6

Arthur and Merlin in Early Welsh Literature: Fantasy and Magic Naturalism

Helen Fulton

If the historical tradition of Arthur can be found in Latin chronicles, and the romance tradition owes its origins to French court poets, where then does the Welsh Arthur reside? For many scholars, the Arthur who appears in medieval Welsh literature is the most authentic because he is the oldest of the vernacular Arthurs, perhaps even as old as Gildas’s account of the fifth-century struggle between British and Saxons, and certainly pre-dating Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae.

Yet the Welsh Arthur is hardly a seamless or coherent character, acting consistently from one story to the next like modern cultural inventions such as Sherlock Holmes or Superman. There are plural Arthurs in Welsh, representing various ideals of leadership and political identity for different kinds of audiences. In chapter 2, Nicholas Higham distinguished between a “historical” and a “folkloric” Arthur in the early Latin chronicle tradition. In the early Welsh literary tradition, Arthur appears in both these guises and others besides, particularly as a supernatural figure who exerts control over otherworldly forces. The dominant mode of the Welsh Arthurian tradition, then, is neither chronicle nor romance, but fantasy, expressed through a narrative style that I am calling “magic naturalism.”

Arthur as Warrior-Hero

Pre-existing traces of the “historical” Arthur of the chronicles appear in Welsh literature from around the ninth century (though the manuscript evidence begins in the twelfth). The surviving fragments of this vernacular tradition, both oral and written, which lies behind the Latin texts of the Historia Brittonum (ninth century) and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1138), reveal the outlines of a hero-king, identifiably British as distinct from either Saxon or Norman. This is the role that comes closest to the construct of the “historical” Arthur, the one which so appealed to Geoffrey and his adapters, where Arthur is the British battle-leader uniting his people against the Saxon foe. The main texts in which Arthur appears in this role, albeit fleetingly, are:

The heroic elegy known as Y Gododdin, surviving in a single manuscript of the thirteenth century, the Book of Aneirin, comprises a long series of stanzas each of which commemorates a single fallen warrior of the men of Gododdin. This was one of a number of British territories located in the “old north” (that is, what is now northern England and southern Scotland), centered around modern Edinburgh. The poem constructs a historical period of the mid- to late sixth century and was probably composed in that period or shortly afterwards, either in the north, from where it was transmitted to Wales, or in Wales itself, which still had close linguistic and cultural connections with the British north. Unusually for an early secular text, the poem has a named author, Aneirin, one of several Welsh poets mentioned by the ninth-century Historia Brittonum as having been active at the time of the Saxon king Ida and the Welsh prince Maelgwn Gwynedd, that is, in the late sixth century (Morris 1980: 37; Huws 1989).

The poem seems to be referring to a disastrous battle at Catraeth (modern Catterick in Yorkshire), which brought the men of Gododdin and their allies against men from Bernicia and Deira, areas further to the south populated mainly by invading Saxons (Dumville 1972; Roberts 1972; Charles-Edwards 1978). The most recent editor of the poem, John Koch, suggests a date of composition around 570, and makes the point that the enemies named in the poem may not have been exclusively Saxons but probably included other British tribes who, for reasons of political and military expediency, chose to ally themselves with the Saxons against the northern Britons (Koch 1997: xiii–xliii). The nationalistic model of Arthur as a British leader against Saxon usurpers was from the beginning, then, a useful but reductive literary fiction.

Arthur’s name is mentioned once in the poem, in a stanza typical of the general style and purpose of the whole sequence. Most of the hundred-odd stanzas are each devoted to a single hero, who is ceremoniously named after the incantation of a number of assertions verifying his heroic qualities (Fulton 1994). The poem, composed to be recited, thus functions as the oral equivalent of a modern-day war memorial displaying the roll call of names of the fallen soldiers. In a stanza celebrating the hero Gwawrddur, whose name literally means “steel-lord,” we hear of his exploits in the battle of Catraeth:

Ef guant tratrigant echassaf

ef ladhei a [pher]uet ac eithaf

oid guiu e mlaen llu llarahaf

godolei o heit meirch e gayaf

gochore brein du ar uur

caer ceni bei ef arthur

rug ciuin uerthi ig disur

ig kynnor guernor guaur[dur].

(Williams 1938: 49)

He struck down more than three hundred of the warriors,

he killed both middle and outer [ranks].

The most generous one belonged at the forefront of a host,

he would give horses from his herd in winter,

he would feed black ravens on a rampart

of a fortress, though he was not Arthur.

Among the strong ones in battle,

at the front, an alder-wood rampart, was Gwawrddur.

The stanza seems to be saying that although Gwawrddur displayed all the virtues of the warrior nobility, fighting bravely and ferociously, sharing generously, protecting his men like a stout wooden rampart, still he was not Arthur. Arthur is being held up as the archetype of the best warrior in the world, one whom others strove to emulate but could never equal.

The significance of this brief Arthurian allusion lies partly in its early date and partly in its context of a decisive battle between British and (mainly) Saxons, in which the British were devastatingly defeated. If the poem was first composed shortly after the battle of Catraeth which it commemorates, that is, around 570 AD, it would not be far away, less than a century, from the historical context associated with the “authentic” Arthur, the Romano-British leader fighting against the incoming Saxons. However, the surviving text of the Gododdin preserves at least two strata of material, an older layer of “original” stanzas and a later layer of additional stanzas, which may include the Gwawrddur stanza quoted above. The language and orthography of the whole text have been dated to about the ninth century, which means that the reference to Arthur is at least that old, and may be as old as the late sixth or early seventh century if (as John Koch believes) it was part of the original poem (Koch 1997: 147).

