Severed Heads

There is an episode in the Second Branch of Y Mabinogi where the mortally injured Brân asks the other survivors of the battle in Ireland to cut off his head:

'Take the head' said he 'and bring it to the White Hill in London, and bury it with its face towards France. And you will be on the road a long time. In Harlech you will be seven years in feasting, the birds of Rhiannon singing to you. The head will be as good company to you as it was at its best when it was ever on me. And you will be at Gwales in Penfro for eighty years. Until you open the door facing Aber Henvelen on the side facing Cornwall, you will be able to abide there, along with the head with you uncorrupted. But when you open that door, you will not be able to remain there. You will make for London and bury the head.

Severed heads, it has been claimed, were an integral part of pagan celtic religious practice.[i] Be that as it may, I have been struck by the frequency of the occurrence of decapitation in surviving folklore narratives. Among folktales I have read recently, I have noted the following:

§     A frog who is really a prince who has had a spell cast upon him. The common base theme of a girl who is prepared to kiss him, or let him sleep with her, in order for him to be turned back to human form, is extended in some tales where she is required to cut off his head in order for the transformation to take place.

(Example:The Well at Worlds End)

§    A princess transformed into a white hind and hunted by a young man on a quest who follows her into a cave and is then required to cut off the head and throw it into a well in order to transform the hind into a woman who, in her human form, is imprisoned in an enchanted castle.

(‘The King of England’ source: School of Scottish Studies

§     A young man on a quest who has to undergo a series of trials with each of three brothers living along separate stages of his quest route. These are old and grotesque but on his return journey he has to cut off the head of each of the brothers in turn and throw them into wells after which they are transformed into young men and their lands are renewed to prosperity, as here:

“The young prince dismounts, and puts his horse in the stable, and they go in to have some refreshments, for I can assure you he wanted some; and after telling everything that passed, which the old gentleman was very pleased to hear, they both went for a walk together, the young prince looking around and seeing the place looking dreadful, as did the old man. He could scarcely walk from his toe-nails curling up like ram's horns that had not been cut for many hundred years, and big long hair. They come to a well, and the old man gives the prince a sword, and tells him to cut his head off, and throw it in that well. The young man has to do it against his wish, but has to do it. No sooner has he flung the head in the well, than up springs one of the finest young gentlemen you would wish to see; and instead of the old house and the frightful-looking place, it was changed into a beautiful hall and grounds.”

from ‘The King of England and his Three Sons’ retold by Joseph Jacobs

All of the above happen to be from tales collected in Scotland. All have the theme of renewal by beheading and there is also the element of throwing the head into a well as part of this process. What are we to make of this?

If the well is to be regarded as a source of life and, in this context, re-birth, and the head as the part that can be re-born, a symbolic structure could be re-constructed. But that, somehow, escapes the mysterious subtext that suggestively underlies these tales. The story of Brân in Y Mabinogi is clearly a medieval story incorporating Other-world elements in the Birds of Rhiannon and the dwelling on a time-suspended island. The folk tales, similarly, deal in enchanted castles, shape-shifting and other transformations. Though simply told they often hint at psychic depths as well as deep things in the world we inhabit.

A frog in a well is ..... just a frog in a well - until it speaks. To engage with such things is to engage with strangeness. Often travellers in these strange worlds are asked to kill their helpers in order to renew a vital part of themselves. Is such psychic questing only about individual fulfilment or initiation? Or does it extend beyond the individual into the domain of myth when the land itself is renewed? Thinking about it, it is difficult to separate these two categories. And why should we want to?

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[i] Discussed by Anne Ross in Pagan Celtic Britain -Chapter Two (1967)

The Well at the Wood’s End

Lydney, on the banks of the Severn Estuary, is often said to get its name from Lludd or Nudd on the basis of there being the remains of a Roman Temple dedicated to Nodens there, though there are other theories about the origin of the name. I recently spent some time in the area and unsuccessfully tried to visit the site of the temple, but it is on a private estate and I was unable to gain access. I did, however, explore the Forest of Dean, which stretches from along the banks of this part of the Severn across to the River Wye. In particular I followed the course of some streams through the forest. The small river that runs down through Lydney to the Severn is called ‘The Lyd’, but only from the point where it emerges from the forest and runs down through Lydney itself. Several streams run together at this point but the main one is called ‘Cannop Brook’ and runs in a deep valley right across the forest for about ten miles or so from a source area where several springs are marked on the detailed map above the village of Lydbrook on the banks of the River Wye. So there is another ‘Lyd’ place name on the other side of the forest but no obvious association, as far as I know, with Nodens here, though the site was inhabited in Roman times. And in spite of the name of the village the brook running through it is not ‘Lydbrook’ but ‘Greathough Brook’. At least it is now, but apparently it was known in medieval times as ‘Lyd Brook’ or ‘Lud Brook’, explained in local records as ‘Loud Brook’ (Old English ‘hlud’) because of its rushing down the steep slope to the river. The stream can be followed back to two sources in the forest. One is a spring and the other a well. These two sources (‘Little Hough Brook’ and ‘Great Hough Brook’) run together under a bridge, which carries a forest road over the stream. “Hough’ (‘hock’) is puzzling. But it might have been ‘how’ (‘hill’) or ‘howe’ (‘hollow’).

The track back to the spring from this bridge is about a mile along the road running by the side of the stream, but the place from which it emerges is inaccessible and is part of the grounds of a large house, a fact which was stressed to me by the property owner who came out to enquire what I found so interesting to look at as I tried to locate it by peering over the fence! Back at the confluence, the other stream flows down through the forest and can be followed along a delightful winding path. Here is pure enchantment. For much of its course the stream is hidden in a narrow channel beneath over-arching ferns. But to wander along the steep-sided valley with its wooded slopes listening to the waters rushing through the green valley floor is to enter an enchanted place. The valley virtually sang its numen song in its tinkling waters and rustling leaves. Even when a brief shower fell I felt blessed by the drops of rain falling on my face. I slowed my pace; this walk should be for ever. At one point the stream was easily reached from the path and I knelt and touched some of the water to my forehead and spoke a blessing

But the path did have an end and I emerged from the trees onto a lane turning away from the stream now rushing swiftly down the slope from a point above, where the well is marked on the map. The lane went ahead past some ramshackle farm buildings but then turned across the slope to the well. From a path leading off the lane I could see a mound surrounded by watercress. Here was the well, a sadly neglected structure with a padlocked gate across it. It stood next to a cottage and a car was parked across the path. I was probably trespassing again! So I stood there briefly, took a few photos, and left, skirting the forest to follow a track down to a point beyond the confluence of the two streams and followed the course of Greathough Brook as far as the outskirts of Upper Lydbrook village. It was a wonderful day. Though I found no temple of Nodens or anything significant about Lludd, the streams of Lyd sang to me and are flowing through my dreams.

The Stream below the Well