Showing posts with label Manawydan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manawydan. Show all posts

The Enchanted Fort


From the Third Branch of Y Mabinogi

[Manawydan and Pryderi are following a shining white boar which leads them to an empty fort into which the boar has disappeared. Pryderi wants to follow. Manawydan says]:

“It is not a good idea to go into the fort. We have not seen the fort here before and my advice is not to go near it.” But Pryderi replies, “I will not abandon my hounds” and, in spite of Manawydan’s counsel, goes to the fort.

[…..]

After waiting to see if Pryderi will return, Manawydan returns home without him.

When he comes in, Rhiannon looks up and asks “Your companion and the dogs, where are they?” He told her the tale. “Indeed, you were a poor companion, and it’s a good companion that you have lost”. With that word she went off to where he said the fort was.

She saw that the gate was open, and it was not hidden. In she came and discovered Pryderi grasping a basin [attached to a fountain] and said “Oh my lord, what are you doing here?” She took hold of the basin. As soon as she does this, her hands also stick to the basin and her feet to the base of the fountain, and she is struck dumb.

As soon as night fell, behold, a great tumult, a shower of mist, and the fort disappears with them in it

A Scaffold for a Mouse


Setting this up seemed mean

and was judged to be so 

for it seemed to demean


Manawydan living in a dream

landscape with the life

conjured out of it like a flat plane


They moved across, Rhiannon,

Pryderi, Cigfa and he

chasing shadows to an enchanted fountain.


Against such powerful magic: a small

gesture enacted on this scaffold

quietly, determinedly, a model


Of spell-breaking – no fires on

the astral plane but calculated

unconcern in the face of persuasion


And a firm grip on a small thing

for a great purpose:  he would 

release into the world again


a woman in an asses collar;

make the rivers flow again,

awaken form to its true nature:


Mouse to pregnant woman,

stabled horse to a mare running free,

changes real magic causes to happen.