Celtic storytelling has a very distinctive character and atmosphere: hard to describe, yet instantly recognizable in the selection that follows. Many of the stories have a sad and mournful quality, showing that the Celts have a keen sense of the tragedy of the human condition. The Breton tale The Marquis of Guérande is a characteristic example—sad and dark in the extreme. There is also a wistful hankering for a much better world, which comes across in descriptions of the Otherworld.
Some of the tales that have been handed down to us from the Celtic past are mythic, such as the Irish Táin (or, to give it its full name, Táin bo Cuailnge, “The Cattle Raid of Cuailnge.”) Other stories have their origins in history, in the careers of people such as Hannibal, Vercingetorix, and Julius Caesar, and in distant memories of lands lost to a slowly rising sea (see Symbols: City Swallowed Up by the Sea). Still others occupy a strange ambiguous world that lies somewhere between myth and history, and fact and fantasy, such as the tales of St. Brendan, St. Patrick, and King Arthur. This spectral shifting backward and forward between the two worlds—this world and the Otherworld—is itself a major characteristic of the Celtic way of thinking.
See Midhir and Etain.
See The Marriage Girdle.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi; Symbols: Magic, Treasure.
In the tenth century, Kerlouan on the coast of Leon was raided by the Norsemen. The Bretons, led by their chief, Even the Great, marched out to repel the raiders. They managed to chase them away, but the Norsemen were, even so, able to capture and carry off several prisoners, and among these captives was a Breton warrior called Bran. A village called Kervran, “The Village of Bran,” is still there, and this is where, according to tradition, Bran was wounded and taken prisoner by the Norsemen.
Finding himself onboard an enemy ship, Bran began to weep bitterly at his misfortune. When the ship reached the land of the Norsemen, he was imprisoned in a tower. He persuaded his gaolers to allow him to send a letter to his mother. They agreed and a messenger was found. Bran advised the messenger to dress as a beggar, for his own safety. He also gave him his gold ring so that his mother would know that the message had really come from him.
“When you reach my country,” he told him, “go at once to my mother. If she is prepared to ransom me, show a white sail when you come back. But if she refuses, you must raise a black sail.”
When the messenger reached Bran’s home in Leon, the lady was at supper with her family and the bards were playing their harps. The messenger showed her Bran’s ring and asked her to read the letter at once. She told the harpers to cease playing. Then she read the letter carefully and became agitated. She ordered a ship to be made ready so that she could set sail for her son in the morning.
In his tower, early one morning, Bran called out, “Sentinel, sentinel, do you see a sail on the sea?”
The guard replied, “No. I see nothing but sea and sky.”
A few hours passed in futile waiting, until at midday, Bran asked again, “Sentinel, sentinel, do you see a sail on the sea?”
The guard replied, “No. I see nothing but the billowing sea and the gulls aloft in the sky.”
More hours passed and in the evening, Bran asked again, “Sentinel, sentinel, do you see a sail on the sea?”
This time the guard lied. “Yes, there is a ship close by.”
“What color is the sail?” Bran asked.
Again the guard lied. “It is black, lord.”
Bran was overwhelmed by despair.
When his mother arrived at the town, she asked an old man in the street why the bells were tolling. He told her, “Alas, a noble prisoner kept in that tower died last night.”
She walked to the tower and said to the guard, “Open the door, I want to see my son.”
Once the door was open, she threw herself down on the body of her son and she too died of despair.
At Kerlouan, on the site of the battle between the Bretons and the Norsemen, an oak tree overhangs the shore and marks the place where the Norsemen fled. At night, the birds gather on this oak, whose leaves shine in the moonlight: birds of black feather and birds of white feather, among them an old gray rook and a young crow. The birds sing such a beautiful song that the sea itself falls silent to listen to it. All the birds sing except the old gray rook and the young crow. The crow says, “Sing, little birds, sing; when you die you will at least end your days in Brittany.” The crow is Bran transformed. The rook is perhaps his mother.
In Breton tradition, the dead may return to Earth in the shape of birds.
Several incidents in the story have parallels in the poem Sir Tristram, such as the journey to a foreign land, the gold ring to prove the authenticity of the messenger, the treacherous gaoler, and the black or white sail. Sir Tristram was probably written in the twelfth century and the source is likely to be Breton. If this story is the original, it is interesting that an old woman, the mother, has been replaced in the later tale by a young woman, a lover. The truth may be unreachable, but what seems to have happened is that a fund of stories and legends was passed back and forth among the Atlantic Celts, from Brittany to Ireland to Cornwall to Wales—and back again—so that the ultimate origin of a tale is untraceable (see Symbols: Rule of Three).
This is a “late Celtic” eighteenth-century ballad about a remarkable incident that happened in 1758.
A British army landed on the Breton coast, with the object of making sure the English Channel was safe for British merchant shipping. A secondary objective was to create a diversion for the German forces, who were at that time British allies.
A company of soldiers from the towns of Tréguier and Saint-Pol-de-Léon was marching against a detachment of Scottish Highlanders. When the Bretons were about a mile from the Highlanders, they could hear their enemies singing. The Breton soldiers stopped in their tracks, as they recognized the air the Scots were singing. They knew this music. Electrified by it, they joined in singing the patriotic song. All the time the two companies were getting closer and closer together.
When the officers considered them to be close enough, they ordered their men to fire. The orders were given in the same language. At this, the soldiers on both sides stood stock-still. After a moment, emotion swept training and army discipline to one side, and they dropped their weapons as they ran toward one another. The ancient Celts, so the story went, renewed the ties of brotherhood that had once united their fathers.
Although this story may sound too romantic to be true, it seems to be based on a reliable and credible tradition. The air that was sung was apparently “The Garb of Old Gaul,” which was composed by General Reid, who was born in 1721 and died in 1807. The song may have been newly written and popular with both Bretons and Scots, so it was probably not an ancient patriotic song.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this story is that it shows the effectiveness of Edward Lhuyd’s early eighteenth-century promotion of the idea of a common language uniting the Celts of the west.
“The Mother’s Blessing.” This is a euphemistic Welsh name for fairies. The fairies were not by any means a blessing. They visited people’s houses and made mischief there: they stole things, elf-rode horses, and abducted children. People tried to forestall their malicious pranks, buying their favor by leaving milk for them.
The Manx name for a mermaid. Many tales about mermaids were told around the coast of the island. The Manx mermaids have the characteristics of mermaids everywhere, including treachery: enchanting men and luring them to an untimely death.
See The Green Knight.
The birds of the goddess Rhiannon are blackbirds. They sing on the branch of an everlasting tree that grows in the middle of the Earthly Paradise. Their sweet singing so enchants the listener that it transports them into the Otherworld. They sing for Bran and his followers, the Assembly of the Wondrous Head, as they feast between the worlds.
The song of the blackbird is so beautiful that it is self-evidently a being from the Otherworld—and capable of spiriting us away there with its singing.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
The Minch is the wide stretch of open water between the islands of the Outer Hebrides and the Inner Hebrides. It is haunted by the Blue Men, who swim out to intercept and wreck passing ships. They can be fended off by seafarers who are skilled at rhyming and able to have the last word in an exchange of banter.
The Blue Men live in underwater caves and are ruled by a chief. They whip up the sudden storms that arise without warning around the Shiant Islands.
The bogle is a mischievous spirit who likes to perplex, bewilder, and frighten people rather than to hurt them.
One bogle is Shellycoat, a spirit residing in the waters, who has given his name to many a rock along the Scottish coast. He is festooned with weed and seashells, and it is the clatter of his shells as he moves that warn of his approach. The coat of shells gives him his name. This is one of the pranks he played:
One very dark night two men approaching the banks of the Ettrick River heard a doleful voice from the water repeatedly cry, “Lost! Lost!” They followed the sound, which seemed to be the voice of a drowning person, but to their astonishment it was traveling up the river. The night was long and stormy, but still they followed the voice of the malicious spirit.
Before dawn, they arrived at the source of the river. The voice could now be heard going down the other side of the mountain.
At this point, the two exhausted travelers gave up their pursuit. As soon as they had done so, they heard Shellycoat applauding his successful prank in loud bursts of laughter.
The spirit was particularly supposed to haunt the old house of Gorinberry, on the Hermitage River in Liddesdale.
Leabhar Gabhala Eireann, “The Book of the Conquest of Ireland,” is often referred to as The Book of Invasions. It represents Ireland’s foundation myth. The conquest in the title refers to the arrival of the Gaels in Ireland, but the surviving text is about the last of six waves of immigration.
The first immigration happened before the Flood and was led by Cesair, who was a daughter of Bith, son of Noah. She told her followers, “Take an idol, and worship it.”
All of these initial migrants died in a Great Flood. Cesair herself was drowned, but her brother Ladra was carried by the sea-current north along the eastern coast of Ireland, taking 16 maidens with him. He died “of excess of women” and was buried under a great mound on the shore, the first mortal man who went under the soil of Ireland.
Fintan was the only one who survived from that first wave of immigrants, because he had the power to change himself into the shape of a salmon, an eagle, and a hawk. So he could be invoked as a witness to Irish history. He was summoned by the High King at the time when Christianity arrived; he was then the oldest man in Erin (Ireland) and he could recite its history in its entirety:
“I was in Erin
when Erin was a wilderness,
until Agnoman’s son came,
Nemedh, pleasant in his ways.”
Next came Partholán and his followers. He fought a battle against a race of demonic beings known as the Fomhoire, and this was the first battle fought in Ireland. Partholán cleared four plains; before there had been only one. During his time seven lakes appeared. Many crafts and customs were instituted. The first guesthouse was built and the first beer brewed. But Partholán and his followers were wiped out by a plague.
The third invasion was led by Nemedh. Four lakes were formed in his time and 12 plains were cleared. By creating its physical features and naming them, this and the two earlier invasions were seen as giving Ireland its geographical identity.
After Nemedh’s death his people lived under the sway of the Fomhoire. Each year at the festival of Samhain they were required to pay in tribute two-thirds of their corn, their milk, and their children. They rose up against the tyranny of the Fomhoire and attacked their stronghold. Of the few who survived, some went to Greece and some to the north of the world. Those who went to Greece multiplied and eventually returned as the peoples known as the Fir Bholg, the Gailioin, and the Fir Dhombhnann.
By now the geography of Ireland had become as it is today. The main innovations credited to the Fir Bholg are political and social. They divided the island into five provinces: Ulster, Connaught, Leinster, Munster, and Meath. Meath was the area around the center of the island, Uisnech. The Fir Bholg also introduced the idea of sacred kingship. One of their kings, Eochaidh mac Eirc, was the prototype of a just king: “No rain fell during his reign, only dew; there was no year without harvest; falsehood was banished from Ireland; and he it was who established the rule of justice there.”
These people are the first in the story to have a foothold in history. The Gailioin may be the same as the Laighin, who gave their name to Leinster. The Fir Domhnann of Connaught are thought to relate to the Dumnonii tribe in Britain.
The next invasion was by the Tuatha dé Danann, the People of the Goddess Danu. They had become versed in Druidry and the art of magic during their stay in the islands at the north of the world. They brought with them four talismans. One was the stone of Fáil which shrieked under a lawful king. The second was the sword of Lugh—the sword that ensured victory. The third was the spear of Nuadha—the spear from which none could escape. The fourth was the cauldron of the Daghda—the cauldron which none would leave unsatisfied.
When these people arrived in Ireland they demanded the kingdom from the Fir Bholg; if they would not give the land up willingly, they would have to fight for it. This led to the First Battle of Magh Tuiredh, during which the Fir Bholg were defeated. But the supremacy of the Tuatha was not to last long; they soon had to defend their kingdom against the ancient foe: the Fomhoire.
All these events were a prelude to what followed: the coming of the Sons of Mil. They landed in south-west Ireland at Beltane and, as the poet Amhairgin set his right foot upon Irish soil, he sang this song in which he claimed to subsume all being within himself:
“I am an estuary into the sea.
I am a wave of the ocean.
I am the sound of the sea.
I am a powerful ox.
I am a hawk on a cliff.
I am a dewdrop in the sun.
I am a plant of beauty.
I am a boar for valour.
I am a salmon in a pool.
I am a lake in a plain.
I am the strength of art.”
After defeating the Tuatha dé Danann, the Sons of Mil set out for Tara. On the way they met the three goddesses of Ireland—Banbha, Fódla, and Ériu—each of whom made the Sons of Mil promise that the island would bear her name.
At Tara they found the three kings of the Tuatha—Mac Cuill, Mac Cécht, and Mac Gréine—the husbands of the three goddesses. The Sons of Mil called on the three kings to surrender their kingdoms, but the kings claimed a respite, wanting to refer the matter to the judgment of the poet Amhairghin. The poet decided that the Sons of Mil should withdraw out to sea, beyond the ninth wave; to the Celts this was a magic boundary. When the Sons of Mill tried to cross it and land again, the Tuatha dé Danann conjured a druidic wind that blew them still further out to sea. Amhairghin stood up and addressed the people of Ireland. But then the wind dropped and the sea calmed and the Sons of Mil were able to land again, and then they inflicted a final defeat on the Tuatha dé Danann. This happened at Tailtiu, scene of the annual festival inaugurated by Lugh.
In spite of their defeat, the Tuatha dé Danann kept the power of their magic arts. They were able to deprive the Gaels of corn and milk until they came to terms. The agreement was that Ireland should be divided into two: above ground and below. The Gaels were to live above ground, the Tuatha below. And so the Tuatha retreated underground. The Daghda assigned to each of their chiefs a fairy mound or sidh.
Throughout Ireland, ancient burial mounds are still regarded as the dwelling-place of fairies. In the seventh century, St. Patrick’s biographer referred to the gods who dwell in the Earth, a statement that shows that the early Christians accepted the mythic tradition about the Tuatha dé Danann. People needed to explain the existence of the mounds (see Religion: The Daghda, Lugh; Symbols: Shapeshifting).
See The Ballad of Bran.
See Branwen; Symbols: Giant.
Bran was out walking one day when he was overwhelmed by the sound of music that was so sweet that he could not stay awake. When he woke up, he found a silver branch covered with white apple-blossom in his hand. He carried it back to his fort.
When all his people were gathered round him, a woman in strange costume suddenly appeared in front of him, singing a song about Emhain, the Island of Women: a place without want, winter, or grief, where the golden horses of Manannàn cantered on the beach and games went on ceaselessly. She urged Bran to sail to that island and the silver branch leapt from his hand into hers.
The next day, Bran and his company set off in a fleet of curraghs, rowing far out across the sea. They met a warrior driving a chariot across the waves as if it had been the land. He told Bran that he was Manannàn, son of Lir, and sang about the Island of Women, inviting Bran to visit.
On the way to Emhain, Bran’s curraghs passed the Island of Delight, but when they tried to hail the inhabitants, they could get no reply beyond pointing and laughter. Bran landed one of his men on the island, but he too started laughing.
Soon they reached the Island of Women, where they enjoyed all the pleasures of the island.
After they had been there for what seemed like a year, they decided it was time to return home; they pined for Ireland.
Bran approached the Irish coast at a place called Srub Bruin. People on the shore called out to him. When he told them his name, they said that no man of that name was alive, though they did have a very old story that told how a man named Bran, son of Febal, had sailed away to look for the Island of Women.
When one of Bran’s companions, Nechtan, heard this, he leapt out of his curragh and waded ashore through the surf. But the moment he stepped up onto the beach, all his mortal years came upon him all at once and he crumbled into a handful of dust.
Bran stayed awhile, still in his curragh, to tell his countrymen all of his experiences. Then he turned his fleet away from the shore and rowed away. He and his companions were never seen in Ireland again. (See Religion: Otherworld; Symbols: Isles of the Blessed.)
When Pryderi was Lord of Dyfed, Bran the Blessed was King of the Island of Britain. He had a full sister, Branwen, who was one of the Three Great Ladies of this Island. He also had a full brother, Manawydan, and two half-brothers. One was Nisien, who brought peace to contending armies and friendship to men, and the other was Efnisien, the most quarrelsome man in Britain.
One day, Bran was sitting with his brothers and nobles on the great rock of Harlech and they saw 13 ships sailing toward them from the south of Ireland. Bran asked his brother Manawydan to go and meet the ships to discover their purpose.
One of the ships drew ahead of the others and Manawydan and Nisien watched as a painted shield was lifted high above the ship’s deck, point uppermost, a token of peace. Manawydan lifted his shield in the same way.
The men on the ship came ashore in small boats, greeting Bran. “These, king, are the ships of Matholwch, King of Ireland. He has come in person to ask for Branwen, your sister, in marriage. Will you bid him land?”
Matholwch duly came ashore, greeted Bran, and there was a joyous gathering of the two hosts. The following day, it was agreed that Matholwch should marry Branwen and that the marriage would serve as a peace treaty between Britain and Ireland.
The marriage feast was to be at Aberffraw; Matholwch and his host set sail in their ships, and Bran and his host set off over land. The feast was held in the open air, as there was no house big enough to hold the godlike Bran, who was enormous.
While billets were being found for the horses and grooms, the quarrelsome brother, Efnisien, arrived. He was annoyed that he recognized neither grooms nor horses and asked what was happening. He was even more annoyed that Branwen had been given in marriage without his consent and swore revenge, maltreating both the horses and the grooms.
Word of this reached Matholwch, who was puzzled and made arrangements to set sail again for home. Bran in turn was perplexed by Matholwch’s discourtesy and sent word that Matholwch’s grievance was against his brother Efnisien, not against him. “Tell him I shall give him a sound horse for each horse spoiled, and for his injured pride I shall give him a staff of silver as thick as his finger and as tall as himself, and I shall give him a plate made of gold as broad as his face. If he is not content with this, then he should come to see me and my brother Nisien shall make peace between us on terms that he shall name. I will not have Matholwch return to Ireland in anger; I will not have sorrow brought on Branwen.”
Matholwch was persuaded to accept Bran’s friendly offer. He ordered his ships’ sails to be furled again and returned to Bran’s court.
Matholwch and Bran fell into conversation and Bran offered to give something else in reparation: “Tomorrow when the counting of the new horses is done, I will give you the Cauldron of Rebirth. If one of your men is killed, cast him into the cauldron and the next day he will live again. He will be as good as new, except that he will have lost the power of speech.”
After that, Matholwch was merry enough and Bran was as good as his word. He gave Matholwch the Cauldron of Rebirth, which all knew was one of the chief treasures ever found in the island of Britain.
Matholwch set sail for Ireland with his 13 ships. On the swiftest of them sat Branwen on a throne of gold and ivory. Horns and trumpets sounded from ship to shore and back again, and Bran watched his sister go with tears in his eyes. Manawydan and Nisien told him he should be happy on this wedding day, but he was filled with foreboding.
For a year, Branwen lived in honor and friendship in Ireland. But then the insult to Matholwch was remembered by some of his men, who taunted him with cowardice. “A king’s shame is the shame of his warriors,” they said.
