while Pryderi rules over the one-and-twenty cantrevs of the south. With Māth were his nephews Gwydion and Gilvaethwy sons of Dōn, who went the circuit of the land in his stead, while Māth lay with his feet in the lap of the fairest maiden of the land and time, Goewin daughter of Pebin of Dōl Pebin in Arvon.Gwydion and the Swine of PryderiGilvaethwy fell sick of love for Goewin, and confided the secret to his brother Gwydion, who undertook to help him to his desire. So he went to Māth one day, and asked his leave to go to Pryderi and beg from him the gift, for Māth, of a herd of swine which had been bestowed on him by Arawn King of Annwn.“They are beasts,”he said,“such as never were known in[pg 379]this island before ... their flesh is better than the flesh of oxen.”Māth bade him go, and he and Gilvaethwy started with ten companions for Dyfed. They came to Pryderi's palace in the guise of bards, and Gwydion, after being entertained at a feast, was asked to tell a tale to the court. After delighting every one with his discourse he begged for a gift of the swine. But Pryderi was under a compact with his people neither to sell nor give them until they had produced double their number in the land.“Thou mayest exchange them, though,”said Gwydion, and thereupon he made by magic arts an illusion of twelve horses magnificently caparisoned, and twelve hounds, and gave them to Pryderi and made off with the swine as fast as possible,“for,”said he to his companions,“the illusion will not last but from one hour to the same to-morrow.”The intended result came to pass—Pryderi invaded the land to recover his swine, Māth went to meet him in arms, and Gilvaethwy seized his opportunity and made Goewin his wife, although she was unwilling.Death of PryderiThe war was decided by a single combat between Gwydion and Pryderi.“And by force of strength and fierceness, and by the magic and charms of Gwydion, Pryderi was slain. And at Maen Tyriawc, above Melenryd, was he buried, and there is his grave.”The Penance of Gwydion and GilvaethwyWhen Māth came back he found what Gilvaethwy had done, and he took Goewin to be his queen, but Gwydion and Gilvaethwy went into outlawry, and dwelt on the borders of the land. At last they came[pg 380]and submitted themselves for punishment to Māth.“Ye cannot compensate me my shame, setting aside the death of Pryderi,”he said,“but since ye come hither to be at my will, I shall begin your punishment forthwith.”So he turned them both into deer, and bade them come hither again in a twelvemonth.They came at the appointed time, bringing with them a young fawn. And the fawn was brought into human shape and baptized, and Gwydion and Gilvaethwy were changed into two wild swine. At the next year's end they came back with a young one who was treated as the fawn before him, and the brothers were made into wolves. Another year passed; they came back again with a young wolf as before, and this time their penance was deemed complete, and their human nature was restored to them, and Māth gave orders to have them washed and anointed, and nobly clad as was befitting.The Children of Arianrod: DylanThe question then arose of appointing another virgin foot-holder, and Gwydion suggests his sister, Arianrod. She attends for the purpose, and Māth asks her if she is a virgin.“I know not, lord, other than that I am,”she says. But she failed in a magical test imposed by Māth, and gave birth to two sons. One of these was named Dylan,“Son of the Wave,”evidently a Cymric sea-deity. So soon as he was baptized“he plunged into the sea and swam as well as the best fish that was therein.... Beneath him no wave ever broke.”A wild sea-poetry hangs about his name in Welsh legend. On his death, which took place, it is said, at the hand of his uncle Govannon, all the waves of Britain and Ireland wept for him. The roar of the incoming tide at the mouth of the river Conway is still called the“death-groan of Dylan.”[pg 381]Llew Llaw GyffesThe other infant was seized by Gwydion and brought up under his protection. Like other solar heroes, he grew very rapidly; when he was four he was as big as if he were eight, and the comeliest youth that ever was seen. One day Gwydion took him to visit his mother Arianrod. She hated the children who had exposed her false pretensions, and upbraided Gwydion for bringing the boy into her sight.“What is his name?”she asked.“Verily,”said Gwydion,“he has not yet a name.”“Then I lay this destiny upon him,”said Arianrod,“that he shall never have a name till one is given him by me.”On this Gwydion went forth in wrath, and remained in his castle of Caer Dathyl that night.Though the fact does not appear in this tale, it must be remembered that Gwydion is, in the older mythology, the father of Arianrod's children.How Llew Got his NameHe was resolved to have a name for his son. Next day he went to the strand below Caer Arianrod, bringing the boy with him. Here he sat down by the beach, and in his character of a master of magic he made himself look like a shoemaker, and the boy like an apprentice, and he began to make shoes out of sedges and seaweed, to which he gave the semblance of Cordovan leather. Word was brought to Arianrod of the wonderful shoes that were being made by a strange cobbler, and she sent her measure for a pair. Gwydion made them too large. She sent it again, and he made them too small. Then she came herself to be fitted. While this was going on, a wren came and lit on the boat's mast, and the boy, taking up a bow, shot an arrow that transfixed the leg between the sinew[pg 382]and the bone. Arianrod admired the brilliant shot.“Verily,”she said,“with a steady hand (llaw gyffes) did the lion (llew) hit it.”“No thanks to thee,”cried Gwydion,“now he has got a name. Llew Llaw Gyffes shall he be called henceforward.”We have seen that the name really means the same thing as the Gaelic Lugh Lamfada, Lugh (Light) of the Long Arm; so that we have here an instance of a legend growing up round a misunderstood name inherited from a half-forgotten mythology.How Llew Took ArmsThe shoes went back immediately to sedges and seaweed again, and Arianrod, angry at being tricked, laid a new curse on the boy.“He shall never bear arms till I invest him with them.”But Gwydion, going to Caer Arianrod with the boy in the semblance of two bards, makes by magic art the illusion of a foray of armed men round the castle. Arianrod gives them weapons to help in the defence, and thus again finds herself tricked by the superior craft of Gwydion.The Flower-Wife of LlewNext she said,“He shall never have a wife of the race that now inhabits this earth.”This raised a difficulty beyond the powers of even Gwydion, and he went to Māth, the supreme master of magic.“Well,”said Māth,“we will seek, I and thou, to form a wife for him out of flowers.”“So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Blodeuwedd, or Flower-face.”They wedded her to Llew, and gave them the cantrev of Dinodig to[pg 383]reign over, and there Llew and his bride dwelt for a season, happy, and beloved by all.Betrayal of LlewBut Blodeuwedd was not worthy of her beautiful name and origin. One day when Llew was away on a visit with Māth, a lord named Gronw Pebyr came a-hunting by the palace of Llew, and Blodeuwedd loved him from the moment she looked upon him. That night they slept together, and the next, and the next, and then they planned how to be rid of Llew for ever. But Llew, like the Gothic solar hero Siegfried, is invulnerable except under special circumstances, and Blodeuwedd has to learn from him how he may be slain. This she does under pretence of care for his welfare. The problem is a hard one. Llew can only be killed by a spear which has been a year in making, and has only been worked on during the Sacrifice of the Host on Sundays. Furthermore, he cannot be slain within a house or without, on horseback or on foot. The only way, in fact, is that he should stand with one foot on a dead buck and the other in a cauldron, which is to be used for a bath and thatched with a roof—if he is wounded while in this position with a spear made as directed the wound may be fatal, not otherwise. After a year, during which Gronw wrought at the spear, Blodeuwedd begged Llew to show her more fully what she must guard against, and he took up the required position to please her. Gronw, lurking in a wood hard by, hurled the deadly spear, and the head, which was poisoned, sank into Llew's body, but the shaft broke off. Then Llew changed into an eagle, and with a loud scream he soared up into the air and was no more seen, and Gronw took his castle and lands and added them to his own.[pg 384]These tidings at last reached Gwydion and Māth, and Gwydion set out to find Llew. He came to the house of a vassal of his, from whom he learned that a sow that he had disappeared every day and could not be traced, but it came home duly each night. Gwydion followed the sow, and it went far away to the brook since called Nant y Llew, where it stopped under a tree and began feeding. Gwydion looked to see what it ate, and found that it fed on putrid flesh that dropped from an eagle sitting aloft on the tree, and it seemed to him that the eagle was Llew. Gwydion sang to it, and brought it gradually down the tree till it came to his knee, when he struck it with his magic wand and restored it to the shape of Llew, but worn to skin and bone—“no one ever saw a more piteous sight.”The Healing of LlewWhen Llew was healed, he and Gwydion took vengeance on their foes. Blodeuwedd was changed into an owl and bidden to shun the light of day, and Gronw was slain by a cast of the spear of Llew that passed through a slab of stone to reach him, and the slab with the hole through it made by the spear of Llew remains by the bank of the river Cynvael in Ardudwy to this day. And Llew took possession, for the second time, of his lands, and ruled them prosperously all his days.The four preceding tales are called the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, and of the collection called the“Mabinogion”they form the most ancient and important part.The Dream of Maxen WledigFollowing the order of the tales in the“Mabinogion,”as presented in Mr. Nutt's edition, we come next to one which is a pure work of invention, with no[pg 385]mythical or legendary element at all. It recounts how Maxen Wledig, Emperor of Rome, had a vivid dream, in which he was led into a strange country, where he saw a king in an ivory chair carving chessmen with a steel file from a rod of gold. By him, on a golden throne, was the fairest of maidens he had ever beheld. Waking, he found himself in love with the dream-maiden, and sent messengers far and wide to discover, if they could, the country and people that had appeared to him. They were found in Britain. Thither went Maxen, and wooed and wedded the maiden. In his absence a usurper laid hold of his empire in Rome, but with the aid of his British friends he reconquered his dominions, and many of them settled there with him, while others went home to Britain. The latter took with them foreign wives, but, it is said, cut out their tongues, lest they should corrupt the speech of the Britons. Thus early and thus powerful was the devotion to their tongue of the Cymry, of whom the mythical bard Taliesin prophesied:
“I come from battle and conflictWith 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,223Gwyn 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.[pg 354]“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,224the son of Lleynawg.“I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,From the east to the north:I am the escort of the grave.“I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,From the east to the south:I am alive, they in death.”Myrddin, or MerlinA 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 calledClas 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[pg 355]without any other thing, by enchantment so strong that it may never be undone while the world endureth.”225Finally 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.226Nynniaw and PeibawThe two personages called Nynniaw and Peibaw who figure in the genealogical table play a very slight part in Cymric mythology, but one story in which they appear is interesting in itself and has an excellent moral. They are represented227as 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.[pg 356]“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 wordMabinogi, 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 hisrépertoire. Strictly speaking, theMabinogiin 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 HadesThe first of them is the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, and relates how that prince got his title ofPen 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.[pg 357]Pwyll, 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 Faëry—the red-haired man, the red-eared hound are always associated with magic.228Pwyll, 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[pg 358]in 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.229“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[pg 359]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.”The Wedding of Pwyll and RhiannonNear 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[pg 360]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 Hēn,230and 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 Hēn.Pwyll kept his tryst, with a following of a hundred[pg 361]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 in 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 the full of his bag of food might be given him from[pg 362]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 Hēn.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 stone to all the lords and ladies of[pg 363]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.The Penance of RhiannonNow Pwyll was still without an heir to the throne, and his nobles urged him to take another wife.