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of the Celts 3 страницаThe main character of the second story is Branwen (White Raven), the sister of the generous, wise, godlike King Bran. They are, together with their brothers Manawydan, Evnissyen and Nissyen, the children of Penarddun. The father of the first three is Llyr, whose name is reminiscent of the Irish sea-god Lir, the father of the other two Euroswydd. The contentious Evnissyen is angry that he was not asked his consent to Branwen's marriage to the Irish king Matholwch and mutilates the horses of his entourage. The Irish king is mortally offended, and Bran must make him a generous gift, not to bring his sister Branwen into a dishonorable position. He gives him a huge cauldron, which, once set on fire, brings back to life all killed warriors who are thrown in, however, without the ability to speak. He himself has received it from a couple of giants he had taken up as a gift, which was expelled from Ireland because their descendants had caused so much trouble. Matholwch can be appeased and sails with Branwen to Ireland. There, however, he is influenced by his people, who are still offended, against his wife, she is degraded and has to do hard work in the kitchen. She manages secretly to train a bird, and sends it with a message about her misfortune to Bran. Bran immediately leads his army into Ireland to rescue his sister. The result is a terrible war. At the attempt of reconciliation, Evnissyen kills the son of Branwen and the Irish king. In the ensuing carnage, he sacrifices himself, however, and lets him be thrown alive into the magic cauldron, whereupon it shatters and so deprives the Irish of their inexhaustible reservoir of fighters. There are actually no winners, only seven of the Welsh return with Branwen back to Wales, including Pryderi, the son of Pwyll and Rhiannon, and the famous bard Taliesin. Bran is mortally wounded and asks his men to cut off his head, what they do. Branwen is so unhappy that she dies of grief. Bran's head begins to speak and prophesy, and the survivors spend first seven years in Harlech on his advice, and then eighty years in Gwales in Penfro, where they are transferred into a kind of Otherworld and forget everything. Finally, one of them opens a forbidden door, the magic vanishes, and they return in full awareness of their terrible experiences back home. Bran's head was buried in London, looking to the east, and should protect Britain from conquest. Supposedly Arthur dug it up, because he wanted to be the only one to protect the island, after which the Angles and Saxons finally took possession of the land. The fourth story of the Mabinogion is called "Math ap Mathonwy" and tells the story of the children of Don, magicians and offspring of a kind of goddess that is reminiscent of the Irish mother-goddess Danu, and of Don's brother Math ap Mathonwy, the old magician-king from Gwynedd in North Wales. These children are Gwydion, the magician and wonderful harp player, whom Math wants to make into his successor, his sister Aranrhod, beautiful, haughty and well versed in magic too, Govannon, the magical blacksmith who forges invincible weapons, Amathaon, who cares for the fields and crops of the farmers, who even might have been a kind of vegetation- or weather-god, and the youngest, the mostly restless and dissatisfied Gilvaethwy. Old Math can prophesy only if his feet are resting in the lap of a virgin. With this royal “foot-holder” called Goewin Gilvaethwy now falls in love and is determined to possess her. The chance to get near her occurs only, if Math is forced by war to leave his throne. Gwydion now provokes a war, not only for the sake of his brother but also pursuing his own purposes. He visits undetected in the guise of a bard the court of Pryderi in South Wales, who has been given through his good relations with the Otherworld twelve magical pigs, which come to life again and again after having been consumed, and so secure the possibility to feed the people permanently. Gwydion wins from Pyderi these pigs by his magic tricks and his magical harp-playing and brings them to North Wales. The infuriated Pryderi follows soon after his awakening from the spells with his army. In the now emerging war Math eventually forces Gwydion to decide the outcome in a single combat with Pryderi. Gwydion manages to defeat and kill Pryderi. Meanwhile, however, his brother Gilvaethwy has raped the virgin “foot-holder” of the king in the abandoned castle. When Math finds out after his return, what has happened, he first turns Gwydion and Gilvaethwy for one year into two deer, the next year into two wild pigs, and at last into two wolves as a punishment. He then looks for a new royal “foot-holder”. His niece Aranrhod is ready to undergo the trial for her virginity by Maths wand. Her counter-spell