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The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland
The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland
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Modern
RELIGIONS:
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the British
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THE MYTHOLOGY OF
ANCIENT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND
By
CHARLES SQUIRE
AUTHOR OF
'the mythology of the BRITISH ISLANDS*
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO Ltd
i6
Edinburgh
T. and A.
Constable,
FOREWORD
This
ancestors.
upon
and
many
fascinating
to refrain
his
safely accept
search.
it
as
in line with
CONTENTS
CHAP,
I.
II.
III.
Celts,
Celts,
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Ossianic, Sagas,
CHAPTER
The Mythology
This
title
the reader
to consider
dim memories
Wdden, of Thunor
(Thor), and of Frig, those Saxon deities who have
bequeathed to us the names of four of the days of
our week.^ Yet the traces of the English gods are
comparatively few in Britain, and are not found
of
Tiw, of
any
rate,
they can be
which
by many
'
'
'
Tiwesdffig,
and Frigedseg.
Sattirni dies.
Ludgate,' called
Lud
'
lost.
after
'
much
belief
late years
may
West Yorkshire,
Staffordshire,
Worcestershire,
Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Cambridgeshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and part of Sussex, are
as Keltic as Perthshire
that
Monmouth-
^
Keltic Researches: Studies in the History and Distribution
of the Ancient Goidelic Language arid Peoples, by Edward
Williams Byron Nicholson, M.A. ; London, 1904.
Gloucestershire,
shire,
Dorset,
North-
with
South
is
course,
county, and
or
shire,
much
as
so as
Connaught.'
Teuton must
equally
woven
into
Argyll, Inverness-
the fabric
of
the
be very
British
nation.
found
Their earliest
men
already in possession.
with their relics in the long barrows,'
arrivals
We
meet
and
deduce from them a short, dark, long-skulled race
of slight physique and in a relatively low stage of
'
civilisation.
we think we
know
of
it,
and, though
and
it
so
is
all
must have
We know
more about its conquerors. According to the most generally accepted theory,
there were two main streams of Aryan emigra3
Goidelic, or Gaelic,
having arrived
B.C.,
steadily encroaching
whom
akin.^
to,
or absorbed
they were, at
any
in,
the Brythons, to
rate linguistically,
much
it
is
race.
in
Britain,
inhabitants of the
distinguishing
coast regions
*
Rh^s, Celtic Britain, 1904, and Rh^s and Brynmor-Jones,
The Welsh People, 1906.
the
who resembled
niddy-haired,
Germans.
We
if
this theory
first,
the con-
and
aborigines by
quest
Goidels
of
the
afterwards the displacement
by
Nor do we
the later branches of the Celts.
of
the
the
know when
or
how
Britain to Ireland.
Goidels,
All that
we can
state with
It
did not reach that country (from Ireland) before the Christian
era.
Grampian
Hills.
Nor
is
the stock of
and votive
tablets, large
numbers
of
which have
own
scripts which, though they date only from mediaeval times, contain, copied from older documents,
dis-
groundwork
of
bardic
British
tradition
upon
which,
And
but
although
lastly,
lately
upon
reduced
folk
to
just
of perpetuation.
They thus
lives
of saints
to
them
as well as the
genealogies and learned treatises
of the bards and the legends of tribal
;
poems
heroes
"
'
the
bales'
Dun Cow,
of the
seventh
and
century while the mythical
tales
They preserve
much
for us, in
how-
of the Celts.
The
have suffered
Irish manuscripts
Welsh.
less sophis-
still
Christian Church.
primitive, less
their
true
guise.