“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 Pryderi231Now at this time there lived a man named Teirnyon of Gwent Is Coed, who had the most beautiful mare in[pg 364]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[pg 365]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 BranwenBendigeid 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 Llyr, and his[pg 366]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.232When the strangers landed they saluted Bran and explained their business. Matholwch,233King 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 or the Irish king.Next day Evnissyen came by chance to where the[pg 367]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.The Magic CauldronMatholwch accepted these terms, but not very cheerfully, and Bran now offered another treasure, namely, a magic cauldron which had the property that if a slain man were cast into it he would come forth well and sound, only he would not be able to speak. Matholwch and Bran then talked about the cauldron, which originally, it seems, came from Ireland. There was a lake in that country near to a mound (doubtless a fairy mound) which was called the Lake of the Cauldron. Here Matholwch had once met a tall and ill-looking fellow with a wife bigger than himself, and the cauldron[pg 368]strapped on his back. They took service with Matholwch. At the end of a period of six weeks the wife gave birth to a son, who was a warrior fully armed. We are apparently to understand that this happened every six weeks, for by the end of the year the strange pair, who seem to be a war-god and goddess, had several children, whose continual bickering and the outrages they committed throughout the land made them hated. At last, to get rid of them, Matholwch had a house of iron made, and enticed them into it. He then barred the door and heaped coals about the chamber, and blew them into a white heat, hoping to roast the whole family to death. As soon, however, as the iron walls had grown white-hot and soft the man and his wife burst through them and got away, but the children remained behind and were destroyed. Bran then took up the story. The man, who was called Llassar Llaesgyvnewid, and his wife Kymideu Kymeinvoll, come across to Britain, where Bran took them in, and in return for his kindness they gave him the cauldron. And since then they had filled the land with their descendants, who prospered everywhere and dwelt in strong fortified burgs and had the best weapons that ever were seen.So Matholwch received the cauldron along with his bride, and sailed back to Ireland, where Branwen entertained the lords and ladies of the land, and gave to each, as he or she took leave,“either a clasp or a ring or a royal jewel to keep, such as it was honourable to be seen departing with.”And when the year was out Branwen bore a son to Matholwch, whose name was called Gwern.The Punishment of BranwenThere occurs now an unintelligible place in the story. In the second year, it appears, and not till then,[pg 369]the men of Ireland grew indignant over the insult to their king committed by Evnissyen, and took revenge for it by having Branwen degraded to the position of a cook, and they caused the butcher every day to give her a blow on the ears. They also forbade all ships and ferry-boats to cross to Cambria, and any who came thence into Ireland were imprisoned so that news of Branwen's ill-treatment might not come to the ears of Bran. But Branwen reared up a young starling in a corner of her kneading-trough, and one day she tied a letter under its wing and taught it what to do. It flew away towards Britain, and finding Bran at Caer Seiont in Arvon, it lit on his shoulder, ruffling its feathers, and the letter was found and read. Bran immediately prepared a great hosting for Ireland, and sailed thither with a fleet of ships, leaving his land of Britain under his son Caradawc and six other chiefs.The Invasion of BranSoon there came messengers to Matholwch telling him of a wondrous sight they had seen; a wood was growing on the sea, and beside the wood a mountain with a high ridge in the middle of it, and two lakes, one at each side. And wood and mountain moved towards the shore of Ireland. Branwen is called up to explain, if she could, what this meant. She tells them the wood is the masts and yards of the fleet of Britain, and the mountain is Bran, her brother, coming into shoal water,“for no ship can contain him”; the ridge is his nose, the lakes his two eyes.234The King of Ireland and his lords at once took counsel together how they might meet this danger; and the plan they agreed upon was as follows: A huge[pg 370]hall should be built, big enough to hold Bran—this, it was hoped, would placate him—there should be a great feast made there for himself and his men, and Matholwch should give over the kingdom of Ireland to him and do homage. All this was done by Branwen's advice. But the Irish added a crafty device of their own. From two brackets on each of the hundred pillars in the hall should be hung two leather bags, with an armed warrior in each of them ready to fall upon the guests when the moment should arrive.The Meal-bagsEvnissyen, however, wandered into the hall before the rest of the host, and scanning the arrangements“with fierce and savage looks,”he saw the bags which hung from the pillars.“What is in this bag?”said he to one of the Irish.“Meal, good soul,”said the Irishman. Evnissyen laid his hand on the bag, and felt about with his fingers till he came to the head of the man within it. Then“he squeezed the head till he felt his fingers meet together in the brain through the bone.”He went to the next bag, and asked the same question.“Meal,”said the Irish attendant, but Evnissyen crushed this warrior's head also, and thus he did with all the two hundred bags, even in the case of one warrior whose head was covered with an iron helm.Then the feasting began, and peace and concord reigned, and Matholwch laid down the sovranty of Ireland, which was conferred on the boy Gwern. And they all fondled and caressed the fair child till he came to Evnissyen, who suddenly seized him and flung him into the blazing fire on the hearth. Branwen would have leaped after him, but Bran held her back. Then there was arming apace, and tumult and shouting,[pg 371]and the Irish and British hosts closed in battle and fought until the fall of night.Death of EvnissyenBut at night the Irish heated the magic cauldron and threw into it the bodies of their dead, who came out next day as good as ever, but dumb. When Evnissyen saw this he was smitten with remorse for having brought the men of Britain into such a strait:“Evil betide me if I find not a deliverance therefrom.”So he hid himself among the Irish dead, and was flung into the cauldron with the rest at the end of the second day, when he stretched himself out so that he rent the cauldron into four pieces, and his own heart burst with the effort, and he died.The Wonderful HeadIn the end, all the Irishmen were slain, and all but seven of the British besides Bran, who was wounded in the foot with a poisoned arrow. Among the seven were Pryderi and Manawyddan. Bran then commanded them to cut off his head.“And take it with you,”he said,“to London, and there bury it in the White Mount235looking towards France, and no foreigner shall invade the land while it is there. On the way the Head will talk to you, and be as pleasant company as ever in life. In Harlech ye will be feasting seven years and the birds of Rhiannon will sing to you. And at Gwales in Penvro ye will be feasting fourscore years, and the Head will talk to you and be uncorrupted till ye open the door looking towards Cornwall. After that ye may no longer tarry, but set forth to London and bury the Head.”Then the seven cut off the head of Bran and went[pg 372]forth, and Branwen with them, to do his bidding. But when Branwen came to land at Aber Alaw she cried,“Woe is me that I was ever born; two islands have been destroyed because of me.”And she uttered a loud groan, and her heart broke. They made her a four-sided grave on the banks of the Alaw, and the place was calledYnys Branwento this day.236The seven found that in the absence of Bran, Caswallan son of Beli had conquered Britain and slain the six captains of Caradawc. By magic art he had thrown on Caradawc the Veil of Illusion, and Caradawc saw only the sword which slew and slew, but not him who wielded it, and his heart broke for grief at the sight.They then went to Harlech and remained there seven years listening to the singing of the birds of Rhiannon—“all the songs they had ever heard were unpleasant compared thereto.”Then they went to Gwales in Penvro and found a fair and spacious hall overlooking the ocean. When they entered it they forgot all the sorrow of the past and all that had befallen them, and remained there fourscore years in joy and mirth, the wondrous Head talking to them as if it were alive. And bards call this“the Entertaining of the Noble Head.”Three doors were in the hall, and one of them which looked to Cornwall and to Aber Henvelyn was closed, but the other two were open. At the end of the time, Heilyn son of Gwyn said,“Evil betide me if I do not open the door to see if what was said is true.”And he opened it, and at once remembrance and sorrow fell upon them, and they set forth at once for London and buried the Head in the White Mount, where it remained[pg 373]until Arthur dug it up, for he would not have the land defended but by the strong arm. And this was“the Third Fatal Disclosure”in Britain.So ends this wild tale, which is evidently full of mythological elements, the key to which has long been lost. The touches of Northern ferocity which occur in it have made some critics suspect the influence of Norse or Icelandic literature in giving it its present form. The character of Evnissyen would certainly lend countenance to this conjecture. The typical mischief-maker of course occurs in purely Celtic sagas, but not commonly in combination with the heroic strain shown in Evnissyen's end, nor does the Irish“poison-tongue”ascend to anything like the same height of daimonic malignity.The Tale of Pryderi and ManawyddanAfter the events of the previous tales Pryderi and Manawyddan retired to the dominions of the former, and Manawyddan took to wife Rhiannon, the mother of his friend. There they lived happily and prosperously till one day, while they were at the Gorsedd, or Mound, near Narberth, a peal of thunder was heard and a thick mist fell so that nothing could be seen all round. When the mist cleared away, behold, the land was bare before them—neither houses nor people nor cattle nor crops were to be seen, but all was desert and uninhabited. The palace of Narberth was still standing, but it was empty and desolate—none remained except Pryderi and Manawyddan and their wives, Kicva and Rhiannon.Two years they lived on the provisions they had, and on the prey they killed, and on wild honey; and then they began to be weary.“Let us go into Lloegyr,”237[pg 374]then said Manawyddan,“and seek out some craft to support ourselves.”So they went to Hereford and settled there, and Manawyddan and Pryderi began to make saddles and housings, and Manawyddan decorated them with blue enamel as he had learned from a great craftsman, Llasar Llaesgywydd. After a time, however, the other saddlers of Hereford, finding that no man would purchase any but the work of Manawyddan, conspired to kill them. And Pryderi would have fought with them, but Manawyddan held it better to withdraw elsewhere, and so they did.They settled then in another city, where they made shields such as never were seen, and here, too, in the end, the rival craftsmen drove them out. And this happened also in another town where they made shoes; and at last they resolved to go back to Dyfed. Then they gathered their dogs about them and lived by hunting as before.One day they started a wild white boar, and chased him in vain until he led them up to a vast and lofty castle, all newly built in a place where they had never seen a building before. The boar ran into the castle, the dogs followed him, and Pryderi, against the counsel of Manawyddan, who knew there was magic afoot, went in to seek for the dogs.He found in the centre of the court a marble fountain beside which stood a golden bowl on a marble slab, and being struck by the rich workmanship of the bowl, he laid hold of it to examine it, when he could neither withdraw his hand nor utter a single sound, but he remained there, transfixed and dumb, beside the fountain.Manawyddan went back to Narberth and told the story to Rhiannon.“An evil companion hast thou been,”said she,“and a good companion hast thou lost.”[pg 375]Next day she went herself to explore the castle. She found Pryderi still clinging to the bowl and unable to speak. She also, then, laid hold of the bowl, when the same fate befell her, and immediately afterwards came a peal of thunder, and a heavy mist fell, and when it cleared off the castle had vanished with all that it contained, including the two spell-bound wanderers.Manawyddan then went back to Narberth, where only Kicva, Pryderi's wife, now remained. And when she saw none but herself and Manawyddan in the place,“she sorrowed so that she cared not whether she lived or died.”When Manawyddan saw this he said to her,“Thou art in the wrong if through fear of me thou grievest thus. I declare to thee were I in the dawn of youth I would keep my faith unto Pryderi, and unto thee also will I keep it.”