is however clearly not strong enough, because when she proceeds with the test, she gives life to two boys, the first of which, obviously the son of a god of the sea, immediately runs to the sea-shore and swims away. The second, who is apparently the son of her own brother Gwydion, is taken away by him and raised with much affection in his castle. When he grows up, his mother would according to the custom of the country during the years first have to give him a name, then provide him with weapons and finally convey a wife to him. However Aranrhod wants to know nothing of her offspring, who has brought her into disgrace, and refuses. But Gwydion again employs his magic tricks. In the guise of a shoemaker he induces Aranrhod to an outcry with which she names her son Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the shining one with the skillful hand. In another disguise, namely as bards, the two are guests in her castle, which is seemingly attacked by an army conjured by Gwydions magic: They promise to support her and she invests her unrecognized son with weapons. The third problem is solved by Gwydion with the help of his uncle Math in that way, that they create an unearthly beautiful woman named Blodeuwedd out of flowers and plants to become Lleus wife. However, she is untrue and induces her lover to kill Lleu in a very specific ritual way, in which as she knows he only can die. But Gwydion seeks and finds Lleus remains and his soul that sits in the shape of an eagle on a tree. He can lure this eagle by his magic incantation down to himself and is able to bring Lleu back to life from his soul in the shape of the eagle and his remains at the roots of the tree, together with the help of Math. His magic incantation, first in a translation, then in the Welsh language, is the following: Oak that grows between two lakes, Derwen a dyf rhwng dau lyn, Blodeuwedd is transformed by Gwydion into an owl as a punishment, her lover Gronwy is killed by Lleu with a spear which penetrates a stone, with which Gronwy tries to protect himself. Now I would like to mention briefly the other seven stories of the Mabinogi. In the "Dream of Macsen" the Emperor Macsen Wledig, who has his prototype in the Britannic-Roman commander Magnus Maximus, who achieved the imperial dignity for a short time in Rome, dreams of the beautiful Elen or Helen, whom he finally finds in Wales, where he conqueres at once the whole of Britain . In "Kulhwch and Olwen" is the sweet Olwen, who resembles a spring-goddess, the daughter of the terrible giant Ysbaddaden Penkawr, from whom the young hero Kulhwch seeks to win her. He goes to the court of King Arthur, is incorporated into the company of his knights and is able to accomplish with their help the difficult tasks, which the giant has proclaimed as conditions for winning Olwen. This includes the hunt for the famous magical boar Twrch Trwyth. It requires the help of Mabon, son of Modron, which means “young man, son of the mother goddess”, who seems to have a relationship to the Gallic god Maponos, because only he can hunt with a special dog, which is able to bring the boar to the track. But Mabon has been kidnapped in his earliest youth and had been missing ever since. King Arthur's interpreter, who understands the language of every animal, finally asks the five wise animals, the blackbird of Kilgwri, the deer of Rhedenvre, the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, the eagle of Gwernabwy and the Salmon of Llyn Llyw the whereabouts of Mabon. The salmon, which is the oldest, knows it and brings them eventually to Mabons prison in Gloucester. Kai, the seneschal of King Arthur, can free him, and Mabon joins king Arthur’s knights. Kulhwch comes back with the treasure and his companions, and the giant Ysbadadden, who could not have rendered Olwen voluntarily, because then he would have died according to a prophecy, is killed by them. Also quite interesting is the "Dream of Rhonabwy". Rhonabwy is sleeping in a filthy hostel on a bull skin, which in the Celtic region has always had a magical and mystical significance, especially for prophecy. He dreams of a game of chess, here denoted by the Irish name Fidchell, in Welsh usually called Gwyddbwyll ("Wood Wisdom"), between King Arthur and Owain, where corresponding to the advance or retreat of the figures of the game a battle between Arthur's knights and Oweins army of ravens is fought until it finally comes to a peace agreement. Particularly noteworthy here is the detailed description of clothing, armor, horses and jewelry of the specially named knights. The text used in "Peredur, son of Evrawc" possibly comes from a slightly revised early form of the Percival-story. There are already all essential elements present, but with some very archaic features. Peredur grows up alone with his mother in the forest