The appearance of Arthur’s name in the Gododdin has been used to support the view that the “real” Arthur probably came from the “old north,” but there are a number of warriors named in the poem who are known to have lived in other areas of Britain. The point about the army of the Gododdin is that the men were not all from the territorial region of Gododdin itself but were drawn from many British-held parts of the country, forming a powerful union in defense of the northern lands (Jarman 1988: xxviii–xl; Rowland 1995). What the Gwawrddur stanza appears to tell us, then, is that of all the British warriors throughout British-held lands, Arthur was the mightiest, and that by the ninth century at least his name was synonymous with the heroic endeavors of the British to fight for their sovereignty against the Saxons.

This same construct of the heroic battle-leader is found in the eulogy to Gereint, a chieftain of the Dumnonians in southwest Britain and possibly the same person as the historical Cornish king Geraint who ruled in the early eighth century. There is a reference to Gereint in the Gododdin, perhaps signifying the same ruler (Williams 1938: stanza 85; Koch 1997: 124–5), and his name was later drawn into the Continental tradition of Arthurian romance, where he appears in the Welsh prose romance of Gereint ac Enid (“Geraint and Enid”), corresponding to the French Erec et Enide of Chrétien de Troyes (see chapter 9). Though the eulogy to Gereint constructs a historical context of late sixth- or early seventh-century Britain, the poem itself was probably composed at a later date, perhaps the tenth or eleventh century, when the dynasties of Wales and Cornwall were still suffering the effects of Saxon pressure on their borders (Charles-Edwards 1991: 15). The poem is one of a number found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, a manuscript collection dated to the second half of the thirteenth century (Jarman 1982).

In a series of 26 stanzas, the poet celebrates the battle triumphs of Gereint and his men against their enemies, primarily the Saxons. Using the conventional formula of the eyewitness account (“I saw … ”), the poet lists a number of battle locations where the British fought (not always victoriously), including Llongborth (perhaps to be identified with Langport in Somerset), where Arthur was present:



En llogborth y gueleis e giminad.

guir igrid a guaed am iad.

rac gereint vaur mab y tad.



En llogporth gueleis e gottoev.

a guir ny gilint rac gvaev.

ac yved gvin o guydir gloev.



En llogporth y gueleis e arwev

guir. a guyar in dinev.

a gvydi gaur garv atnev.



En llogporth y gueleis e. y arthur

guir deur kymynint a dur.

ameraudur llywiaudir llawur.

(Jarman 1982: 48)



At Llongborth I saw the cutting down

of men trembling, blood round their heads,

before Gereint the great, his father’s son.



At Llongborth I saw spurs

and men who would not flee from spears,

and wine being drunk from bright glass.



At Llongborth I saw weapons

of men, and blood flowing,

and after the shouting, a bitter burial.



At Llongborth I saw with Arthur

brave men who slashed with steel,

emperor, leader of action.



The poem evokes the same heroic virtues as the Gododdin, fierceness in battle, a willingness to fight to the death, generosity in peacetime. Arthur’s name is again invoked as that of a warrior-hero who takes the lead in any conflict between the British and their enemies, regardless of location. It seems that Arthur was as well known in the southwest as in the north, appearing at the head of a super-force to support British princes wherever there was conflict (Padel 1984). Significantly, Arthur is here referred to as ameraudur, “emperor,” a borrowing from Latin imperator, perhaps a dim echo of the Romano-British princes who ruled Britain in Gildas’s time. Certainly the epithet, however anachronistic, indicates a recognition of Arthur’s status as superior to that of local rulers such as Gereint, suggesting a construction of Arthur as overlord and protector of all the British territories.

In these early heroic references, Arthur has a symbolic as well as a historical function. Not only does he validate Welsh territorial claims stretching back into an ancient past which pre-dates the arrival of the Saxons in Britain, he personifies the sovereignty of British rule. The mythic belief in a pre-existing autonomous British rule over the whole island of Britain, a political sovereignty that was cruelly and unrightfully usurped by the Saxons, formed the bedrock of much Welsh literature right through the Middle Ages. During the successive invasions and settlements of the Anglo-Saxons and later the Normans, the latter into the very heartlands of Wales itself, Arthur was used to support an insistent claim by Welsh court poets that there had once been a unified British kingdom, and that the Welsh rulers now praised by the poets were the natural successors to this Arthurian sovereignty. When poets lamented the loss of British rule, Arthur’s name was associated with heroic accounts of British resistance to the Saxons as a symbol of the ancient political autonomy of the British people.