In
gradually unveiling a
this
way
scholarship
In
is
is
itself it is often
poetic and
romance,
it
litera-
ture only less potently than that mighty inspirathe mythology of Ancient Greece.
tion
CHAPTER
II
the subject
From
is
and
bas-reliefs
writers, especially
He
mentions
the Gauls,
and he
is
mean
not, of course,
of battles.^
This does
Roman
much
Romans
readily
conquered peoples
the deities of
assimilated
to their
own hence
;
in our
own
islands,
we
find the
it is
that
and indeed
names
of Celtic
divinities
Modern
discoveries
quite
out
bear
Caesar's
Numerous place-names
attest
France.
it
in
in
his
modern
honour
in the gardens
up
Luxembourg, while another, made in bronze
by a Greek artist for the great temple of the
of the
De
lO
it
would seem
to
for the
war-god
The regard
in
which he was
held
is
Dion Cassius
that the
Roman Emperor
Caracalla
Apollo,' Toutiorix
('
if
somewhat
')
has
vicarious
title
von Bern.^
Ixxvii. 15.
II
far
in the
them with
divinities
whom we
knoAV to
god
of eloquence
as
men
after
He was
him by golden
depicted as
cords attached
drawing
from his tongue to their ears and, as the old
man eloquent,' whose varied experience made his
'
12
all
anciently
Liigiidimum
('
whom
mention
is
in Belinus, an apocry-
we find
Modron
in the
Welsh
(Matrcina), a
stories as
Mabon son
of
companion of Arthur.
13
CHAPTER
III
The best we
extremely local in their nature.
can do is to look for a fixed point, and this we
gods whose names and attributes
are very largely common to both the Goidels and
the Brythons. In the old Gaelic literature they
find in certain
donann), the
in the
'
'
Children of
Don
'
of Ll^r.'
Danu or Donu, as
seems to have
spelt
the
name
is
sometimes
who was
dance,^
of the Irish
Pantheon
logy,
in
of Beli,
Beli,
of
which makes
it
reasonably probable that
otherwise appears as a mythical king
Brythons, was considered to be Don's
who
the
consort.
is
perhaps
Milesians, the
Danu in
which have come down
connected with
the
to
first
is
Bile,
Celtic
nowhere
scattered
myths
the analogy
us,
is
suggestive.
on Gaelic
believed
^
themselves
Anmann.
to
'
'
'^
by Stokes.
3
De Bdlo
15
standing for
Bile
pairs,
tlie
from a
different line,
and plays
little
part in the
though he
is
mean
that his language could be but imperHe gave its name to Leicester,
fectly understood.
to
become Shakespeare's
in
'
hagiology
Three Chief
as
'
King
Lear,'
Holy
Families
of
and
first
the
is
found
of
Isle
the
of
Britain.'
are,
i6
We
Manannan mac
ab Llyr and
name
mythology.
He
is
repre-
He
bridge.
though upon a
was the patron of minstrelsy and
as
Welsh poet
whom
Hades with
the sons of
Don
fight to obtain
the treasures of the Underworld, and, paradoxically enough, has passed down into ecclesiastical
legend as the Blessed Bran,' who brought Chris'
tianity
from
Turning
Rome
of the Irish
is
god
'Book
of Taliesin,'
Books of Wales,
vol.
Manannan mac
fullest account.
^
to Britain.
to the brothers of
i.
poem
xlviii., in
p. 297.
17
it
we have the
and
sword
'
Retaliator
'
which never
girt
failed
with his
to
slay
sea, or
he was
asserts that
which
is
its first
king,
is still
pointed out at
curious tradition credits him with
Peel Castle.
the Island.
can be seen
myth.
On
clearly
i8
Annoeth, which
is
human
made
of
have
incarcerated
bones
no
and in
less
it
he
is
said to
famous Arthur.
Whether
Llyr to
or not
having come
Don
as
bore
Constellations
their
names
Cassiopeia's
De Danann
as
Never-
Llaw Ereint, both epithets having the same meaning of the Silver Hand.' What it signified we
do not know in Irish literature there is a lame
'
But the
attributes
of
both
19
'New
Troy') to
came London.