“Heaven reward thee,”she said,“and that is what I deemed of thee.”And thereupon she took courage and was glad.Kicva and Manawyddan then again tried to support themselves by shoemaking in Lloegyr, but the same hostility drove them back to Dyfed. This time, however, Manawyddan took back with him a load of wheat, and he sowed it, and he prepared three crofts for a wheat crop. Thus the time passed till the fields were ripe. And he looked at one of the crofts and said,“I will reap this to-morrow.”But on the morrow when he went out in the grey dawn he found nothing there but bare straw—every ear had been cut off from the stalk and carried away.Next day it was the same with the second croft. But on the following night he armed himself and sat up to watch the third croft to see who was plundering him. At midnight, as he watched, he heard a loud noise, and behold, a mighty host of mice came pouring into the croft, and they climbed up each on a stalk and nibbled[pg 376]off the ears and made away with them. He chased them in anger, but they fled far faster than he could run, all save one which was slower in its movements, and this he barely managed to overtake, and he bound it into his glove and took it home to Narberth, and told Kicva what had happened.“To-morrow,”he said,“I will hang the robber I have caught,”but Kicva thought it beneath his dignity to take vengeance on a mouse.Next day he went up to the Mound of Narberth and set up two forks for a gallows on the highest part of the hill. As he was doing this a poor scholar came towards him, and he was the first person Manawyddan had seen in Dyfed, except his own companions, since the enchantment began.The scholar asked him what he was about and begged him to let go the mouse—“Ill doth it become a man of thy rank to touch such a reptile as this.”“I will not let it go, by Heaven,”said Manawyddan, and by that he abode, although the scholar offered him a pound of money to let it go free.“I care not,”said the scholar,“except that I would not see a man of rank touching such a reptile,”and with that he went his way.As Manawyddan was placing the cross-beam on the two forks of his gallows, a priest came towards him riding on a horse with trappings, and the same conversation ensued. The priest offered three pounds for the mouse's life, but Manawyddan refused to take any price for it.“Willingly, lord, do thy good pleasure,”said the priest, and he, too, went his way.Then Manawyddan put a noose about the mouse's neck and was about to draw it up when he saw coming towards him a bishop with a great retinue of sumpter-horses and attendants. And he stayed his work and asked the bishop's blessing.“Heaven's blessing be unto thee,”said the bishop;“what work art thou[pg 377]upon?”“Hanging a thief,”replied Manawyddan. The bishop offered seven pounds“rather than see a man of thy rank destroying so vile a reptile.”Manawyddan refused. Four-and-twenty pounds was then offered, and then as much again, then all the bishop's horses and baggage—all in vain.“Since for this thou wilt not,”said the bishop,“do it at whatever price thou wilt.”“I will do so,”said Manawyddan;“I will that Rhiannon and Pryderi be free.”“That thou shalt have,”said the (pretended) bishop. Then Manawyddan demands that the enchantment and illusion be taken off for ever from the seven Cantrevs of Dyfed, and finally insists that the bishop shall tell him who the mouse is and why the enchantment was laid on the country.“I am Llwyd son of Kilcoed,”replies the enchanter,“and the mouse is my wife; but that she is pregnant thou hadst never overtaken her.”He goes on with an explanation which takes us back to the firstMabinogiof the Wedding of Rhiannon. The charm was cast on the land to avenge the ill that was done Llwyd's friend, Gwawl son of Clud, with whom Pryderi's father and his knights had played“Badger in the Bag”at the court of Hevydd Hēn. The mice were the lords and ladies of Llwyd's court.The enchanter is then made to promise that no further vengeance shall be taken on Pryderi, Rhiannon, or Manawyddan, and the two spell-bound captives having been restored, the mouse is released.“Then Llwyd struck her with a magic wand, and she was changed into a young woman, the fairest ever seen.”And on looking round Manawyddan saw all the land tilled and peopled as in its best state, and full of herds and dwellings.“What bondage,”he asks,“has there been upon Pryderi and Rhiannon?”“Pryderi has had the knockers of the gate of my palace about his neck,[pg 378]and Rhiannon has had the collars of the asses after they have been carrying hay about her neck.”And such had been their bondage.The Tale of Māth Son of MāthonwyThe previous tale was one of magic and illusion in which the mythological element is but faint. In that which we have now to consider we are, however, in a distinctly mythological region. The central motive of the tale shows us the Powers of Light contending with those of the Under-world for the prized possessions of the latter, in this case a herd of magic swine. We are introduced in the beginning of the story to the deity, Māth, of whom the bard tells us that he was unable to exist unless his feet lay in the lap of a maiden, except when the land was disturbed by war.238Māth is represented as lord of Gwynedd, while Pryderi rules over the one-and-twenty cantrevs of the south. With Māth were his nephews Gwydion and Gilvaethwy sons of Dōn, who went the circuit of the land in his stead, while Māth lay with his feet in the lap of the fairest maiden of the land and time, Goewin daughter of Pebin of Dōl Pebin in Arvon.Gwydion and the Swine of PryderiGilvaethwy fell sick of love for Goewin, and confided the secret to his brother Gwydion, who undertook to help him to his desire. So he went to Māth one day, and asked his leave to go to Pryderi and beg from him the gift, for Māth, of a herd of swine which had been bestowed on him by Arawn King of Annwn.“They are beasts,”he said,“such as never were known in[pg 379]this island before ... their flesh is better than the flesh of oxen.”Māth bade him go, and he and Gilvaethwy started with ten companions for Dyfed. They came to Pryderi's palace in the guise of bards, and Gwydion, after being entertained at a feast, was asked to tell a tale to the court. After delighting every one with his discourse he begged for a gift of the swine. But Pryderi was under a compact with his people neither to sell nor give them until they had produced double their number in the land.“Thou mayest exchange them, though,”said Gwydion, and thereupon he made by magic arts an illusion of twelve horses magnificently caparisoned, and twelve hounds, and gave them to Pryderi and made off with the swine as fast as possible,“for,”said he to his companions,“the illusion will not last but from one hour to the same to-morrow.”The intended result came to pass—Pryderi invaded the land to recover his swine, Māth went to meet him in arms, and Gilvaethwy seized his opportunity and made Goewin his wife, although she was unwilling.Death of PryderiThe war was decided by a single combat between Gwydion and Pryderi.“And by force of strength and fierceness, and by the magic and charms of Gwydion, Pryderi was slain. And at Maen Tyriawc, above Melenryd, was he buried, and there is his grave.”The Penance of Gwydion and GilvaethwyWhen Māth came back he found what Gilvaethwy had done, and he took Goewin to be his queen, but Gwydion and Gilvaethwy went into outlawry, and dwelt on the borders of the land. At last they came[pg 380]and submitted themselves for punishment to Māth.“Ye cannot compensate me my shame, setting aside the death of Pryderi,”he said,“but since ye come hither to be at my will, I shall begin your punishment forthwith.”So he turned them both into deer, and bade them come hither again in a twelvemonth.They came at the appointed time, bringing with them a young fawn. And the fawn was brought into human shape and baptized, and Gwydion and Gilvaethwy were changed into two wild swine. At the next year's end they came back with a young one who was treated as the fawn before him, and the brothers were made into wolves. Another year passed; they came back again with a young wolf as before, and this time their penance was deemed complete, and their human nature was restored to them, and Māth gave orders to have them washed and anointed, and nobly clad as was befitting.The Children of Arianrod: DylanThe question then arose of appointing another virgin foot-holder, and Gwydion suggests his sister, Arianrod. She attends for the purpose, and Māth asks her if she is a virgin.“I know not, lord, other than that I am,”she says. But she failed in a magical test imposed by Māth, and gave birth to two sons. One of these was named Dylan,“Son of the Wave,”evidently a Cymric sea-deity. So soon as he was baptized“he plunged into the sea and swam as well as the best fish that was therein.... Beneath him no wave ever broke.”A wild sea-poetry hangs about his name in Welsh legend. On his death, which took place, it is said, at the hand of his uncle Govannon, all the waves of Britain and Ireland wept for him. The roar of the incoming tide at the mouth of the river Conway is still called the“death-groan of Dylan.”[pg 381]Llew Llaw GyffesThe other infant was seized by Gwydion and brought up under his protection. Like other solar heroes, he grew very rapidly; when he was four he was as big as if he were eight, and the comeliest youth that ever was seen. One day Gwydion took him to visit his mother Arianrod. She hated the children who had exposed her false pretensions, and upbraided Gwydion for bringing the boy into her sight.“What is his name?”she asked.“Verily,”said Gwydion,“he has not yet a name.”“Then I lay this destiny upon him,”said Arianrod,“that he shall never have a name till one is given him by me.”On this Gwydion went forth in wrath, and remained in his castle of Caer Dathyl that night.Though the fact does not appear in this tale, it must be remembered that Gwydion is, in the older mythology, the father of Arianrod's children.How Llew Got his NameHe was resolved to have a name for his son. Next day he went to the strand below Caer Arianrod, bringing the boy with him. Here he sat down by the beach, and in his character of a master of magic he made himself look like a shoemaker, and the boy like an apprentice, and he began to make shoes out of sedges and seaweed, to which he gave the semblance of Cordovan leather. Word was brought to Arianrod of the wonderful shoes that were being made by a strange cobbler, and she sent her measure for a pair. Gwydion made them too large. She sent it again, and he made them too small. Then she came herself to be fitted. While this was going on, a wren came and lit on the boat's mast, and the boy, taking up a bow, shot an arrow that transfixed the leg between the sinew[pg 382]and the bone. Arianrod admired the brilliant shot.“Verily,”she said,“with a steady hand (llaw gyffes) did the lion (llew) hit it.”“No thanks to thee,”cried Gwydion,“now he has got a name. Llew Llaw Gyffes shall he be called henceforward.”We have seen that the name really means the same thing as the Gaelic Lugh Lamfada, Lugh (Light) of the Long Arm; so that we have here an instance of a legend growing up round a misunderstood name inherited from a half-forgotten mythology.How Llew Took ArmsThe shoes went back immediately to sedges and seaweed again, and Arianrod, angry at being tricked, laid a new curse on the boy.“He shall never bear arms till I invest him with them.”But Gwydion, going to Caer Arianrod with the boy in the semblance of two bards, makes by magic art the illusion of a foray of armed men round the castle. Arianrod gives them weapons to help in the defence, and thus again finds herself tricked by the superior craft of Gwydion.The Flower-Wife of LlewNext she said,“He shall never have a wife of the race that now inhabits this earth.”This raised a difficulty beyond the powers of even Gwydion, and he went to Māth, the supreme master of magic.“Well,”said Māth,“we will seek, I and thou, to form a wife for him out of flowers.”“So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Blodeuwedd, or Flower-face.”They wedded her to Llew, and gave them the cantrev of Dinodig to[pg 383]reign over, and there Llew and his bride dwelt for a season, happy, and beloved by all.Betrayal of LlewBut Blodeuwedd was not worthy of her beautiful name and origin. One day when Llew was away on a visit with Māth, a lord named Gronw Pebyr came a-hunting by the palace of Llew, and Blodeuwedd loved him from the moment she looked upon him. That night they slept together, and the next, and the next, and then they planned how to be rid of Llew for ever. But Llew, like the Gothic solar hero Siegfried, is invulnerable except under special circumstances, and Blodeuwedd has to learn from him how he may be slain. This she does under pretence of care for his welfare. The problem is a hard one. Llew can only be killed by a spear which has been a year in making, and has only been worked on during the Sacrifice of the Host on Sundays. Furthermore, he cannot be slain within a house or without, on horseback or on foot. The only way, in fact, is that he should stand with one foot on a dead buck and the other in a cauldron, which is to be used for a bath and thatched with a roof—if he is wounded while in this position with a spear made as directed the wound may be fatal, not otherwise. After a year, during which Gronw wrought at the spear, Blodeuwedd begged Llew to show her more fully what she must guard against, and he took up the required position to please her. Gronw, lurking in a wood hard by, hurled the deadly spear, and the head, which was poisoned, sank into Llew's body, but the shaft broke off. Then Llew changed into an eagle, and with a loud scream he soared up into the air and was no more seen, and Gronw took his castle and lands and added them to his own.[pg 384]These tidings at last reached Gwydion and Māth, and Gwydion set out to find Llew. He came to the house of a vassal of his, from whom he learned that a sow that he had disappeared every day and could not be traced, but it came home duly each night. Gwydion followed the sow, and it went far away to the brook since called Nant y Llew, where it stopped under a tree and began feeding. Gwydion looked to see what it ate, and found that it fed on putrid flesh that dropped from an eagle sitting aloft on the tree, and it seemed to him that the eagle was Llew. Gwydion sang to it, and brought it gradually down the tree till it came to his knee, when he struck it with his magic wand and restored it to the shape of Llew, but worn to skin and bone—“no one ever saw a more piteous sight.”The Healing of LlewWhen Llew was healed, he and Gwydion took vengeance on their foes. Blodeuwedd was changed into an owl and bidden to shun the light of day, and Gronw was slain by a cast of the spear of Llew that passed through a slab of stone to reach him, and the slab with the hole through it made by the spear of Llew remains by the bank of the river Cynvael in Ardudwy to this day. And Llew took possession, for the second time, of his lands, and ruled them prosperously all his days.The four preceding tales are called the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, and of the collection called the“Mabinogion”they form the most ancient and important part.The Dream of Maxen WledigFollowing the order of the tales in the“Mabinogion,”as presented in Mr. Nutt's edition, we come next to one which is a pure work of invention, with no[pg 385]mythical or legendary element at all. It recounts how Maxen Wledig, Emperor of Rome, had a vivid dream, in which he was led into a strange country, where he saw a king in an ivory chair carving chessmen with a steel file from a rod of gold. By him, on a golden throne, was the fairest of maidens he had ever beheld. Waking, he found himself in love with the dream-maiden, and sent messengers far and wide to discover, if they could, the country and people that had appeared to him. They were found in Britain. Thither went Maxen, and wooed and wedded the maiden. In his absence a usurper laid hold of his empire in Rome, but with the aid of his British friends he reconquered his dominions, and many of them settled there with him, while others went home to Britain. The latter took with them foreign wives, but, it is said, cut out their tongues, lest they should corrupt the speech of the Britons. Thus early and thus powerful was the devotion to their tongue of the Cymry, of whom the mythical bard Taliesin prophesied:
“I come from battle and conflictWith 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,223Gwyn 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.[pg 354]“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,224the son of Lleynawg.“I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,From the east to the north:I am the escort of the grave.“I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,From the east to the south:I am alive, they in death.”Myrddin, or MerlinA 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 calledClas 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[pg 355]without any other thing, by enchantment so strong that it may never be undone while the world endureth.”225Finally 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.226Nynniaw and PeibawThe two personages called Nynniaw and Peibaw who figure in the genealogical table play a very slight part in Cymric mythology, but one story in which they appear is interesting in itself and has an excellent moral. They are represented227as 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.[pg 356]“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 wordMabinogi, 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 hisrépertoire. Strictly speaking, theMabinogiin 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 HadesThe first of them is the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, and relates how that prince got his title ofPen 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.[pg 357]Pwyll, 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 Faëry—the red-haired man, the red-eared hound are always associated with magic.228Pwyll, 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[pg 358]in 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.229“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[pg 359]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.”The Wedding of Pwyll and RhiannonNear 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[pg 360]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 Hēn,230and 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 Hēn.Pwyll kept his tryst, with a following of a hundred[pg 361]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 in 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 the full of his bag of food might be given him from[pg 362]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 Hēn.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 stone to all the lords and ladies of[pg 363]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.The Penance of RhiannonNow Pwyll was still without an heir to the throne, and his nobles urged him to take another wife.“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 Pryderi231Now at this time there lived a man named Teirnyon of Gwent Is Coed, who had the most beautiful mare in[pg 364]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[pg 365]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 BranwenBendigeid 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 Llyr, and his[pg 366]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.232When the strangers landed they saluted Bran and explained their business. Matholwch,233King 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 or the Irish king.Next day Evnissyen came by chance to where the[pg 367]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.The Magic CauldronMatholwch accepted these terms, but not very cheerfully, and Bran now offered another treasure, namely, a magic cauldron which had the property that if a slain man were cast into it he would come forth well and sound, only he would not be able to speak. Matholwch and Bran then talked about the cauldron, which originally, it seems, came from Ireland. There was a lake in that country near to a mound (doubtless a fairy mound) which was called the Lake of the Cauldron. Here Matholwch had once met a tall and ill-looking fellow with a wife bigger than himself, and the cauldron[pg 368]strapped on his back. They took service with Matholwch. At the end of a period of six weeks the wife gave birth to a son, who was a warrior fully armed. We are apparently to understand that this happened every six weeks, for by the end of the year the strange pair, who seem to be a war-god and goddess, had several children, whose continual bickering and the outrages they committed throughout the land made them hated. At last, to get rid of them, Matholwch had a house of iron made, and enticed them into it. He then barred the door and heaped coals about the chamber, and blew them into a white heat, hoping to roast the whole family to death. As soon, however, as the iron walls had grown white-hot and soft the man and his wife burst through them and got away, but the children remained behind and were destroyed. Bran then took up the story. The man, who was called Llassar Llaesgyvnewid, and his wife Kymideu Kymeinvoll, come across to Britain, where Bran took them in, and in return for his kindness they gave him the cauldron. And since then they had filled the land with their descendants, who prospered everywhere and dwelt in strong fortified burgs and had the best weapons that ever were seen.So Matholwch received the cauldron along with his bride, and sailed back to Ireland, where Branwen entertained the lords and ladies of the land, and gave to each, as he or she took leave,“either a clasp or a ring or a royal jewel to keep, such as it was honourable to be seen departing with.”And when the year was out Branwen bore a son to Matholwch, whose name was called Gwern.The Punishment of BranwenThere occurs now an unintelligible place in the story. In the second year, it appears, and not till then,[pg 369]the men of Ireland grew indignant over the insult to their king committed by Evnissyen, and took revenge for it by having Branwen degraded to the position of a cook, and they caused the butcher every day to give her a blow on the ears. They also forbade all ships and ferry-boats to cross to Cambria, and any who came thence into Ireland were imprisoned so that news of Branwen's ill-treatment might not come to the ears of Bran. But Branwen reared up a young starling in a corner of her kneading-trough, and one day she tied a letter under its wing and taught it what to do. It flew away towards Britain, and finding Bran at Caer Seiont in Arvon, it lit on his shoulder, ruffling its feathers, and the letter was found and read. Bran immediately prepared a great hosting for Ireland, and sailed thither with a fleet of ships, leaving his land of Britain under his son Caradawc and six other chiefs.The Invasion of BranSoon there came messengers to Matholwch telling him of a wondrous sight they had seen; a wood was growing on the sea, and beside the wood a mountain with a high ridge in the middle of it, and two lakes, one at each side. And wood and mountain moved towards the shore of Ireland. Branwen is called up to explain, if she could, what this meant. She tells them the wood is the masts and yards of the fleet of Britain, and the mountain is Bran, her brother, coming into shoal water,“for no ship can contain him”; the ridge is his nose, the lakes his two eyes.234The King of Ireland and his lords at once took counsel together how they might meet this danger; and the plan they agreed upon was as follows: A huge[pg 370]hall should be built, big enough to hold Bran—this, it was hoped, would placate him—there should be a great feast made there for himself and his men, and Matholwch should give over the kingdom of Ireland to him and do homage. All this was done by Branwen's advice. But the Irish added a crafty device of their own. From two brackets on each of the hundred pillars in the hall should be hung two leather bags, with an armed warrior in each of them ready to fall upon the guests when the moment should arrive.The Meal-bagsEvnissyen, however, wandered into the hall before the rest of the host, and scanning the arrangements“with fierce and savage looks,”he saw the bags which hung from the pillars.“What is in this bag?”said he to one of the Irish.“Meal, good soul,”said the Irishman. Evnissyen laid his hand on the bag, and felt about with his fingers till he came to the head of the man within it. Then“he squeezed the head till he felt his fingers meet together in the brain through the bone.”He went to the next bag, and asked the same question.“Meal,”said the Irish attendant, but Evnissyen crushed this warrior's head also, and thus he did with all the two hundred bags, even in the case of one warrior whose head was covered with an iron helm.Then the feasting began, and peace and concord reigned, and Matholwch laid down the sovranty of Ireland, which was conferred on the boy Gwern. And they all fondled and caressed the fair child till he came to Evnissyen, who suddenly seized him and flung him into the blazing fire on the hearth. Branwen would have leaped after him, but Bran held her back. Then there was arming apace, and tumult and shouting,[pg 371]and the Irish and British hosts closed in battle and fought until the fall of night.Death of EvnissyenBut at night the Irish heated the magic cauldron and threw into it the bodies of their dead, who came out next day as good as ever, but dumb. When Evnissyen saw this he was smitten with remorse for having brought the men of Britain into such a strait:“Evil betide me if I find not a deliverance therefrom.”So he hid himself among the Irish dead, and was flung into the cauldron with the rest at the end of the second day, when he stretched himself out so that he rent the cauldron into four pieces, and his own heart burst with the effort, and he died.The Wonderful HeadIn the end, all the Irishmen were slain, and all but seven of the British besides Bran, who was wounded in the foot with a poisoned arrow. Among the seven were Pryderi and Manawyddan. Bran then commanded them to cut off his head.“And take it with you,”he said,“to London, and there bury it in the White Mount235looking towards France, and no foreigner shall invade the land while it is there. On the way the Head will talk to you, and be as pleasant company as ever in life. In Harlech ye will be feasting seven years and the birds of Rhiannon will sing to you. And at Gwales in Penvro ye will be feasting fourscore years, and the Head will talk to you and be uncorrupted till ye open the door looking towards Cornwall. After that ye may no longer tarry, but set forth to London and bury the Head.”Then the seven cut off the head of Bran and went[pg 372]forth, and Branwen with them, to do his bidding. But when Branwen came to land at Aber Alaw she cried,“Woe is me that I was ever born; two islands have been destroyed because of me.”And she uttered a loud groan, and her heart broke. They made her a four-sided grave on the banks of the Alaw, and the place was calledYnys Branwento this day.236The seven found that in the absence of Bran, Caswallan son of Beli had conquered Britain and slain the six captains of Caradawc. By magic art he had thrown on Caradawc the Veil of Illusion, and Caradawc saw only the sword which slew and slew, but not him who wielded it, and his heart broke for grief at the sight.They then went to Harlech and remained there seven years listening to the singing of the birds of Rhiannon—“all the songs they had ever heard were unpleasant compared thereto.”Then they went to Gwales in Penvro and found a fair and spacious hall overlooking the ocean. When they entered it they forgot all the sorrow of the past and all that had befallen them, and remained there fourscore years in joy and mirth, the wondrous Head talking to them as if it were alive. And bards call this“the Entertaining of the Noble Head.”Three doors were in the hall, and one of them which looked to Cornwall and to Aber Henvelyn was closed, but the other two were open. At the end of the time, Heilyn son of Gwyn said,“Evil betide me if I do not open the door to see if what was said is true.”And he opened it, and at once remembrance and sorrow fell upon them, and they set forth at once for London and buried the Head in the White Mount, where it remained[pg 373]until Arthur dug it up, for he would not have the land defended but by the strong arm. And this was“the Third Fatal Disclosure”in Britain.So ends this wild tale, which is evidently full of mythological elements, the key to which has long been lost. The touches of Northern ferocity which occur in it have made some critics suspect the influence of Norse or Icelandic literature in giving it its present form. The character of Evnissyen would certainly lend countenance to this conjecture. The typical mischief-maker of course occurs in purely Celtic sagas, but not commonly in combination with the heroic strain shown in Evnissyen's end, nor does the Irish“poison-tongue”ascend to anything like the same height of daimonic malignity.The Tale of Pryderi and ManawyddanAfter the events of the previous tales Pryderi and Manawyddan retired to the dominions of the former, and Manawyddan took to wife Rhiannon, the mother of his friend. There they lived happily and prosperously till one day, while they were at the Gorsedd, or Mound, near Narberth, a peal of thunder was heard and a thick mist fell so that nothing could be seen all round. When the mist cleared away, behold, the land was bare before them—neither houses nor people nor cattle nor crops were to be seen, but all was desert and uninhabited. The palace of Narberth was still standing, but it was empty and desolate—none remained except Pryderi and Manawyddan and their wives, Kicva and Rhiannon.Two years they lived on the provisions they had, and on the prey they killed, and on wild honey; and then they began to be weary.