The mythic importance to the Welsh of this heroic construct of Arthur as the archetypal leader of the British against the Saxons is indicated by a later satire of Arthur in this very role. The prose tale Breuddwyd Rhonabwy, “The Dream of Rhonabwy,” composed in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, satirizes not only the literary construct of Arthur as a great British king, as found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia and in Welsh and French romance, but also contemporary Welsh leaders such as Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, ruler of Powys and Gwynedd, who attempted to emulate the power of the great feudal kings of England and France (Richards 1972; Slotkin 1989; Lloyd-Morgan 1991). In this dream-vision story – itself a satire of the Continental genre of dream-visions – the Welsh soldier Rhonabwy is shown a vision of Arthur and his men about to confront a huge army of Saxons. Immobilized by the number of troops and horses surrounding him, and by the rich splendors of his material wealth, Arthur has all the outward trappings of power but is unable to act – he is literally the roi fainéant, the “do-nothing king” of French romance. Instead of using his resources to defeat the Saxons, Arthur passively sends his youngest servant to negotiate with the enemy before the two armies drift away without a spear being raised. It is as if the storyteller is suggesting, through the metaphorical structure of the dream-vision, that it is time for Wales to put away one particularly recurrent dream, the old vision of British supremacy against the Saxons, symbolized by the figure of Arthur. At a time when the rulers of Gwynedd were trying to equalize their relationship with the English crown and were marrying into the English royal family – Llywelyn ap Iorwerth was married to Joan, illegitimate daughter of King John – the Arthurian fantasy had passed its prime as a focus for Welsh hopes of political power in Britain.

Arthur in Welsh Popular Tradition

The Latin mirabilia or marvels of the Historia Brittonum (see chapter 2) provide evidence of a rich local tradition of Arthurian folklore and legend in Wales, a tradition which also emerges in some vernacular survivals. Most of these references to Arthur as a popular figure of legend are found in the thirteenth-century manuscript known as Llyfr Taliesin, the Book of Taliesin, a compilation of Welsh texts dating largely from the pre-Norman period (Evans 1910, 1915; Haycock 2006, 2007).

There are four references to Arthur in poems from the Book of Taliesin, which allude to a folk-tale version of the historical poet Taliesin and which invoke the powers of bardic enchantment, inspiration, and shape-shifting. This coupling of Arthur and the folk-tale Taliesin enables them to alibi each other as “genuine” characters from the sixth century. In “Cat Godeu” (“The Battle of the Trees”), the poet describes a battle fought by a variety of trees and shrubs – alders, willows, ash, blackthorns, and many others, perhaps making allegorical or symbolic use of these names to hint at more human armies (Bromwich 1978: 207–8; Haycock 2007: 167–73). Characters from legend are invoked, such as Math and Gwydion from the fourth branch of the Mabinogi (the collection of medieval Welsh prose tales), while explicitly Christian references hint at the coming of Judgment Day. Toward the end of the poem, the poet calls on druids to prophesy to Arthur, instating Arthur as a great king who should receive such prophecies because he alone can act on them.

In “Cadeir Teyrnon” (“Teyrnon’s Seat”), the poet celebrates the achievements of a fellow bard, Teyrnon, who sings of Arthur’s exploits in battle, indicating that tales of Arthur’s deeds are a familiar and appropriate topic for bardic song. In a third poem, a marwnad, or elegy, to Uthyr Ben, a prototype of Uther Pendragon (Bromwich 1978: 520–23; Haycock 2007: 503–4), the poet extols his own powers of bardic excellence and battle ferocity, claiming that “Arthur has a [mere] ninth of my valour” (Haycock 2007: 505). Lastly, in a poem combining religious celebration with further declamations of skill and shape-shifting, the poet lists the horses belonging to heroes such as Caradawg, Gwawrddur, Taliesin, and Arthur.

Slightly later than the references in the Book of Taliesin is a dialogue poem dated to the mid-twelfth century but found only in manuscripts of the fourteenth century and later. This is the poem known as Ymddiddan Arthur a’r Eryr (“Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle”), in which Arthur, over a series of about fifty englynion (stanzas in the englyn meter), converses with his nephew Eliwlad, who has been transformed into an eagle (Haycock 1994: 297–312; Coe & Young 1995: 103). As with Nennius and other Latin writers, native folk traditions have been co-opted by a clerical writer in the interests of spiritual advice and encouragement: when Arthur, who is presented as a ruler of Cornwall, asks if he can free the eagle from its enchantment, he receives some Christian instruction regarding the power of God and the need for resignation to the fate laid down for each of us:

ARTHUR: Yr Eryr, nefaw[l] dyghet,
  Or ny chaffaf y welet,
  Beth a wna Crist yr a’e kret?
YR ERYR: Arthur, wydua llewenydd,
  Wyt lluossawc argletryd:
  Ty hun Dydbrawt a’e gwybyd.
  (Haycock 1994: 307)
ARTHUR: Eagle, heavenly my fate,
  if I cannot see him,
  what will Christ do for those who believe in him?
THE EAGLE:         Arthur, throne of joy,
  you are a lord of many troops:
  you will know it yourself on the Day of Judgment.

In its form, the poem resembles the conventional clerical genre of the instructional dialogue for lay audiences, with Arthur as the worldly ruler who defines himself through material status, and the Eagle as the contemplative soul who has forsaken the things of the world. Arthur is here a long way from his heroic British persona, representing instead a local semi-pagan chieftain who needs to be taught the superior power and jurisdiction of the church, a role he also occupies in some of the twelfth-century Latin saints’ lives, such as those of Cadog and Padarn (Roberts 1991a; Coe & Young 1995; Padel 2000).