and meets knights, which he considers angels. He hears from the court of King Arthur, and leaves to become a knight. When he arrives there, a knight just insults queen Gwenhyfar, he slaps her and knocks the cup of wine from her hand. Peredur avenges the deed and experiences in the following similar mysterious adventures like Percival in the other versions, with similar misunderstandings. At the court of an uncle he is learning courtly manners and receives the advice not to ask too much, which serves him as a shame at the court of another uncle, lying down wounded, as the question about the significance of the mysterious Grail-procession would have cured him. Archaic elements in this story are, for example, that Peredur learns to fight with the nine war-witches of Gloucester, reminiscent of the fighting women in Irish mythology, by whom the hero Cuchulainn was educated. The Grail-procession is rather strange, in addition to the bleeding lance a vessel is brought in, in which floats a severed head in its blood. This is reminiscent of the Celtic head cult and of the Welsh king Bran, who´s severed head had contact with the Otherworld and prophesied, but who’s name also recalls the name of the Fisher King Bron from the Grail Castle of the later Grail-stories, so that the two seem to be connected. At the end of the story, however, the head is identified as that of Peredurs cousin who was killed by the war witches of Gloucester. Peredur avenges him, whereby he causes the healing of his uncle. This is certainly a later insertion, which should make an otherwise pretty pagan-looking initiation-story acceptable for a Christian audience. In the "Lady of the Fountain" Owein hears a strange story from Kai and wants to find out for himself. He meets the Lord of the Animals, a wild, giant shepherd who rules over the animals and shows the way to him. Finally he arrives at the designated spring, where he pours water on the stone with a silver cup, after which the sky darkens, and the black knight, the guardian of the spring, appears and challenges him. He can defeat him and wins the beautiful mistress of the well as his wife. When he returns to the court of Arthur, he is overtaken by a somnambulistic forgetfulness and he almost loses his wife, but her servant Luned, whose name is reminiscent of the moon, and who helped him before to get into the castle of her mistress, is able to bring everything back into order. In the last story, "Gereint, son of Erbin ', Gereint wins the beautiful Enid in a tournament for his wife and brings her to the court of King Arthur. Then they return to the court of Gereints father to defend the kingdom against enemies. When all are defeated, and the father dies, Gereint reigns over the kingdom and leads a quiet life. When Enid makes allegations that he neglects his knightly virtues, he misunderstands this and believes that she no longer loves him, and embarks on a quest, a search of adventure, on which the poor Enid must ride ahead on a mule, dressed in bad clothes. In numerous incidents Enid proves her loyalty to him, but only when he nearly dies from severe injuries he realizes Enid's value. Strange is the final adventure in which he rides into an enclosure, veiled by a magic mist, surrounded by a fence with the heads of those killed before on stakes. Inside is sitting in a red tent next to an apple-tree a beautiful girl on a golden throne, on which a horn is hanging. When he takes place on the chair opposite, he is attacked by a knight, whom he defeats. He blows the trumpet, and the fog and the magic disappear. In this episode one could probably detect the remains of old memories of tests of courage or initiation rites for a goddess. Chretien of Troyes presents this story under the title "Erec and Enid." Now I want to move on to the Arthurian Myths. One of the most important figures in them is the wise Merlin, the counselor of King Arthur. His character has various facets and sources and seems to combine several traditions. One of them is his childhood story, which is already handed down by Geoffrey of Monmouth in detail: The Britannic king Vortigern, who has carelessly brought the Saxons into the country as mercenaries, wants a secure fortress to be built, but it collapses again and again. His druids advise him to sacrifice a fatherless boy and find him in Merlin, whose father is by his mother denoted as a kind of demon or a sort of pagan god. But Merlin amazes everybody with his wisdom and his prophecies. He proves that the fortress collapses through the struggle of two underground dragons. He frees them and explains that they symbolize the British and the Saxons. This Merlin is from Carmarthen, a town in South Wales, which is actually called Caer Myrddhin, which got its name after a bard, poet and seer from the 5th or 6th century AD. That Myrddhin has