The king was persuaded to banish Branwen from his court; she was made to work in the kitchens. Matholwch knew how angry Bran would be at this, and ordered every person visiting from Wales to be imprisoned, so that Bran should never know what had become of his sister. So it continued for three years.
Branwen wrote a letter describing her misfortunes and fixed it to a starling’s wing. The starling flew across the sea to the court of Bran and alighted on his shoulder. It ruffled its feathers so that Bran could see the letter. He unfastened it and read it. He was so grateful to the starling that he gave it a bowl for food and a bowl for water and a perch for resting—in every palace in his lands.
Bran assembled his council and read aloud the letter, and they decided to sail for Ireland. Seven knights were left behind to guard the kingdom and Bran’s son Cradawg was their leader.
There was no ship large enough for Bran, so he crossed the sea by wading, carrying his minstrels on his back. Matholwch’s swineherds saw this strange mountain approaching through the waves and a forest growing out of the sea and tried to describe it to Matholwch. He asked Branwen to explain what the swineherds had seen and she understood: the forest was the many masts of Bran’s fleet and the mountain was Bran himself.
Matholwch and his men withdrew to the west, beyond the Shannon River, and broke down the bridge behind them. There were stones on the riverbed that stopped ships sailing along it.
When he reached the Shannon, Bran offered the solution: “He who is chief, let him be the bridge. I myself will be a bridge.” He lay across the river and his army passed over him.
Matholwch sent messengers with friendly greetings, offering the kingdom of Ireland to Gwern, Branwen’s son, as reparation for the wrong done to Branwen.
Bran replied, “You need not tell your lord that I am other than angry with him.”
Matholwch took advice and set about building a house large enough to accommodate Bran, since that feat had never been achieved. The plan was to offer Bran homage and the kingship and make peace.
But the Irish turned the house into a trap. A bag was hung on either side of every pillar in the house, and in every bag an armed man was concealed.
Efnisien came and inspected the house, hoping to find fault with it. He asked what was in one of the bags. A nervous Irishman answered, “Flour, sir.”
“Then this will do no harm,” said Efnisien, feeling around the bag until he found a head. He squeezed the head until he felt his fingers break the skull. Then he went on to the next bag and did the same. And so it went on until there was only one bag left. This time Efnisien felt a helmet, but he would not leave it until this last man too was dead.
Then the two hosts arrived and there was peace between them. The only discordant voice was Efnisien’s. “Why does my sister’s son, the boy Gwern, not come to me? Am I less in his eyes than my brothers? Is he too proud, now that he is King of Ireland?”
Bran urged the boy to go to his uncle. But when he did, Efnisien seized him and hurled him into the flaming fire.
Branwen would have leaped in too, to save her son, but Bran’s brothers held her back. Every man in the house stood up and drew his sword and a great battle broke out.
The Irish kindled a fire beneath the Cauldron of Rebirth. As their men fell, they flung their corpses into the cauldron and the next day they stepped out again, renewed.
Efnisien saw that there was no room in the cauldron for his own countrymen and was ashamed that he had brought this disaster on them. He crept in amongst the Irish corpses, lay still, and soon he too was flung into the cauldron. Once inside, he stretched himself out and burst the cauldron into four pieces; in doing this, he burst his own heart too. But for this, no British men would have survived.
Bran was wounded with a poisoned spear. Knowing he would die, he ordered Manawydan to cut off his head, take it to the White Mount in London, and bury it there with the face toward France.
Bran warned that it would take a long time to reach London. The company was to go first to Harlech and then to dwell in happiness at Grassholm in Pembrokeshire for 80 years, until the door toward Aber Henfelen was opened. Once that door was opened, they must stay no longer, but make for London to bury the uncorrupted head.
Manawydan cut off his brother’s head and the seven British survivors of the battle returned to Britain, taking Branwen and the head of Bran with them. Branwen was overwhelmed with sadness at the devastation of the two islands—all, she thought, because of her. Her heart broke and she was buried on the bank of a river.
As the seven men journeyed, they heard the news that Caswallawn, son of Beli, had fallen on Cradawg, the son of Bran, and killed him and six other men while wearing a magic cloak that made him invisible. He had conquered the Island of the Mighty and was now King of Britain.
The company of Bran spent seven years at Harlech. While they were there, three birds of Rhiannon visited them and sang a song that was sweeter than any other music they had ever heard.
Then they went to Grassholm, where they found a royal hall. Two of its doors stood wide open, but the third stood closed. There they stayed for 80 years and the head was pleasant company all this time. The company became known as the Assembly of the Wondrous Head.
One day Heilyn, son of Gwyn, decided the time had come to open the third door. Through it they saw Cornwall and Aber Henfelen. Then they became conscious of every loss they had sustained and felt each as keenly as at the first moment. Then they knew no rest. They had to set off for the White Mount and bury the head there.
That was one of the Three Happy Concealments of the Island. It would be one of the Three Unhappy Disclosures when it was disclosed, but while the head remained concealed, no plague could cross the sea to Britain.
See Trezenzon the Monk and the Great Island.
A particularly unpleasant and vicious type of goblin, skilled at shapeshifting.
A buggane haunts Spooty Wooar, a waterfall, in the shape of a black calf that sometimes crosses the road and jumps into the pool with a sound like chains being shaken.
One day, shapeshifting into near-human form, he went to a house and picked up a girl working there, carried her off, and was intent on taking her down to his home beneath the pool below the waterfall. Luckily, the girl had a knife in her hand, and she used it to cut the string of her apron and get herself free.
See Symbols: Magic.
A mermaid in the Scottish Highlands, also known as maighdean na twinne, “maiden of the wave.” Her body is the body of a beautiful woman, while her tail is the shape of the tail of a young salmon.
If you can catch a mermaid, you can make her grant you three wishes. The ceasg can also sometimes be persuaded to marry a man, though these relationships usually end badly.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
Triphyna was the beloved daughter of Guerech, Count of Vannes, the Land of White Corn. One day an embassy arrived from Comorre, Prince of Cournuaille, the Land of Black Corn, demanding Triphyna’s hand in marriage.
Triphyna and her father were alarmed. Comorre was a wicked giant, known for his cruelty. When he chased and failed to catch a peasant, he would set his dogs loose to tear him to pieces. But, from Triphyna’s point of view, the most distressing aspect of Comorre’s reputation was that he had married four wives and killed all of them, or at least it was suspected that he had, whether by fire, water, poison, or the knife.
Guerech would not agree to the ambassadors’ demand. He sent them away and went out to meet Comorre, who approached with a band of warriors. It seemed that bloodshed was inevitable.
St. Gildas visited Triphyna, who was sheltering in her oratory, and persuaded her to consent to the marriage. He gave her a magic silver ring, which would turn as black as a raven’s wing when she was in imminent danger.
Comorre’s army halted, the marriage was agreed, and the wedding took place amid great celebrations.
Comorre’s nature seemed to have changed. His prisons were empty; the wind blew through his empty gibbets. Yet Triphyna was uneasy, and every day she went to pray at the tombs of his four earlier wives.
An assembly of Breton princes was called at Rennes. Comorre gave Triphyna his keys before he set off and asked her to entertain herself while he was away. He was gone five months and when he returned, he found her trimming a baby’s cap with gold lace. Comorre turned pale when he saw this. Triphyna told him he was soon to be a father and he left her in a rage. She could not understand it, but noticed that her silver ring had turned as black as a raven’s wing, so she knew she was in danger. She went down into the vaulted chapel to pray.
When she rose at midnight to return to her chamber, there was a sound of movement in the chapel. Frightened, she hid in a recess. From there, she saw the four tombs of Comorre’s wives slowly opening. Out they stepped in their winding sheets.
The spectral wives cried out to Triphyna, “Take care, poor lost soul! Comorre will seek to kill you.”
“But what have I done?”
“You have told him you will become a mother. He knows from consulting a spirit that his child will kill him. We died at his hand when we told him what you have told him.”
“What can I do? How can I save myself?” Triphyna cried.
“Return to your father,” the spectral wives replied.
“But how can I reach him, when Comorre’s savage hound stands guard?”
“Give him this poison, which first killed me,” said the first wife.
“But how can I climb down the high castle wall?”
“Use this cord, which first strangled me,” said the second wife.
“But how can I find my way home through the dark?”
“By the light of the fire, which first burned me,” said the third wife.
“But how shall I make such a long journey?”
“Lean on this staff, which first broke my skull,” said the fourth wife.
Armed with the staff, the rope, and the poison, Triphyna made her way out of Comorre’s castle. She silenced the dog, climbed down the curtain wall, and found her way by a magical glowing light that led the way to Vannes.
The next morning, when Comorre woke, he discovered that his wife had gone and pursued her on horseback.
Triphyna, still on the road, saw her ring turning black, black as a raven’s wing. She stepped aside from the road and hid until nightfall in a shepherd’s hut, with only a magpie in a cage for company. There, in the hut, the baby was born.
Comorre gave up the chase, turned back, and then heard the magpie imitating the voice of Triphyna, and calling out, “Poor Triphyna!” He guessed that his wife must have passed close by and unleashed his savage hound.
Triphyna was exhausted now and though she had set off again she had to lie down on the ground with her newborn child to rest. She looked up and saw in the sky a falcon wearing a golden collar, which she recognized as her father’s. She called to it and it flew down and came to her. She gave it the magic silver ring of St. Gildas and told it to take it to her father.
The falcon flew away like the wind, but just then Comorre arrived. Triphyna only just had time to conceal her baby in a hollow tree before he savagely threw himself upon her. He whirled his sword and with a single stroke severed her head from her body.
The falcon flew into Count Guerech’s hall while the count was at dinner with St Gildas. It hovered over the count and dropped the magic ring into his silver cup.
Guerech and St. Gildas recognized it at once, and it was black, black as a raven’s wing. Guerech cried out, “Saddle the horses and let Gildas here come with us.”
They followed the falcon, which took them to the spot where Triphyna lay dead on the ground. Guerich and Gildas knelt in prayer.
Then Gildas said to Triphyna, “Rise up. Take your head and your child, and follow us.”
The body obeyed, but gallop as fast as they could, it was always ahead of them, never behind, bearing the bloodless head in its right hand and the baby in its left.
Soon they reached the castle of Comorre. As they stood at the gates, St. Gildas shouted to Comorre, “Count, here is your wife, just as your wickedness has made her, and your child, just as heaven has given it. Will you receive them under your roof?”
Comorre did not answer.
Three times St. Gildas repeated his question and three times Comorre made no reply.
St. Gildas took the baby from its mother and set it on the ground. The child walked to the edge of the castle moat, picked up a handful of earth, and threw it at the castle wall, piping, “Let the Trinity take judgment.”
The great towers of the castle trembled and fell with a crash, the walls yawned open, and the ruined castle sank into the ground, taking Comorre and all his supporters with it.
St. Gildas then took Triphyna’s head, set it on her shoulders and brought her back to life. Guerech was overjoyed.
See Lia Fáil.
See Branwen.
See The Legend of Ys.
See Fairies; Religion: Angus Mac Og.
The Conan flows darkly, whirling in mossy eddies. It runs past an old burial ground, with the ruins of an old church with the rose-grown mullions of an arched window. Two hundred years ago, or maybe more, the building was complete and where the wood grows thickest there once was a cornfield.
Some Highlanders were busy one day harvesting the corn in that field. At noon, when the sun shone brightest and they were busiest, they heard a voice from the river cry out, “The hour but not the man has come.”
When they looked, they saw a kelpie standing on what they call a false ford, just in front of the old church. There was a deep, black pool both above and below, but on the ford there was a ripple that showed, as you might have thought, shallow water. And just in the middle of that stood the kelpie. Again it cried, “The hour but not the man has come.” Then, flashing through the water like a drake, it vanished into the lower pool.
The folk were standing wondering what the creature might have meant when they saw a horseman riding down the hill in haste, making straight for the false ford. Then they understood the kelpie’s words.
Four of the strongest among them sprang from the corn to warn the rider of his danger. They told him what they had seen and heard and urged him to turn back and take another road—or stay for an hour where he was. But he would not listen to them and would have taken the ford in spite of them, had the Highlanders, determined to save him whether he would or no, not gathered round him and pulled him from his horse. Then, for the sake of his own safety, they locked him in the old church.
When the hour had passed, the fatal hour of the kelpie, they flung the church door open and called out that he could now continue on his journey. But there was no answer.
They called out a second time and still there was no answer.
Then they went in and found the rider lying stiff and cold on the floor, his face resting in the water of the stone trough that still stands among the ruins.
His hour had come, and he had fallen in a fit, head-foremost, into the trough. And there he had drowned.
The Emperor of Rome, Macsen Wledig, dreamed of a beautiful maiden living in a wonderful far-off land. When he woke, he sent his men all over the world to search for her. Eventually they found her in a castle in Britain. She was the daughter of a chieftain living at Segontium (Caernarvon).
The princess was Helen (or Elen) and she accepted Macsen and loved him. He made her father overking of the island of Britain and commanded that three castles should be built for his bride.
While Macsen was away, a new emperor seized power in Rome and warned him not to return. But Macsen now had new allies. With the aid of the Britons, led by Helen’s brother Conanus, he marched across Gaul and into Italy and recaptured Rome.
As a reward for their loyalty and help, Macsen rewarded the Britons with the province of Gaul that became Brittany.
Tiny, translucent Welsh elves. Their leader is Queen Mab. (See Fairies; Religion: Angus Mac Og.)
A distinctive short Welsh poem with strict rules governing the number of syllables, length of each line, and positions of rhyming words. There are eight recognized types of englyn, some of three lines, some of four. The type especially loved by the Canadian novelist Robertson Davies (1913–95) was a quatrain consisting of 30 syllables arranged across four lines. The sixth syllable of the first line announces the rhyme and the last syllable of the next three lines rhymes with it. The final syllable of the first line is rhymeless.
See Midhir and Etain.
Fairies are the medieval and post-medieval versions of the old Celtic spirits of place. Among the lesser deities in the Celtic pantheon are the sprites who inhabit springs and streams and the dryads who inhabit trees. Among these elementals are the gnomes, the spirits of the Earth who appear out of cracks in the rock to frighten Cornish miners. There are also sea-nymphs or mermaids, and sylphs, the spirits of the air.
A feature of the Celtic mindset is a blurring of the boundary between the everyday world and the Otherworld, and between human beings and spirits. Just as it is possible for people to travel, under special circumstances, to the Otherworld and back again, so it is possible for people to have dealings with fairies, though it is not always wise to do so. European folklore generally is full of tragic tales of relationships between mortals and fairies.
There are different views about the origins of fairies. They are sometimes thought of as the spirits of the dead, sometimes as fallen angels, sometimes as astral or elemental spirits. In the Highlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fairy hosts were regarded as the evil dead. In Ireland, fairies are the spirits of the recent dead as well as the long dead. The Tuatha dé Danann became the heroic fairies, the Daoine Sidhe.
In Cornwall, fairies are the ancient pagan dead who died before the age of Christianity; they are not good enough to go to Heaven, nor wicked enough to go to Hell, but linger on, gradually diminishing until they become as small as ants before disappearing altogether. In Cornwall and Devon the souls of unbaptized babies are called piskies, and they appear at dusk as little white moths. In a dark version of the Glastonbury legend about Joseph of Arimathea, the knockers in the tin mines are believed by the miners to be the souls of Jews who were transported to Britain for their part in crucifying Christ.
In Wales, the belief that fairies are the souls of the dead seems to be less common. They are described in more general terms as a race of beings halfway between something material and spiritual and rarely seen, or as a race of spiritual beings living in an invisible world of their own.
Some of the lore is neo-Celtic, dating from the Celtic revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nursery sleep fairies were invented at this time, presumably to make managing small children easier. The best-known of these was the sleep fairy featured in the hugely popular nursery rhyme Wee Willie Winkie, which was written and published by William Miller in 1841. The earliest version of the first verse runs:
Wee Willie Winkie runs through the toun,
Up stairs and down stairs in his nicht-goun,
Tirling at the window, crying at the lock,
“Are the weans in their bed, for it’s now ten o’clock?”
In the Middle Ages, fairies formed distinct communities or kingdoms. Shakespeare’s Renaissance version of a fairy realm ruled by Oberon and Titania is not far removed from the medieval concept of the world of the fairies—though a long way from the Iron Age concept of that world 2,000 years earlier.
Fairies are usually very small, about 1 foot (30cm) tall, and some are no bigger than insects. The smallest are known as pigwidgeons. They are usually very attractive in appearance, in contrast to goblins, elves, imps, and pixies.
Fairies are gifted with supernatural powers. They have the ability to fly very quickly from place to place and are invisible most of the time. Only people with second sight can see them, though others are able to see them on certain occasions.
They behave rather like children. They are insecure, easily offended, mischievous, and can be quarrelsome. Some think this is because they once owned the landscape and have been displaced by newcomers. They may be responsible for causing fog and dew.
Fairies use toadstools as seats or tables. The flint arrowheads we now know were made by Neolithic people were once believed to be elf-bolts made and used by fairies to fire at cattle (see Fairy Blight). Sometimes fairies leave objects that are picked up by people.
Fairies like dancing on grass. Sometimes rings of a darker green are seen in the grass, and these “fairy rings” are thought to mark the path danced by the fairies. The dancing takes place at night and the fairies vanish when the cock crows.
Fairies often visit women in childbirth, sometimes casting good or evil spells on the babies. The worst thing they do is to steal babies, leaving changelings in their place. Whether the changelings are fairies or mortal children acquired somewhere else is not known.
Occasionally fairies fall in love with mortals, usually with results that are disastrous for both parties (see Religion: Gods and Goddesses, Otherworld).
A knight about to enter a fairy mound:
Fairies are generally held to wear green, which is one reason why some Scottish women dislike wearing that color; another is that green is associated with death. In Ireland the small trooping fairies, the Shefro and the Daoine Sidhe, wear green coats and red caps, but solitary fairies such as leprechauns generally wear red. The silkies of northern England wear glistening white silk, the White Ladies on Man wear white satin, and the Tylwyth Teg of Wales also wear white. The self-confessed witch Isobel Gowdie described the Fairy Queen in her Traffic with Fairies: “The Qwein of Fearrie is brawlie clothed in whyt linens, and in whyt and browne cloathes.” On the other hand, a fairy queen who visited a cottage in Galloway was described in more vivid terms by J. F. Campbell:
She was very magnificently attired; her dress was of the richest green, embroidered round with spangles of gold, and on her head was a small coronet of pearls. One of the children put out her hand to get hold of the grand lady’s spangles, but told her mother afterwards that she felt nothing.
Manx fairies sometimes wore blue. One description gives us a little, gnomelike man 2 feet (60cm) high, “wearing a red cap and a long blue coat with bright buttons, white hair and bushy whiskers. Face very wrinkled. Very bright, very kind eyes, carrying a small but very bright lantern.”