The most significant evidence that the character of Arthur was absorbed into the native Welsh folk tradition is that of the Triads. Found in a number of manuscripts from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, the Triads are lists of story titles and topics grouped into threes by theme (Bromwich 1969, 1978). Many of the names recorded in the Triads are known from other surviving literary material, either in Welsh or in Latin, while other names are not preserved outside the Triads themselves. They therefore provide a unique record of the story materials of early Wales used by poets and storytellers, dating back at least to the twelfth century. A number of the later Triads, and perhaps some of the earlier ones, suggest connections with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia (Padel 2000: 84) though any influence could have been in both directions, from the early Triads to Geoffrey and from Geoffrey back to the later Triads.

Arthur is mentioned in a number of the earlier Triads as a prominent member of pre-Saxon British society. In Triad 12 he appears as one of the “Three Frivolous Bards of the Isle of Britain,” along with Cadwallawn son of Cadfan and Rahawd son of Morgant, both of whom are known from other stories as part of the traditional British ruling class. In another Triad (20), Arthur is listed as one of the “Three Red Ravagers of the Isle of Britain,” along with Rhun son of Beli and Morgant Mwynfawr. Again, these are names associated with pre-Saxon Britain, and Arthur’s name has been attached to them as part of the same cultural context.

The process by which Arthur became drawn into an existing set of folk-tale names and traditions which defined, for medieval Welsh storytellers and their listeners, an idealized period of British political sovereignty is shown most clearly in those Triads where Arthur’s name is added as a fourth item in a pre-existing Triad. In Triad 2, for example, his name is appended in some of the manuscripts to a group of three. This extended Triad was cited by a twelfth-century poet, Prydydd y Moch (Padel 2000: 86) and was therefore known at that time:



Tri Hael Enys Prydein:

     Nud Hael mab Senyllt,

     Mordaf Hael mab Seruan,

     Ryderch Hael mab Tudwal Tutclyt.

(Ac Arthur ehun oedd haelach no’r tri.)



Three Generous Men of the Island of Britain:

     Nudd the Generous, son of Senyllt,

     Mordaf the Generous, son of Serwan,

     Rhydderch the Generous, son of Tudwal Tudglyd.

(And Arthur himself was more generous than those three.)

(Bromwich 1978)



In Triad 80 there is an allusion to Arthur’s wife, Gwenhwyfar:



Teir Aniweir Wreic Ynys Prydein. Teir merchet Kulvanawyt Prydein:

     Essyllt (F)yngwen, (gordderch Trystan);

     a Phenarwan, (gwreic Owein mab Urien);

     a Bun, gwreic Flamdwyn.

Ac un oed aniweirach nor teir hynny: Gwenhwyfar gwreic Arthur, kanys gwell gwr y gwnai hi gyweilyd idaw no neb.



Three Faithless Wives of the Island of Britain. Three Daughters of Culfanawyd of Britain:

     Essyllt Fair-Hair (Tristan’s mistress),

     and Penarwan (wife of Owain son of Urien),

     and Bun, wife of Fflamddwyn.

And one was more faithless than those three: Gwenhwyfar, Arthur’s wife, since she shamed a better man than any.

(Bromwich 1978)



This Triad refers to three of the best-known characters of the later Arthurian romances, Tristan and Esyllt (the Welsh form of Iseult or Isolde), and Owain son of Urien, the sixth-century hero of Taliesin’s praise poetry, who reappears in the twelfth-century Welsh romance, Owein, Iarlles y Ffynnawn (“Owain, or The Lady of the Fountain”), and whose French counterpart is Yvain in Le Chevalier au Lion (“The Knight with the Lion”), composed by Chrétien de Troyes. To these names were added, in fifteenth-century manuscripts, those of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, quite obviously later attachments to a pre-existing group of stories. The theme of Guinevere’s adultery with Lancelot was a French development (possibly invented by Chrétien himself – see chapter 21) and there are no other early native references to the Welsh Gwenhwyfar as a faithless wife. Geoffrey of Monmouth referred to Guinevere as the lover of Mordred, and it may be this episode that is alluded to in the Triad. Whether it refers to Geoffrey or to the French tradition, the additional element in Triad 80 cannot be earlier than the twelfth century.

There are other references in the Triads that show influence from Geoffrey and post-Geoffrey traditions, including mentions of Medraut, or Mordred. In the native Welsh tradition, Medraut is known either as the man who fell with Arthur at the battle of Camlan, or as a heroic warrior (Padel 2000: 113). The expanded story of his treacherous usurpation of Arthur’s lordship of Britain, which precipitated the fateful battle of Camlan (as summarized in Triad 51), has been drawn from a version of Geoffrey’s Historia.

In most of the Triad references, Arthur is identified as one of a number of prominent British chieftains in the pre-Saxon period, but there are several Triads (for example, 37R) in which his name edges out others as the chief lord of the whole of Britain, one of the unbroken line of British rulers whose traditional rights over Britain formed the basis of Welsh complaints about Saxon tyranny. This Arthurian persona, as the sovereign ruler of Britain, was perhaps inserted into the Triads post-Geoffrey of Monmouth, since Geoffrey’s history positioned Arthur very explicitly in a chronological context. In any event, the evidence of the Triads suggests that the early heroic persona of Arthur as a symbol of British sovereignty was reinforced by storytellers from about the twelfth century and that their creation of Arthur in this role both assisted, and was assisted by, Geoffrey’s historical account of the kings of Britain. The Triads therefore share with Geoffrey of Monmouth a view of Arthur as part of a chronological list of the great kings of Britain before the coming of the Saxons.

