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a master craftsman, who instructs Pryderi in the arts of shoe-making, shield-making, and saddlery. In this he is akin to Manannan, the teacher of Diarmaid. Incidents of his career are reflected in the Triads, and his union with Rhiannon may point to an old myth in which they were from the first a divine pair, parents of Pryderi. This would give point to his deliverance of Pryderi and Rhiannon from the hostile magician.²⁹⁵ Rhiannon resembles the Irish Elysium goddesses, and Manawyddan, like Manannan, is lord of Elysium in a Taliesin poem.²⁹⁶ He is a craftsman and follows agriculture, perhaps a reminiscence of the old belief that fertility and culture come from the god's land. Manawyddan, like other divinities, was drawn into the Arthurian cycle, and is one of those who capture the famous boar, the Twrch Trwyth.²⁹⁷

Bran, or Bendigeit Vran ("Bran the Blessed"), probably an old pagan title which appropriately enough denotes one who figured later in Christian hagiology, is so huge that no house or ship can hold him. Hence he wades over to Ireland, and as he draws near is thought to be a mountain. This may be an archaic method of expressing his divinity—a gigantic non-natural man like some of the Tuatha Déa and Ossianic heroes. But Bran also appears as the Urdawl Ben, or "Noble Head," which makes time pass to its bearers like a dream, and when buried protects the land from invasion. Both as a giant squatting on a rock and as a head, Bran is equated by Professor Rh^ys with Cernunnos, the squatting god, represented also as a head, and also with the Welsh Urien whose attribute was a raven, the supposed meaning of Bran's name.²⁹⁸ He further equates him with Uthr Ben, "Wonderful Head," the superior bard, harper and piper of a Taliesin poem.²⁹⁹ Urien, Bran, and Uthr are three forms of a god worshipped by bards, and a "dark" divinity, whose wading over to Ireland signifies crossing to Hades, of which he, like Yama, who first crossed the rapid waters to the land of death, is the ruler.³⁰⁰ But Bran is not a "dark" god in the sense implied here. Cernunnos is god of a happy underworld, and there is nothing dark or evil in him or in Bran and his congeners. Professor Rh^ys's "dark" divinities are sometimes, in his view, "light" gods, but they cannot be both. The Celtic lords of the dead had no "dark" character, and as gods of fertility they were, so to speak, in league with the sun-god, the slayer of Bran, according to Professor Rh^ys's ingenious theory. And although to distracted Irish secretaries Ireland may be Hades, its introduction into this Mabinogi merely points to the interpretation of a mythico-historic connection between Wales and Ireland. Thus if Bran is Cernunnos, this is because he is a lord of the underworld of fertility, the counterpart of which is the distant Elysium, to which Bran seems rather to belong. Thus, in presence of his head, time passes as a dream in feasting and joy. This is a true Elysian note, and the tabued door of the story is also suggestive of the tabus of Elysium, which when broken rob men of happiness.³⁰¹ As to the power of the head in protecting the land, this points to actual custom and belief regarding the relics of the dead and the power of divine images or sculptured heads.³⁰² The god Bran has become a king and law-giver in the Mabinogion and the Triads,³⁰³ while Geoffrey of Monmouth describes how Belinus and Brennus, in the Welsh version Beli and Bran, dispute the crown of Britain, are reconciled, and finally conquer Gaul and Rome.³⁰⁴ The mythic Bran is confused with Brennus, leader of the Gauls against Rome in 390 B.C., and Belinus may be the god Belenos, as well as Beli, father of Lludd and Caswallawn. But Bran also figures as a Christian missionary. He is described as hostage at Rome for his son Caradawc, returning thence as preacher of Christianity to the Cymry—a legend arising out of a misunderstanding of his epithet "Blessed" and a confusing of his son with the historic Caractacus.³⁰⁵ Hence Bran's family is spoken of as one of the three saintly families of Prydein, and he is ancestor of many saints.³⁰⁶

Branwen, "White Bosom," daughter of a sea-god, may be a sea-goddess, "Venus of the northern sea,"³⁰⁷ unless with Mr. Nutt we connect her with the cauldron described in her legend,³⁰⁸ symbol of an orgiastic cult, and regard her as a goddess of fertility. But the connection is not clear in the story, though in some earlier myth the cauldron may have been her property. As Brangwaine, she reappears in romance, giving a love-potion to Tristram—perhaps a reminiscence of her former functions as a goddess of love, or earlier of fertility. In the Mabinogion she is buried in Anglesey at Ynys Bronwen, where a cairn with bones discovered in 1813 was held to be the grave and remains of Branwen.³⁰⁹

The children of Dôn, the equivalent of Danu, and probably like her, a goddess of fertility, are Gwydion, Gilvæthwy, Amæthon, Govannon, and Arianrhod, with her sons, Dylan and Llew.³¹⁰ These correspond, therefore, in part to the Tuatha Déa, though the only members of the group who bear names similar to the Irish gods are Govannon (= Goibniu) and possibly Llew (= Lug). Gwydion as a culture-god corresponds to Ogma. In the Triads Beli is called father of Arianrhod,³¹¹ and assuming that this Arianrhod is identical with the daughter of Dôn, Professor Rh^ys regards Beli as husband of Dôn. But the identification is far from certain, and the theory built upon it that Beli is one with the Irish Bile, and that both are lords of a dark underworld, has already been found precarious.³¹² In later belief Dôn was associated with the stars, the constellation Cassiopeia being called her court. She is described as "wise" in a Taliesin poem.³¹³

This group of divinities is met with mainly in the Mabinogi of Math, which turns upon Gilvæthwy's illicit love of Math's "foot-holder" Goewin. To assist him in his amour, Gwydion, by a magical trick, procures for Math from the court of Pryderi certain swine sent him by Arawn, king of Annwfn. In the battle which follows when the trick is discovered, Gwydion slays Pryderi by enchantment. Math now discovers that Gilvæthwy has seduced Goewin, and transforms him and Gwydion successively into deer, swine, and wolves. Restored to human form, Gwydion proposes that Arianrhod should be Math's foot-holder, but Math by a magic test discovers that she is not a virgin. She bears two sons, Dylan, fostered by Math, and another whom Gwydion nurtures and for whom he afterwards by a trick obtains a name from Arianrhod, who had sworn never to name him. The name is Llew Llaw Gyffes, "Lion of the Sure Hand." By magic, Math and Gwydion form a wife for Llew out of flowers. She is called Blodeuwedd, and later, at the instigation of a lover, Gronw, she discovers how Llew can be killed. Gronw attacks and wounds him, and he flies off as an eagle. Gwydion seeks for Llew, discovers him, and retransforms him to human shape. Then he changes Blodeuwedd into an owl, and slays Gronw.³¹⁴ Several independent tales have gone to the formation of this Mabinogi, but we are concerned here merely with the light it may throw on the divine characters who figure in it.

Math or Math Hen, "the Ancient,"³¹⁵ is probably an old divinity of Gwyned, of which he is called lord. He is a king and a magician, pre-eminent in wizardry, which he teaches to Gwydion, and in a Triad he is called one of the great men of magic and metamorphosis of Britain. Скачать книгу