Brownies wear ragged clothes and many hobgoblins run around naked.
The tradition is that the life of a fairy is as long as the life of the world, so it would not be possible to witness a fairy funeral. Yet beside this there is a parallel tradition of fairy funerals. The poet William Blake claimed to have seen one. “Did you ever see a fairy’s funeral, madam?” he asked a lady who happened to be sitting next to him.
“Never, sir,” said the lady.
“I have,” said Blake, “but not before last night.”
He went on to describe how he had seen in his garden “a procession of creatures of the size and colour of green and grey grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a rose-leaf, which they buried with songs, and then disappeared.”
The word “stroke” as used for a sudden paralyzing seizure is borrowed directly from beliefs about fairies. It is a short form of “fairy stroke” or “elf stroke.” It was thought to have been caused by an elf-shot or elf-blow, which strikes the victim down.
This sequence of folk-tales relates the deeds of Irish heroes. The setting is the provinces of Leinster and Munster in the third century AD.
One key characteristic of the Fenian Cycle stories is their strong links with Irish-speaking “colonies” in Scotland, and they differ from the Ulster Cycle tales in being mainly in verse and being romances rather than epics. The stories are about Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band of warriors: the Fianna.
One of the greatest of the Irish tales, The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne, forms part of the Fenian Cycle. The story of Diarmuid and Grainne is believed to be one of the sources of Tristan and Iseult.
See The Fenian Cycle.
See The Fenian Cycle.
The original of this story is in ballad form and it gives us a brief and tantalizing glimpse of the beauty of the Celtic Otherworld, as well as containing several other classic Celtic motifs.
Gwennolaïk was the most beautiful maiden in the town of Tréguier, but her misfortune was that she had lost her mother, her father, and her two sisters when she was very young. Her only remaining relative was her stepmother. She stood weeping at her door, nursing the faint hope that one day her foster brother might return from overseas. Often she gazed out to sea, hoping for the ship that would bring him home. But six years had passed, and when she thought of him it was as the boy she had played games with, not as the young man he had become.
The stepmother broke into her daydreams: “Hurry up and attend to the animals. I don’t feed you for idling.”
Though noble by birth, Gwennolaïk was forced by her harsh stepmother to get up very early in the morning to light the fire and sweep the floors.
One winter evening she was at the well, breaking ice in order to draw water, when a passing knight asked if she was spoken for.
She did not answer.
“Don’t be afraid,” the horseman said. “Just answer my question.”
She said she was not betrothed to anyone.
“Good,” said the knight. “Take this gold ring and tell your stepmother you are betrothed to a knight from Nantes who has fought a great battle and lost his squire in the fighting. Tell her the knight has a sword-wound in the side. In three weeks and three days, when the wound is healed, I shall return and take you to my manor.”
Gwennolaïk went back into the house. When she looked at the ring she realized it was the same as the one her foster brother used to wear.
Three weeks passed and the knight did not return. Then Gwennolaïk’s stepmother said, “It’s time you married and I have found you the man you should marry.”
The maiden found the courage to speak. “Saving your grace, good stepmother, I only wish to marry my foster brother, who has returned from across the sea. He has given me a gold wedding ring and promises to come for me in a few days.”
The stepmother would hear nothing of this plan. “A fig for your gold ring! Bon gré, mal gré, you’ll marry the stable boy, Job the Witless.”
Gwennolaïk was distraught, but her stepmother was unmoved by her tears. “Howl out in the courtyard if you must, but you’ll be married in three days.”
Meanwhile the gravedigger was walking along the road, swinging his bell and taking news of those newly dead from one village to the next. Mournfully he chanted, “Pray for the soul of a worthy knight who was mortally wounded in the side with a stroke of sword in battle. Today he’s to be buried in the White Church.”
At the marriage feast, the bride was in tears. All the guests wept with her—all but her stepmother.
When the dancing began and it was proposed that the bride should lead the dance, she was nowhere to be found. She had fled the house.
She was slumped in the garden, feverish with despair, when she hard someone close by.
“Who is it?”
“It is I, your foster brother, Nola.”
“Can it really be you? Dear brother, you are truly welcome!”
Nola swung her up onto his white horse and they rode off into the night.
“We must have ridden 100 leagues,” she said, “but I am happy with you. I will never leave you again.”
Owls hooted and the sounds of the night filled her ears.
“Your horse is swift,” she said, “and your armor shines so brightly. How happy I am to have found you. But are we near your manor?”
“In good time,” Nola answered. “We shall be there in good time, sister.”
“But your heart is so cold, your hair is so wet! How cold your hands are!”
“Sister, listen. Do you hear the noise of the musicians who will play at our wedding?”
Gwennolaïk found herself on an island where a great crowd of maidens and youths were dancing beneath green trees laden with apples. The music they danced to was heavenly; she had heard no music like it. The sun rose in the east and this strange new world was flooded with rich light. Then Gwennolaïk saw her mother and her two sisters and her heart was filled with beauty and joy…
The next morning, as the sun climbed the sky, the young women carried the body of Gwennolaïk to the tomb of her foster brother in the White Church. They laid it inside.
The mythic tales included in the Mabinogion collection, written down in the eleventh century AD, are entitled “The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.” They focus on the activities of various British deities who have been Christianized into heroes and kings. The one character common to each of the four branches is the King of Dyfed, Pryderi fab Pwyll. He is born in the first branch and killed in the fourth. It is thought that he may be a humanized version of the god Maponos.
Pryderi’s mother, Rhiannon, is related to the horse goddess Epona. The British queen Rigantona is another character who is a transformed deity. There is also the peaceable British prince Manawydan, who later becomes Rigantona’s second husband. Manawydan is a transformation of the Irish sea god Manannán mac Lir.
Pwyll changes places for a year with Arawn, the ruler of the Underworld, Annwn. There he defeats Arawn’s enemy Hafgan. On his return he meets Rhiannon, a beautiful young woman whose horse is too fast to catch. He manages to win her hand at the expense of Gwawl, to whom Rhiannon is betrothed. She bears Pwyll a son, but shortly after his birth the baby disappears. Rhiannon is accused of murdering him and is punished by being made to carry guests on her back. In reality the baby has been abducted by a monster and is rescued by Teyrnon and his wife. They bring him up as their own child, giving him the name Gwri of the Golden Hair. But as he grows up, his resemblance to Pwyll becomes apparent, and Teyrnon and his wife return the child to his real parents. Rhiannon is released from her punishment and the boy is given the name Pryderi.
The story of Branwen, Bran the Blessed, and Matholwch (see Branwen). At the end of the story just five pregnant women survive in Ireland; it is left to them and their offspring to repopulate the land of Ireland.
Pryderi returns to Dyfed with Manawydan. There Manawydan marries Rhiannon and Pryderi marries Cigfa. Fog descends on the land, leaving it desolate. The four live at first by hunting, but then go to England where they make shields, saddles, and shoes. Their work is of such high quality that local craftsmen cannot match it and the locals drive them away. They move from town to town, eventually returning to Dyfed, where they resume hunting.
While they are hunting, a white boar leads them to a mysterious castle. Manawaydan advises against going in, but Pryderi does so. He does not return. Rhiannon goes to find him and finds him clinging to a bowl: he has lost the power of speech. The same thing happens to her, and the castle vanishes.
Manawydan and Cigfa travel back into England, where they resume their shoemaking, but as before the local craftsmen drive them out. They are forced to return to Dyfed.
They sow three fields with wheat. The first is destroyed before it can be harvested. The following night the second field is destroyed. Manawydan keeps a careful watch the next night over the third field. When he sees it destroyed by mice he catches the leader of the mice and decides to hang it.
Three men appear—a priest, a scholar, and a bishop—and each in turn offers him gifts if he will spare the mouse’s life. He refuses.
When they ask what he will accept in return for the mouse’s life, he asks for the release of Rhiannon and Pryderi and the lifting of the enchantment that hangs over Dyfed.
The bishop agrees to this: the mouse is in fact his wife. He has been waging a war of magic against Dyfed because he is a friend of Gwawl, whom Pryderi’s father, Pwyll, humiliated.
Math, son of Mathonwy, is King of Gwynedd. His feet must be held by a virgin, except when he is fighting. His current foot-holder is a maid called Goewin, and his nephew Gilfaethwy is in love with her. His brother Gwydion tricks Math into going to fight Pryderi so that Gilfaethwy can have access to Goewin. Gwydion kills Pryderi in single combat. Gilfaethwy rapes Goewin. Then Math marries Goewin to rescue her from disgrace and banishes Gwydion and Gilfaethwy from his kingdom, changing them into a pair of deer, then pigs, and then wolves. After three years he restores them to human form and allows them to return.
Math needs a new foot-holder. Gwydion proposes his sister Arianrhod. Math has a way of magically testing her virginity and she gives birth to two sons. One, Dylan, goes to sea. The other is brought up by Gwydion, but he is warned by Arianrhod that he will never have a name or arms unless she gives them to him. She refuses to give him either, but Gwydion tricks her first into giving him a name, Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Bright, of Skillful Hand), and then into giving him arms.
Arianrhod warns Lleu that he will never marry a wife of any race that lives on the Earth, so Gwydion and Math make him a wife out of flowers, called Blodeuwedd (Flower-face). However, the flower-maiden falls in love with a hunter named Gronw Pebr and the two of them plot to kill Lleu. Blodeuwedd tricks Lleu into telling her how he may be killed, but when Gronw attempts to kill him Lleu changes into an eagle and escapes.
When Gwydion finds Lleu he turns him back into human form. He also turns Blodeuwedd into an owl and curses her. Gronw offers compensation to Lleu, but Lleu turns this offer down, insisting on returning the blow that Gronw aimed at him. Gronw tries to hide behind a rock, but Lleu throws his spear so hard that it passes right through the rock and into Gronw.
See The Green Knight.
A romance about the love of one of King Arthur’s men, Geraint, and the beautiful Enid. The story corresponds to Chrétien’s story Erec and Enide.
Geraint and Enid marry and settle down together, but rumors circulate that Geraint is neglecting his knightly duties. Enid reproaches herself for keeping her husband from chivalry, but Geraint misunderstands her unhappiness and assumes her comments mean that she believes he has been unfaithful to her.
Geraint forces Enid to accompany him on a long and perilous journey, ordering her not to speak to him. Several times on the journey, Enid is forced to disobey this command in order to warn him of danger. Incidents and adventures along the way prove Geraint’s fighting skill and Enid’s love. There is a happy reconciliation between them at the end of the story, as Geraint inherits his father’s kingdom.
See Symbols: Giant.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
See The Salty Sea.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
See The Legend of Ys.
A mythic story about a strange beheading ritual. In this sinister game, a mysterious stranger, usually a giant or Green Knight, enters the hall in the middle of winter and offers his ax to any hero who will cut off his head—in return for a similar beheading blow. A hero accepts, cuts off the Green Knight’s head, and is horrified to see the challenger rising and immediately taking up the ax ready to deliver his return blow.
In the version of the story in which Gawain is the hero, he is allowed a year’s grace before he must receive the return blow. In the version in which Cú Chulainn is the hero, he kneels and submits immediately and is accordingly judged the bravest knight in Ulster.
The game is part of the north European midwinter festival, and is an allegory about New Year. The Old Year enters in the form of the Green Knight, the old spirit of the forest, and is decapitated by the vigorous young hero who represents the New Year in all its strength and hardiness. Yet the Old Year is irrepressibly and infinitely self-renewing, like the cycle of the seasons.
The Green Knight’s name is Bertilak.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
See Comorre the Cursed.
See The Foster Brother.
See The Legend of Ys.
See The History of Taliesin, The Sigh of Gwyddno Garanhir.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
A long time ago, there was a wicked king who lived in a palace where Lake Bala is today. It was said of him, “He killed whom he would; he spared whom he would.” It was also said that there were few who were spared.
Not long after this king came to the throne, he was walking in his garden, contemplating some cruel act, when he heard a voice. The sound was somewhere between a bird’s cry and the tinkling of a silver bell. The voice said, “Vengeance will come. Vengeance will come.”
Then the king heard a second disembodied voice a little further off, asking, “When will it come? When will it come?”
The first voice answered, “In the third generation. The third generation.”
The king laughed. “What do I care about that!”
Years afterward, when he had three sons who showed signs of being crueler even than he was, he heard the same voices in the same garden.
“Vengeance will come. Vengeance will come.”
“When will it come? When will it come?”
“In the third generation. The third generation.”
The king laughed defiantly. “And where is the king who is mighty enough to wreak vengeance on me?”
More years passed and the palace walls rang with celebrations over the birth of a son to the king’s eldest son and heir. A command went out across the countryside, ordering everyone to come to the palace to take part in the rejoicing. A guard was sent after a white-haired harper who lived up in the mountains; he was to provide the music for the feasting and dancing that night. He was reluctant, but he went.
The harper was amazed to see the king’s wealth on display: the silver candlesticks, the golden goblets, the ladies’ rich robes, and the flowing mead. He was ordered to play and played for hours until, toward midnight, he was allowed an interval for rest. He was given nothing to eat or drink, so he went to a quiet corner of the garden. There he heard a voice saying, “Vengeance will come. Vengeance will come.” He saw a small brown bird fluttering near him and it seemed to be encouraging him to follow it. He followed some distance and hesitated, but the brown bird repeated, “Vengeance will come,” and he followed it up into the hills.
At last they reached the top of a hill. Now the bird was silent and the moon had slipped behind a cloud. The harpist suddenly remembered his harp. He had left it in the palace. “I must go back. I must, before the dancing starts again.” But he was exhausted after playing all evening; sleep and night overtook him.
In the morning he awoke to an unfamiliar landscape. He looked back toward the palace, but it had gone. In its place was a huge lake, absolutely calm. His harp was floating toward him on the water.
This story is not in The White Book of Rhydderch or The Red Book of Hergest and was written down relatively late, perhaps after 1500. Even so, it contains elements that are ancient. It is not to be confused with The Book of Taliesin, a collection of poems attributed to the enigmatic Taliesin. Here it is in full, in all its strangeness and inscrutability:
There lived in Arthur’s time in Penllyn a man of noble lineage, named Tegid Voel, and his dwelling was in the midst of Lake Tegid, and his wife was Caridwen. And there was born to him of his wife a son named Morvran ab Tegid, and also a daughter named Creirwy, the fairest maiden in the world; and they had a brother, the most ill-favored man in the world, Avagddu.
Caridwen thought his ugliness would exclude him from the company of men of noble birth, unless he had some special knowledge. So she boiled a cauldron of Inspiration and Science for her son, until she could distil three drops of the grace of Inspiration.
She put her servant boy, Gwion Bach, to stir the cauldron, and a blind man named Morda to kindle the fire beneath it, and she ordered them to boil for a year and a day. She gathered charm-bearing herbs every day.
One day toward the end of the year, while Caridwen was making incantations, three drops of the charmed liquor flew out of the cauldron and fell upon the finger of Gwion Bach. He put his finger to his mouth, and that instant he foresaw everything that was to come, including that his chief care had to be to guard against the wiles of Caridwen, for vast was her skill. He fled toward his own land. And the cauldron burst in two, because all the liquor within it was poisonous—except the three charm-bearing drops.
Caridwen saw the toil of the whole year lost. She seized a billet of wood and struck the blind Morda on the head until one of his eyes fell out upon his cheek. He cried, “Wrongfully have you disfigured me, for I am innocent. Your loss was not because of me.”
“You speak true,” said Caridwen. “It was Gwion Bach who robbed me.” She ran after him.
When Gwion Bach saw her, he changed himself into a hare and fled. But Caridwen changed herself into a greyhound and headed him off. He ran toward a river and became a fish. In the form of an otter she chased him under the water, until he turned himself into a bird of the air. As a hawk, she followed him and gave him no rest in the sky. Just as she was about to swoop upon him, he saw a heap of winnowed wheat on the floor of a barn, dropped among it, and turned himself into one of the grains. Then Caridwen transformed herself into a black hen, scratched the wheat with her feet, and found him out and swallowed him. And, as the story says, she bore him nine months, and when she was delivered of him, she could not find it in her heart to kill him, by reason of his beauty. She wrapped him in a leather bag and cast him into the sea.
At that time the weir of Gwyddno was on the beach between Dyfi and Aberystwyth, near Gwyddno’s castle. Gwyddno had an only son named Elphin, the most hapless of youths and the neediest. Gwyddno granted him the drawing of the weir that year, to see if good luck would befall him and to give him a start in the world.
When Elphin went to look, there was nothing in the weir. Then he perceived the leather bag upon a pole of the weir. One of the weir guardians said to him, “You were never unlucky until tonight, but now you have destroyed the virtues of the weir. It always yielded 100 pounds’ worth of fish a year and now there is nothing but this leather skin.”
“There may be 100 pounds in it,” said Elphin.
The weir-ward opened the leather bag and saw the forehead of the boy inside. He said to Elphin, “There’s a radiant brow!”
“Let him be called Taliesin,” said Elphin, lifting the boy in his arms.
Elphin made his horse amble gently and he carried the boy as softly as he could. Then the boy praised him:
“Fair Elphin, cease to lament!
Let no one be dissatisfied with his own,
Despair brings no advantage.
No man sees what supports him.
Never in Gwyddno’s weir
Was there such good luck as tonight.
Fair Elphin, dry your cheeks!
Being too sad will do no good;
Nor doubt the miracles of the Almighty:
Although I am but little, I am gifted.
From seas and from mountains,
And from the depths of rivers,
God brings wealth to the fortunate man.
Elphin of lively qualities,
Your resolution is unmanly;
You must not be over-sorrowful:
Better to trust in God than to forbode ill.
Weak and small as I am,
On the foaming beach of the ocean,
In the day of trouble I shall be
Of more service to you than 300 salmon.
Elphin, do not be displeased at your misfortune:
With me as your protector
You have little to fear;
None shall be able to harm you.”
Gwyddno Garanhir asked the boy what he was, whether he was man or spirit. Then Taliesin sang this tale:
“First, I have been formed a comely person;
In the court of Ceridwen I have done penance;
Though I was seen but little, and received indifferently,
I have been a prized defense, the sweet muse the cause,
And by law without speech, I have been liberated
By a smiling old hag, when irritated,
Dreadful her claim when pursued;
I have fled with vigour, I have fled as a frog,
I have fled in the semblance of a crow, scarcely finding rest,
I have fled as a thrush of portending language,
I have fled as a fox, used to bounding,
I have fled as a martin, which was of no avail,
I have fled as a squirrel, that vainly hides,
I have fled as a stag’s antler, of ruddy course,
I have fled as iron in a glowing fire,
I have fled as a spear-head, which is woe to those who wish for it,
I have fled as a fierce bull fighting bitterly,
I have fled as a bristly boar seen in a ravine,
I have fled as a white grain of pure wheat,
On the skirt of a hempen sheet entangled,
That seemed the size of a mare’s foal,
That is filling like a ship on the waters.