Fantasy and Magic Naturalism

Perhaps the most authentically “Welsh” construct of Arthur is that which presents him as a supernatural hero associated with the Otherworld. The fantasy element found in many of the Welsh Arthurian allusions was reconfigured by Continental adapters such as Chrétien de Troyes, who were developing a more mimetic mode of narrative with a strongly Christian foundation. Nevertheless, the fantasy references to Arthur invariably position him as the head of an illustrious and superhuman warband, which provided an appealing model for the warrior knights of French romance. The tension between a powerful political leader who is often off-stage and an entrepreneurial retinue which actually engages with social issues – the standard framework of Continental Arthurian romance – is foreshadowed by the Welsh fantasy stories which feature Arthur and his warband.

The primary evidence for the fantasy version of Arthur in early Welsh tradition can be summarized as follows:

The last three of these appear to be interconnected, sharing some of the same characters and events with each other and with the Triads, and presumably drawing on a common set of traditions clustering around the name of Arthur, or to which Arthur’s name was attracted. The complex and opaque poem “Preiddeu Annwn,” “The Spoils of Annwn,” describes a journey by Arthur and his warband, aboard his ship Prydwen, to Annwn, the Otherworld, to retrieve the cauldron of the chief of Annwn. On the voyage, the warband visits a number of strange fortresses and meets with some kind of disaster from which only seven survive. Borrowing from the heroic tradition of the eyewitness account of battle, here spoken by the legendary Taliesin, the poem alludes to many of the legends and tales found in the Triads and in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, grouping these references around the figure of Arthur as the leader of a fearless warband.

The story of Arthur’s quest for the cauldron, as well as elements from the “Pa gur” dialogue poem, are reactivated in what is perhaps the most significant Arthurian text of the early Middle Ages, the prose tale Culhwch ac Olwen, “Culhwch and Olwen” (Jones 1972; Knight 1983). Combining conventional European folk-tale motifs with native Welsh Otherworld traditions, the tale is a long saga of the warband’s accomplishments, presided over at ceremonial moments by Arthur himself. Though the tale is found in fairly late manuscripts of the fourteenth century, along with other native prose material, including the Four Branches of the Mabinogi and the Welsh tales of Owein, Peredur, and Gereint, the language and content of Culhwch ac Olwen place it earlier than the other stories in the collection, in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. It is usually assumed to pre-date Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, and although it is not a direct source for that work, the two texts seem to be drawing on a similar stock of Welsh story materials, including the Triads.

The basic structure of the tale is a version of the common folk-tale motif “Six Go through the World,” in which a hero, wishing to marry the daughter of a powerful man, enlists the help of six magically gifted companions in order to fulfill a list of impossible tasks. Culhwch, the young hero, is the victim of a curse: he must marry Olwen, daughter of the grim giant Ysbaddaden, or he will not marry at all. Ysbaddaden lays out a long series of fantastical and impossible tasks which Culhwch must complete before Olwen will be given to him. Fortunately, as Arthur’s cousin, Culhwch is able to call on the almost limitless resources of the great king, including six companions with magic powers, to complete a token number of the tasks before the giant is killed and Culhwch is able to marry Olwen.

Distributed through this basic plot structure are a great variety of myths and legends, native and European, incorporated into the tasks that Culhwch must complete. The story of Arthur’s flight to the Otherworld to retrieve the cauldron of the chief of Annwn, elliptically described in the poem “Preiddeu Annwn,” “The Spoils of Annwn,” is here given narrative motivation through the giant’s request for the cauldron belonging to Diwrnach the Irishman. Arthur and his men therefore invade Ireland (a convenient physical manifestation of the abstract Otherworld) and bring back the cauldron of plenty, which will provide endless food for the guests at Olwen’s wedding feast. Mabon son of Modron and Gwyn ap Nudd, mythical figures known from the Triads and other native material, are both released by Arthur’s men from their imprisonments so that they can take part in the hunt for the great boar, Twrch Trwyth. The hunt itself, involving Arthur and all his armies, from Britain and the Continent, and a mobile campaign from Britain to Ireland and back to Britain, where the boar is finally driven out to sea at Cornwall, is one of the great set pieces of the tale, combining the supernatural power of the boar, a key icon of Celtic mythology, with the construction of Arthur as the head of an army mighty enough to destroy a fifth part of Ireland.

As well as this native material, expressing Welsh concerns such as the rivalry between Wales and Ireland, there are a number of story motifs belonging to the wider pool of international folklore, including the “Oldest Animals” motif, in which the oldest, and therefore wisest, member of various animal types is asked for advice (Fulton 2004); and the “Grateful Animals” motif, in which animals (or in this case insects, the ants) that have been saved or protected by the hero reciprocate by helping him with one of his tasks (Jackson 1958). Underlying the whole tale are themes relating to tribal societies in general, particularly those of fertility and reproduction and the tribal need to replace itself with a steady supply of both warriors and farmers (Knight 1983). The release of Mabon son of Modron (literally “Son son of Mother”), the curse laid on Culhwch that he will not marry (or produce legitimate heirs) unless he marries Olwen, the portrait of Olwen as the personification of fertile virginity (white flowers spring up wherever she walks), the seasonal battle between Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwythyr for possession of the maiden Creiddylad, the inevitability of the giant’s death before Culhwch can marry Olwen – all these events in the tale are expressions of a profound engagement with the mysteries and critical importance of symbolic and actual reproduction.