“Let us go into Lloegyr,”237[pg 374]then said Manawyddan,“and seek out some craft to support ourselves.”So they went to Hereford and settled there, and Manawyddan and Pryderi began to make saddles and housings, and Manawyddan decorated them with blue enamel as he had learned from a great craftsman, Llasar Llaesgywydd. After a time, however, the other saddlers of Hereford, finding that no man would purchase any but the work of Manawyddan, conspired to kill them. And Pryderi would have fought with them, but Manawyddan held it better to withdraw elsewhere, and so they did.They settled then in another city, where they made shields such as never were seen, and here, too, in the end, the rival craftsmen drove them out. And this happened also in another town where they made shoes; and at last they resolved to go back to Dyfed. Then they gathered their dogs about them and lived by hunting as before.One day they started a wild white boar, and chased him in vain until he led them up to a vast and lofty castle, all newly built in a place where they had never seen a building before. The boar ran into the castle, the dogs followed him, and Pryderi, against the counsel of Manawyddan, who knew there was magic afoot, went in to seek for the dogs.He found in the centre of the court a marble fountain beside which stood a golden bowl on a marble slab, and being struck by the rich workmanship of the bowl, he laid hold of it to examine it, when he could neither withdraw his hand nor utter a single sound, but he remained there, transfixed and dumb, beside the fountain.Manawyddan went back to Narberth and told the story to Rhiannon.“An evil companion hast thou been,”said she,“and a good companion hast thou lost.”[pg 375]Next day she went herself to explore the castle. She found Pryderi still clinging to the bowl and unable to speak. She also, then, laid hold of the bowl, when the same fate befell her, and immediately afterwards came a peal of thunder, and a heavy mist fell, and when it cleared off the castle had vanished with all that it contained, including the two spell-bound wanderers.Manawyddan then went back to Narberth, where only Kicva, Pryderi's wife, now remained. And when she saw none but herself and Manawyddan in the place,“she sorrowed so that she cared not whether she lived or died.”When Manawyddan saw this he said to her,“Thou art in the wrong if through fear of me thou grievest thus. I declare to thee were I in the dawn of youth I would keep my faith unto Pryderi, and unto thee also will I keep it.”“Heaven reward thee,”she said,“and that is what I deemed of thee.”And thereupon she took courage and was glad.Kicva and Manawyddan then again tried to support themselves by shoemaking in Lloegyr, but the same hostility drove them back to Dyfed. This time, however, Manawyddan took back with him a load of wheat, and he sowed it, and he prepared three crofts for a wheat crop. Thus the time passed till the fields were ripe. And he looked at one of the crofts and said,“I will reap this to-morrow.”But on the morrow when he went out in the grey dawn he found nothing there but bare straw—every ear had been cut off from the stalk and carried away.Next day it was the same with the second croft. But on the following night he armed himself and sat up to watch the third croft to see who was plundering him. At midnight, as he watched, he heard a loud noise, and behold, a mighty host of mice came pouring into the croft, and they climbed up each on a stalk and nibbled[pg 376]off the ears and made away with them. He chased them in anger, but they fled far faster than he could run, all save one which was slower in its movements, and this he barely managed to overtake, and he bound it into his glove and took it home to Narberth, and told Kicva what had happened.“To-morrow,”he said,“I will hang the robber I have caught,”but Kicva thought it beneath his dignity to take vengeance on a mouse.Next day he went up to the Mound of Narberth and set up two forks for a gallows on the highest part of the hill. As he was doing this a poor scholar came towards him, and he was the first person Manawyddan had seen in Dyfed, except his own companions, since the enchantment began.The scholar asked him what he was about and begged him to let go the mouse—“Ill doth it become a man of thy rank to touch such a reptile as this.”“I will not let it go, by Heaven,”said Manawyddan, and by that he abode, although the scholar offered him a pound of money to let it go free.“I care not,”said the scholar,“except that I would not see a man of rank touching such a reptile,”and with that he went his way.As Manawyddan was placing the cross-beam on the two forks of his gallows, a priest came towards him riding on a horse with trappings, and the same conversation ensued. The priest offered three pounds for the mouse's life, but Manawyddan refused to take any price for it.“Willingly, lord, do thy good pleasure,”said the priest, and he, too, went his way.Then Manawyddan put a noose about the mouse's neck and was about to draw it up when he saw coming towards him a bishop with a great retinue of sumpter-horses and attendants. And he stayed his work and asked the bishop's blessing.“Heaven's blessing be unto thee,”said the bishop;“what work art thou[pg 377]upon?”“Hanging a thief,”replied Manawyddan. The bishop offered seven pounds“rather than see a man of thy rank destroying so vile a reptile.”Manawyddan refused. Four-and-twenty pounds was then offered, and then as much again, then all the bishop's horses and baggage—all in vain.“Since for this thou wilt not,”said the bishop,“do it at whatever price thou wilt.”“I will do so,”said Manawyddan;“I will that Rhiannon and Pryderi be free.”“That thou shalt have,”said the (pretended) bishop. Then Manawyddan demands that the enchantment and illusion be taken off for ever from the seven Cantrevs of Dyfed, and finally insists that the bishop shall tell him who the mouse is and why the enchantment was laid on the country.“I am Llwyd son of Kilcoed,”replies the enchanter,“and the mouse is my wife; but that she is pregnant thou hadst never overtaken her.”He goes on with an explanation which takes us back to the firstMabinogiof the Wedding of Rhiannon. The charm was cast on the land to avenge the ill that was done Llwyd's friend, Gwawl son of Clud, with whom Pryderi's father and his knights had played“Badger in the Bag”at the court of Hevydd Hēn. The mice were the lords and ladies of Llwyd's court.The enchanter is then made to promise that no further vengeance shall be taken on Pryderi, Rhiannon, or Manawyddan, and the two spell-bound captives having been restored, the mouse is released.“Then Llwyd struck her with a magic wand, and she was changed into a young woman, the fairest ever seen.”And on looking round Manawyddan saw all the land tilled and peopled as in its best state, and full of herds and dwellings.“What bondage,”he asks,“has there been upon Pryderi and Rhiannon?”“Pryderi has had the knockers of the gate of my palace about his neck,[pg 378]and Rhiannon has had the collars of the asses after they have been carrying hay about her neck.”And such had been their bondage.The Tale of Māth Son of MāthonwyThe previous tale was one of magic and illusion in which the mythological element is but faint. In that which we have now to consider we are, however, in a distinctly mythological region. The central motive of the tale shows us the Powers of Light contending with those of the Under-world for the prized possessions of the latter, in this case a herd of magic swine. We are introduced in the beginning of the story to the deity, Māth, of whom the bard tells us that he was unable to exist unless his feet lay in the lap of a maiden, except when the land was disturbed by war.238Māth is represented as lord of Gwynedd, while Pryderi rules over the one-and-twenty cantrevs of the south. With Māth were his nephews Gwydion and Gilvaethwy sons of Dōn, who went the circuit of the land in his stead, while Māth lay with his feet in the lap of the fairest maiden of the land and time, Goewin daughter of Pebin of Dōl Pebin in Arvon.Gwydion and the Swine of PryderiGilvaethwy fell sick of love for Goewin, and confided the secret to his brother Gwydion, who undertook to help him to his desire. So he went to Māth one day, and asked his leave to go to Pryderi and beg from him the gift, for Māth, of a herd of swine which had been bestowed on him by Arawn King of Annwn.“They are beasts,”he said,“such as never were known in[pg 379]this island before ... their flesh is better than the flesh of oxen.”Māth bade him go, and he and Gilvaethwy started with ten companions for Dyfed. They came to Pryderi's palace in the guise of bards, and Gwydion, after being entertained at a feast, was asked to tell a tale to the court. After delighting every one with his discourse he begged for a gift of the swine. But Pryderi was under a compact with his people neither to sell nor give them until they had produced double their number in the land.“Thou mayest exchange them, though,”said Gwydion, and thereupon he made by magic arts an illusion of twelve horses magnificently caparisoned, and twelve hounds, and gave them to Pryderi and made off with the swine as fast as possible,“for,”said he to his companions,“the illusion will not last but from one hour to the same to-morrow.”The intended result came to pass—Pryderi invaded the land to recover his swine, Māth went to meet him in arms, and Gilvaethwy seized his opportunity and made Goewin his wife, although she was unwilling.Death of PryderiThe war was decided by a single combat between Gwydion and Pryderi.“And by force of strength and fierceness, and by the magic and charms of Gwydion, Pryderi was slain. And at Maen Tyriawc, above Melenryd, was he buried, and there is his grave.”The Penance of Gwydion and GilvaethwyWhen Māth came back he found what Gilvaethwy had done, and he took Goewin to be his queen, but Gwydion and Gilvaethwy went into outlawry, and dwelt on the borders of the land. At last they came[pg 380]and submitted themselves for punishment to Māth.“Ye cannot compensate me my shame, setting aside the death of Pryderi,”he said,“but since ye come hither to be at my will, I shall begin your punishment forthwith.”So he turned them both into deer, and bade them come hither again in a twelvemonth.They came at the appointed time, bringing with them a young fawn. And the fawn was brought into human shape and baptized, and Gwydion and Gilvaethwy were changed into two wild swine. At the next year's end they came back with a young one who was treated as the fawn before him, and the brothers were made into wolves. Another year passed; they came back again with a young wolf as before, and this time their penance was deemed complete, and their human nature was restored to them, and Māth gave orders to have them washed and anointed, and nobly clad as was befitting.The Children of Arianrod: DylanThe question then arose of appointing another virgin foot-holder, and Gwydion suggests his sister, Arianrod. She attends for the purpose, and Māth asks her if she is a virgin.“I know not, lord, other than that I am,”she says. But she failed in a magical test imposed by Māth, and gave birth to two sons. One of these was named Dylan,“Son of the Wave,”evidently a Cymric sea-deity. So soon as he was baptized“he plunged into the sea and swam as well as the best fish that was therein.... Beneath him no wave ever broke.”A wild sea-poetry hangs about his name in Welsh legend. On his death, which took place, it is said, at the hand of his uncle Govannon, all the waves of Britain and Ireland wept for him. The roar of the incoming tide at the mouth of the river Conway is still called the“death-groan of Dylan.”[pg 381]Llew Llaw GyffesThe other infant was seized by Gwydion and brought up under his protection. Like other solar heroes, he grew very rapidly; when he was four he was as big as if he were eight, and the comeliest youth that ever was seen. One day Gwydion took him to visit his mother Arianrod. She hated the children who had exposed her false pretensions, and upbraided Gwydion for bringing the boy into her sight.“What is his name?”she asked.“Verily,”said Gwydion,“he has not yet a name.”