Into a dark leather bag I was thrown,
And on a boundless sea I was set adrift;
Which to me was an omen of being tenderly nursed,
And the Lord God then set me at liberty.”
Then Elphin came to the house of Gwyddno, his father, and Taliesin with him. Gwyddno asked him if he had had a good haul at the weir and he told him that he had got something better than fish.
“What was that?” asked Gwyddno.
“A bard,” said Elphin.
Then said Gwyddno, “What use will he be to you?”
Taliesin himself replied, “More good than the weir ever profited you.”
Gwyddno asked, “Are you able to speak, when you are so small?”
Taliesin answered, “I am better able to speak than you to question me.”
“Let me hear what you have to say,” said Gwyddno.
Then Taliesin sang:
“In water there is a quality endowed with blessings;
On God it is most just to meditate aright;
To God it is proper to supplicate with seriousness,
Since there can be no obstacle to obtaining a reward from him.
Three times have I been born, I know by meditation;
It would be wretched if people could not come and learn
All the sciences of the world, that are gathered in my heart,
For I know what has been, and what will come to pass in future.
I will entreat my Lord to give me refuge,
A regard I may obtain in his grace;
The Son of Mary is my trust, great is my delight in him,
For in him the world is continually upheld.
God has been to instruct me and to raise my expectation,
The true Creator of Heaven, who affords me protection;
It is rightly intended that the saints should pray every day,
For God, the redeemer, will bring them to him.”
Elphin’s wife nursed Taliesin tenderly and lovingly. From then on, Elphin increased in riches day by day and increased in love and favor with the king. Taliesin lived with him until he was 13 years old, when Elphin accepted a Christmas invitation to stay with his uncle, Maelgwn Gwynedd.
Maelgwn held open court at Christmas-tide in the castle of Degannwy for all his lords and a discussion arose among the vast thronged host of knights and squires. Someone asked, “Is there in the whole world a king so great as Maelgwn, or one on whom Heaven has bestowed so many spiritual gifts? First, form, beauty, meekness, and strength, and all the powers of the soul besides!”
Others said Heaven had given one gift exceeding all the others: the beauty, comeliness, grace, wisdom, and modesty of his queen; her virtues surpassed those of all the ladies and noble maidens in the whole kingdom. And with this they put questions one to another among themselves. Who had braver men? Who had fairer or swifter horses or greyhounds? Who had more skillful or wiser bards than Maelgwn?
At that time the bards were in great favor with the exalted of the kingdom; none performed the office of those who are now called heralds unless they were learned men, not only expert in the service of kings and princes but studious and well versed in the lineage, arms, and exploits of the princes and the kings, and in discussions concerning foreign kingdoms, the ancient things of their own kingdom, and the annals of the first nobles. They were always prepared with their answers in various languages—Latin, French, Welsh, and English. They were great chroniclers and recorders, skillful in framing verses and ready in making englyns in every one of those languages. In the palace of Maelgwn there were at that feast as many as four-and-twenty bards, and chief of them all was Heinin Vardd.
When they had all made an end of praising the king and his gifts, it fell to Elphin to speak. “Truly only a king may compete with a king; but if Maelgwn were not a king, I would say that my wife was as virtuous as any lady in the kingdom. I would also say that I had a bard who was more skillful than all the king’s bards.”
The king’s friends quickly reported Elphin’s boasts to him. Maelgwn ordered him to be imprisoned until he learned the true virtues of his wife and the wisdom of his bard. Elphin was thrown into a tower of the castle with a heavy chain around his feet.
Then Maelgwn sent Rhun, his son, to inquire into the demeanor of Elphin’s wife. Rhun, the most graceless man in the world, went in haste toward Elphin’s house, minded to bring disgrace upon Elphin’s wife. She was forewarned, however: Taliesin told her that Maelgwn had placed Elphin his master in prison, and that Rhun was coming to bring disgrace upon her. He persuaded his mistress to dress one of the kitchen maids in her apparel, which the noble lady gladly did, loading the best rings she and her husband possessed onto the maid’s hands. Then Taliesin sat the disguised maiden down to supper in her mistress’s room.
Rhun arrived and was taken by the servants to the room of their mistress. The maid playing the mistress rose and welcomed him then sat down again and Rhun with her. He began jesting with her and slipped a sleeping powder into her drink. She fell asleep and slept so soundly that she never felt it when Rhun cut off her little finger bearing the signet ring of Elphin. He returned to the king with the finger and the ring as a proof that he had cut it from her hand without waking her from her drunken sleep.
Maelgwn rejoiced at this news. Then he had Elphin brought out of his prison and rebuked him for his boast. “Elphin, it is but folly for a man to trust in the virtues of his wife further than he can see her. You may be certain of your wife’s vileness. See, her finger, with your signet ring upon it, cut from her hand last night, while she was in a drunken stupor.”
Elphin said, “Mighty king, I cannot deny that that is my ring, but that finger is not my wife’s. There are three notable things about it. The first of the three is that this ring was hard to draw over the joint of this little finger. The second is that the nail of this little finger has not been pared for a month. The third is the hand from which this finger came was kneading dough three days before the finger was cut therefrom, and my wife has never kneaded dough since she has been my wife.”
Maelgwn was angry with Elphin for standing up to him and ordered him to prison a second time, saying that he should not be released until he had proved the truth of his boast concerning the wisdom of his bard and the virtues of his wife.
In the meantime Taliesin told Elphin’s wife that he would go to Maelgwn’s court to free his master. She asked how he would set Elphin free and Taliesin answered:
“A journey I will undertake,
And to the gate I will come.
The hall I will enter,
And my song I will sing;
My speech I will pronounce
To silence royal bards
In the presence of their chief—
And Elphin I will free.
Should contention arise,
In the presence of the prince,
With summons to the bards
For the sweet flowing song,
And wizards’ posing lore,
And the wisdom of the Druids.
In the court are some who did appear intent on cunning schemes,
By craft and tricking means,
Let the fools be silent,
As once in Badon’s fight,
With Arthur the leader of free men, with long red blades,
Through feats of testy men,
And a chief together with his foes.
Woe be to them, the fools,
When revenge comes upon them.
I, Taliesin, chief of bards,
With a wise Druid’s words,
Will set kind Elphin free
From a haughty tyrant’s shackles.
To their fell and chilling cry,
By the act of a surprising steed,
From the far distant North,
There soon shall be an end.
Let neither grace nor health
Be to Maelgwn Gwynedd,
For this force and this wrong,
And let there be extremes of woes
And an avenged end
To Rhun and all his race.
Let the course of his life be short,
Let all his lands be laid waste,
And let exile on far Iona be assigned
To Maelgwn Gwynned.”
After this, Taliesin took leave of his mistress and came at last to the court of Maelgwn, who was about to dine in royal state, as was the custom for kings at every feast.
When Taliesin entered the hall, he sat in a quiet corner, close to the place where the bards and the minstrels sat. The bards and the heralds came to cry largesse and proclaim the power of the king and his strength and, as they passed by the corner where he crouched, Taliesin pouted at them, and made a “Blerwm, blerwm” noise with his finger upon his lips.
The bards and heralds took little notice of him as they walked past and went before the king, to whom they bowed in the usual way. But then they said nothing but pouted, making faces at the king, and made a “Blerwm, blerwm” noise upon their lips with their fingers, just as they had seen the boy do.
The king wondered if they were drunk. He commanded one of his lords to go and tell them to collect their wits and to consider whether their behavior was appropriate. Nevertheless, the bards and heralds carried on making this strange childish noise.
Maelgwn sent to them a second and a third time, telling them to leave the hall. At last he ordered one of his squires to cuff the chief of the bards, Heinin Vardd. The squire took a broom and hit Heinin Vardd on the head, so that he fell back in his seat. Then Heinin went down on his knees, and pleaded with the king that it was not the bards’ fault, nor was it through drunkenness, but by the influence of some spirit that was in the hall in the form of a child.
The king immediately commanded the squire to find the boy and bring him forward. The squire went to the nook where Taliesin sat and brought him before the king. Maelgwn asked him what he was and where he came from. Taliesin answered the king in verse, singing:
“Chief bard am I to Elphin,
And I come from the region of the summer stars;
Idno and Heinin called me Merddin,
In time, every king will call me Taliesin.
I was with my Lord in the highest sphere,
On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell:
I have carried a banner before Alexander;
I know the names of all the stars from north to south;
I was in Canaan when Absalom was slain;
I conveyed the Divine Spirit to the vale of Hebron;
I was in the court of Don before the birth of Gwydion.
I was instructor to Eli and Enoc;
I have been winged by the genius of the splendid crozier;
I have been talkative before being gifted with speech;
I was at the place of the Crucifixion of the merciful Son of God
I have been three periods in the prison of Arianrod;
I have been the chief architect of the work of the tower of Nimrod
I am a wonder whose origin is not known.
I have been in Asia with Noah in the ark,
I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah;
I have been in India when Rome was built,
I am now come here to the remnant of Troy.
I have been with my Lord in the manger of the ass;
I strengthened Moses through the water of Jordan;
I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene;
I have obtained the muse from the cauldron of Caridwen;
I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin.
I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn,
For a day and a year in stocks and fetters,
I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin.
I have been fostered in the land of the Deity,
I have been teacher to all intelligences,
I am able to instruct the whole universe.
I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth;
And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish.
Then I was for nine months
In the womb of the hag Ceridwen;
I was once little Gwion,
And now, at last, I am Taliesin.”
When the king and his nobles heard Taliesin’s song, they were filled with wonder, because they had never heard anything like it from a boy as young as he. And when the king knew that Taliesin was the bard of Elphin, he bade Heinin, his first and wisest bard, to answer Taliesin and to compete with him.
But when Heinin came forward, he found he could do nothing but make the noise “blerwm.” When Maelgwn sent for the other four-and-twenty bards, they all did the same; they could make no other sound.
Maelgwn asked Taliesin what his errand was and Taliesin once more answered him in song:
“You puny bards, I am trying
To win the prize, if I can;
By a gentle prophetic strain
I am trying to win back
Any loss I may have suffered;
Complete the attempt I hope,
Since Elphin is in dire trouble
In the fortress of Degannwy.
On him may there not be laid
Too many chains and fetters.
Strengthened by my muse I am powerful.
On my part, might is what I seek,
For 300 songs and more
Are combined in the spell I sing.
There ought to stand where I am
Neither stone, neither ring;
And there ought not to be about me
Any bard who may not know
That Elphin the son of Gwyddno
Is in the land of Artro,
Secured by 13 locks,
For praising his instructor.
Then I, Taliesin,
Chief of the bards of the west,
Shall free Elphin
From his golden fetters.
If you are primary bards,
To the master of sciences
Declare mysteries
That relate to the inhabitants of the world;
There is a noxious creature,
From the rampart of Satan,
Which has overcome everything
Between the deep and the shallow;
His jaws are as wide
As the mountains of the Alps;
Death will not subdue him,
Nor will human hand nor blades of swords;
There is the load of 900 wagons
In the hair of his two paws
There is in his head an eye
Green as the limpid sheet of icicle.
Three springs arise
In the nape of his neck;
Sea-roughs thereon
Swim through it.
The names of the three springs
From the midst of the ocean;
One generated brine
Which is from the Corina,
To replenish the flood
Over seas disappearing;
The second, without injury
It will fall upon us,
When there is rain abroad,
Through the whelming sky.
The third will appear
Through the mountain veins,
Like a flinty banquet,
The work of the King of kings.
You bards are blunderers, with too much solicitude;
You are not competent to celebrate
The kingdom of the Britons.
And I am Taliesin,
Chief of the bards of the west,
It is I who will free Elphin
From his golden fetters.
Be silent, now, you luckless rhyming bards,
For you cannot judge between truth and falsehood.
If you are primary bards formed by heaven,
Tell your king what his fate will be.
It is I who am a diviner and a leading bard,
And know every passage in the country of your king;
I shall liberate Elphin from the belly of the stony tower;
And shall tell your king what will befall him.
A most strange creature will come from the sea marsh of Rhianedd
As a punishment on Maelgwn Gwynedd’s iniquity,
His hair, his teeth, and his eyes being as gold.
This will bring destruction upon Maelgwn Gwynedd.
Discover what it is,
This strong creature from before the flood,
This creature without flesh, without bone,
Without vein, without blood,
Without head, without feet.
It will be neither older nor younger
Than it was at the beginning.
Great God! How the sea whitens
When first it comes!
Great are the gusts of wind
When it approaches from the south;
Great is the rainfall
When it strikes on the coasts.
It is in the field, it is in the wood,
Without hand and without foot,
Without signs of old age,
Though it may be co-eval
With the five ages or periods of the Earth,
And older still,
Though they be years without number.
It is also as wide
As the surface of the Earth
And it was never born,
Nor was it ever seen.
It will cause consternation
Wherever God wills it.
On sea and on land,
It neither sees, nor is it seen.
Its course is devious
And it will not come when desired
On land and on sea,
It is indispensable.
It is without an equal,
It is four-sided;
It is not confined,
It is incomparable.
It comes from four quarters,
It will not be advised,
It will not be without advice.
It commences its journey Above the marble rock.
It is sonorous, it is dumb,
It is mild,
It is strong, it is bold,
When it glances over the land.
It is silent,
it is vocal,
It is clamorous,
It is the noisiest thing
On the face of the Earth.
It is good, it is bad,
It is extremely injurious.
It is concealed,
Because sight cannot perceive it.
It is noxious, it is beneficial;
It is yonder, it is here,
It will discompose,
But will not repair the injury;
It will not suffer for its doings,
Seeing it is blameless.
It is wet, it is dry,
It frequently comes,
Proceeding from the heat of the sun,
And the coldness of the moon.
The moon is less beneficial,
Inasmuch as her heat is less.
One Being has prepared it,
Out of all creatures,
By a tremendous blast—
All to wreak vengeance
On Maelgwn Gwynedd.”
While Taliesin was singing his verse near the door, a mighty storm of wind arose, and the king and all his nobles thought that the castle would fall on their heads. The king ordered them to fetch Elphin in haste from his dungeon and placed him before Taliesin. The moment Taliesin sang a verse, the chains opened from about Elphin’s noble feet and fell away from him. Taliesin sang:
“I adore the Supreme Lord of all animation,
Him that supports the heavens, Ruler of every extreme,
Him that made the water good for all,
Him who has bestowed each gift, and blesses it;
May abundance of mead be given
Maelgwn of Anglesey, who supplies us,
From his foaming meadhorns, with the choicest pure liquor.
Because the bees collect and do not enjoy,
We have sparkling distilled mead, which is universally praised.
The multitude of creatures which the Earth nourishes
God made for man, with a view to enriching him;
Some are violent, some are mute; he enjoys them all.
Some are wild, some are tame; the Lord makes them.
Part of their produce becomes clothing;
For food and beverage till doom will they continue.
I entreat the Supreme Sovereign of the region of peace,
To liberate Elphin from banishment,
The man who gave me wine and ale and mead,
With large princely steeds of beautiful appearance,
May he one day give me; and in the end,
May God of his good will grant me, in honour,
A succession of numberless ages in the retreat of tranquillity.
Elphin, knight of mead, may your life be long!”
Afterward he sang the ode that is called The Excellence of the Bards:
“What was the first man
Made by the God of Heaven?
What was the fairest flattering speech
That was prepared by Ieuav?
What meat, what drink,
What roof was his shelter?
What was the first impression
Of his primary thinking?
Who sported a disguise,
Owing to the wildness of the country,
In the beginning?
Why should a stone be hard?
Why should a thorn’s point be sharp?
Who is hard like a flint?
Who is salt like brine?
Who is sweet like honey?
Who rides on the gale?
Why should a wheel be round?
Why should the tongue be gifted with speech
Rather than another member?
Heinin, if your bards are able,
Let them reply to me—Taliesin.”
And after that he sang the address that is called The Reproof of the Bards:
“If you are a bard completely imbued
With a genius that cannot be controlled,
Do not be intractable
Within the court of your king;
Until your rigmarole shall be known,
Keep your peace, Heinin,
As to the name of your verse,
And the name of your vaunting;
And as to the name of your grandsire
Prior to his being baptized,
And the name of the sphere,
And the name of the element,
And the name of your language,
And the name of your region.
Avaunt, you bards above,
Avaunt, you bards below!
My beloved is below,
In the fetter of Arianrod.
It is certain you do not know
How to understand the song I utter,
Nor clearly how to discriminate
Between the truth and what is false.
You puny bards, crows of the district,
Why do you not take to flight?
A bard that will not silence me, may he not obtain silence,
Till he goes to be covered
Under gravel and pebbles;
Such as shall listen to me,
May God listen to him.”
Then he sang the piece called The Spite of the Bards:
“Minstrels persevere in their false custom,
Immoral ditties are their delight;
Vain and tasteless praise they recite;
Falsehood at all times do they utter;
They ridicule poor innocent people
And married women they destroy.
Innocent virgins of Mary they corrupt
As they pass their lives away in vanity;
At night they get drunk, and they sleep all day long
In idleness, without work.
They hate the Church, and they frequent the tavern;
They associate with thieves and perjured fellows;
At courts they inquire after feasts.
They bring forward every senseless word;
They praise every deadly sin;
They lead every vile course of life;
They stroll through every village, town, and country
Thinking nothing concerning the pain of death.
They give neither lodging nor charity,
They do not use psalms or prayers,
They do not pay tithes or offerings to God,
Nor worship on feast-days or Sundays;
They do not heed vigils or festivals.
The birds fly, and the fish swim,
Bees collect honey, and worms crawl;
Every living thing works to get food,
Except minstrels and lazy useless thieves.
I do not scorn songs, I do not scorn minstrels,
For they are given by God to lighten thought;
Only those who abuse them,
For blaspheming Jesus and his service.”
Taliesin had set his master free from prison and protected the innocence of his wife. He had silenced the bards —not one of them now dared say a word. Now he brought Elphin’s wife before them and showed that she had not one little finger missing. Elphin rejoiced, and so did Taliesin.
Then Taliesin asked Elphin to wager the king that he had a better and swifter horse than any of the king’s horses. This Elphin did. The day, the time, and the place were fixed, and the place was that which today is called Morfa Rhiannedd. The king went there with all his people, and four-and-twenty of the fastest horses he possessed. The course was marked out and the horses placed for running.
Then Taliesin came with four-and-twenty twigs of holly, which he had burned black, and he told the youth who was to ride his master’s horse to place them in his belt and gave him orders to let all the king’s horses go before him and then to overtake one horse after the other, and as he did so to take a twig and strike the horse with it over the crupper, and then let the twig fall; and after that to take another twig, and do the same thing to every one of the horses as he overtook them. He also told the horseman to watch out for when his own horse stumbled and to throw down his cap on the spot.
All these things the youth did and his horse won the race.