In all the narrative richness of the tale, Arthur fades in and out, sometimes a major actor, sometimes delegating the tasks to his men. He is represented as a powerful overlord, greeted by Culhwch as “chief lord of the Island of Britain,” leader of massive armies, controller of vast resources of manpower and technology. Responsibility for helping Culhwch is delegated to the six companions, including Cei and Bedwyr (Kay and Bedivere of later French romance), Cynddylig the Guide, and Gwrhyr Interpreter of Tongues, each of whom has magical powers. Arthur’s prestige derives not only from his status, but also from his command of an illustrious and super-skilled band of men. This foregrounding of the warband is signaled early in the tale by the huge and overdetermined list of Arthur’s men, including not only his personal retinue but all those who owe him allegiance, wherever they live. This immense roll call of hundreds of names, one of the most outstanding features of the tale, is not simply conventional, though parallels can be found in other Irish and Welsh sources; it also draws attention to the size and scope of Arthur’s resources. In this hyperbolic and perhaps comic way, not unlike the exaggerations of Breuddwyd Rhonabwy, “The Dream of Rhonabwy,” Arthur is constructed as the powerful sovereign of many territories, like the Norman kings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

When Arthur does take part in the completion of the tasks, his role is both practical and symbolic. It is he who leads the troops on the two expeditions to Ireland, for the cauldron of Diwrnach and the hunt for Twrch Trwyth, because only he commands the necessary armies. At the end of the tale, Arthur is the only one who can kill the Black Witch when four of his men have failed, indicating his absolute power over forces of evil. While his men have only a single supernatural gift each, Arthur has gifts that are both physical and mental: he can slice a witch in half with a single throw of his knife; he can explain how Twrch Trwyth used to be a king but was transformed into a pig; he knows where to find the cauldron of plenty. His superior physical skills match his superior knowledge. The evidence of the Triads reminds us of the supernatural powers attributed to Arthur by medieval storytellers: as one of the Red Ravagers of the Island of Britain, for example (Triad 20W), he lays waste the ground wherever he walks for seven years.

Besides its many striking features and its undoubted originality, perhaps one of the most characteristic aspects of the tale of Culhwch ac Olwen is its narrative mode. With a plot that moves without explanation and with limited causality from one event to another, and which incorporates magic and supernatural events into the day-to-day running of a court, again without comment, the narrative style is typical of Welsh and Irish prose tales but less common in Continental or English medieval texts. The style is what I am calling “magic naturalism,” in that it shares with the modern mode of “magic realism” (manifested in the work of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez) a seamless alternation between possible and impossible events, but it is entirely naturalistic rather than realistic. In other words, in early Welsh tales there is no narrative voice guiding us through the text, as there is in the works of more realist writers such as Chrétien de Troyes or even in the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Events appear to unfold without any particular motivation or causality but are simply juxtaposed as if in a natural order. No evaluations or judgments are offered; the reader or listener is obliged to apply their own discrimination and to rank the worth and priority of events and characters as they see fit. In this mode of magic naturalism, where moral judgments are never made, the moral center of the story is not the narrator, or the Christian system of values, but simply the hero – Arthur in the case of Culhwch ac Olwen. This is the true meaning of his power: he is not only politically pre-eminent, as the tale demonstrates, but is implicitly positioned, by the style of the narrative, as the natural center of moral authority.

The Three Merlins

The popular concept of Merlin as the tutor, protector, and adviser to Arthur, and the misguided lover of the treacherous Viviane, is one of three incarnations of the character of Merlin, who as a literary invention is as plural and unstable as Arthur himself. This version of Merlin belongs to thirteenth-century French accounts of the Arthurian legend, from where it was adapted by Malory in the fifteenth century to provide a coherent narrative of Merlin’s part in Arthur’s conception, birth, and education as a king.

Before the twelfth century, and specifically before Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his Historia Regum Britanniae, the figure of Merlin, known by his Welsh name of Myrddin, formed a minor part of the legendary literature of Wales. Like many other characters from this literature, including Tristan, Cei, Owain, and others, Myrddin was originally unconnected with Arthur. He was drawn into his orbit only when Geoffrey of Monmouth made a connection between them in his Historia Regum Britanniae. Most of the early Myrddin literature is found in the same manuscripts as the early Arthurian references, particularly the Book of Taliesin, the Red Book of Hergest, and the Black Book of Carmarthen (Jarman 1991: 118–20), where he is represented as a poet and prophet like Taliesin. In an early (c. 1100) dialogue poem from the Black Book of Carmarthen, Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin, “Dialogue of Myrddin and Taliesin,” the two legendary poet-prophets discuss a sixth-century battle between the men of Dyfed and the army of Maelgwn, probably Maelgwn Gwynedd, prince of the northern Welsh province of Gwynedd, who died c. 547. In this poem Myrddin seems more familiar with the traditional heroes of Dyfed, in the south, while Taliesin aligns himself with the men of the north. Myrddin speaks as a prophet in this dialogue and forewarns of a battle at Arfderydd, in the north of Britain, but there is no reference to his taking part in the battle.