contributed a lot to the figure of Merlin, who probably obtained its name from him. The Welsh manuscript collection, the "Black Book of Carmarthen" contains poems by Myrddhin, where he writes down his laments for his Lord Gwenddolau, who was killed in the Battle of Arderydd in the forest of Celyddon in the 6th century. From grief over the loss of his family (his brothers) he withdraws into the wilderness. This part of the tradition created the figure of the wild man, the half-mad Merlin, who lives in the woods with the animals, and so embraces some traits of the Lord of the Animals, the ancient Celtic god Cernunnos. The legend of the Scottish bard Lailoken which is narrated in the Life of St. Kentigern is also a contribution to this. The development of the Merlin-figure is further influenced by the myth of the Welsh bard Taliesin, who lived in the 6th century at the court of Urien of Rheged and his son Owain. The "Black Book of Carmarthen" for example, contains a poem about a conversation between Myrddhin and Taliesin about the aforementioned Battle of Arderydd. The Book of Taliesin from the thirteenth century contains several poems which are attributed to him, including the famous "Battle of the Trees" or "Cat Godeu", where the various trees and shrubs occur as warriors and in which Taliesin identifies with various natural phenomena and objects. The battle occurred because Amathaon stole a roebuck and a dog from Arawn, King of Annwn, whereupon his brother Gwydion and his nephew Lleu supported him in battle. The myth of Taliesins birth also has to do with transformations. The sorceress or goddess Ceridwen wants to help her ugly son Afagddu and brews for him a broth in a kettle which should confer to him omniscience. The little Gwion has to take care of the simmering cauldron, but gets splashed with just the three drops that mediate the omniscience. He now knows that Ceridwen is dangerous for him and escapes, while he transforms into various shapes and Ceridwen into the respective followers. Finally, he is swallowed in the form of a grain of wheat by her in the shape of a hen and reborn as the beautiful, radiant bard Taliesin, whom she exposes while in a leather vessel on a river, but is then found and raised by the matching royal family. This ability of shape-shifting is also characteristic of Merlin. One of the most famous parts of the Arthurian myths is the love story between Queen Guinevere and Arthur's best friend, the knight Lancelot, who could not relinquish his love to the queen, despite his loyalty to Arthur, whom he defended several times. This strongly emotional love story ends with repentance and penance in the monastery and could in this shape be ascribed rather to the courtly notions of courtly love which belongs to the poetry of the medieval troubadours and appears for the first time in Chretien de Troyes. In Geoffrey of Monmouth it does not exist already, here Guinevere is kidnapped by Arthur's nephew Mordred, who is trying to claim the kingdom in this way, while Arthur is abroad on conquest in Gaul. Arthur returns with his army and kills the traitor in the battle of Camlann, in which he himself is mortally wounded and a majority of the British knights dies, after which the Saxons eventually gain the upper hand. In the background of both versions seems to be an ancient mythical conception, because Gwenhyfar (Guinevere) represents the goddess of the land, whose favor is indispensable for obtaining the kingship. In the older versions of this myth, the goddess or queen of the country is often courted by two men. Either it is the rightful king, whose wife she is, and the young lover who could possibly be his successor, or it is the winter- and the summer-king, who alternate in the seasonal rhythm, or even the king of this world and the Otherworld, between which she travels back and forth (like in the Greek story of Penelope). These ways of one time living with the king, then fleeing to the lover, and then returning to the king again, could be observed not only with Guinevere, but also with Isolde, who alternates between King Mark of Cornwall and her lover Tristan, and in the Irish Gráinne, who, first betrothed to King Fionn, flees with the beautiful Diarmuid and returns to Fionn again after the death of her lover. Accordingly, the figures of the knights Lancelot and Gawain, Arthur's nephew, hero and defender of women, also Mordred, the traitorous nephew or son of Arthur with his half-sister Morgane, whose Welsh predecessors have probably been called Llenlleawg, Gwalchmai and Medraut, may have originally sprung from a single figure, namely, the Knight of the goddess or queen. He was the practitioner of a kind of worship applied in the form of a love-service to his mistress, through which she proved her divinity and generosity with which she could afford to have two