Trinovantum
name
(Geoffrey's
Lydney
in
varied inscriptions to
him
of
as
m.,
devo nodenti,
d.m.
as well as a small
figure,
with
him,
head
two
Tritons.^
bably,^
The 'm'
of the
inscription
may
have read
in full
was published
-
in 1879.
20
attests
Queen'),
her
importance,
The
name
Welsh myth
is
The children
of both the
in Celtic legend.
Welsh
fairies.
The
Gaelic
deity appears in
^
The two are identified by the French scholar, M. Gaidoz,
but the equation is not everywhere upheld.
^
Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, p. 169.
^
Also called in Welsh, 'Govynion Hen.' H^n means The
'
Ancient.
'
21
of
Gobhan
we know
less,
but he
is
found, in
company with
his
to
appears in British
myth
'
Culture-Hero,' the
arts of story-
Pp. 282-304.
22
on
the
This is represented
the
poetical inspiration
by
mankind.
side
Celtic
fled,
of a mysterious,
each had a love
Abyss.
name was
little-
whose
who
in
Still
tell
more
how
of vegetable
life;
woman
a woman from
Woden made
whom
man and
Gwydion 'enchanted
his
fascinating though it
by the fact that the
^
But
'
unnatural
is,
is
only
much
traces
discounted
we
23
find
of
would seem
Welsh bard
calls
force,
of the Tuatha
Don
Arianrod,
to
was
who
'
Silver Wheel,'
popularly interpreted as
appears in connection with Gwydion as
24
world.
(?)
of
Llew's epithet
'
is
This tempts us
Goidelic deity Lugh, or Lug.
to regard the two mythical figures as identical,
Lieu
equating
Lugus.
also
(Llew)
with
the
Gaulish
diffi-
the way.
in
mythic
figure
mark him
belonging to
as
They
meaning
details are
'
'
'
25
seemed
like
steadily at
it.
He was
of
fire.
There
a certain
is,
amount
title,
and attributes
Beli,
(or
Lludd),
(?)
Nemon and
But
borrowing from the Goidels of Ireland.
such a case has not yet been made out convincingly, nor
is
it
1
The Rig-Veda, for instance, tells us that 'Agni (Fire)
Sftrya (the Sun) in the morning, Silrya is Agni at night.'
26
is
similar
of
divine
characters.
Naturally,
lists
deities
too,
in
type;
every
while their
tribe.
Some
of these
it
may
be interest-
Ogma.
The
Irish
earlier
'
'
became
birds
which sang of
love,
would
be, as a divinity of the tender passion, a counterpart of Dwyn, or Dwynwen,^ the British Yenus,
*
Dwynweu means
goddess-saint
is
Llanddwyn
in
Anglesey.
27
The church
of this
'
the later
saint of love.'
Welsh
Brigit, the
bards,
hymned
as
Dagda's daughter,
of poetry,
may
patroness
the Welsh Kerridwen, the owner of a
'
cauldron
Diancecht (Dianket)
of Inspiration and Science.'
of
the Goidelic god
Healing seems to have no
certain equivalent in Brythonic myth, but Mider,
a deity of the Underworld though his name
,^
Pwyll, who may perhaps represent the same god as the Arawn who is connected
south-west Wales).
with
him
in
Annwn
who succeeds
his father as
king
Annwvn
or
represented
28
some
whom may
of
to history, with
These
porated.
Welsh
which
tradition
are
owed
have
local
the
names
their
myths became
characters
who appear
of
incor-
early
afterwards as the
kings and knights and ladies of mediaeval Arthurian romance. There is Arthur himself, half god,
Gwenhwyvar whose
Leodogran, the King of
father,
Tennyson's
even
respects
than
greater figure in
Arthur
must
some
have
been
as a
of
fire,
29
whom
tradi-
in Glamorganshire.
Connected, too,
his
queen Essyllt
(Iseult),
folk-
These
fairies
^o
CHAPTER
IV
to the early
monkish
annalists,
who
history,
named
flood.