Afterward Taliesin brought Elphin to the spot where his horse had stumbled. He asked him to get workmen to dig there, and when they had dug a deep hole, they found a large cauldron full of gold.
Then Taliesin said, “Elphin, here is the payment and reward for you for rescuing me from the weir and for bringing me up from that time until now.”
On that spot today stands a pool of water, which is called Pwllbair.
After all this King Maelgwn ordered Taliesin to be brought before him and he asked him to recite the creation of man from the beginning. In response, Taliesin composed the poem which is now called One of the Four Pillars of Song:
“The Almighty made,
Down the Hebron vale,
With his sculpting hands,
The fair form of Adam:
And 500 years,
Devoid of any help,
He remained there and lay there
Without a soul.
Again he created,
In the tranquillity of Paradise,
From a left-side rib,
Bliss-throbbing Eve.
For seven hours they were
Content in that orchard,
Till Satan brought strife,
With cunning from hell.
From there they were they driven,
Cold and shivering,
To gain their living,
Into this world.
To bring forth with pain
Their sons and daughters,
To have possession
Of the land of Asia.
Twice five, ten and eight,
She was self-bearing,
The mixed burden
Of man-woman.
And once, not hidden,
She brought forth Abel,
And Cain the forlorn,
The homicide.
To him and his mate
Was given a spade,
To break up the soil,
Thus to get bread.
The wheat pure and white,
Summer tilth to sow,
To feed everyone,
Till the great yuletide feast.
An angelic hand
From the high Father,
Brought seed for growing
That Eve might sow;
But she then hid a tenth of the gift,
And did not sow all
Of what was dug.
For this thievish act,
It is necessary now
For every man to pay
A tithe unto God.
Of the ruddy wine,
Planted on sunny days,
And on new-moon nights;
And of the white wine too.
The wheat rich in grain
And red flowing wine
Christ’s pure body make,
Son of Alpha.
The wafer is flesh,
The wine is spilt blood,
The Trinity’s words
Sanctify them.”
See The Legend of Ys.
The seventeenth-century author of The Secret Commonwealth. It is believed that he was carried off into a fairy hill: the Fairy Knowe at Aberfoyle. He went against his will and it is thought that he was abducted by the fairies because he betrayed fairy secrets.
See Symbols: Mermaid.
This old Breton folk-tale was first published in 1637 and it finds strong echoes in folk-tales from both Ireland and Wales:
Many hundreds of years ago, the city of Ys, sometimes called Keris, was ruled by a prince named Gradlon (sometimes spelled Grallon) Meur, which means Gradlon the Great. His palace was built of marble, cedar, and gold. Gradlon himself was a good, even a saintly, man. He was the patron of Gwénnolé, the founder and first abbot of the first monastery ever built in Brittany.
Gradlon was a pious man, but he was also prudent and practical. He defended his capital, the city of Ys, from invasion by the sea by creating an enormous basin that took the overflow at high tide. This basin had a secret sluice gate and the king alone had a key to it; he alone was able to open and close the gate with the changing tide.
Gradlon’s daughter, Princess Dahut, was wayward. On one occasion, while her father slept, she arranged a secret banquet for her lover. They drank and drank and behaved more and more foolishly. In a final act of recklessness, it occurred to the princess that she might open the sluice gate. She crept silently into her father’s bedchamber and took the key from his girdle. Then she went and opened the gate. In rushed the water, pouring unstoppably into the city of Ys, until it was entirely submerged.
One version of the story adds the cautionary note that Ys was a city that was given over to the arts and the making of money. It was so devoted to the pursuit of luxury that it attracted criticism from St. Gwénnolé. He saw the city as a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah and predicted that it would come to a similarly catastrophic end. An ancient ballad elaborated on this theme. The pursuit of luxury would be the city’s ruin:
St. Gwénnolé woke King Gradlon up and told him to run for his life. He mounted his horse, swept up his worthless daughter, and rode at a gallop toward higher ground, the rising sea seething and boiling at his horse’s hooves.
The sea was on the point of overwhelming Gradlon when a disembodied voice said, “Throw the demon you are carrying into the sea, if you want to save yourself!”
Princess Dahut fell back off the horse’s rump into the water and the sea immediately stopped rising. Gradlon safely reached Quimper…
…and there the story ends.
The ballad version of the tale ends with Dahut turning into a mermaid, haunting the waters that cover the site of her father’s city:
“Fisherman, have you seen the daughter of the sea, combing her hair in the midday sun on the margins of the beach?”
“Yes,” says the fisherman, “I have seen the white daughter of the sea, and I have heard her sing, and her songs are as plaintive as the sound of the waves.”
Another version has Princess Dahut using the key to unlock a gate that she thought was the city gate, only she opened the sluice gate by mistake.
One tradition puts the location of the lost city of Ys in the Etang de Laval on the shore of the Bay of Trépassés. Another tradition places it on what is now the floor of the Bay of Douarnenez. Similar stories were told in other Celtic lands too, about a sunken city in Cardigan Bay or Lough Neagh:
On Lough Neagh’s bank as the fisherman strays,
When the clear, cold eve’s declining,
He sees the round towers of other days
In the wave beneath him shining.
The story was retold by Gerald of Wales in his Topography of Ireland; a certain Irish tribe was punished for its sins by the inundation of its territory:
There was a saying among this tribe that whenever the well-spring of that country was left uncovered (for, out of reverence, from a barbarous superstition, the spring was kept covered and sealed), it would immediately overflow and inundate the whole province, drowning and destroying the whole population.
It happened that a young woman came to the spring to draw water; after filling her pitcher but before she had closed the well, she ran in great haste to her little boy, whom she had heard crying at a spot not far from the spring where she had left him. But the voice of the people is the voice of God, and on her way back she met a huge flood of water from the spring. It swept her away with her boy, and the inundation was so violent that they both were drowned in an hour in this local deluge, and the whole tribe with its cattle. The waters covered the whole surface of that fertile district, and became a permanent lake.
A not improbable confirmation of this occurrence is found in the fact that the fishermen in that lake are said to see distinctly under the water, in calm weather, church towers, which, according to the custom of the country, are slender and lofty, and moreover round; and they frequently point them out to strangers traveling through those parts, who wonder what could have caused such a catastrophe.
There is also a Welsh poem about the submerging of Cantre’r Gwaelod in Cardigan Bay and another folk-tale about the disappearance of Llys Helig beneath the waters of Lake Bala. Possibly the Cornish legend of the lost land of Lyonesse (thought to lie between Cornwall and Scilly), flooded by the sea, belongs to the same tradition: an ancient legend common to the Atlantic coastlands (see Symbols: City Swallowed Up by the Sea).
The idea of losing land to the sea is easily explained. It was a natural process due to erosion and the gradual 7,000-year-long rising sea level. Both of these continue into the present. A conversation with a 97-year-old man living on the Sussex coast was recorded in the middle of the nineteenth century:
Seeing him looking sadly at the sea, I asked him, “What are you looking at?” and he said to me, “I am looking at where I was born.”
“What! Were you born in the sea?”
“Yes, there, where the sea is now, in a house which the sea has swept away. The well was hereabouts, somewhere, but I cannot see it now.”
An Irish fairy. Leprechauns are hoarders, but a man who is bold enough to seize one may be able to bully the little fellow into giving up his pot of gold. There is no record of anyone succeeding in catching a leprechaun, however. They are very quick, and even if you succeed in catching them they can slip through your fingers and away.
Lia Fáil, or Lia Fál, the Stone of Destiny, situated at Tara, was the stone on which the High Kings of Ireland were crowned. According to legend, it was brought to Ireland by the Tuatha dé Danann. Again according to legend, it recognized the true High King of Ireland by giving a loud shriek when he stood on it.
An early tale told about the stone concerns King Conn of the Hundred Battles, who went one day at sunrise to the battlements of the royal fortress at Tara, the Ri Raith. He took with him his three Druids—Mael, Bloc, and Bluicné, and his three bards—Ethain, Corb, and Cesare—so that they could watch the skies without any hostile being from the air descending on Ireland without his knowing. As he walked the battlements, Conn happened to tread on a stone, which shrieked so loudly that it could be heard all though East Meath. He asked his Druids what this meant. So profound was the meaning that they took 53 days to reach a decision.
The Druids told him that the name of the stone was Fál and that it came from the island of Fál. The number of shrieks the stone gave forth was the number of kings that would succeed him. Later the god Lugh led Conn to his house to tell him the length of his reign and the names of his successors.
This remarkable stone was one of the four precious things brought to Ireland by the Tuatha dé Danann.
See Symbols: Dragon.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi; Symbols: Magic.
See Symbols: Dragon.
See Symbols: The Grail Quest.
See Morven, the Prop of Brittany.
See The Salty Sea.
See The Vision of Mac Con Glinne.
See The Dream of Macsen Wledig.
An old Breton couple had two sons. The elder son went off to Paris to make his fortune. The younger son, La Rose, was timid and stayed at home. His aging mother urged him to marry. At first he resisted, but his mother pressed him and eventually he gave in and took a wife. But he had been married no more than few weeks when the new bride fell sick and died. La Rose was distraught with grief. He went every evening to his wife’s grave and wept.
One evening when he was about to go into the graveyard he saw a terrifying phantom, which asked him what he was doing there.
“I have come here to pray at the grave of my wife,” La Rose replied.
“And do you wish she was still alive?” the spirit asked.
“Oh yes!” La Rose replied. “I would do anything to have her restored to me again.”
“Listen, then,” the phantom said. “Come back to this place tomorrow evening at the same time. Bring a pick and you shall see what will come to pass.”
The following evening came and La Rose walked to the graveyard as instructed. The phantom appeared and said, “Go to your wife’s grave and strike at it with your pick. The earth will fall away and you will see her lying in her shroud. See this little silver box, which contains a rose. Take it, open it, and pass the box under her nose three times. Then she will wake as if from a deep sleep.”
La Rose hurried to his wife’s grave, where everything happened just as the phantom had foretold. He struck the ground with his pick and the earth fell away. He placed the box under his wife’s nose and she woke up with a sigh, as if from a deep sleep. La Rose had brought clothes with him for her to put on, and together they returned to the parents’ house. There was much rejoicing.
Some time afterward, La Rose’s father died of old age and his mother was not long following him. La Rose wrote a letter to his brother in Paris, telling him that he should return to receive his share of their inheritance, but he could not leave Paris just then, so La Rose was forced to travel to Paris instead. Before setting off, he promised his wife he would write to her every day.
When he reached Paris, he found his brother very ill. Preoccupied with nursing him back to health, he forgot to write to his wife. So the weeks passed.
The wife became increasingly fearful that something terrible had happened to her husband. She sat every day at the window, watching for a courier bringing her a letter or message, but nothing came.
A regiment of dragoons was billeted on the town. The captain was lodged at the inn immediately opposite La Rose’s house and he was strongly attracted to La Rose’s wife. He made inquiries about who she was and why she was so sad. He wrote her a letter, pretending to be her brother-in-law in Paris and telling her that her husband had died. Then, after a tactful interval, he started paying court to the young widow. He proposed marriage and she accepted. They married and when the regiment left the town, they both went with it.
Meanwhile, La Rose’s brother recovered and La Rose remembered his wife and rushed back to Brittany. When he got home, he was startled to find the doors of his house closed and bolted. The neighbors told him what had happened.
For a time he was too numb to act. Then he decided to enlist in the same regiment of dragoons as his wife’s new husband. He had fine handwriting and was taken on as secretary to one of the lieutenants. He tried to catch sight of his wife, but repeatedly failed to do so.
One day the wicked captain came into the lieutenants’ office, saw La Rose’s fine handwriting, and asked the lieutenant if he could borrow him for a few days to help him with his correspondence. This was agreed.
While La Rose was helping the captain, he saw his wife, but she didn’t recognize him. The captain was very pleased with La Rose’s letter-writing and asked him to dinner. During the meal, a servant who had stolen a silver dish and feared discovery slipped it into La Rose’s pocket. When the loss of the silver dish was discovered, the real thief accused La Rose of stealing it. The evidence spoke loudly against La Rose and his judges sentenced him to be shot.
In prison, while he was awaiting execution, La Rose struck up conversation with Père La Chique, the friendly old guard who brought him his food. “Père La Chique,” said La Rose, “I have 2,000 francs. If you do as I ask, the money is yours.”
The old man agreed at once. The young man requested that after the execution La Chique go to the graveyard where he was buried and bring him back to life with the magic rose, which he always carried carefully with him.
When the fateful day came, La Rose was shot, but Père La Chique went off to inn after inn with his money. As he was drinking more and more wine, occasionally the thought of La Rose crossed his mind, but he dismissed it: “Well, the poor fellow, he really is better off dead. The world is a wearisome place and he is better out of it. Whyever should I bring him back?”
After several days of drinking with his friends, Père La Chique had used up most of the money and began to regret that he had not done as the young man had asked. He took a pick to the graveyard and struck the ground with it. The earth fell away, exposing the corpse of La Rose. The old man was terrified and ran away. He needed a gulp or two of wine to give him the courage he needed to complete the task. But back he went and passed the rose in the silver box three times under the corpse’s nose.
La Rose sat up at once. “That was a good sleep, but where are my clothes?”
The old man gave him his clothes and when he was properly dressed they quickly left the graveyard.
Now La Rose needed to make a living. He followed the sound of a drum beating in the street and listened to a crier announcing a large reward for any who would act as a sentry to guard the chapel where the king’s daughter had been incarcerated; she had been magically turned into a monster.
La Rose volunteered, then discovered that every sentinel who watched the chapel between the hours of 11 and 12 had disappeared, never to be seen again. By chance, on his very first night he was given that perilous midnight watch. He was on the point of running away when he heard a voice: “La Rose, where are you? Listen, and no harm will come to you. A fearsome great beast will appear. When it does, leave your musket by the sentry box and climb onto its roof and the beast will not touch you.”
The hour of 11 struck. La Rose hurried to get up on top of the sentry box. A hideous monster emerged from the chapel, belching flames and bellowing, “Sentinel of my father, where are you, that I may devour you?” It blundered into the musket, which it seized in its teeth and took back into the chapel to eat.
La Rose cautiously got down from his perch to find the musket crunched into a thousand pieces.
The king was pleased when he heard about La Rose’s success; he knew that if the same sentry kept guard on the midnight watch for three consecutive nights his daughter would be freed from her enchantment.
On the second night, the mysterious voice told La Rose to place his musket against the chapel door before climbing to safety and the same thing happened as on the first night.
On the third night, the voice told him to open the door of the chapel and when the monster came charging out he should run inside the building himself. There he would find a leaden shrine that he should hide behind; he would also find a small bottle containing a liquid that he had to sprinkle on the monster’s head.
La Rose did as he was told, escaping from the monster just in time and reaching the leaden shrine. When he sprinkled the contents of the bottle on the monster’s head, it changed instantly into a beautiful princess.
The king was delighted to have his daughter restored to him and gave her to La Rose as his bride. Shortly afterward, the king gave up his throne in his son-in-law’s favor.
One day, the new king inspected the regiment of dragoons to which he had once belonged and pointed out that a man was missing. The colonel was startled, but said, “It is true, sire. A useless old man called Père La Chique. We left him back at the barracks playing the fiddle!”
“Well, I want to see him,” said the king.
La Chique was very frightened as he was dragged before the king, but the king tore the epaulettes off the captain who had deceitfully stolen his wife and placed them instead on the trembling shoulders of Père La Chique. Then he gave the order for a great bonfire to be lit, and onto it were thrown the deceitful captain and the faithless wife who had so quickly forgotten her husband.
Then the king and his queen lived happily ever after.
See The Salty Sea.
See Branwen, The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
See Tristan and Iseult.
A wild young nobleman, Louis-François de Guérande, Seigneur of Locmaria, lived a reckless life in the early seventeenth century. He terrorized the neighborhood, so whenever he went out on the rampage his virtuous mother rang the bell of the château to warn her neighbors.
One day, the Clerk of Garlon was visiting the family of his wife-to-be, Annaik. He asked the girl’s mother where she was, as he wanted to take her dancing on the green. The mother answered that the girl was upstairs asleep and that he should take care not to wake her.
The Clerk of Garlon ran upstairs and knocked at Annaik’s door. He could not understand why she was asleep in bed when everyone else was out, intent on dancing on the green.
“I don’t want to go to the dance because I fear the Marquis,” she said.
“The Marquis can do you no harm so long as I am with you,” said the Clerk. “Come, Annaik, I will look after you.”
The girl rose and dressed in velvet embroidered with silver. The Clerk too was finely dressed, with a peacock’s feather in his hat.
The Marquis de Guérande leaped onto his horse and rode out from his château. As he galloped along the road, he overtook the Clerk of Garlon and Annaik. “Ah, you go to the dance. It is customary to wrestle there, is it not?”
“It is, sir,” the Clerk said, politely.
The Marquis smiled roguishly at the girl and tried to persuade the Clerk to take off his doublet and wrestle with him. But the Clerk declined; he did not think it appropriate because of the difference in their social status.
“You are the son of a peasant, you say,” said the Marquis, “yet you take your choice of the village girls!”
“I did not choose this maiden, sir,” said the Clerk. “God gave her to me.”
Annaik was now very frightened. She could see that she was threatened by the Marquis. The Clerk tried to reassure her by holding her hand, while the Marquis was reveling in the fear he inspired. He tried to lure the Clerk into a sword fight.
“I wear no sword, sir. The club is my only weapon,” said the Clerk.
Then, without any sense of honor whatever, the Marquis drew his sword and ran the Clerk through with it.
Annaik was overcome by grief and rage. She leaped at the Marquis and pulled his sword out of his hand. Then she dragged him to the green, where the dance had begun, and pulled him around until he was exhausted. She dropped his senseless body on the grass and hurried home.
“Good mother, if you love me, make my bed, for I am sick unto death.”
The mother thought she had danced too much; that was what had made her ill.
“I have not danced at all,’ said Annaik. “The wicked Marquis has killed the poor Clerk. Tell the sexton who buries him not to throw in too much earth. In a little while he will have to put me beside him. We may not share the same marriage bed, but we shall sleep in the same grave. We shall be joined at least in heaven.”
This ballad is about the Breton expedition to Wales in 1405 to help the Welsh to free themselves from English rule; this was the time of the Owen Glendower revolt. The Bretons gave significant support to the Welsh and had the satisfaction of knowing that they had succeeded in invading English territory, which no French king had ever managed to do. The expeditionary force of 10,000 men was led by Marshal Jean de Rieux.
The morning after his betrothal, a young man received orders to join the standard of de Rieux to help the Bretons overseas. He went with heavy heart to say goodbye to his betrothed, Aloida. He told her that duty demanded that he sail to England. She begged him not to go, reminding him how changeable the wind and sea were. She asked him what she would do if he died; every day she would be impatient for news of him. “I shall wander by the seashore, from cottage to cottage, asking the sailors if they have heard anything of you.”