men. Of further interest is the character of the fairy Morgane, the half-sister of King Arthur, who is a powerful magician and is supporting him sometimes, but at other times figures as his adversary. She is not mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth, nevertheless could she be derived from the triple Irish war-goddess Morrigan, possibly representing a kind of counterpoint to the triple goddess of the land. But she combines even traits of the shape-shifting Welsh goddess Ceridwen and the Lady of the lake, a water-nymph or -goddess, who exhibits rather healing, restorative powers, endows King Arthur with the invincible sword Excalibur and represents the foster-mother and teacher of Lancelot, the queen's knight. Accordingly Morgane carries together with her sisters the mortally wounded King Arthur in a boat to the island of Avalon, the land of apple trees, which is often located in Glastonbury in the southwest of Britain, but rather corresponds to the Celtic conception of the Otherworld, where he should be cured and wait for his return at times, when his people need him again. A little bit more should be said about Gawain. After an incorrect action in which he inflicted the death of a woman, he decided to be the knight and defender of women, which makes him the perfect gentleman in French poetry. His original character of being the knight of the goddess who must undergo difficult trials and initiation rites can be clearly seen in the English poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" from the 14th century. At Pentecost a huge green knight appears at King Arthur's court and insults all because of their cowardice, as they shy away from his offer to cut off his head with his ax, with a corresponding revenge in a year to take place. Before Arthur himself wants to save the honor of the court, his nephew Gawain accepts the monsters offer and strikes off its head, but the giant takes it under his arm and disappears. In a year Gawain finally ventures off in search of the Green Chapel, where his adversary is supposed to be found and arrives at a castle, where he is received with great hospitality. He makes friends with the owner, who knows, where the Green Chapel is located, and is frequently absent on behalf of his hunting-trips, so Gawain is often entertained by his wife, who makes advances towards him. He agrees with his host to swap the acquisition of each day. The host hands him now every time the prey that he carries with him, and Gawain returns to him the kisses to which he has confined his flirtation with the lady of the house, but conceals a belt that she has given him, that will save his life in the confrontation with the Green Knight. When he arrives at the Green Chapel, which resembles more a pagan forest- or hill-sanctuary than a scene of Christianity, he presents his head to his adversary, who only strikes three apparent blows with his ax and reveals himself to be his host. He has merely lightly scratched him with the third blow, because he has concealed the belt. Gawain is also very sad about this, but at the court of King Arthur it does not diminish his honor. The whole event really has the unique atmosphere of a mysterious initiation-ritual in which a woman plays a significant part, and fits very well with Gawain as knight of all women. After we have gradually approached the now Christian revised, but still clearly visible traces of the Celtic belief in gods, its ways of thinking and its rituals, it is now time to deal with the search for the Holy Grail. According to the stories, this search is triggered by a veiled vision of the Holy Grail in front of the assembled Round Table, accompanied by light phenomena and the sensation of accomplishment, which causes in all of them the longing to seek the source of this divine revelation and to find it again. Unfortunately, this leads to the disintegration of the Round Table, which Arthur had assembled around him to protect the weak and the helpless and to secure maintenance of order, honor and righteousness all over the country. Despite the extensive Christianization of the holy items of Celtic belief, which Christianity seems to have seen as dangerous pagan symbols, to the cup from which Jesus Christ has eaten the Last Supper and which has then taken up his blood, and the lance with which he was stabbed in the side as he hung on the cross, is in almost all descriptions evident, that the Holy Grail has its origin in the old Celtic cauldron of plenty, inspiration and rebirth, which gives to everybody what he needs, but serves no coward. In one of the Celtic myths it is guarded by nine women who are fanning the fire under it with their breath, then again it is the cauldron of the goddess Ceridwen, the god Dagda or a giant pair as in the Mabinogi.
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