Noah but
;
a tribal
more
it is
or
goddess
divine
Whoever she
pre-Celtic people in Ireland.^
have been, her influence was not lasting.
perished, with
her successors.
We
'
say
all
'
field
with intention
may
She
field to
then of only one plain, treeless and grassbut watered by three lakes and nine rivers.
sisted
less,
The
set
work
1
Rh^s,
to
remedy
Celtic Britain,
31
this.
Partholon,
Third edition,
p.
288.
who
hundredth anniversary of their coming, an epidemic sprang up which annihilated them. They
gathered together upon the original first-created
plain to die, and the place of their funeral is still
Ibid., p. c98.
32
p. 594.
Nemed
People of
The
less fortunate.
to Ireland.
which had destroyed their forerunners, they found themselves at the mercy of
the Fomorach, who ordered them to deliver up as
tribute two- thirds of the children born to them in
epidemic
to that
every year.
however uncertain.
Fir Domnann, the
the
'
Men
'
Men
'
of Gailioin
tribes called
'
'
'
of
divinities of their
worship.
flict,
rate,
we never
find
them
in con-
and
demoniac powers. On the contrary, they themselves and the Fomorach alike struggle against,
Celts in
Ireland,
parallel the
Britain.
now
and who,
earlier
They
divinities
we have
of
seen,
the Celts in
Nuada's
Wherever
the}^
human
stone
'
is
said
by some
Coronation Stone
'
at Westminster,
i.,
own
which was
but
it is
more
probable that
where
it
A
34
monograph by W.
F. Skene.
known
'
as that of
Tuireadh,
Cong, in Mayo, in
'
to
enemy
Drumcain.
them with a
the Fomorach were
still left
to face, for
Their
sent
to
named
Fomorach
Balor.
Gaelic
mind he
hoarded
all
he
got,
spending
none of his wealth in free feasts and public entertainments. But at last he put a personal affront
victim's face.
home, and,
at a council of the
Fomorach, it
upon the Tuatha D6
to the
36
so that
He
lolddnach {Ilddmi), 'Master of all Arts.'
threw in his lot with his father's people, and
for a great
organised the Tuatha De Danann
struggle.
hands
magic
too,
Incidentally,
murder
he obtained,
as
of three grandsons of
treasures of the world.
'
quest is told in
Children of Tuireann,' one of the famous
'
Three
D6 Danann were
it
memorials of which
1
still
form the
finest collection
Atlantis.
27
iv. of
monuments
Tuireadh further
on either
the
goddess
to the south.
Great chiefs
fell
Ogma
side.
Domnu, while
Balor,
the
Fomor
With
a carefully prepared
magic sling-stone he blinded the terrible Balor
and, at the fall of their principal champion, the
broken
for ever.
issuant, according to
the universal Celtic tradition, from the same pro-
on account of
^
its
its
various regions.
perhaps
noticed Ireland
slow and
38
and landed
at the
mouth
of the
Kenmare
Three sons of
Mac
Cuill,
come
Ogma
Cecht, and
to a decision, the
still
Mac
kill
who
him.
vengeance.
Mile, the son of Bile, was not slow in answering
their appeal.
He started for Ireland with his
eight sons and their followers, and arrived there
upon that same mysterious First of May on which
De Danann them-
had
first
come
to Ireland.
and
Mac
Greine.
Their
Each
39
names were
demanded
in turn
as these
Amergin promised
case of
'
Erinn
')
it is
her
it
name
them
to
all,
but,
The legend
probably crystallizes
the three first names of Ireland.
to
have been
was decided
it
blame
for not
were
declaration of
waves'
'
spells
to
nearer.
his own.
40
came
safely
Dis-
however,
receive
worship and
sacrifice.
soil,
in
they were
Thus began
religion in Ireland.
homes.