“Then I lay this destiny upon him,”said Arianrod,“that he shall never have a name till one is given him by me.”On this Gwydion went forth in wrath, and remained in his castle of Caer Dathyl that night.Though the fact does not appear in this tale, it must be remembered that Gwydion is, in the older mythology, the father of Arianrod's children.How Llew Got his NameHe was resolved to have a name for his son. Next day he went to the strand below Caer Arianrod, bringing the boy with him. Here he sat down by the beach, and in his character of a master of magic he made himself look like a shoemaker, and the boy like an apprentice, and he began to make shoes out of sedges and seaweed, to which he gave the semblance of Cordovan leather. Word was brought to Arianrod of the wonderful shoes that were being made by a strange cobbler, and she sent her measure for a pair. Gwydion made them too large. She sent it again, and he made them too small. Then she came herself to be fitted. While this was going on, a wren came and lit on the boat's mast, and the boy, taking up a bow, shot an arrow that transfixed the leg between the sinew[pg 382]and the bone. Arianrod admired the brilliant shot.“Verily,”she said,“with a steady hand (llaw gyffes) did the lion (llew) hit it.”“No thanks to thee,”cried Gwydion,“now he has got a name. Llew Llaw Gyffes shall he be called henceforward.”We have seen that the name really means the same thing as the Gaelic Lugh Lamfada, Lugh (Light) of the Long Arm; so that we have here an instance of a legend growing up round a misunderstood name inherited from a half-forgotten mythology.How Llew Took ArmsThe shoes went back immediately to sedges and seaweed again, and Arianrod, angry at being tricked, laid a new curse on the boy.“He shall never bear arms till I invest him with them.”But Gwydion, going to Caer Arianrod with the boy in the semblance of two bards, makes by magic art the illusion of a foray of armed men round the castle. Arianrod gives them weapons to help in the defence, and thus again finds herself tricked by the superior craft of Gwydion.The Flower-Wife of LlewNext she said,“He shall never have a wife of the race that now inhabits this earth.”This raised a difficulty beyond the powers of even Gwydion, and he went to Māth, the supreme master of magic.“Well,”said Māth,“we will seek, I and thou, to form a wife for him out of flowers.”“So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Blodeuwedd, or Flower-face.”They wedded her to Llew, and gave them the cantrev of Dinodig to[pg 383]reign over, and there Llew and his bride dwelt for a season, happy, and beloved by all.Betrayal of LlewBut Blodeuwedd was not worthy of her beautiful name and origin. One day when Llew was away on a visit with Māth, a lord named Gronw Pebyr came a-hunting by the palace of Llew, and Blodeuwedd loved him from the moment she looked upon him. That night they slept together, and the next, and the next, and then they planned how to be rid of Llew for ever. But Llew, like the Gothic solar hero Siegfried, is invulnerable except under special circumstances, and Blodeuwedd has to learn from him how he may be slain. This she does under pretence of care for his welfare. The problem is a hard one. Llew can only be killed by a spear which has been a year in making, and has only been worked on during the Sacrifice of the Host on Sundays. Furthermore, he cannot be slain within a house or without, on horseback or on foot. The only way, in fact, is that he should stand with one foot on a dead buck and the other in a cauldron, which is to be used for a bath and thatched with a roof—if he is wounded while in this position with a spear made as directed the wound may be fatal, not otherwise. After a year, during which Gronw wrought at the spear, Blodeuwedd begged Llew to show her more fully what she must guard against, and he took up the required position to please her. Gronw, lurking in a wood hard by, hurled the deadly spear, and the head, which was poisoned, sank into Llew's body, but the shaft broke off. Then Llew changed into an eagle, and with a loud scream he soared up into the air and was no more seen, and Gronw took his castle and lands and added them to his own.[pg 384]These tidings at last reached Gwydion and Māth, and Gwydion set out to find Llew. He came to the house of a vassal of his, from whom he learned that a sow that he had disappeared every day and could not be traced, but it came home duly each night. Gwydion followed the sow, and it went far away to the brook since called Nant y Llew, where it stopped under a tree and began feeding. Gwydion looked to see what it ate, and found that it fed on putrid flesh that dropped from an eagle sitting aloft on the tree, and it seemed to him that the eagle was Llew. Gwydion sang to it, and brought it gradually down the tree till it came to his knee, when he struck it with his magic wand and restored it to the shape of Llew, but worn to skin and bone—“no one ever saw a more piteous sight.”The Healing of LlewWhen Llew was healed, he and Gwydion took vengeance on their foes. Blodeuwedd was changed into an owl and bidden to shun the light of day, and Gronw was slain by a cast of the spear of Llew that passed through a slab of stone to reach him, and the slab with the hole through it made by the spear of Llew remains by the bank of the river Cynvael in Ardudwy to this day. And Llew took possession, for the second time, of his lands, and ruled them prosperously all his days.The four preceding tales are called the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, and of the collection called the“Mabinogion”they form the most ancient and important part.The Dream of Maxen WledigFollowing the order of the tales in the“Mabinogion,”as presented in Mr. Nutt's edition, we come next to one which is a pure work of invention, with no[pg 385]mythical or legendary element at all. It recounts how Maxen Wledig, Emperor of Rome, had a vivid dream, in which he was led into a strange country, where he saw a king in an ivory chair carving chessmen with a steel file from a rod of gold. By him, on a golden throne, was the fairest of maidens he had ever beheld. Waking, he found himself in love with the dream-maiden, and sent messengers far and wide to discover, if they could, the country and people that had appeared to him. They were found in Britain. Thither went Maxen, and wooed and wedded the maiden. In his absence a usurper laid hold of his empire in Rome, but with the aid of his British friends he reconquered his dominions, and many of them settled there with him, while others went home to Britain. The latter took with them foreign wives, but, it is said, cut out their tongues, lest they should corrupt the speech of the Britons. Thus early and thus powerful was the devotion to their tongue of the Cymry, of whom the mythical bard Taliesin prophesied:
“I come from battle and conflictWith a shield in my hand;Broken is my helmet by the thrusting of spears.
“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,223Gwyn the son of Nudd,The lover of Crewrdilad, the daughter of Lludd
“Round-hoofed is my horse, the torment of battle,
Fairy am I called,223Gwyn 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 Gwendolen was slain,
The son of Ceidaw, the pillar of song,
Where the ravens screamed over blood.
“I have been in the place where Bran was killed,The son of Iweridd, of far-extending fame,Where the ravens of the battlefield screamed.
“I have been in the place where Bran was killed,
The son of Iweridd, of far-extending fame,
Where the ravens of the battlefield screamed.
“I have been where Llacheu was slain,The son of Arthur, extolled in songs,When the ravens screamed over blood.
“I have been where 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 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,224the son of Lleynawg.
“I have been where Gwallawg was killed,
The son of Goholeth, the accomplished,
The resister of Lloegyr,224the 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 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.”
“I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain,
From the east to the south:
I am alive, they in death.”
Myrddin, or Merlin
A deity named Myrddin holds in 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 calledClas 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[pg 355]without any other thing, by enchantment so strong that it may never be undone while the world endureth.”225Finally 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.226
Nynniaw and Peibaw
The two personages called Nynniaw and Peibaw who figure in the genealogical table play a very slight part in Cymric mythology, but one story in which they appear is interesting in itself and has an excellent moral. They are represented227as 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.[pg 356]“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 wordMabinogi, 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 hisrépertoire. Strictly speaking, theMabinogiin 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 ofPen 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.
Pwyll, 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 Faëry—the red-haired man, the red-eared hound are always associated with magic.228Pwyll, 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[pg 358]in 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.229“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[pg 359]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.”
The Wedding of Pwyll 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[pg 360]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 Hēn,230and 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 Hēn.
Pwyll kept his tryst, with a following of a hundred[pg 361]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 in 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 the full of his bag of food might be given him from[pg 362]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 Hēn.
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 stone to all the lords and ladies of[pg 363]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.
The Penance of Rhiannon
Now Pwyll was still without an heir to the throne, and his nobles urged him to take another wife.“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 Pryderi231
Now at this time there lived a man named Teirnyon of Gwent Is Coed, who had the most beautiful mare in[pg 364]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[pg 365]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 Llyr, and his[pg 366]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.232
When the strangers landed they saluted Bran and explained their business. Matholwch,233King 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 or the Irish king.
Next day Evnissyen came by chance to where the[pg 367]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.
The Magic Cauldron
Matholwch accepted these terms, but not very cheerfully, and Bran now offered another treasure, namely, a magic cauldron which had the property that if a slain man were cast into it he would come forth well and sound, only he would not be able to speak. Matholwch and Bran then talked about the cauldron, which originally, it seems, came from Ireland. There was a lake in that country near to a mound (doubtless a fairy mound) which was called the Lake of the Cauldron. Here Matholwch had once met a tall and ill-looking fellow with a wife bigger than himself, and the cauldron[pg 368]strapped on his back. They took service with Matholwch. At the end of a period of six weeks the wife gave birth to a son, who was a warrior fully armed. We are apparently to understand that this happened every six weeks, for by the end of the year the strange pair, who seem to be a war-god and goddess, had several children, whose continual bickering and the outrages they committed throughout the land made them hated. At last, to get rid of them, Matholwch had a house of iron made, and enticed them into it. He then barred the door and heaped coals about the chamber, and blew them into a white heat, hoping to roast the whole family to death. As soon, however, as the iron walls had grown white-hot and soft the man and his wife burst through them and got away, but the children remained behind and were destroyed. Bran then took up the story. The man, who was called Llassar Llaesgyvnewid, and his wife Kymideu Kymeinvoll, come across to Britain, where Bran took them in, and in return for his kindness they gave him the cauldron. And since then they had filled the land with their descendants, who prospered everywhere and dwelt in strong fortified burgs and had the best weapons that ever were seen.
So Matholwch received the cauldron along with his bride, and sailed back to Ireland, where Branwen entertained the lords and ladies of the land, and gave to each, as he or she took leave,“either a clasp or a ring or a royal jewel to keep, such as it was honourable to be seen departing with.”And when the year was out Branwen bore a son to Matholwch, whose name was called Gwern.
The Punishment of Branwen
There occurs now an unintelligible place in the story. In the second year, it appears, and not till then,[pg 369]the men of Ireland grew indignant over the insult to their king committed by Evnissyen, and took revenge for it by having Branwen degraded to the position of a cook, and they caused the butcher every day to give her a blow on the ears. They also forbade all ships and ferry-boats to cross to Cambria, and any who came thence into Ireland were imprisoned so that news of Branwen's ill-treatment might not come to the ears of Bran. But Branwen reared up a young starling in a corner of her kneading-trough, and one day she tied a letter under its wing and taught it what to do. It flew away towards Britain, and finding Bran at Caer Seiont in Arvon, it lit on his shoulder, ruffling its feathers, and the letter was found and read. Bran immediately prepared a great hosting for Ireland, and sailed thither with a fleet of ships, leaving his land of Britain under his son Caradawc and six other chiefs.