A later poem, Cyfoesi Myrddin a Gwenddydd ei Chwaer (Red Book of Hergest, c. 1400) explicitly associates Myrddin with the battle of Arfderydd. This is a battle known about from other sources, particularly the Annales Cambriae (“Welsh Annals”), which date the battle to 573, and a series of poems in the Black Book of Carmarthen, supposedly narrated by Myrddin himself, although there is no clear indication of this in the manuscript. A twelfth-century Latin Life of St Kentigern, by Joceline of Furness, tells the story of a “wild man of the woods” who was driven mad after the battle of Arfderydd and took up residence in the Forest of Celyddon (Caledonia), but the wild man was said to be a prophet called Lailoken. At some stage, the Welsh prophet Myrddin became associated with the “wild man” legend concerning the battle of Arfderydd, and this Myrddin legend found expression in Welsh poems such as the Cyfoesi. It is possible, as Oliver Padel has suggested, that Geoffrey of Monmouth was the writer who conflated the Welsh Myrddin with the “wild man” legend in order to create a new biography for Merlin in his Vita Merlini, “Life of Merlin” (Padel 2006). Certainly, the absence of Myrddin from the Welsh Triads indicates that he was not a major figure of Welsh legend before the twelfth century.

The version of Myrddin as “wild man” is associated with the north of Britain: historical kings of the northern provinces, including Rhydderch Hael, Morgant Fawr, and Urien of Rheged, all active in the sixth to seventh centuries, appear in the Welsh poems, while Arfderydd, the site of the battle which drove Myrddin into madness and exile, is associated with the old north, possibly near Carlisle. Even in this early, and admittedly obscure, tradition of Myrddin in the Welsh manuscript record, he appears in two slightly different guises, as the “wild man of the woods” associated with the north and as a poet-prophet of Wales, located in the south. This latter persona is supported by the place name Caerfyrddin, the Welsh form of the city of Carmarthen in southwest Wales. Etymologically derived from caer, “fort,” and moridunon, “sea-fort,” the name was interpreted as “the fortress of Myrddin,” by analogy with other place names formed on a similar model of caer followed by a personal name. On the assumption that a person called Myrddin was the founder of the city, a legend about him had to be fashioned, and this legend would plausibly have involved powers of prophecy (Jarman 1991: 138). The tenth-century prophetic poem Armes Prydein, “The Prophecy of Britain,” found in the Book of Taliesin, refers to Myrddin as a prophet, “dysgogan Myrddin,” “Myrddin foretells” (Williams 1972: line 17), indicating that he was already established in that role. There is even a reference to Myrddin in Y Gododdin, a faint suggestion that he was known as a poet-prophet, though the reference is found only in the later text of the poem, dated to the ninth century (Koch 1997: ciii, 159; Jarman 1988: 30). Later Welsh court poets, composing to twelfth-century princes, referred to Myrddin as a historical poet and prophet living at the same time as the sixth-century poet Taliesin (Bromwich 1978: 471).

It is these two Welsh legendary figures, the “wild man” and the prophetic founder of Caerfyrddin, that Geoffrey of Monmouth embraced and made very much his own. Not only did Geoffrey change Myrddin’s name to the Latin form Merlinus, he also brought Merlin for the first time into the orbit of Arthur. Geoffrey’s first interest in Merlin was as a prophet, and his Prophetiae Merlini, “Prophecies of Merlin,” supposedly translated by Geoffrey from Welsh sources, was in circulation several years before the publication of his Historia Regum Britanniae (Roberts 1991b: 97). In the Historia, Merlin is configured as a boy-wizard, who reveals the fighting dragons undermining the foundations of Vortigern’s new fortress. The story of the dragons was borrowed by Geoffrey from the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, itself a significant source of early Arthurian legend. In the Historia Brittonum, the boy’s name is Ambrosius and he comes from Glywysing (Glamorgan); Geoffrey renames him Merlin – sometimes referring to him as Merlin Ambrosius – and locates him in Carmarthen (Caerfyrddin), evidently drawing on local place-name legends in which a legendary Myrddin was the founder of the city. The incorporation of the Prophetiae Merlini into the larger Historia was a deliberate editorial act that established Merlin’s credentials as a sage and prophet, in line with popular Welsh legends about Myrddin.

Some years after the publication of the Historia Regum Britanniae, Geoffrey composed a long Latin poem called the Vita Merlini, dated to about 1150 (Jarman 1991: 132). No doubt capitalizing on what was evidently a popular topic, and drawing on material similar to that found in the Arfderydd poems in the Black Book of Carmarthen, Geoffrey developed an entire life story for Merlin, based on the genre of the saint’s life. In what may have been Geoffrey’s own invented idea, the Merlin of the Vita is represented as the “wild man” of Welsh poetic fame rather than the fearless young prophet who featured in the Historia (Padel 2006). Many of the names and events found in early Welsh poetry – Rodarchus (Rhydderch), Telgesinus (Taliesin), the forest of Calidon (Celyddon) – are brought together in a more or less coherent narrative of Merlin’s life, which includes his madness in battle, exile in the forest, and the additional (and original) sub-plot of Arthur as a wounded king waiting to return as a leader of the British people. Though Geoffrey claimed that the Merlin of the Historia and of the Vita were one and the same person, represented at different stages of his life, readers were more skeptical. In his Itinerarium Kambriae, “Journey through Wales” (II.8), Gerald of Wales makes a firm distinction between the two characters, whom he calls Merlin Ambrosius (found in Welsh texts as Myrddin Emrys) and Merlin Celidonius or Merlin Silvester (whose Welsh equivalent is Myrddin Wyllt, “Wild Merlin”) (Thorpe 1978: 192). In the only one of the Triads in which Merlin is associated with Arthur (Triad 87), he appears as two of the three “skilful bards” at Arthur’s court: Myrddin son of Morfryn and Myrddin Emrys, along with the third poet, Taliesin.