'
'
of popular story
is
41
CHAPTER V
THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN
When
Britain
Myrddin,
tliat
at
first,
is,
safely
son of Aedd
present designation, from Prydain,
the Great, who first established settled govern-
ment.
it is
All this
is
told us
way
that
it
we can
for us in
the
We
in
through old bardic poems and romances, and
less
and
apocryphal
hardly
pseudo-hagiologies
1
Beli seems to have been sometimes associated in Welsh
of Beli,' and
legend with the sea, which was called the 'drink
its
waves
'
Beli's cattle.'
42
histories.
dom
The
myth
is
These
tales evidently
consist
of
who more
The
how he
World of
he won his
false
charge
of having eaten him; and his recovery and restoration upon the night of the First of May.
In the second
^
'
'
Branch we
find Pryderi,
grown
43
to a
Bosom.
It
goes with an
sister,
is
army
to
There
avenge her.
is
parley,
remain
fame.
White Mount
is
believed
to
in London,'
But at last
they reached the end of their journey, and buried
versation of Bran's severed head.
its
face
44
'
The
their
kinsmen had
all
their
of Don.
live a
were compelled to
The
four fugitives
homeless nomadic
life,
'
and
by magic of
spiriting away
Rhiannon and Pryderi and their recovery by the
craft of Manawyddan which forms the subject of
it
the
is
'
the
tale.
'
tains of Carnarvonshire,
Don's brother.
the story.
The
first tells
sons of Gwydion's sister, Arianrod Dylan, apparently a marine deity ,^ who, as soon as he was
'
Professor Rhy's
is
inclined to see in
him a deity
of
Dark-
45
of Arianrod
public,
and
her refusal of name, arms, or a wife to her unwished-for son the craft by which Gwydion ob;
tained for
him
'
'
by Gwydion
and the death of Pryderi through the superior
strength and magic of the great son of D6n.
These Four Branches of the Mabinogi thus
;
'
'
46
We
more
learn
the
of
details
In his
struggles with his enemies.
he seems to have been unfortunate.
of
Gwydioii"s
first
attempts
Trespassing
Pryderi,
made him
who
aspires to a
similar gift
may try to gain it, it is said, by sleeping out either upon the top of Cader Idris or
under the Black Stone of the Arddu upon the
side of
he
Snowdon.
for
terrors
his enemies,
and
we
find
called
how
the sons of
Don
'
'
into warriors
how
won
for
man the
whose name
But now
scene
the
some
bird
'
upon the
famous Arthur, whose history and
47
much
name found on
inscriptions,
and as
period,
political
traditions
His
by the
fact that
he
is
suggested,! to his having filled, after the withdrawal of the Romans, a position equivalent to
But his legendary fame
their Corbies Britanniae.
hardly to be explained except upon the supposition that the fabled exploits of a god or gods
is
48
7.
name
'
roots, ar,
meaning
to plough,'
known
be noted
'
as
it
is
to
we have
and attributes are extremely
of Don.
in the Castle of
some structure
of
human
the
grue-
of Llyr in Gower
and three nights
in the prison of (?) Wen Pendragon,^ and three
wyddan son
'
Professor
originally
Anwyl
Uthr Bendragon,
49
King Mark
'
of the
was
An
ceeded wholly.
old
Welsh poem
tells
us of
^
Spoiling of Annwn (Preiddeu Annwn) and
his capture of the magic cauldron of its King,
'
his
'
though,
Bran
like
himself
when he went
to
had been
'
thrice
enough
to
fill
Prydwen,' his
ship.
War
Knights, and
was one of
Arawn one
his
Three Chief
his
story
of the wild
of the hunting
'
course
of
In the
boar Twrch
of
which
Treasures of Britain,' he
is
he
served
'Book
of Taliesin,'
poem
50
i.
p. 256.
referred to
is
Lady
which a good judge has acclaimed to be,
"
Arabian Nights,"
saving the finest tales of the
story,
'
seems
to
assembled his hosts to capture a sow called Henwen, which led him through the length of Wales.