The young man asked her to stop weeping. He would send her a girdle from over the sea: a purple girdle set with rubies. They parted.
The man went to board his ship, and as he did so, he heard some magpies cackling, “If you think the sea is changeable, young women are much more so.”
When autumn came, the girl said, “I have looked far out to sea from the mountain heights. Out on the water I saw a ship in danger. I sense that the man I love was on it. He had a sword in his hand and he was fighting fiercely. He was wounded to the point of death. I am sure he must be dead.”
Not many weeks passed before she was betrothed to someone else.
Then the news came that the war was over. The cavalier went back home. As soon as he could, he went to find his beloved. As he got nearer to her house, he heard the sound of music and saw that every window of the house was lit as if for a celebration. He met some revelers outside and they told him it was a wedding.
It was the custom in Brittany to ask beggars in to weddings and because of this, the soldier was invited in, but he sat apart, silent and sad. The bride noticed this and went up to him to ask him why he wasn’t joining in the feasting. He said he was tired from traveling and his heart was heavy with sorrow. The bride asked him to dance and he agreed.
As they danced, he murmured in her ear, “What have you done with the golden ring that I gave you in this very room?”
The bride stared at him in dismay. She had thought she was a widow and now she realized she had two husbands.
“Then you think wrongly,” the “beggar” hissed, “for you have no husband at all this side of the grave.” He drew a dagger and struck the faithless young woman through the heart.
The magpies had been right.
In the abbey of Daoulas is a statue of the Virgin. She has a splendid girdle of purple with sparkling rubies and they came from across the sea. If anyone wants to know who gave it to her, they may ask the penitent monk who lies prostrate on the ground in front of the figure of the Mother of God.
It is curious that the faithless bride should have “seen” her lover perish in a naval skirmish off the Breton coast, as there was a real skirmish at just the right time. In 1405, the very year the ballad refers to, a Breton fleet encountered an English flotilla off Brest and there was a terrible battle. Perhaps this was the sea fight the lady saw.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi; Symbols: Magic.
Etain was the second wife of Midhir, King of the Fairy Hill of Bri Leith. His first wife, Fuamach, was jealous of her and with the aid of the Druid Bresal Etarlaim she turned her into a fly and blew her away into the land of the mortals. There she was blown about for seven years in misery.
Fuamach’s wicked actions eventually became known and Angus Mac Og beheaded her.
After seven years, Etain was blown into the hall where Etar of Inver Cechmaine was feasting. She fell from the roof into the gold cup of Etar’s wife, who swallowed her when she drank some wine. Nine months later, Etain was born as Etar’s daughter and was again named Etain. She became the most beautiful woman in Ireland. When she grew to womanhood, Eochaid, the High King of all Ireland, saw her, paid court, and took her back with him to Tara.
All this time, Midhir knew where she was.
At the wedding feast, Eochaid’s younger brother, Ailell, fell in love with Etain. He tried to suppress his longing and fell ill. The doctor said it was love-longing, but he denied it.
Eochaid had to journey around Ireland to receive homage from the kings; while he was away, he committed Ailell to Etain’s care. She tried to persuade Ailell to tell her what it was that was bringing him to the gates of death, but he would not. At last she guessed, and realized that the only way to save his life was to yield to his longing. She arranged to meet him early the next morning outside the town.
Ailell was happy and lay awake all night. At dawn he fell into a deep sleep and so didn’t go to meet Etain.
At the time that she had arranged to meet Ailell, Etain saw another man approaching. They looked at each other, Etain realized he was not Ailell, and he went on his way. When she went back, she found Ailell awake and angry with himself for missing their meeting.
The next morning the same thing happened again.
On the third morning the same thing happened again. But this time Etain spoke to the strange man. She explained to him that she had not come to meet a man out of wantonness but to heal him.
The stranger said to her, “You would do better to come with me. I was your first husband, in days long gone.”
“What is your name?”
“It is easy to tell you that. I am Midhir of Bri Leith.”
He went on to tell Etain how she had been spellbound by Fuamach, turned into a fly, and blown out of the Land of Tir nan Og. Then he asked if she would go back with him.
But she said, “I will not leave Eochaid to go away with a stranger.”
Midhir told her that it was he who had put the spell of yearning on Ailell and it was he too who had prevented Ailell from going to meet her in order to save her honor.
Then Etain went back to Ailell and found that he had recovered. The yearning had left him. They were both relieved that they had been saved from betraying Eochaid. When Eochaid returned, they told him everything that had happened. Eochaid praised Etain for her kindness to his brother.
Later, Midhir appeared again to Etain in the likeness of a stranger. No one else saw him. No one else heard him sing his song in praise of the wonders of the Land of Tir nan Og. He begged Etain to return with him, but still she refused to leave Eochaid. Then he asked her if she would go if Eochaid willingly gave her up to him, and she agreed.
Midhir then appeared to Eochaid and challenged him to three games of chess. According to the custom in those days in Ireland, the stakes were not named by the winner until after the game was won. Eochaid won two of the games, asking first for a great tribute of horses, then for three tasks that took all Midhir’s fairies to accomplish. But Midhir won the third game and he asked for Eochaid’s wife. Eochaid refused to agree to this, so Midhir softened his demand. Could he instead kiss Etain? Eochaid agreed. The stakes were to be exchanged in one month.
When Midhir reappeared at the end of the month, Eochaid had gathered all his warriors around him and as soon as Midhir entered, he barred the doors behind him so that he couldn’t take Etain away. Midhir drew his sword with his left hand and embraced Etain with his right hand and kissed her. Then they rose together through the roof. The warriors rushed outside, where they saw two swans flying over the palace of Tara, linked together by a golden chain.
But the story did not end there. Eochaid could not forget Etain. After years of searching he discovered where she was. He made war on the realm of fairy and Etain was given back to him. But the wrath of the Tuatha dé Danann fell upon Eochaid and all of his descendants for the harm they had wrought on the Land of Tir nan Og.
Morvan, Prince of Leon, was a historical figure. In the ninth century he achieved fame as an upholder of Breton independence, hence his nickname, “The Prop of Brittany.” He became the hero of a series of ballad tales that, assembled together, almost amount to an epic. They describe Morvan’s life, travels, adventures, and death, and the wonderful feats he performed along the way. He occupies a similar place in Breton legend to Arthur in British legend.
The ballad ultimately composed by Villemarqué was drawn from ancient Celtic sources. There are resemblances to Arthurian romances. The description of the flight of young Morvan is very similar to the episode in the Arthurian saga Percival le Gallois in which the boy Percival leaves his mother’s care in exactly the same way. The Frankish king and his court are depicted in a style similar to that of the Chanson de Gestes celebrating the deeds of Charlemagne. The severed head represents much more ancient material (see Religion: Headhunting).
The boy Morvan was sitting at the forest edge on day when a knight rode out from among the trees on a great charger. The boy was alarmed by the dramatic appearance of the knight, thought he was St. Michael, and ran away. But the knight overtook him. The boy cried, “Seigneur St. Michael, please do me no harm.”
The knight laughed. “I’m not St. Michael, just a belted knight: there are scores of us about!”
“I’ve never seen a knight before,” said the boy. “What is it you are carrying?”
“That is a lance, my boy.”
“And what are you wearing on your head and chest?”
“A casque and breastplate. They are meant to protect me from the blows of swords and spears. Tell me, boy, have you seen anyone pass this way?”
“Yes, seigneur. A man went by on this very road not half an hour ago.”
“Thank you, boy. If anyone asks who spoke to you, say the Count of Quimper.”
He spurred his horse and set off down the road in the direction Morvan had indicated.
Morvan went back to his mother to tell her of his meeting. He was full of the knight’s military bearing, his gallantry, and his grace. “Mother, you never saw such a splendid man, nobler than the Archangel Michael whose image is painted on the wall of our church.”
Morvan’s mother patted him fondly. “No man looks as noble as the Archangel Michael!”
But Morvan was convinced that he was right. “I wish I could grow up to be like that and become a knight too.”
His mother was so dismayed that she fell down in a faint. She had lost her husband in battle and dreaded that the same fate might overtake her son. The boy was so preoccupied with his vision that he scarcely noticed. He went to the stable and led out a horse. He jumped up onto its back, turned its head, and cantered off after the knight.
Young Morvan passed the next ten years in martial adventures. Then he was suddenly seized with a desire to revisit his ancestral mansion and made his way home.
He was dismayed to find brambles and nettles growing over the threshold of the house and the walls disintegrating and overgrown with ivy, that exploiter of neglect.
As he was about to go inside, he noticed an old blind woman standing near the entrance. He asked if he might have hospitality for the night.
“We have little to offer, sir,” she said. “The house has gone to ruin since its son and heir left.”
A young maiden came out, looked at Morvan, and burst into tears.
“How now, why do you weep?”
“Alas, my lord, my brother left us ten years ago to lead the life of a soldier. Every time I see a youth of about his age it reminds me of him.”
“And your mother? What of her?” asked Morvan.
“Alas, my lord, she too is gone. There’s no one here now but me and my old nurse. My mother died of grief when my brother rode away to become a knight.”
Morvan was deeply stirred. “Wretch that I am, I have been the cause of my mother’s death!”
The maiden turned pale. “In heaven’s name, who are you?”
“I am Morvan, son of Conan, and Lez-Breiz is my surname. And you are my sister.”
The maiden stared at him, then fell into his arms, praising God that her long-lost brother had come back.
Morvan could not remain long at his home. His fireside was the tented field, his recreation was the clash of battle. One day he said to his squire, “Rouse yourself, young squire. Furnish my sword, shield, and casque and let me smear them with the blood of the Franks. Today, with this right arm, I hope to carry slaughter into their ranks.”
The squire wanted to join him in the battle. “Shall I not fight at your side today, my lord?”
Morvan smiled, remembering his own over-eagerness to join the fray when he met the Count of Quimper. “Think of your mother, boy. You might never return to her. Just think of her grief if you should die today.”
The boy would not be put off. “Oh, lord, if you love me, please grant my wish. Please let me fight beside you!”
So it was that when Morvan rode off to battle one hour later his squire rode beside him. As they passed the church of St. Anne of Armor, they went in.
Morvan prayed to St. Anne. “Most holy lady, I have been in 20 battles, yet I am but 20 years old. All gained by your aid. And if I come back again alive, I shall make you a rich gift. I shall give you enough candles to go three times round your church and three times round your churchyard. As well as this I shall give you a white satin banner with an ivory staff. And I shall give you seven silver bells to ring gaily day and night above your head. And I will draw water for your use three times—on my knees.”
The enemy watched Morvan approaching them from a long way off. He was mounted on a small, white donkey with a halter of hemp, as a gesture of contempt. Morvan’s chief enemy, Lorgnez, launched himself at Morvan with a band of warriors, while Morvan had only his little squire behind him. On the enemy came. At first the little squire was alarmed, but he rallied when his master spoke to him and drew his sword and spurred his horse forward.
Morvan came face to face with Lorgnez and hailed him politely. “Seigneur Lorgnez! Good day to you, sir!”
Lorgnez replied with equal courtesy. “Good day to you, Seigneur Morvan! Will you join with me in single combat?”
But then the courtesies were done. “I will not,” said Morven. “Go back to your king and tell him I despise him. I scoff at you and those you have about you. Go back to Paris, take off your mail, and put on the silken armor of fops. That would suit you far better!”
The face of Lorgnez flushed with rage. “The lowest scoundrel in my company will knock the helm from off your head for this.”
Then Morvan drew his great sword…
The ancient hermit of the wood heard knocking at his door. He opened it quickly and saw the little squire standing there. He was startled at the sight of the boy’s bloodstained armor and pallid face. “My son, you are badly hurt. Let me wash your wounds at the fountain. Then rest here awhile.”
The boy shook his head. “I may not rest, good father. I have come for water for my master, who has fallen in the fight. He has slain 30 warriors, and Lorgnez was the first.”
The hermit showed concern. “Alas that he has fallen.”
The boy said, “Do not grieve. It is true that he has fallen, but only from exhaustion. He is not wounded and shortly will recover.”
Once recovered, Morvan went back to the chapel of St. Anne. True to his word, he bestowed on her all the gifts he promised.
“Praise be to St. Anne,” he cried, “for it is she who has won this victory.”
The King of the Franks sat among his courtiers, listening to news of a fresh exploit of Morvan. “I wish someone would rid me of this troublesome Morvan,” he said. “He constantly afflicts the Frankish lands and kills my bravest warriors.”
The King’s Blackamoor stood up, a giant among men, towering head and shoulders above them all. “Let me fulfill your wishes. Sir Morvan has sent me his glove. If tomorrow I do not bring you his head, I will let you have my own.”
The following morning, Morvan’s squire went to his master in a state of alarm. “Lord, the King’s Blackamoor has come. He says he defies you.”
Morvan took up his sword.
The boy was even more alarmed. “Dear master, take care what you do. This moor is a demon who practises enchantments.”
Morvan laughed. “Can the demon resist cold steel? Go, saddle my black charger.”
“Saving your grace,” said the boy, “you will not choose the black charger. He has been bewitched. You will notice that when you enter the lists to fight the Moor will throw his cloak to the ground. You must not do the same; if you do and your cloak falls underneath his then the power of the giant will be doubled. When the Moor attacks, use your lance to make the sign of the cross. When he rushes at you, attack him with the steel.”
Then the heroes met in the lists. The King of France and his noblemen followed the giant to witness the combat. The trumpets sounded and the two champions rushed furiously at each other. They circled each other, watching for an opportunity for a strike. Then one man struck, the other retaliated, and blood flowed over the bright armor.
The King of the Franks shouted for action from his Blackamoor. “Ho! Black crow of the sea, pierce me now!”
At this, the giant Blackamoor fell upon Morvan. Their lances crossed, but the Moor’s broke like matchwood. They leaped to the ground and exchanged many powerful strokes. Sparks flew up from their armor as they clashed. The Moor gripped his sword with both hands and prepared to strike a mighty killing blow. Morvan, swift as thought, plunged his own blade deep into the Moor’s armpit, through to the heart, and the giant fell to the ground like a toppled tree.
Morvan put his foot on the dead giant’s chest, pulled out his sword, and used it to cut off the Moor’s head. He tied this bleeding battle trophy to the pommel of his saddle, rode proudly home with it, and mounted it on his castle gate.
All men hailed Morvan’s heroic deed, but he was modest and gave the grace of victory to St. Anne alone. He would build a chapel in her honor up on the heights between Léguer and the Guindy.
One day Morvan rode out to do battle with no less a foe than the King of the Franks himself. The king rode out with 5,000 mounted men-at-arms, a huge army, and as he set off a mighty clap of thunder boomed across the vault of heaven.
The king’s nobles, riding with him, knew it was an omen. One of them said, “My lord, turn back. The day has started with such an evil sign.”
The king replied briskly, “I have given the order. We must march.”
That same morning, Morvan’s sister said to him, “If you love me, dear brother, do not seek this battle with the king, for if you do you must surely meet your death. Then what will become of me? On the shore I see the white seahorse, the symbol of Brittany, entwined about by a monstrous serpent, gripping him by the hind legs. The sea stallion rears round to bite the serpent, but the fight is too unequal. You alone, and the Franks without number!”
But Morvan was on his way, cantering out of earshot…
The hermit who lived in the greenwood of Helléan lay sleeping. He was woken by three knocks at his door. Outside someone said, “Good hermit, please open your door. I need sanctuary and help from you.”
A cold wind blew from the land of the Franks. It was that time of night when wild beasts wander the woods, looking for prey. The hermit was reluctant to open his door. “Who are you, knocking at my door in the night, demanding to be let in? How can I tell if you are true? How can I tell if I can trust you?”
“Good priest, I am well known in this land. I am Morvan Lez-Breiz, the Ax of Brittany.”
“I’ll not open my door to you,” the hermit answered quickly. “I know you for a rebel and a mortal foe of the King of the Franks.”
Morvan grew angry. “No! I am a Breton true: neither traitor nor rebel. It is the King of the Franks who has betrayed this land.”
“Silence!” the hermit replied. “The King of the Franks is a man of God. You may not slander him so.”
“No man of God, but rather of the devil. He has ravaged the lands of the Bretons and the gold that he wrests from the people of Brittany is spent on the work of the devil. Open the door, hermit!”
“I will not, my son. If I did, the Franks would find fault with me.”
Morvan was furious. “You refuse? Then I shall break down your door.” He threw himself against the door, which creaked but held shut.
“Stop, my son!” cried the old hermit, fearing for his door. “Stop and I will open the door.”
He took up a torch, lit it from the embers of his hearth-fire, and went to open the door.
The hermit unlocked the door and pulled it open. He recoiled in terror when he saw what was waiting outside. A terrible headless phantom advanced toward him, holding its severed head in front of it as it approached. Its eyes seemed to boil with blood and fire, rolling around and around. The hermit was revolted and frightened by what he saw.
The head laughed at him, and spoke: “Old Christian, fear not. God permits this. God allowed the Franks to cut off my head, but only for a time. What you see now is only a phantom. But God will allow you, old hermit, to put my head back on my shoulders—if you will.”
The hermit was reluctant. He drew back. He had seen things from the Otherworld before—things he had reason to dread. But he had also fallen under Morvan’s spell, Morvan the hero of the Bretons, even though he believed himself the subject of the King of the Franks. He overcame his natural fear and said, “If God is willing for this to happen, then I too am willing to place your head back on your shoulders.”
“Take it,” said Morvan’s bloody head, “take it, then.”
The quaking priest took the repulsive trophy from Morvan’s hands and placed it on the chief’s broad shoulders. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Sprit, I replace your head, my son.”
With that benediction, the phantom once more became a man.
“You must do a great penance, Morvan,” the hermit told him. “You must carry with you for seven years a cloak of lead, chained to your neck. Each day at noon you must fetch water from the well at the top of that mountain over there.”
Morvan was happy to do as the hermit asked. “I will abide by your wish, old man.”
The seven long years of penance passed. By the end of the seventh year, the leaden cloak had chafed and cut Morvan’s skin, his beard had become gray, and his hair fell almost to his waist. No one recognized him now, except a lady dressed in white who passed one day through the greenwood and gazed earnestly at him with tear-filled eyes.
“It is you, Morvan, my son. Come here, so that I may free you of your burden.”
With a pair of golden scissors, she cut the chain that fastened the leaden cloak to the penitent’s shoulders.
“I am your patron, Saint Anne of Armor.”
For seven years, the squire of Morvan had been searching for his master. One day he was riding through the greenwood of Helléan. “Alas,” he said to himself, “I have killed the man who murdered him, but I have lost my dear lord.”
Then he heard the whinnying of a horse at the far end of the wood. His own horse sniffed the air and answered the distant whinny. Then, between the branches, the squire saw a great black charger. It was Morvan’s fine steed. It whinnied plaintively, as if it stood upon its master’s grave.
But Morvan will return one day to fight the Franks and drive them out of the land of the Bretons.
A cycle of Breton folk-tales deals with the winds, which play a major part in Breton folklore. Fishermen on the north coast are said to speak to the winds as if they are living beings, shaking their fists and swearing at them if they blow in the “wrong” direction.
There was once a goodman and his wife who had a little field where they could grow flax. One year their field produced a particularly fine crop. After cutting it, they laid it out to dry. Then Norouas, the North-West Wind, with one sweep of his great wings tossed it up into the air as high as the tree-tops. It fell into the sea and was lost.
The goodman saw what had happened and began to swear at the North-West Wind. He took a stick and set out to find and kill Norouas for spoiling his crop.
He was impatient to set off and took no food or money with him. When night fell, hungry and penniless, he came upon an inn. He explained his situation to the hostess. She gave him some bread and allowed him to sleep in a corner of the stable. When morning came, he asked her the way to the abode of Norouas and she took him to the foot of a mountain, where she said the wind lived.
The goodman climbed the mountain and on the summit he met Surouas, the South-West Wind. The goodman asked if he was Norouas, but the wind denied it.
“Where is that rogue Norouas?” the goodman cried.
Surouas hushed him. “Not quite so loud, goodman. If he hears you he will throw you up into the air like a straw.”
Then Norouas appeared, whistling wildly.
“Ah, you thief!” cried the goodman. “It was you who stole my lovely crop of flax!”
But the North-West Wind took no notice of him.
“Give me back my flax!” the goodman shouted furiously.
“Hush!” said Norouas. “Here’s a napkin that may keep you quiet.”
The goodman howled in frustration, “But with my crop of flax I could have made a hundred napkins like this. Give me back my flax!”
“Hush, you fool,” said the North-West Wind, “this is no ordinary napkin I am giving you. You have only to say ‘Napkin, unfold’ and you will have the best-laid table in the world.”
The goodman grumbled as he took the napkin and went down the mountain. Disinclined to believe what Norouas had said, he placed the napkin down in front of him and said the words “Napkin, unfold” as he had been told.
Instantly a table appeared spread with a banquet. The smell of finely cooked dishes filled the goodman’s nostrils and rare wines sparkled and glowed in glittering vessels.
When he had finished eating, the goodman folded up his napkin and returned to the inn where he had slept the previous night.
The hostess asked, “Well, did you get any satisfaction out of Norouas?”
“I did indeed,” the goodman said, eager to demonstrate his success. He produced the napkin and said, “Napkin, unfold.” Instantly the magic table appeared, laden with food and drink.
The hostess was speechless with astonishment. She wanted that napkin for herself. That night she placed the goodman in a handsome bedchamber with a beautiful bed and a soft feather mattress. He slept more soundly than he had ever slept in his life. While he was asleep, the cunning hostess tiptoed into the room and stole the napkin, leaving one that looked similar in its place.
In the morning the goodman set off for home and eventually arrived at his little farm. His wife eagerly asked him if Norouas had made reparation for the damage done to the flax and he said that he had. He proudly produced the napkin from his pocket, anticipating how pleased his wife would be when he demonstrated what it could do.
“Well,” said the wife, unimpressed, “we could have made two hundred napkins like this from the flax that he destroyed.”
“Ah, but this napkin is not the same as the others,” said the goodman. “I only have to say ‘Napkin, unfold’ and a table loaded with food appears.”
He said the words but nothing happened.
“You are an old fool,” said his wife.
The husband’s jaw dropped and he grabbed his stick. “I have been tricked by that scoundrel Norouas!” he shouted. “I shall not spare him this time.”
He rushed off toward the home of the winds.
As before he slept at the inn and the following morning climbed the mountain. He called loudly on Norouas, demanding for his crop of flax to be returned.
“Be quiet!” Norouas shouted back.
“I shall not be quiet!” The goodman shook his stick. “You cheated me with that napkin of yours.”
“Very well,” Norouas answered. “Here is an ass. You have only to say ‘Ass, make me some gold’ and it will fall from his tail.”
The goodman was eager to test the value of his new acquisition and led it to the foot of the mountain. He said, “Ass, make me some gold.” The ass shook its tail and a shower of gold pieces fell to the ground.
The goodman hurried back to the inn, where he showed the magic donkey to the hostess. That night, she went to the stable and exchanged the magic ass for an ordinary one and the goodman took the wrong ass home to show to his wife.
Once again the goodman launched into a demonstration of his prize. The ass failed to respond to the magic words and the goodman’s wife ridiculed him a second time.
He set off in a towering rage, arriving on the mountain of the winds for a third time, and called on Norouas, heaping insults on him.
Norouas replied, “Gently, gently. Ease off, my friend. I am not to blame for your misfortune. You must know that it is the hostess at the inn where you slept who is the guilty party. She is the one who stole your napkin. She is the one who stole your ass. Take this cudgel. When you say ‘Strike, cudgel’ it will attack your enemies for you. All you have to do is to say ‘Ora pro nobis.’ When you want it to stop.’
The goodman was eager to try it out, so he said at once, “Strike, cudgel.” The cudgel set about beating him soundly, which he deserved. He shouted, “Ora pro nobis!” and made it stop.
He went back to the inn in a black mood, loudly demanding that the hostess return his napkin and ass. She threatened to call the constables. He cried, “Strike, cudgel,” and the cudgel straightaway set about giving her a beating. She begged the goodman to call it off and said she would give him back his napkin and his ass.
Once he had his property back, the goodman hurried home, where his wife was overjoyed by the treasures he conjured up. He rapidly became rich.
But his neighbors were suspicious at the sight of so much wealth acquired invisibly. They reported him to the constable and he was accused of wholesale murder and robbery and taken before a judge, who sentenced him to death.
On the day of his execution, he made a final request: that his cudgel might be brought to him. This favor was granted.
He cried, “Strike, cudgel,” and the cudgel beat the judge, the constables, and the neighbors so hard that they all fled. It beat the scaffold too, breaking it up, and cracked the hangman’s head. There was a general cry for mercy and the goodman was instantly pardoned.
After that, he and his wife were left alone to enjoy the treasures the North-West Wind had given him as compensation for his ruined crop of flax.
The Nuberu is a character in Galician mythology. He is the Cloud Master, the god of clouds and storms. He is sometimes represented as a man with a bushy beard, wearing goat leathers and a big hat. He wields control over the weather and entertains himself by setting off storms and launching gales, striking down livestock with bolts of lightning, and wrecking the harvests of men with storms of rain and hail. He can be cruel to people, but he can also be kind to those who have helped him:
Long ago, the Nuberu arrived on a cloud, but was unlucky enough to fall off and land on the ground. He asked for shelter, but no one wanted to help him. Eventually, late at night, a peasant took pity on him and took him into his house. In gratitude, the Nuberu watered his dry fields and gave him good harvests.
Some years later, this peasant had to travel to Egypt and when he arrived there he heard that his wife was about to marry someone else; she evidently thought, because her husband had been gone a long time, that he was dead. The peasant then asked for Nuberu’s help. Together they traveled back to Galicia riding on clouds, and they arrived in time to halt the wedding.
According to myth, the Nuberu lives in the city of Orito, in Egypt. Some folklorists believe he is a late memory of the Celtic god Taranis, who similarly ruled over the skies. If he is attacked, he does not hesitate to hurl lightning in retaliation.
The Nuberu is greatly feared for the damage he causes. There are superstitious folk who think they can scare him away by lighting candles and ringing bells. Fishermen fear him because of his ability to whip up strong winds at sea, forcing them to hurry back to the safety of their harbors.
The hero of this folk-tale, Owain, is based on the historical figure Owain mab Urien. In the later continental tradition he appears as Ywain. The story is a romance.
A hero marries the maiden he loves, the Lady of the Fountain, but he loses her when he neglects her in order to engage in knightly exploits. One of these exploits is to save a lion from a serpent. Later, with the lion’s help, he finds a balance between his marital and social duties—and is reunited with his wife.
The story is related to the French romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes.
See The Magic Rose.
Another Welsh poem with an uncertain relationship with the work of Chrétien de Troyes, this time Pereceval, the Story of the Grail. Peredur may preserve some of the ancient material that found its way into Chrétien’s source. The sequence of events is different in Peredur and there are many orginal episodes, such as the hero’s 14-year stay in Constantinople, where he co-rules with the Empress (a remnant of a sovereignty tale). In Peredur the Holy Grail is replaced by a severed head on a platter, which is an older archetype. But in spite of these differences, it is possible that the poem was influenced by the French romance.
Peredur’s father dies when he is young and his mother takes him into the woods to raise him in isolation. He later meets a group of knights and resolves to become like them. He travels to King Arthur’s court, where he is ridiculed by Cei. He sets off on further adventures, promising to take revenge on Cei for his insults, and on those who supported Cei.
While he is traveling he meets two of his uncles. The first (taking the role of Percival’s Gornemant) educates him in the use of arms and warns him not to ask the meaning of what he sees. The second (taking the role of Chretien’s Fisher King) shows Peredur a salver bearing a man’s severed head. The young man refrains from asking any questions about this and goes on to further adventures. These include a stay with the Nine Witches of Gloucester and an encounter with the woman who wants to be his true love: Angharad Golden-Hand.
Peredur returns to the court of Arthur, only to embark on a new series of adventures that (this time) do not correspond to incidents in Perceval. Eventually he discovers that the severed head at his uncle’s court belonged to his cousin, who had been killed by the Nine Witches of Gloucester. Peredur avenges the wrongs done to his family and is acknowledged and applauded as a hero. (See Religion: Headhunting; Symbols: Grail Quest.)
An old woman who lives on Dartmoor is returning home from market with an empty basket. As she approaches the bridge over the Blackabrook at the Ockerry, a small figure leaps onto the road and starts capering in front of her. He is a pixy about 18 inches (45cm) high. She wonders what to do, as she fears being pixy-led (abducted). She remembers her family are waiting for her and walks on.
When she gets to the bridge, the pixy hops right up to her. She suddenly bends down, scoops him up, and drops him into her basket, latching the lid.
The pixy starts scolding and chattering in some unknown language while the woman hurries home, pleased that she has something so interesting to show her family. The scolding and chattering stop, so she lifts the lid a little to peep inside. There is no sign of the pixy. He has gone.
See The Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
See Symbols: Dragon.
See Symbols: Dragon.
James Campbell lived near Aberdeen. He had a daughter called Mary, who was married to young John Nelson. Shortly after they married the young couple went to live in Aberdeen, where John carried on his trade as a goldsmith. They lived happily together, until the time approached for Mary to produce her first baby.
The midwives who were with Mary had had too much to drink. Near the hour of 12 at night, they were frightened by a dreadful noise. All of a sudden the candles went out, causing great confusion. The midwives called in the neighbors to bring lights. When they looked at Mary, they saw that she was dead.
The next day, while preparations were made for Mary’s funeral, the Reverend Mr. Dodd looked at her corpse and said, “This is not the body of a Christian. Mrs. Nelson was carried away by the fairies and what you take to be her body is not her, only some substance left in her place.”
The others could make no sense of what he said and did not believe him, so Mr. Dodd stayed away from the funeral. The following day Mary was buried.
After sunset, John, the grief-stricken husband, was riding across his own field when he heard pleasant music. He saw coming toward him a woman dressed in white. She wore a veil, so he could not see her face. He rode up to her and asked her in a friendly way who she was to walk alone so late.
At this she lifted her veil and burst into tears. She said, “I am not permitted to tell you who I am.”
John knew she was his wife and asked what disturbed her and why she had appeared at that hour.
She said, “Appearing at any hour is of no consequence. Though you believe me dead and buried, I am not, but was taken away by the fairies. You only buried a piece of wood in my place. I can be recovered if you take the proper means. The child has three nurses to attend it, but I fear it cannot be brought home. I depend more than anyone on my brother Robert, who is captain of a merchant ship and will be home in ten days’ time.”
John asked what he had to do to win her back. She told him he would find a letter the following Sunday on the desk in his room, addressed to her brother. In it there would be instructions for winning her back.
“Since I was taken from you, I have been treated like a queen,” she added, “and if you look behind me you will see my companions.”
He did, and a short distance away he saw a king and queen sitting beside a moat on thrones in splendor. To each side he saw other kings.
He said, “I fear it will not be possible to win you back from such a place.”
She said, “Were my brother Robert here in your place, he would be able to bring me home, but you must not attempt it, as that would mean that I would be lost to you forever. I am threatened with severe punishment for speaking to you. To prevent that, you must ride up the moat and threaten to burn all the brambles around it, unless you get a firm promise that I shall not be punished.”
John promised and instantly lost sight of all he had seen. He rode resolutely up to the moat and vowed he would burn everything around it if he did not get a promise that his wife would come to no harm.
A voice asked him to throw away a book that was in his pocket and then make his request. John answered that he would not part with his book and insisted that his request be granted. The voice said that upon its honor Mary would be forgiven but he should suffer no prejudice to approach the moat. He agreed to this and heard most pleasant music.
John then returned home. He sent for the Reverend Mr. Dodd and told him what had happened. Mr. Dodd stayed with him until the following Sunday morning. Then, as his wife had said, John saw a letter on his desk. It was addressed to Mary’s brother, who came home a few days later and read it:
Dear Brother,
My husband can relate to you my present circumstances. I request that you will, the first night after you see this, come to the moat where I parted from my husband. Let nothing daunt you, but stand in the center of the moat at the hour of 12 at night, and call me. I, with several others, will then surround you. I shall have on the whitest dress of any in the company.
Take hold of me, and do not forsake me; you must not be surprised at all the frightful methods they shall use, but keep your hold, even if they continue till cock crow, when they shall vanish all of a sudden, and I shall be safe and return home and live with my husband. If you succeed in your attempt, you will gain applause from all your friends, and have the blessing of your ever-loving and affectionate sister,
Mary Nelson
Robert vowed to win back his sister and her child or die in the attempt. He went back to his ship and told his sailors the contents of the letter. He stayed with them till ten at night, when he left. His loyal sailors offered to go with him, but he refused to take them: he had to go alone.
As soon as he left his ship a terrifying lion came roaring at him. He drew his sword and struck at it. The sword passed straight through—the lion was of no substance, only the appearance of a lion to terrify him. This encouraged him.
He went to the moat where he saw a white handkerchief. Suddenly he was surrounded by screaming women uttering frightful cries. He saw his sister in the whitest dress of any around him. He seized her right hand and said, “With God’s help, I will save you from all infernal imps.”
At this the moat seemed to fill with flames and the sky rang with dreadful thunderclaps. Terrifying birds and beasts seemed to lunge at Robert from out of the fire, which he knew wasn’t real, so nothing daunted his courage. Steadfastly, he kept hold of his sister for an hour and three-quarters.
Then the cocks began to crow, the fire disappeared, and the frightful imps vanished. Robert took his sister in his arms and thanked God for his help that night. Mary’s dress was thin and he wrapped her in his overcoat for warmth. She embraced him, saying she was safe now. He took her home to her husband and there was great rejoicing.
John said he would destroy the moat in revenge for the child the fairies had taken from them, but instantly they heard a voice saying, “You shall have your son safe and well, on condition that you will not plow the ground within three perches of the moat, nor damage bushes or brambles around that place.”
They agreed at once and a few moments later the child appeared on his mother’s knee.
When Duke William of Normandy conquered England, a large number of Breton warriors accompanied him. Many of these men were rewarded with lands in England.
One young Breton who followed the Conqueror was called Silvestik. This story tells how his mother mourns his absence:
“One night I lay on my bed, and could not sleep. I heard the girls at Kerlaz singing the song of my son. Dear God, my son, where are you now? Perhaps you are 300 leagues away, drowned in the great ocean and the fishes feed upon your fair body. Perhaps you are married to some Saxon girl. You were to have married a lovely Breton girl, Mannaik de Pouldergat, and by now you and she might have surrounded us with beautiful children.
“I have taken to my door a white dove. It sits in a small hollow in the stone. I have tied to its neck a letter, using the ribbon from my wedding dress, and I have sent it to my son. Go, my dove, rise on your wings, up into the sky, fly far across the sea, and find out for me if my son is alive and well.”
Silvestik was resting in the shade of an English wood. A familiar note fell upon his ear.
“That sound,” he said, “is like the voice of my mother’s dove.”
The sound grew louder and seemed to say, “Good luck to you, Silvestik. Under my wing I have a letter for you.”
Silvestik read the letter and was very happy. He decided to return to his grieving mother.
Three years passed and the dove had not returned to Brittany. Day after day the grieving mother walked along the seashore, waiting and hoping for the ship that never came.
One stormy day she was walking along the beach when she saw a ship being driven ashore upon the rocks. Shortly after that, the bodies of its drowned crew were washed up on the beach.
When the gale died down, the mother searched among the corpses on the beach. Among them she found her son, Silvestik.
This ballad was probably written in the eleventh century, contemporary with the Norman Conquest of England. Many Bretons who sailed with the Conqueror did not return for several years and, inevitably, some did not return at all. The ballad is a cautionary tale of sorts, warning against meddling with destiny.
See The Magic Rose.
A very long time ago, when the sea was still fresh water, there were three Welsh brothers. They had been born in a yellow house on the Welsh Tramping Road and were now grown up into three young men: Glyn, a farmer plowing the land, Lyn, a mariner plowing the sea, and Maldwyn, the youngest of all, who did nothing, plowing only his own furrow. Glyn prospered and had honey on his bread. Lyn prospered too and had apples with his cheese. But Maldwyn and his wife did nothing but wander the highways, sharing between them whatever they could beg. Whenever they passed the yellow house, they would stop and cadge something from Maldwyn’s older brothers.
Glyn tired of Maldwyn’s cadging and decided to be rid of him forever. He asked him, “What would you promise me, if I gave you a pig?”
Maldwyn said, “Anything you ask, brother.”
Glyn said, “Then I’ll take you at your word. Here’s your pig. Now go to blazes.”
Maldwyn said, “My word’s my word. I’ll trouble you no more.”
For the rest of the day, Maldwyn and his wife wandered about, with their pig on a string, looking for Blazes.
Toward evening, they came upon a cottage with a lighted doorway. In the garden was a white-haired old man who looked like a shepherd. They asked him if he, by any chance, was Blazes.
The old man said, “Mr. Blazes is an old friend of mine. You’ll find him in Fernal, the house at the bottom of the valley. He loves nothing better than a roast, and my guess is he’ll see your little pig and want to buy it from you. But if you want some advice, and I’ll gladly give it to you, don’t let the pig go in exchange for anything less than the handmill that stands behind the kitchen door. It is a fine handmill, one that grinds out exactly what you want. If you pass this way again, I’ll be glad to show you how to work it.”
Maldwyn thanked the shepherd and walked with his wife and his pig down to the bottom of the valley. There was a big house there called Fernal and they knocked at its door. It opened at once, and they were ushered in by Mr Blazes’ many servants. Some were tending a huge roaring fire. Others were already prodding the little pig to see how plump it was.
Mr. Blazes offered Maldwyn a thousand years for the pig.
“A thousand thanks,” Maldwyn answered politely. “My wife and I have saved up for more than a year so that we could have this little pig for our Christmas dinner. But because I am the kindest-hearted man alive and hate to see anyone disappointed I will let you have it simply in exchange for the handmill behind your kitchen door.”
Mr. Blazes resisted Maldwyn’s proposal for a long while, offering him all sorts of things instead of the handmill, things that seemed far more valuable and desirable. It was Maldwyn’s wife who said, “It must be the handmill or nothing.”
By now the servants were howling for the pig. “Give us pig! Give us pig or we’ll die!”
In the end Mr. Blazes gave in and let Maldwyn and his wife have the handmill.
The pig had been keeping as close as possible to Maldwyn while all this discussion had been going on. Now it squealed as it found itself clamped in the crook of Mr. Blazes’ arm.
Maldwyn took the handmill back up to the shepherd, who showed him how to start it and, more important, how to stop it. Maldwyn and his wife couldn’t wait to get started. First it ground out a house for them, then candles to light it and furniture and food and drink. This going to Blazes was a good thing to do.
Maldwyn drove up to the yellow house in the carriage the handmill had ground out and invited his brother Glyn to come and dine with him.
Glyn, and the neighbors who went with him, were amazed at the gold plates and the fine selection of wines Maldwyn had to offer.
“Little brother,” Glyn exclaimed, “where in blazes did you get all this?”
“From behind the kitchen door,” Maldwyn said mysteriously, but after a while Glyn got the whole story out of him.
Maldwyn fell asleep after drinking and eating too much, and Glyn seized the opportunity to grab the handmill and walk off with it to the yellow house.
Glyn sent his wife out to work in the field so that he could see what the handmill could do on his own. His first thought was to get the mill to provide servants—if they were pretty, so much the better—and ale. He spoke to the handmill:
“Little mill, little mill,
Grind me maids and ale;
Little mill, little mill,
Grind them dark and pale.”
As the words left his lips, a dark-skinned girl appeared, surfing toward him on a wave of beer. Then came a pale girl, then a tawny one, then a white one. The house was suddenly full of maids with different-colored skins and the ale was a foot deep on the floor and getting deeper.
Glyn shouted, “Enough! Stop, mill, stop!” But the handmill went on grinding. Soon the maids of different colors were swimming for their lives in a rising tide of ale. It burst out through the doors and windows, and a torrent of ale went foaming down to the sea.
Out in the fields Glyn’s wife was swept away by the torrent and soon she and Glyn were drowning. The maids, though, were in their element, swimming and frolicking in the lake of ale.
Maldwyn heard the commotion. He had been wondering where his handmill had gone. Now he realized that his brother Glyn had taken it. He ordered the mill to stop grinding out maids then ale. Gradually the flood subsided and Maldwyn retrieved his handmill.
The following week, Maldwyn’s brother Lyn sailed into the bay with a cargo of salt. He was surprised to find the water there smelling of ale and full of mermaids splashing about in it. He soon heard what had happened, and went along to Maldwyn’s gold-plated house, amazed to find his younger brother so wealthy.
“Where in blazes did you get so rich?” he asked.
“Behind the kitchen door,” Maldwyn said cryptically, but Lyn, too, quickly got the full story out of him—everything except the crucial instruction that would stop the mill grinding.
“Will it grind salt?” Lyn asked.
“Yes, enough to make all the sea salt,” said Maldwyn.
Lyn said nothing, but thought how useful it would be if he could grind salt. He wouldn’t need to go to sea any more. When Maldwyn fell asleep through having eaten and drunk too much, Lyn picked up the handmill and took it to his ship. He set sail at once.
Once he was out in open water in Cardigan Bay, Lyn patted the handmill and chanted to it:
“Little mill, little mill,
Grind me salty salt.
Little mill, little mill,
Grind it without halt.”
The handmill ground out salt till it lay like snow, drifting all over the deck of Lyn’s ship. Lyn and his crew climbed the mast to get out of the way of the rising heaps of salt, but there was no escape. The ship eventually sank under the weight of salt and Lynn and all his crew were pickled in the brine.
Later the white-haired shepherd walked along the long Welsh Tramping Road. He saw the mermaids frolicking in the sea and tasted the salty water. “Truly,” he said, “I move in mysterious ways my wonders to perform.”
It seemed good to him to have mermaids in the bay, so he left them there, and smiled at all his works. And the salt of the sea was good, so he left the handmill too, grinding away and making the sea round Wales a little saltier than any other.
See The Sigh of Gwyddno Garanhir.
See The Bogle.
In the days long ago, before the sea overwhelmed the lost kingdom, Gwyddno Garanhir was king over Cantre’r Gwaelod. This was the low country in the west. This was the best, the richest, of all the kingdoms of Britain; its land was worth four times as much as any other. It was land you would covet, but for one thing: it was land that was lower than the waters of the sea.
A great wall had been built to protect Gwyddno’s kingdom from the sea, with sluices and water-gates. As the tide fell, the water might run out, but as it rose again the sluices stopped it flowing back in. Watching over this wall and making sure the sluices were opened and shut at the right times was Gwyddno’s main task, and he had entrusted it to Seithenin, a prince of Dyfed. Seithenin was handsome and high-spirited, but he had a weakness for drink. He was in fact one of the Three Arrant Drunkards of the Island of Britain.
The month of the high tides came. One night there was a feast in Gwyddno’s court. Meat and drink without limit were served from his larder of plenty.
As night fell a fierce gale whipped up in the south-west, piling up the waters in the sea between Wales and Ireland. This was a night when a watchman was needed, yet never was Seithenin drunker. The sluices were left open and the water-gates too stood open. In rolled the sea as the tide rose, and by dawn the whole kingdom and its 16 towns were under the water.
Still the sea holds sway in Cardigan Bay, but sometimes when the tide is low you may see a tree-stump or a stub of wall, or you may hear the chime of a water-swung bell. This is all that is left of Gwyddno’s great kingdom.
The king himself escaped to higher ground with his court and a few of his subjects. They made for the mountains of the north, where they lived by hunting, but it was a hard living.
Gwyddno felt the loss of his kingdom keenly. He had been a proud king, and now he was no more than a squire with a salmon-weir on the Dyfi River. He never could look out at the waters of Cardigan Bay without thinking of his lost kingdom, and reliving the sorrow that he felt on the first morning after the terrible flood. It was a sorrow so great that he could not speak. Instead he let out a sigh over the waters so deep that even now when people want to describe the sigh of deepest sadness they call it:
The sigh of Gwyddno Garanhir,
When the waves rolled over the land.
(See The History of Taliesin.)
See The Book of Invasions, Trezenzon the Monk and the Great Island.
See Symbols: City Swallowed Up by the Sea.
An early medieval poem, 60 lines long, and found in The Book of Taliesin, The Spoils of Annwfn describes an expedition to the Otherworld to retrieve a magic cauldron; it is led by King Arthur.
The teller of the tale relates how he traveled to the land of Annwfn (see Annwn) with Arthur and three boatloads of men, of whom only seven returned. Annwfn is given several names—Mound Fortress, Four-Peaked Fortress, and Glass Fortress. The Welsh Triads list the Three Exalted Prisoners of Britain; one of these is Gweir, and he is languishing in chains within the walls of the Mound Fortress.
The cauldron of the Lord of Annwfn is described. It is finished with pearl and will not boil food for a coward.
All but seven of the adventurers are eventually killed, but exactly how is not explained. The poem goes on, rather oddly, with a small-minded condemnation of monks and “little men” who do not possess the poet’s knowledge.
See Norouas, the North-West Wind.
See The Ulster Cycle.
Tom was coming back from St. Ives with his empty wagon, his courage screwed up by virtue of the the three or four gallons of strong beer that he had drunk. It seemed to him that the king’s highway ought not to be twisting and turning like an angle twitch [worm], but he went boldly on as well as he could. He came to the gate of the giant’s farm and opened it. Then he drove his oxen through.
On went Tom, without seeing anything of the giant, or anyone else, only the fat cattle of every kind grazing in the fields.
After driving his oxen for about a mile, Tom came to a high wall with a pair of gates in it. This was close to the giant’s castle. There was no passing around these gates, because there were deep ditches full of water on either side of them, so Tom charged at them. The huge gates creaked on their hinges, and the wheels of Tom’s wagon creaked and rattled over the causeway. An ugly little dog began to bark, and at this the giant tore out: a great ugly unshapely fellow, all head and stomach.
Tom fought the giant and killed him. And so Tom acquired the store of silver, copper, and tin the giant had been guarding deep in the cellars of his castle.
Breogán, son of Brath, was a mythical king in Galicia. In Gallaic, the Galician language, his name was Briganos Maccos Brattae. He was the mythic father of the Galician nation. His sons were Ith and Bile (Belenus). Galicia is sometimes poetically described as “the home of Breogán,” as in the Galician anthem Os Pinos.
The Book of the Taking of Ireland, which is also known as The Book of Conquests and The Book of Invasions, is a compilation of Gaelic legends made in the eleventh century. According to this book, King Breogán built a colossal tower in the city of Brigantium, so high that from the top his sons could see a distant green shore. The sight of that distant green shore lured them to sail off to the north toward it. In this way they reached Ireland, where they were met by the ancient tribe who lived there, the Tuatha dé Danann. The Tuatha were hostile. They ambushed the Galicians and succeeded in killing Ith. It was some decades later that one of Breogan’s grandsons, the nephew of Ith, Mil Espaine, took revenge on the Tuatha dé Danann. He invaded Ireland, with the intention of defeating them and taking their island for himself; he would settle there.
This story is mostly told in the final chapter of the book, where we hear of the Sons of Mil who, according to Irish myth, were the last wave of invaders.
A very similar story was written in the ninth or tenth century in Galicia. The manuscript is entitled Trezenzonii de Solistitionis Insula Magna, “Trezenzon the Monk and the Great Island.” This has a monk seeing a distant green island from the top of the high tower of Brigantia.
See Comorre the Cursed.
This is just one of several variant forms of the ancient story. The couple are called Tristan and Iseult in some versions, and Trystan and Esyllt in others; in Richard Wagner’s famous operatic transformation they are Tristan and Isolde. In this Welsh version, which has a happy ending, they are Trystan and Esyllt.
Esyllt of the White Throat was the wife of Mark, son of Meirchion. The news came to Arthur that Trystan, son of Trallwch, had gone off with Esyllt and they were wandering together as outlaws in the Oakwood of Celidon in the North. They were alone except for Esyllt’s handmaid, who was called Golwg Hafddyd (Face Like a Summer’s Day), and Trystan’s page. The page carried pasties in a satchel and wine in a jar. They slept beneath the trees, with only leaves for bedclothes, but they were sustained by their love for each other, and by the wine and the pasties.
Mark went to Arthur to complain about Trystan’s behavior and ask Arthur to avenge the insult. Arthur hesitated, because Trystan was one of the Three Unyielding Chieftains of the Island of Britain, but Mark argued that Arthur too was insulted because Trystan was his subject and openly defied him.
Arthur called up his war-band and rode to the Wood of Celidon; he surrounded the oakwoods. Trystan lay asleep, but Esyllt could hear the sound of warriors and woke him.
Trystan was unafraid. “Many of these men are my friends: blunt Cei, angry Bedwyr, and courteous Gwalchmei.”
Even so, for safety, he set Esyllt in a hollow oak, where holly and ivy and a nearby yew hid her from view. Then he set off toward the sound of the warriors, with his sword in his hand.
He saw Mark and spoke directly to him. “Lord, we have a quarrel, you and I. Draw your sword and let us settle it.”
But Mark knew Trystan’s destiny. He understood that if he killed Trystan it would bring about his own death. He refused to fight and called on his men to tie Trystan up and bring him before Arthur. Mark’s men did not understand the destiny that hung over Trystan and thought Mark had refused to fight out of cowardice; they refused to act for a man who would not fight for himself. So Trystan was able to walk away unhindered.
Mark went again to Arthur, who said, “I thought this was how it would be. There is only one way left. We must send the best harpers in the Island of Britain to play to Trystan from afar. As his mood softens, we shall send in poets and praise-makers to praise him. Then we shall be able to talk to him.”
This they did. The forest was filled with the sound of the harps; even the birds stopped singing to listen. Trystan summoned the harpers to him and rewarded them handsomely for their music with gold and silver. Then the poets and praise-makers came and exalted Trystan. Trystan summoned them too, and gave them gifts. To the chief song-maker he gave the circlet of gold that adorned his own neck and to the others he gave gold and silver.
Now his heart was softened, and Gwalchmei appeared before him with a message from Arthur. Trystan consented to Gwalchmei’s courteous request to visit Arthur, who bound both Trystan and Mark to keep peace with one another until the matter was resolved.
Arthur spoke to the two men separately, but neither would agree to give up Esyllt. Arthur’s judgment was that Esyllt should go with one man for as long as the leaves stayed on the trees, and to the other for as long as the leaves were not on the trees. It was for Mark, son of Meirchion, to choose first.
“Lord, this is an easy choice to make,” Mark cried happily. “I shall have Esyllt when the leaves are not on the trees. The short, dark days of winter often seem longer than the days of summer, and the nights are longer, and the time passes more slowly then.”
Arthur went into the middle of the forest to find Esyllt and report his judgment to her.
“Bless you for this judgment, my lord,” she cried.
Cei was puzzled by her reaction. He asked, “Why so, lady?”
As her answer, Esyllt sang this verse:
“Three trees there are, both good and true:
Holly and ivy and yew are they.
They keep their leaves the whole year through,
And Trystan shall have me for ever and ay.”
This is a group of Celtic folk-tales, told in prose and probably not written down until AD 750, though they may have been told and retold for a long period before then. They describe in epic form a sequence of events relating to an heroic society that has a strong resemblance to the one described in Homer. Some scholars have even wondered whether the tales were perhaps written in the Christian era in deliberate imitation of Homer. Against this explanation are several features of the tales. One is that by the fifth century the political framework of Ireland had changed; by then Ulster was smaller and far less powerful politically. It had been reduced by the family of Niall, who died in AD 404. So the events described in the Ulster Cycle must belong to the fourth century or earlier. Another feature is the fact that the characters swear by the gods of their tribes, not by a universal God.
Another view of the Ulster Cycle is that the stories go back to the second century BC, very much the pre-Christian Celtic Ireland. Yet another view is that they are centuries older still.
These heroic tales are set mainly in the provinces of Ulster and Connaught. They revolve around the lives of Conchobar mac Nessa, King of Ulster, and the great hero Cú Chulainn, who was the son of the god Lugh. They and the people around them are the Ulaid people. The action takes place mainly at the royal court of Emain Macha (Navan Fort), near the present-day town of Armagh. The Ulaid had contact with an Irish colony in Scotland and part of Cú Chulainn’s training takes place there. The capital of Ulster was at Emain Macha and its overking or high king was Conchobar. Ulster was opposed by a confederacy of the rest of Ireland led by Ailill of Connaught and his warrior-queen, Medb. The stories are dominated by cattle-raiding, fighting, and feasting.
The main tale in the cycle is the Tain bo Cuailnge.
Some of the characters, such as Medb, were probably originally deities, and the hero Cú Chulainn displays superhuman prowess, suggesting that he too may have originated as a minor god. But the characters are presented in the tales as mortals, acting in a particular time and place.
A clever twelfth-century parody of all the earlier adventure tales about voyages to the Isles of the Blessed. The phantom from the Otherworld tells the hero, Mac Con Glinne, that he is:
“Wheatlet, son of Milklet,
Son of Juicy Bacon
Is mine own name
Honeyed Butter-roll
Is the man’s name that bears my bag.”
The bag is a reference to the bag of the sea god, Manannàn, which holds the treasures of all the world. The hero of The Vision goes on a marvelous voyage in a boat of fat sailing on a lake of milk. He makes landfall on an island that has earthworks of thick custard; its bridge is made of butter, its walls of wheat, and its palisade of bacon. Inside, there are “smooth pillars of old cheese, fine rafters of thick cream with laths of curds.” A sage gives Mac a cure-all that will work for all complaints except the disease of wandering gentlemen, commonly known as loose bowels.
After reciting his vision, Mac Con Glinne cures the King of Cork of gluttony and traps a demon in a cooking pot. The tale ends with details of the reward due to the reciter.
The Latin Navigatio Brendani describes Brendan’s voyage west, out into the Atlantic, where he sees the Isles of the Blessed. Some once took the story at face value and some still do, believing that St. Brendan actually discovered America. The story was very popular in the Middle Ages and it may even have inspired later attempts to sail west to discover whatever was there.
Many different versions of the story exist. Some say Brendan set off with 60 pilgrims, 14 others, and three unbelievers who joined at the last minute. One of his followers was St. Malo.
On his voyage, Brendan is said to have seen St. Brendan’s Island, which was covered with vegetation. He also encountered a sea monster. The adventure that is most commonly illustrated is his landing on an island that turns out to be a gigantic sea monster called Jascon or Jasconius.
The story is essentially a Christian narrative, but it includes stories about natural phenomena and fantasy adventures. This blend naturally gave it a broad appeal.
The adventure begins with St. Barrid (St. Barinthus) describing his travels to the Island of Paradise, which prompts Brendan to go and find it. He assembles a company of 14 monks to go with him. They fast in preparation, then three latecomers join the party.
Brendan discovers an island with a dog and mysterious hospitality: food is left out for the visitors but there is no sign of the hosts. He exorcises an Ethiopian devil from one of the unbelieving latecomers, who dies. He discovers an island with a boy who gives them bread and water; an island of sheep, where they remain for Holy Week; and the island of the monks of Ailbe, where there is no aging and complete silence. Then he comes upon a “coagulated” sea, which is perhaps the Sargasso Sea or more likely the frozen Arctic Ocean. Then Brendan and his followers find an island with three choirs of monks who give them fruit; then they find an island of grapes.
After revisiting the monastery at Ailbe at Christmas, they sail through a clear sea. They pass a “silver pillar wrapped in a net” in the sea. They find Judas perching unhappily on a cold, wet rock in the middle of the sea; this is his respite from Hell: he is let out for Sundays and feast days. Finally, Brendan and his company find the Promised Land of the Saints before returning home.
The story belongs to a particular kind of popular Irish literature called an immram, which describes a hero’s adventures in a boat. Some of these immrams specifically include a search for and a visit to, Tir nan Nog, an Otherworldly island far distant in the west (see People: Barinthus, Brendan; Religion: Otherworld; Symbols: Isles of the Blessed).
The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth, widespread across north, west, and central Europe. It consists of a ghostly band of huntsmen with horses and hounds, who tear in a mad chase across the sky, or along the ground, or just above the ground. The hunters may be fairies or the spirits of the dead. Seeing the Wild Hunt has often been thought to be unlucky: an omen of some catastrophe, such as plague or war.