In Geoffrey’s Vita Merlini, Merlin has a wife, Guendoloena, from whom he endured long separations and infidelity before choosing to spend his remaining days with a group of exiles in the forest. Here are the seeds of Merlin’s transformation into the figure of French romance, the visionary who could not prevent his own madness and betrayal in love. Transmitted from Geoffrey’s Historia via Wace’s Anglo-Norman translation, the Merlin of romance first emerges in about 1200 in Robert de Boron’s Old French poem, Merlin, where he is drawn into the religious associations of the Grail. The prose continuations, in the Vulgate Cycle and the Suite du Merlin, establish Merlin in his third and final persona as the wizard and sage who masterminds Arthur’s conception, birth, and rise to power, only to succumb to the treachery of Viviane. While French courtly audiences looked for realism and answers to questions about their own lives within a deeply spiritual context, Geoffrey was following the earlier Welsh tradition of fantasy and magic naturalism, locating both Arthur and Merlin in a supernatural world whose power was greater and more unpredictable than that of any leader or prophet.

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References and Further Reading

Ashe, G. (2006). Merlin: The prophet and his history. Stroud: Sutton.

Bromwich, R. (1969). Trioedd Ynys Prydein in Welsh literature and scholarship. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Chadwick, H. M. & Chadwick, N. K. (1932). Merlin in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In H. M. & N. K. Chadwick (eds), The growth of literature, vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 123–32.

Chadwick, N. K. (1976). The British heroic age. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Charles-Edwards, T. M. (1978). The authenticity of the Gododdin: An historian’s view. In R. Bromwich & R. B. Jones (eds), Astudiaethau ar yr Hengerdd: Studies in old Welsh poetry. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 44–71.

Charles-Edwards, T. M. (1991). The Arthur of history. In R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman, & B. F. Roberts (eds), The Arthur of the Welsh. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 15–32.

Dumville, D. (1972). Early Welsh poetry: Problems of historicity. In B. F. Roberts (ed.), Early Welsh poetry: Studies in the Book of Aneirin. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Fulton, H. (1994). Cultural heroism in the old north of Britain: The evidence of Aneirin’s Gododdin. In L. S. Davidson, S. N. Mukherjee, & Z. Zlatar et al. (eds), The epic in history. Sydney: Sydney Association for Studies in Society & Culture, pp. 18–39.

Fulton, H. (2004). George Borrow and the Oldest Animals in Wild Wales. Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 10, 23–40.

Haycock, M. (1983/4). Preiddeu Annwn and the figure of Taliesin. Studia Celtica, 18/19, 52–78.

Haycock, M. (1988). Llyfr Taliesin [The Book of Taliesin]. Journal of the National Library of Wales, 25, 357–86.

Haycock, M. (2006). Taliesin a Brwydr y Coed [Taliesin and the Battle of the Trees]. Aberystwyth: Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd.

Higham, N. J. (1992). Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons. London: Seaby.

Jackson, K. H. (1958). The international popular tale and early Welsh tradition. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Jarman, A. O. H. (1976). The legend of Merlin. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Jarman, A. O. H. (1981). The Cynfeirdd: Early Welsh poets and poetry. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Jarman, A. O. H. (1983). The Arthurian allusions in the Black Book of Carmarthen. In P. B. Grout, R. A. Lodge, C. E. Pickford, & E. K. C. Varty (eds), The legend of Arthur in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Brewer, pp. 99–112.

Jarman, A. O. H. (1991). The Merlin legend and the Welsh tradition of prophecy. In R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman, & B. F. Roberts (eds), The Arthur of the Welsh. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 117–45.

Jones, G. (1972). Kings, beasts and heroes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Knight, S. T. (1983). Arthurian literature and society. London: Macmillan.

Lloyd-Morgan, C. (1991). Breuddwyd Rhonabwy and later Arthurian literature. In R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman, & B. F. Roberts (eds), The Arthur of the Welsh. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 183–208.

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Padel, O. J. (2000). Arthur in medieval Welsh literature. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Padel, O. J. (2006). Geoffrey of Monmouth and the development of the Merlin legend. Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 51, 37–65.

Roberts, B. F. (ed.) (1972). Early Welsh poetry: Studies in the Book of Aneirin. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Roberts, B. F. (1991a). Culhwch ac Olwen, the Triads, saints’ lives. In R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman, & B. F. Roberts (eds), The Arthur of the Welsh. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 73–95.

Roberts, B. F. (1991b). Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae and Brut y Brenhinedd. In R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman, & B. F. Roberts (eds), The Arthur of the Welsh. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 97–116.

Rowland, J. (1985). The prose setting of the early Welsh englynion chwedlonol. Ériu, 36, 29–43.

Rowland, J. (1995). Warfare and horses in the Gododdin and the problem of Catraeth. Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 30, 13–40.

Sims-Williams, P. (1991). The early Welsh Arthurian poems. In R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman, & B. F. Roberts (eds), The Arthur of the Welsh. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 33–71.

Slotkin, E. (1989). The fabula, story and text of Breuddwyd Rhonabwy. Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 18, 89–112.