Wherever she went she dropped the germs of
three
up
'
to be
'
We
learn
Guest's Mabinogion.
"
This creature is also mentioned in an Arthurian
the twelfth century Black Book of Carmarthen.
51
Lady
poem
in
of Britain,'
'
'
Arthur himself
tion,
added
is,
as a fourth.
now ready
for
her Britons.
Land of Summer
a
name for the Brythonic Other World dwelt the
ancestors of the Cymr}^ ruled over by a divine
hero called Hu Gadarn (' the Mighty '), and the
In Gwlad yr Hav, the
'
'
Tuatha De Danann
there
is
He instructed
shed, but by justice and peace.
his people in the art of agriculture, divided them
into federated tribes as a first step towards civil
government, and laid the foundations of literature
52
institution of bardism.
He
'
Therefore he
Three National
is
Pillars of
mythical legislator Dyvnwal Moelmud, who reduced to a system the laws, customs, maxims, and
'
53
and
nation.'
CHAPTER
VI
to
the
myths
'
Tuatha De
of the
apocryphal stories of
kings, Ireland has evolved
less
whom
the early annalists place at about the beginning of the Christian era. But, precise as this
statement sounds and vividly as the Champions
'
Red
of the
were
called,
tellers,
there
Branch,' as
probably
little, if
We may
any, foundation
discern in their
54
terrestrial gods.'
The
sagas, or romances,
Ulster cycle are found mainly in three manuof the Dun Cow and the Book
scripts, the Book
of Leinster, both of
Yellow Book
ning of the twelfth century, and the
of Lecan, assigned to the end of the fourteenth.
Cuchulainn,
toritm,
is
had actual
very doubtful whether he ever
His attributes and adventures are of
existence.
is
When
heroes.'
'solar
of Avhat are
in his
full
called
strength no
water.
sea.
was geis
('
taboo
')
to
him
to
behold the
are often
of
suspiciously like mythological personifications
the dark shades of night.
He
was
he was
first
still
called
Setanta, but
it
was while
to
Cu Ghulainn
('
Hound
of
Culann
')
as
wards acted as
its
arms
tell
how he assumed
skill in arms from Scathach, the WarriorWitch who gave her name to the Isle of Skye;
highest
how he
Emer (Avair)
in the
called
teeth of a host
of terrible tests,
series
Head-Champion of Ulster.
But these isolated sagas
named
bull called
The Brown
of Cualgne.
Its interest
of
all
56
Conchobar's warriors
distorted
mercy, the heroic Cuchulainn, who for some unexplained reason was not subject to the same
incapacity as his fellow-tribesmen, stood up to
defend it single-handed. For three months he
all
comers, fighting a
Over
this
each
to be de-
tremendous struggle
battle, is
moved
fierce
Morrigu, queen of
love.
up the standing
After a three
challenge.
any
tale of
When
who
passionate lament.
sport until
'
It
was
Ferdiad came
is
feet,
all
the
still
his friend.
he bursts into
game and a
memory of this
a
men
find also
visit
in
relations
killed in battle,
left
unturned
to
open
shows, and
he
is
tricked
also
his
satirists
totem]
demand
his
favourite
natural
aid,
he
is
attacked
by overwhelming
numbers.
But, though signs and portents announce his doom, there is no shadow of chang'
that he
may
interest.^
'
A list of the tales, extant and lost, of the Ulster Cycle will
be found as Appendix I. of Miss Eleanor Hull's GuchuUin Saga,
London, 1898.
59
its
Some
of the redactors,
pagan
myths
of
Ulster
We
Christian edification.
purposes of
are told with startling
for
the
how Cuchulainn,
his last
going to
inconsistency
the angels hymning in Heaven, confight, heard
fessed the true faith, and was cheered by the
'Tragical Death of
Dun Cow relates
the
Conchobar,' in the Book of
how that king died of wrath and sorrow at learncertainty of salvation.
