The Study of Celtic Folklore, Mythology & Dogma. John Arnott MacCulloch

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.³⁵² 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.³⁵³ 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.³⁵⁴ The god Bran has become a king and law-giver in the Mabinogion and the Triads,³⁵⁵ 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.³⁵⁶ 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.³⁵⁷ Hence Bran's family is spoken of as one of the three saintly families of Prydein, and he is ancestor of many saints.³⁵⁸

      Branwen, "White Bosom," daughter of a sea-god, may be a sea-goddess, "Venus of the northern sea,"³⁵⁹ unless with Mr. Nutt we connect her with the cauldron described in her legend,³⁶⁰ 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.³⁶¹

      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.³⁶² 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,³⁶³ 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.³⁶⁴ 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.³⁶⁵

      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.³⁶⁶ 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,"³⁶⁷ 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.³⁶⁸ More important are his traits of goodness to the suffering, and justice with no trace of vengeance to the wrong-doer. Whether these are derived from his character as a god or from the Celtic kingly ideal, it is impossible to say, though the former is by no means unlikely. Possibly his supreme magical powers make him the equivalent of the Irish "god of Druidism," but this is uncertain, since all gods were more or less dowered with these.

      Gwydion's magical powers are abundantly illustrated in the tale. At Pryderi's court he changes fungus into horses and dogs, and afterwards slays Pryderi by power of enchantments; he produces a fleet by magic before Arianrhod's castle; with Math's help he forms Blodeuwedd out of flowers; he gives Llew his natural shape when he finds him as a wasted eagle on a tree, his flesh and the worms breeding in it dropping from him; he transforms the faithless Blodeuwedd into an owl. Some of these and other deeds are referred to in the Taliesin poems, while Taliesin describes himself as enchanted by Gwydion.³⁶⁹ In the Triads he is one of the three great astrologers of Prydein, and this emphasis laid on his powers of divination is significant when it is considered that his name may be derived from a root vet, giving words meaning "saying" or "poetry," while cognate words are Irish fáith, "a prophet" or "poet," German wuth, "rage," and the name of Odinn.³⁷⁰ The name is suggestive of the ecstasy of inspiration producing prophetic and poetic utterance. In the Mabinogion he is a mighty bard, and in a poem, he, under the name of Gweir, is imprisoned in the Other-world, and there becomes a bard, thus receiving inspiration from the gods' land.³⁷¹ He is the ideal fáith—diviner, prophet, and poet, and thus the god of those professing these arts. Strabo describes how the Celtic vates (fáith) was also a philosopher, and this character is given in a poem to Seon (probably = Gwydion), whose artists are poets and magicians.³⁷² But he is also a culture-god, bringing swine to men from the gods' land. For though Pryderi is described as a mortal who has himself received the swine from Annwfn (Elysium), there is no doubt that he himself was a lord of Annwfn, and it was probably on account of Gwydion's theft from Annwfn that he, as Gweir, was imprisoned there "through the messenger of Pwyll and Pryderi."³⁷³ A raid is here made directly on the god's land for the benefit of men, and it is unsuccessful, but in the Mabinogi a different version of the raid is told. Perhaps Gwydion also brought kine from Annwfn, since he is called one of the three herds of Britain,³⁷⁴ while he himself may once have been an animal god, then an anthropomorphic deity associated with animals. Thus in the Mabinogi, when Gwydion flees with the swine, he rests each night at a place one of the syllables of which is Moch, "swine"—an ætiological myth explaining why places which were once sites of the cult of a swine-god, afterwards worshipped as Gwydion, were so called.

      Gwydion has also a tricky, fraudulent character in the Mabinogi, and although "in his life there was counsel," yet he had a "vicious muse."³⁷⁵ It is also implied that he is lover of his sister Arianrhod and father of Dylan and Llew—the mythic reflections of a time when such unions, perhaps only in royal houses, were permissible. Instances occur in Irish tales, and Arthur was also his sister's lover.³⁷⁶ In later belief Gwydion was associated with the stars; and the Milky Way was called Caer Gwydion. Across it he had chased the faithless