The Invasion of Bran
Soon there came messengers to Matholwch telling him of a wondrous sight they had seen; a wood was growing on the sea, and beside the wood a mountain with a high ridge in the middle of it, and two lakes, one at each side. And wood and mountain moved towards the shore of Ireland. Branwen is called up to explain, if she could, what this meant. She tells them the wood is the masts and yards of the fleet of Britain, and the mountain is Bran, her brother, coming into shoal water,“for no ship can contain him”; the ridge is his nose, the lakes his two eyes.234
The King of Ireland and his lords at once took counsel together how they might meet this danger; and the plan they agreed upon was as follows: A huge[pg 370]hall should be built, big enough to hold Bran—this, it was hoped, would placate him—there should be a great feast made there for himself and his men, and Matholwch should give over the kingdom of Ireland to him and do homage. All this was done by Branwen's advice. But the Irish added a crafty device of their own. From two brackets on each of the hundred pillars in the hall should be hung two leather bags, with an armed warrior in each of them ready to fall upon the guests when the moment should arrive.
The Meal-bags
Evnissyen, however, wandered into the hall before the rest of the host, and scanning the arrangements“with fierce and savage looks,”he saw the bags which hung from the pillars.“What is in this bag?”said he to one of the Irish.“Meal, good soul,”said the Irishman. Evnissyen laid his hand on the bag, and felt about with his fingers till he came to the head of the man within it. Then“he squeezed the head till he felt his fingers meet together in the brain through the bone.”He went to the next bag, and asked the same question.“Meal,”said the Irish attendant, but Evnissyen crushed this warrior's head also, and thus he did with all the two hundred bags, even in the case of one warrior whose head was covered with an iron helm.
Then the feasting began, and peace and concord reigned, and Matholwch laid down the sovranty of Ireland, which was conferred on the boy Gwern. And they all fondled and caressed the fair child till he came to Evnissyen, who suddenly seized him and flung him into the blazing fire on the hearth. Branwen would have leaped after him, but Bran held her back. Then there was arming apace, and tumult and shouting,[pg 371]and the Irish and British hosts closed in battle and fought until the fall of night.
Death of Evnissyen
But at night the Irish heated the magic cauldron and threw into it the bodies of their dead, who came out next day as good as ever, but dumb. When Evnissyen saw this he was smitten with remorse for having brought the men of Britain into such a strait:“Evil betide me if I find not a deliverance therefrom.”So he hid himself among the Irish dead, and was flung into the cauldron with the rest at the end of the second day, when he stretched himself out so that he rent the cauldron into four pieces, and his own heart burst with the effort, and he died.
The Wonderful Head
In the end, all the Irishmen were slain, and all but seven of the British besides Bran, who was wounded in the foot with a poisoned arrow. Among the seven were Pryderi and Manawyddan. Bran then commanded them to cut off his head.“And take it with you,”he said,“to London, and there bury it in the White Mount235looking towards France, and no foreigner shall invade the land while it is there. On the way the Head will talk to you, and be as pleasant company as ever in life. In Harlech ye will be feasting seven years and the birds of Rhiannon will sing to you. And at Gwales in Penvro ye will be feasting fourscore years, and the Head will talk to you and be uncorrupted till ye open the door looking towards Cornwall. After that ye may no longer tarry, but set forth to London and bury the Head.”
Then the seven cut off the head of Bran and went[pg 372]forth, and Branwen with them, to do his bidding. But when Branwen came to land at Aber Alaw she cried,“Woe is me that I was ever born; two islands have been destroyed because of me.”And she uttered a loud groan, and her heart broke. They made her a four-sided grave on the banks of the Alaw, and the place was calledYnys Branwento this day.236
The seven found that in the absence of Bran, Caswallan son of Beli had conquered Britain and slain the six captains of Caradawc. By magic art he had thrown on Caradawc the Veil of Illusion, and Caradawc saw only the sword which slew and slew, but not him who wielded it, and his heart broke for grief at the sight.
They then went to Harlech and remained there seven years listening to the singing of the birds of Rhiannon—“all the songs they had ever heard were unpleasant compared thereto.”Then they went to Gwales in Penvro and found a fair and spacious hall overlooking the ocean. When they entered it they forgot all the sorrow of the past and all that had befallen them, and remained there fourscore years in joy and mirth, the wondrous Head talking to them as if it were alive. And bards call this“the Entertaining of the Noble Head.”Three doors were in the hall, and one of them which looked to Cornwall and to Aber Henvelyn was closed, but the other two were open. At the end of the time, Heilyn son of Gwyn said,“Evil betide me if I do not open the door to see if what was said is true.”And he opened it, and at once remembrance and sorrow fell upon them, and they set forth at once for London and buried the Head in the White Mount, where it remained[pg 373]until Arthur dug it up, for he would not have the land defended but by the strong arm. And this was“the Third Fatal Disclosure”in Britain.
So ends this wild tale, which is evidently full of mythological elements, the key to which has long been lost. The touches of Northern ferocity which occur in it have made some critics suspect the influence of Norse or Icelandic literature in giving it its present form. The character of Evnissyen would certainly lend countenance to this conjecture. The typical mischief-maker of course occurs in purely Celtic sagas, but not commonly in combination with the heroic strain shown in Evnissyen's end, nor does the Irish“poison-tongue”ascend to anything like the same height of daimonic malignity.
The Tale of Pryderi and Manawyddan
After the events of the previous tales Pryderi and Manawyddan retired to the dominions of the former, and Manawyddan took to wife Rhiannon, the mother of his friend. There they lived happily and prosperously till one day, while they were at the Gorsedd, or Mound, near Narberth, a peal of thunder was heard and a thick mist fell so that nothing could be seen all round. When the mist cleared away, behold, the land was bare before them—neither houses nor people nor cattle nor crops were to be seen, but all was desert and uninhabited. The palace of Narberth was still standing, but it was empty and desolate—none remained except Pryderi and Manawyddan and their wives, Kicva and Rhiannon.
Two years they lived on the provisions they had, and on the prey they killed, and on wild honey; and then they began to be weary.“Let us go into Lloegyr,”237[pg 374]then said Manawyddan,“and seek out some craft to support ourselves.”So they went to Hereford and settled there, and Manawyddan and Pryderi began to make saddles and housings, and Manawyddan decorated them with blue enamel as he had learned from a great craftsman, Llasar Llaesgywydd. After a time, however, the other saddlers of Hereford, finding that no man would purchase any but the work of Manawyddan, conspired to kill them. And Pryderi would have fought with them, but Manawyddan held it better to withdraw elsewhere, and so they did.
They settled then in another city, where they made shields such as never were seen, and here, too, in the end, the rival craftsmen drove them out. And this happened also in another town where they made shoes; and at last they resolved to go back to Dyfed. Then they gathered their dogs about them and lived by hunting as before.
One day they started a wild white boar, and chased him in vain until he led them up to a vast and lofty castle, all newly built in a place where they had never seen a building before. The boar ran into the castle, the dogs followed him, and Pryderi, against the counsel of Manawyddan, who knew there was magic afoot, went in to seek for the dogs.
He found in the centre of the court a marble fountain beside which stood a golden bowl on a marble slab, and being struck by the rich workmanship of the bowl, he laid hold of it to examine it, when he could neither withdraw his hand nor utter a single sound, but he remained there, transfixed and dumb, beside the fountain.
Manawyddan went back to Narberth and told the story to Rhiannon.“An evil companion hast thou been,”said she,“and a good companion hast thou lost.”
Next day she went herself to explore the castle. She found Pryderi still clinging to the bowl and unable to speak. She also, then, laid hold of the bowl, when the same fate befell her, and immediately afterwards came a peal of thunder, and a heavy mist fell, and when it cleared off the castle had vanished with all that it contained, including the two spell-bound wanderers.
Manawyddan then went back to Narberth, where only Kicva, Pryderi's wife, now remained. And when she saw none but herself and Manawyddan in the place,“she sorrowed so that she cared not whether she lived or died.”When Manawyddan saw this he said to her,“Thou art in the wrong if through fear of me thou grievest thus. I declare to thee were I in the dawn of youth I would keep my faith unto Pryderi, and unto thee also will I keep it.”“Heaven reward thee,”she said,“and that is what I deemed of thee.”And thereupon she took courage and was glad.
Kicva and Manawyddan then again tried to support themselves by shoemaking in Lloegyr, but the same hostility drove them back to Dyfed. This time, however, Manawyddan took back with him a load of wheat, and he sowed it, and he prepared three crofts for a wheat crop. Thus the time passed till the fields were ripe. And he looked at one of the crofts and said,“I will reap this to-morrow.”But on the morrow when he went out in the grey dawn he found nothing there but bare straw—every ear had been cut off from the stalk and carried away.
Next day it was the same with the second croft. But on the following night he armed himself and sat up to watch the third croft to see who was plundering him. At midnight, as he watched, he heard a loud noise, and behold, a mighty host of mice came pouring into the croft, and they climbed up each on a stalk and nibbled[pg 376]off the ears and made away with them. He chased them in anger, but they fled far faster than he could run, all save one which was slower in its movements, and this he barely managed to overtake, and he bound it into his glove and took it home to Narberth, and told Kicva what had happened.“To-morrow,”he said,“I will hang the robber I have caught,”but Kicva thought it beneath his dignity to take vengeance on a mouse.
Next day he went up to the Mound of Narberth and set up two forks for a gallows on the highest part of the hill. As he was doing this a poor scholar came towards him, and he was the first person Manawyddan had seen in Dyfed, except his own companions, since the enchantment began.
The scholar asked him what he was about and begged him to let go the mouse—“Ill doth it become a man of thy rank to touch such a reptile as this.”“I will not let it go, by Heaven,”said Manawyddan, and by that he abode, although the scholar offered him a pound of money to let it go free.“I care not,”said the scholar,“except that I would not see a man of rank touching such a reptile,”and with that he went his way.
As Manawyddan was placing the cross-beam on the two forks of his gallows, a priest came towards him riding on a horse with trappings, and the same conversation ensued. The priest offered three pounds for the mouse's life, but Manawyddan refused to take any price for it.“Willingly, lord, do thy good pleasure,”said the priest, and he, too, went his way.
Then Manawyddan put a noose about the mouse's neck and was about to draw it up when he saw coming towards him a bishop with a great retinue of sumpter-horses and attendants. And he stayed his work and asked the bishop's blessing.“Heaven's blessing be unto thee,”said the bishop;“what work art thou[pg 377]upon?”“Hanging a thief,”replied Manawyddan. The bishop offered seven pounds“rather than see a man of thy rank destroying so vile a reptile.”Manawyddan refused. Four-and-twenty pounds was then offered, and then as much again, then all the bishop's horses and baggage—all in vain.“Since for this thou wilt not,”said the bishop,“do it at whatever price thou wilt.”“I will do so,”said Manawyddan;“I will that Rhiannon and Pryderi be free.”“That thou shalt have,”said the (pretended) bishop. Then Manawyddan demands that the enchantment and illusion be taken off for ever from the seven Cantrevs of Dyfed, and finally insists that the bishop shall tell him who the mouse is and why the enchantment was laid on the country.“I am Llwyd son of Kilcoed,”replies the enchanter,“and the mouse is my wife; but that she is pregnant thou hadst never overtaken her.”He goes on with an explanation which takes us back to the firstMabinogiof the Wedding of Rhiannon. The charm was cast on the land to avenge the ill that was done Llwyd's friend, Gwawl son of Clud, with whom Pryderi's father and his knights had played“Badger in the Bag”at the court of Hevydd Hēn. The mice were the lords and ladies of Llwyd's court.