The
isle of Britain.
60
CHAPTER
VII
tribal
to the
Scotland as to Ireland.
Moreover,
it
has the
of
unique among early
tradition.
So
a
rooted
are
living
firmly
being
the memories of Finn and his heroes in the minds
literatures,
distinction,
still
for a day,
6i
they would
rise
may
The word
heroes.
is
'
Fenian
'
in popular parlance
notoriety.
With
second
title
of
'
Ossianic
'
cycle bear,
it
must not
Some
poems and
all
the
The
by
oral tradition.
and
formed a standing
62
force, in the
pay of
High Kings
B.C. to
284
A.D.,
Modern
this view.
or
Finn, meaning
His
Cumhal
father's
name
'
'
on
^
Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 178, 179.
tions are contested.
63
the
towns in
But these
identifica-
But
all
foe.
For a time
goes smoothly.
rouse the people against them, and their pride
affronts the king.
Dissensions leading to internecine
strife
break out
among
themselves, and,
make
Morna.
GoU
GoU
and
kills
son
is
feats,
called
'
youth, and
my
tells his
to claim a boon.
name.
The king
insists
upon
64
falls,
cally annihilated.
But attached
is
may
nucleus
self,
his
women
'
'
'
the Tuatha
and
The
Translated by P^"ofessor
Kuno Meyer,
Oxoniensia, 1882.
65
in vol.
i.
of
Anecdota
name.
which are
But he
is
so
much
associated Avith
might be called
which the heroic deeds of Finn and
told in the
his
men
are
St. Patrick.
by
of old
and the
Celtic Fairy-
Niamh
Here
(Neeave), daughter of Manannan mac Lir.
he enjoyed three hundred years of divine youth,
while time changed the face of the world outside.
In the end he longs to see his own country again,
and Niamh mounts him upon a magic horse,
But
and
to
soil.
rises up,
of the gods.
The ballad
'
'
unwilling guest,
laments for the days that are dead.
66
Patrick
tells
elect,
war.
you a
little
for
'
no longer
alive.'
67
CHAPTER
VIII
left for
Norman
and
from
and
court
camp
dominant race held sway.
wherever their
to
which
was
of poetry
British gods
were
'
called,
cle
came
to
68
its
origin in British
We
find the
names
and
Welsh
outburst of
songs and tales older than the earliest
Arthurian romance in Europe. Arthur himself has,
we have
as
several
of
the
show
in a previous chapter,
attributes and adventures of
tried to
'
who
said to have
is
seems
forgotten Sky-god called Nwyvre (' Space '),
in
Arthur's
to be represented
story by Gwyar, the
consort of the Heaven-god Lludd, and from comassume
parison with later romance we may fairly
that
Gwyar was
we
In Gwalchmai
evil brothers
born of
union,
probably be right in recognising similar characters to Arianrod's sons,
their
shall
the,
69
'
i.
Arthur,
Lleu's
which he appeared as a
has scarcely
character, in
changed
at
becoming
'
solar hero
all,
Sir
'
;
either in
Medrawt
name
or
stately figure of
We
are
attempting
in
other personages of the Mabinogian stories. Prolessor Rhys, in his Studies in the Arthurian
in the
mediaeval
less
open
to
doubt.
'
70
The name
of
who seems
to
be the Gallo-
'
and
who
little
later legends.
Myrddin
Gwalchaved as
as Merlin
March
Kai
Sir Galahad
as
as
King Mark
Sir Kay and Gwenhwy var as Guinevere have obviously been directly taken over from Welsh story.
;
King Arthur's
of
lover
and
the
Queen Guinevere,
peerless knight
that no trace can be found in earlier legend. He
exception.
is
It is of Sir Lancelot,
not heard of
till
when he appears
century,
stolen in infancy,
and brought up
Du
1
See Miss J. L. Weston's The Legend of Sir Lancelot
Lac.
London, 1901.
71
Du
into,
According
and
shatters, the
to early story
it
was
ab
Gwyn
become
'
Niidd,
Sir Meliagraunce,'
Queen Guinevere,
it
is
is still
the abductor of
Sir Lancelot
who appears
her deliverer.
Nor can Sir Mordred, or
Medrawt, another traditional rival of Arthur's,
hold his own against the new-comer.
as
Some
is lost
may have
It matters less, as
its
all
record
which
What
enduring interest, as
author, artist,
present day, is
love of Lancelot and the Queen, but the mystical
quest of the Holy Grail, And here we can clearty
trace the direct evolution of the Arthurian legend
from the myths of the Celts.^
1
The
72
the
Legend
is
in Gaelic
given to a cauldron
talismanic virtues.
It
Mider,
Isle
of
stories.
when he stormed
Man
and
it
stronghold in the
reappears in the Fenian
his
the world,
we
all
myths
we
men
the
Avas
it
in
and
find
it
In what
is
all
these
varj''-
The Spoiling
the early
of
Welsh poem
called
Is it not the
'
What
is its
fashion
'
Annwn ?
'
sworn,'
that, like
generously
for the
it
would provide
It was
Vedwyd), the
(?)
Kingly Castle
old age
and
disease, led
dently, as
may
of
pagan
74
myth has
altered
been
filled
Blood.
It is still
a mysterious king.
this
king
by
called Pelles, a
is
Christ's
name
strangely like
in other
that of the
be one
the qualities of
'
the
The savage
in its presence.
Though,
75
too,
the
it
was kept
is
great water;
Avind;
and
its
armour can
Avhy, of the
seven,
more
revolves
repel
men
their
shafts,
which explains
spiritualised
meaning
'
except
Sidi.'
sufFereth
'
force
violence,
this is the
and
in
so strongl}^ that
it
was
own times
our
value of
a tradition
Britain as the
Veda
which
is
to India, or
as
national
to
to Greece.
^
Edited and translated by the Rev. Robert Williams, M. A.
London, 1876.
76
CHRONOLOGICAL SYLLABUS
Historical.
Arrival
Britain
in
of
the
earliest
Celts
A.D.
43
Abandoned
Roman
forbidden to
citizens
St.
Columba
by Geoffrey
and third
of
Monmouth
or
made
as early kings
the founders of powerful
Literary. The
is
77
Book
Irish
eighteenth century James MacPherson produced his pseudoOssianic epics,' 1760-63 In 1838-49 Lady C'harlotte Guest
published her Mahinogion, and from this date the renaissance
'
of Celtic study
menced.
78
to
have com-
list
give in the space that can be spared any adequate
of books dealing Aviili the wide subject of Celtic Mythology
The reader interested in the matter
would be impossible.
at
giving, in
cycles,
'
79
in
Ossianic Society, Dublin, 1854-61
H. O'G-rady's Silva Gadelica, London, 1892 and in
the Rev. J. G. Cinipbell's The Fians, London, 1891 (vol. iv.
of Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition ').
Lady Charlotte
Guest's Mahinogion can now be obtained in several cheap
editions, while Monsieur J. Loth's translation, Les Mahinogion, Paris, 1889, forms vols. iii. and iv. of the Cours de Littera-
Transactions of the
Mr.
S.
'
'
ture Celtique.'
Critical studies on the subject in h'indy form are as yet few.
may mention De Jubainville's Le Cycle Mythologique
Irlandais et la Mythologie Celtique, Paris, 1884 (vol. ii. of the
We
cal
vols.,
London, 1895-97.
The
more
recent,
and
the Zeitschrift
Society, and the numbers of the Revue Celtique,
fur Celtische Philologie, and the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Society.
DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SUPS FROM THIS POCKET
PLEASE
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TORONTO
LIBRARY
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The mythology of ancient
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