The enchanter is then made to promise that no further vengeance shall be taken on Pryderi, Rhiannon, or Manawyddan, and the two spell-bound captives having been restored, the mouse is released.“Then Llwyd struck her with a magic wand, and she was changed into a young woman, the fairest ever seen.”And on looking round Manawyddan saw all the land tilled and peopled as in its best state, and full of herds and dwellings.“What bondage,”he asks,“has there been upon Pryderi and Rhiannon?”“Pryderi has had the knockers of the gate of my palace about his neck,[pg 378]and Rhiannon has had the collars of the asses after they have been carrying hay about her neck.”And such had been their bondage.
The Tale of Māth Son of Māthonwy
The previous tale was one of magic and illusion in which the mythological element is but faint. In that which we have now to consider we are, however, in a distinctly mythological region. The central motive of the tale shows us the Powers of Light contending with those of the Under-world for the prized possessions of the latter, in this case a herd of magic swine. We are introduced in the beginning of the story to the deity, Māth, of whom the bard tells us that he was unable to exist unless his feet lay in the lap of a maiden, except when the land was disturbed by war.238Māth is represented as lord of Gwynedd, while Pryderi rules over the one-and-twenty cantrevs of the south. With Māth were his nephews Gwydion and Gilvaethwy sons of Dōn, who went the circuit of the land in his stead, while Māth lay with his feet in the lap of the fairest maiden of the land and time, Goewin daughter of Pebin of Dōl Pebin in Arvon.
Gwydion and the Swine of Pryderi
Gilvaethwy fell sick of love for Goewin, and confided the secret to his brother Gwydion, who undertook to help him to his desire. So he went to Māth one day, and asked his leave to go to Pryderi and beg from him the gift, for Māth, of a herd of swine which had been bestowed on him by Arawn King of Annwn.“They are beasts,”he said,“such as never were known in[pg 379]this island before ... their flesh is better than the flesh of oxen.”Māth bade him go, and he and Gilvaethwy started with ten companions for Dyfed. They came to Pryderi's palace in the guise of bards, and Gwydion, after being entertained at a feast, was asked to tell a tale to the court. After delighting every one with his discourse he begged for a gift of the swine. But Pryderi was under a compact with his people neither to sell nor give them until they had produced double their number in the land.“Thou mayest exchange them, though,”said Gwydion, and thereupon he made by magic arts an illusion of twelve horses magnificently caparisoned, and twelve hounds, and gave them to Pryderi and made off with the swine as fast as possible,“for,”said he to his companions,“the illusion will not last but from one hour to the same to-morrow.”
The intended result came to pass—Pryderi invaded the land to recover his swine, Māth went to meet him in arms, and Gilvaethwy seized his opportunity and made Goewin his wife, although she was unwilling.
Death of Pryderi
The war was decided by a single combat between Gwydion and Pryderi.“And by force of strength and fierceness, and by the magic and charms of Gwydion, Pryderi was slain. And at Maen Tyriawc, above Melenryd, was he buried, and there is his grave.”
The Penance of Gwydion and Gilvaethwy
When Māth came back he found what Gilvaethwy had done, and he took Goewin to be his queen, but Gwydion and Gilvaethwy went into outlawry, and dwelt on the borders of the land. At last they came[pg 380]and submitted themselves for punishment to Māth.“Ye cannot compensate me my shame, setting aside the death of Pryderi,”he said,“but since ye come hither to be at my will, I shall begin your punishment forthwith.”So he turned them both into deer, and bade them come hither again in a twelvemonth.
They came at the appointed time, bringing with them a young fawn. And the fawn was brought into human shape and baptized, and Gwydion and Gilvaethwy were changed into two wild swine. At the next year's end they came back with a young one who was treated as the fawn before him, and the brothers were made into wolves. Another year passed; they came back again with a young wolf as before, and this time their penance was deemed complete, and their human nature was restored to them, and Māth gave orders to have them washed and anointed, and nobly clad as was befitting.
The Children of Arianrod: Dylan
The question then arose of appointing another virgin foot-holder, and Gwydion suggests his sister, Arianrod. She attends for the purpose, and Māth asks her if she is a virgin.“I know not, lord, other than that I am,”she says. But she failed in a magical test imposed by Māth, and gave birth to two sons. One of these was named Dylan,“Son of the Wave,”evidently a Cymric sea-deity. So soon as he was baptized“he plunged into the sea and swam as well as the best fish that was therein.... Beneath him no wave ever broke.”A wild sea-poetry hangs about his name in Welsh legend. On his death, which took place, it is said, at the hand of his uncle Govannon, all the waves of Britain and Ireland wept for him. The roar of the incoming tide at the mouth of the river Conway is still called the“death-groan of Dylan.”
Llew Llaw Gyffes
The other infant was seized by Gwydion and brought up under his protection. Like other solar heroes, he grew very rapidly; when he was four he was as big as if he were eight, and the comeliest youth that ever was seen. One day Gwydion took him to visit his mother Arianrod. She hated the children who had exposed her false pretensions, and upbraided Gwydion for bringing the boy into her sight.“What is his name?”she asked.“Verily,”said Gwydion,“he has not yet a name.”“Then I lay this destiny upon him,”said Arianrod,“that he shall never have a name till one is given him by me.”On this Gwydion went forth in wrath, and remained in his castle of Caer Dathyl that night.
Though the fact does not appear in this tale, it must be remembered that Gwydion is, in the older mythology, the father of Arianrod's children.
How Llew Got his Name
He was resolved to have a name for his son. Next day he went to the strand below Caer Arianrod, bringing the boy with him. Here he sat down by the beach, and in his character of a master of magic he made himself look like a shoemaker, and the boy like an apprentice, and he began to make shoes out of sedges and seaweed, to which he gave the semblance of Cordovan leather. Word was brought to Arianrod of the wonderful shoes that were being made by a strange cobbler, and she sent her measure for a pair. Gwydion made them too large. She sent it again, and he made them too small. Then she came herself to be fitted. While this was going on, a wren came and lit on the boat's mast, and the boy, taking up a bow, shot an arrow that transfixed the leg between the sinew[pg 382]and the bone. Arianrod admired the brilliant shot.“Verily,”she said,“with a steady hand (llaw gyffes) did the lion (llew) hit it.”“No thanks to thee,”cried Gwydion,“now he has got a name. Llew Llaw Gyffes shall he be called henceforward.”
We have seen that the name really means the same thing as the Gaelic Lugh Lamfada, Lugh (Light) of the Long Arm; so that we have here an instance of a legend growing up round a misunderstood name inherited from a half-forgotten mythology.
How Llew Took Arms
The shoes went back immediately to sedges and seaweed again, and Arianrod, angry at being tricked, laid a new curse on the boy.“He shall never bear arms till I invest him with them.”But Gwydion, going to Caer Arianrod with the boy in the semblance of two bards, makes by magic art the illusion of a foray of armed men round the castle. Arianrod gives them weapons to help in the defence, and thus again finds herself tricked by the superior craft of Gwydion.
The Flower-Wife of Llew
Next she said,“He shall never have a wife of the race that now inhabits this earth.”This raised a difficulty beyond the powers of even Gwydion, and he went to Māth, the supreme master of magic.“Well,”said Māth,“we will seek, I and thou, to form a wife for him out of flowers.”“So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Blodeuwedd, or Flower-face.”They wedded her to Llew, and gave them the cantrev of Dinodig to[pg 383]reign over, and there Llew and his bride dwelt for a season, happy, and beloved by all.
Betrayal of Llew
But Blodeuwedd was not worthy of her beautiful name and origin. One day when Llew was away on a visit with Māth, a lord named Gronw Pebyr came a-hunting by the palace of Llew, and Blodeuwedd loved him from the moment she looked upon him. That night they slept together, and the next, and the next, and then they planned how to be rid of Llew for ever. But Llew, like the Gothic solar hero Siegfried, is invulnerable except under special circumstances, and Blodeuwedd has to learn from him how he may be slain. This she does under pretence of care for his welfare. The problem is a hard one. Llew can only be killed by a spear which has been a year in making, and has only been worked on during the Sacrifice of the Host on Sundays. Furthermore, he cannot be slain within a house or without, on horseback or on foot. The only way, in fact, is that he should stand with one foot on a dead buck and the other in a cauldron, which is to be used for a bath and thatched with a roof—if he is wounded while in this position with a spear made as directed the wound may be fatal, not otherwise. After a year, during which Gronw wrought at the spear, Blodeuwedd begged Llew to show her more fully what she must guard against, and he took up the required position to please her. Gronw, lurking in a wood hard by, hurled the deadly spear, and the head, which was poisoned, sank into Llew's body, but the shaft broke off. Then Llew changed into an eagle, and with a loud scream he soared up into the air and was no more seen, and Gronw took his castle and lands and added them to his own.
These tidings at last reached Gwydion and Māth, and Gwydion set out to find Llew. He came to the house of a vassal of his, from whom he learned that a sow that he had disappeared every day and could not be traced, but it came home duly each night. Gwydion followed the sow, and it went far away to the brook since called Nant y Llew, where it stopped under a tree and began feeding. Gwydion looked to see what it ate, and found that it fed on putrid flesh that dropped from an eagle sitting aloft on the tree, and it seemed to him that the eagle was Llew. Gwydion sang to it, and brought it gradually down the tree till it came to his knee, when he struck it with his magic wand and restored it to the shape of Llew, but worn to skin and bone—“no one ever saw a more piteous sight.”
The Healing of Llew
When Llew was healed, he and Gwydion took vengeance on their foes. Blodeuwedd was changed into an owl and bidden to shun the light of day, and Gronw was slain by a cast of the spear of Llew that passed through a slab of stone to reach him, and the slab with the hole through it made by the spear of Llew remains by the bank of the river Cynvael in Ardudwy to this day. And Llew took possession, for the second time, of his lands, and ruled them prosperously all his days.
The four preceding tales are called the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, and of the collection called the“Mabinogion”they form the most ancient and important part.
The Dream of Maxen Wledig
Following the order of the tales in the“Mabinogion,”as presented in Mr. Nutt's edition, we come next to one which is a pure work of invention, with no[pg 385]mythical or legendary element at all. It recounts how Maxen Wledig, Emperor of Rome, had a vivid dream, in which he was led into a strange country, where he saw a king in an ivory chair carving chessmen with a steel file from a rod of gold. By him, on a golden throne, was the fairest of maidens he had ever beheld. Waking, he found himself in love with the dream-maiden, and sent messengers far and wide to discover, if they could, the country and people that had appeared to him. They were found in Britain. Thither went Maxen, and wooed and wedded the maiden. In his absence a usurper laid hold of his empire in Rome, but with the aid of his British friends he reconquered his dominions, and many of them settled there with him, while others went home to Britain. The latter took with them foreign wives, but, it is said, cut out their tongues, lest they should corrupt the speech of the Britons. Thus early and thus powerful was the devotion to their tongue of the Cymry, of whom the mythical bard Taliesin prophesied: