Reconstructionism and Celtic Studies

A topic that I have turned to on a number of occasions is the question of the use of medieval folklore and literarure as late sources for the reconstruction of pagan mythology. I discussed it previously on this blog HERE. In a reconsideration of this question I have turned once again to a book that was a considerable influence on my thinking on the subject when I first read it many years ago: W. J. Gruffydd's Rhiannon (1953). Gruffydd, who was a poet in Welsh as well as a scholar, approached the medieval Welsh tales in the 'Four Branches' of Y Mabinogi, in common with many others, as literary constructions built on the remnants of earlier mythology. In attempting to reconstruct that mythology he proposed a series of transformations and substitutions leading from the original myths to the medieval stories.

Inevitably words like 'corruption' and 'contamination' appeared in his analysis of the changes he described. But it would be wrong to lump him entirely with the school of anthropology that saw the agents of the changes, as Matthew Arnold's disparaging remark puts it, “pillaging an antiquity of which they scarcely possessed the secret". He was in fact critical of approaches like those of James Frazer whose monumental work The Golden Bough he says "has diverted attention from the pure mythology - what may be called the history - of the divine beings of the ancient world to their cultural significance, and this has in turn resulted in much unprofitable speculation and darkening of counsel"(* p.100). It is in his concentration on the story of the gods, in pursuit of what he calls 'storyology', that Gruffydd seeks the history of a story that might have many versions and whose characters might have different names in these different versions. The story, in this view, is universal, and will be told in different ways in different cultures. But if the intent of analysis is to relate a cultural significance, or an historically based local variation , then the clear lines of the story itself can be lost in the process. So whatever literary works such as Y Mabinogi can tell us about the literary art of the eleventh or twelfth centuries, about the craft of their author, about the cultural life of the times in which they were composed and even, as some now argue, about historical events that surrounded them, all of this is subordinate to the story they contain.

What is that story? Gruffydd asserts that it was the same story that was told in the Ancient World of Ishtar and Attis, of Demeter and Persephone; and in the Brythonic world, of Matrona and Maponos in one version and Rigantona and Gweir (Pryderi) in another. The point is not that these are are exactly 'equivalent' deities, rather that they are different personalities acting out the same story: the divine mother searches for the lost child and has to go to the Otherworld or the Nether Regions to retrieve him or her. Gruffydd's analysis of Y Mabinogi therefore seeks to show how this story is contained in the first and the third of these tales. The parallel myths of the god and goddess Rigantona and Tigernonos on the one hand and Vironos and Matrona on the other, each pair with a divine child who features in recorded mythology as Maponos, became fused together in one story, suggesting that in the medieval Welsh tales "the story of Rhiannon and Gweir is so precisely that of Modron and Mabon that the corresponding characters have become interchangeable."(*p.103). However mistaken Gruffydd might be in the specificity of his account, or in reshaping the tales to fit his analysis, his insistence on the primacy of the story or the myth of the Horse Goddess, her Husband and her Son, preserves the notion that gods can inhabit stories and that we can find them there and respond to their characters however much literary re-shaping and combination of themes has occurred during their transmission.


(*)Quotations from W. J. Gruffydd's Rhiannon (University of Wales Press, 1953).

Norse and Celtic (again)

I commented about two years ago about parallels between Norse and Celtic lore, picking up some thematic contrasts and comparisons. Themes of folklore have often been shown to be international, with the same motifs cropping up in different contexts in different cultures. In this sense the fundamentals of human stories do not vary enormously across cultures. But is there likely to be any  cultural similarities between speakers of distinct languages? Many have thought there should be on the basis of them inhabiting similar geographical areas and also a perceived similarity between the art of the two cultural groups. The argument against is the fact that the languages  are distinct. Cultural links between speakers of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic are clear on historical and geographical criteria but also on the fact that the languages are very close to each other and to an extent mutually intelligible. Similarities with German and English, though more distant, are reflected in common mythological backgrounds. With the change of language to Celtic, the mythological background also seems to be distinct. The origin of Celtic speakers may be unclear with identified sources in central Europe and/or the Iberian peninsula. But it is clear that in historical times the two groups overlapped in parts of north-west Europe.

To make this even more complex, there is a debate within Celtic Studies as to the extent of interaction between Welsh and Irish speakers in the historical period and so on the question of a common inheritance for speakers of languages that were no more mutually intelligible than Welsh and Old English. But interaction there must have been between speakers of different languages both on the British mainland and farther afield. Consider that the character who gives his name to the Icelandic Njál's Saga has a name that is Irish in origin. Vikings moved between Ireland and different parts of Britain interacting with both Celts and Saxons. Is there any evidence of anything they have in common apart from aspects of their material culture which might be expected to exhibit similarities given that they inhabited overlapping geographical areas in the same historical period?

In the Völsunga Saga it is said of Sigurd that "he is known in all the tongues north of the Greek Ocean and so it must remain as long as the world endures". I seem to remember something similar being said as the reason for the many different names of Ódinn, so that many different people would be able to know him. "All the tongues north of the Greek Ocean" is certainly pretty inclusive. But differences in language can also be exclusive. Is there a way across this divide?

A recent book* discussing some work done by Tolkien on similarities in e.g. i-mutation in English and i-affection in Welsh led him to the conclusion that " the different languages of North-Western Europe functioned, despite their differences, as in some ways a single philological province, subject to the same influences." Could such a flicker of commonality be of enough significance  to throw light  on deeper cultural currents that might unite these disparate language groups. Or did Matthew Arnold get it right when he pronounced on the contrasting temperaments of Celt and Saxon?

*Tolkien and Wales by Carl Phelpstead

Thomas the Rhymer

A classic piece of traditional folk singing here - I think Thomas the Rhymer really does need a Scottish accent.

It would be great if Karine Polwart recorded it.

Ysbaddaden Pencawr

(Cwmcarn Forest Art)

A synopsis

The giant leered, the props holding up his eye-lids dripped tears so salty the tides of a dead sea flowed across his cheeks , washed the spittle on his chin and dried in a dawn that left his age behind, a residue on an arid shore.

From which Olwen walked onto grass moist with dew so that white flowers sprang in her footsteps.

And Culhwch to accompany her into the living day of their new age.

This is the life of myth, glossing intimations of ogrish fathers in images of fantastic proportions.

Gleaning from a jealous stepmother sending her stepson to certain death, an heroic ride to Arthur’s court and the hunting of a boar of power as condition for a marriage.

Were dragons slain? Or arrangements made to preserve appearances?

The Birth of Pryderi

From the First Branch of Y Mabinogi

(Rhiannon's baby has been snatched away, 

then the action switches to Teyrnon in Gwent):

Teyrnon had the mare brought into the house, then he armed himself for his vigil. As darkness fell, the mare gives birth to a large, good-looking foal, standing up on its feet. Teyrnon gets up to admire the sturdiness of the foal. As he does so, he hears a mighty commotion - and, following this commotion an enormous claw appears through the window, seizing the colt by its mane. Then what Teyrnon does is draw his sword and cut the arm from the elbow down - so that most of the arm, together with the colt, is inside the house.

Then he hears the sound of a commotion and a scream together. He opens the door and follows the commotion. He can't see where it is coming from as the night is so dark. But he keeps going towards it. Then he remembers that the door is open and goes back. By the door what does he see but a small child in swaddling clothes, wrapped in a sheet of brocaded silk. He picks up the boy, and observes that he is strong for his age.

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

Did a Woman Write The Four Branches of the Mabinogi?

I am prompted  to consider this question following an intervention on a forum recently by Andrew Breeze to promote his view that the author of Pedair Cainc y Mabinogi was a woman and, in particular that the woman in question was Gwenllian (1090-1136). She is otherwise famous as a ‘warrior princess’ for leading an attack on Cydweli castle against the Normans, during which she was killed. Although I was familiar with this theory, I had not read Andrew Breeze’s book The Origins of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, so I located a copy and read the chapter in which the argument is set out.

The first part of the argument, that the views and the feelings expressed present a woman’s perspective on events, is quite persuasive as literary analysis and, in this respect, makes the case that a woman could have written the tales on the basis of characterization and the presentation of the sympathies of female characters - especially  Rhiannon. Indeed I found myself quite won over to the view that  female perspectives are strongly apparent here. This might have provided an interesting preamble to a discussion about the ways in which characters can inhabit stories or whether feminine perspectives can, necessarily, only be advanced by women.

But to move from this sort of reading of a text to the attempt to establish not only that the author definitely was a woman, but also to identify a specific character from the historical record, is, it seems to me, unjustified. The consensus view is that there is no way of knowing who the author was. There is no reason, of course, why this should not be challenged. But Andrew Breeze’s specific arguments for the authorship of Gwenllian seem to me to be rather forced and unconvincing. I don't, for instance, find the idea that the style of the poems of Hywel ap Owain Gwynedd has anything to say about the likelihood of his aunt Gwenllian displaying similarities in her prose style.

Other views could be advanced on stylistic grounds that, for example, the Fourth branch feels as if it were written by someone different from the First and Third branches and probably also the Second branch. That is a literary judgement which I might be inclined promote on the grounds of my own careful reading. But given the lack of firm evidence of authorship, there would be little point in doing more than recording it as an impression.

There has been a reaction against the tendency to see the tales as degraded pagan myths and the consequent attempts to reconstruct their mythical sources. Instead, it is argued, we should see the tales in the context of the historical period in which they were composed in their current forms. But if this leads, as it often does, to attempts to reconstruct political, historical or biographical facts that are not manifest in the texts, then arguably the same sort of errors of critical judgement may ensue. Where supposed mythical origins are based on thematic or philological identifications, these might be seen as a firmer base than speculations about political or historical significance.

I have argued in earlier posts that gods can inhabit folktales, stories and other cultural exchanges without it being necessary to prove an historical development from earlier myths, as enlightening as such proofs that are available may be to those who wish to read the tales in this way. Similarly, it is surely enough to find strongly feminine perspectives in the narrative or the characterization of the tales without this meaning that we have to identify a female author for them where no evidence of authorship exists.

Andrew Breeze indicates that he finds it difficult to live with the "nothing is concluded" of Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas, so needs to arrive at a firm conclusion. I think here of the view of John Keats in what he called 'Negative Capability', that is  the ability to respond creatively while also "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”.


Personally I'm happy to live with 'negative capability' in this respect, and don't read the tales primarily as containing political or historical messages of the specificity assigned to them in the book. Rather they speak through their author of deeper things. Not just because of the supposed mythological origins but also because all literature has this as its primary function rather than being an adjunct to historical study.

It may be that it was Gwenllian who composed the Four Branches out of disparate elements from folklore and oral tales and made the literary creation that they are. Just as it may be that Shakespeare's plays were really written by Edward de Vere, The Earl of Oxford, as some choose to suppose and try to prove. But I find such speculations less interesting than the way we are spoken to directly from the text: 'The play's the thing ...'.

Ronald Hutton and the Gods

I am led from reflections in recent post on the figure of the woman from the Otherworld on a horse emerging in different guises - here as Rhiannon, there as the ‘Queen of Elfland’, elsewhere in another guise - to consideration of an article by Ronald Hutton in a recent issue of the journal Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies in which he casts doubt on the interpretation of characters in medieval stories - in particular those collected in The Mabinogion – as survivals of pagan gods. For example, he questions the back construction of the Brythonic goddess *Rigantona on linguistic evidence alone from Rhiannon whose name has been seen as a plausible development from *Rigantona. In the process of doing this he also casts doubt on the sovereignty argument, which sees goddesses as conferring sovereignty on kings or tribal leaders, as “a back-projection from medieval texts” rather than anything that can be attested in Antiquity. Hutton also casts doubt on the connection of Mabon with the undisputed Brythonic god Maponos, and of Lleu with Lugh , and in the process casts doubt on the provenance of Lugus as a pan-celtic deity. Hutton has apparently undertaken this review as an historian attempting to bring a broader understanding to the subject than is often brought by those working within narrower single disciplines such as philology, archaeology or folklore studies.

One of the points Hutton makes is that, in some cases, many of the elements in these medieval stories are international folklore motifs rather than themes restricted to Celtic cultures and that the borrowing of a name might take place without the attribution of the borrowed identity being also transferred. So the transfer of, for example, an epithet of Lugh in Ireland to Lleu in a story composed in Wales, does not imply any meaningful transfer of the deity status of Lugh to a Welsh context. Such arguments, alongside those of denying pagan survivals on the basis of linguistic evidence alone, will no doubt be assessed in responses from other scholars within the fields cited by Hutton. He also hopes that the arguments will be considered by others interested in the subject. What of those who have sought to construct a religious practice centred on Brythonic deities? For them many of the characters in what Hutton calls “wonder tales, in which apparently human characters frequently possess magical abilities” are seen as gods. Experiencing them as such is often validated by, though not entirely dependent upon, the fact that scholars have confirmed this view.

Whether one chooses to regard the gods as inhabiting the human psyche and therefore able to emerge when needed, as figures that can form and reform across cultures adapting different identities, or as beings with their own lives who choose to enter human consciousness in different ways at different times or in different places; to those for whom the gods are real in any of these ways, the problems raised by Hutton will not be problems at all. Whatever scholarship may bring to bear on the history of religion, the lives and messages of the proponents of religion and the provenance of various religious practices, it cannot address the question of the existence or otherwise of a god or gods. Gods, by definition, just are.

The recognition of a goddess on horseback possessing Otherworld qualities in the story of Rhiannon is not in itself dependent on scholarly identification of a likely divine source for her name. The fact that similar, but independent, stories exist which are equally expressive, such as the Scottish Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, are better reinforcements of human responses to the mythical life of the deity. And the expression of the mythical pattern in the folklore of different cultures is a further reinforcement of this feeling rather than an argument against it. If there are other medieval tales of women on magical horses moving at uncanny paces, as cited by Hutton referring to work by Jessica Hemming, this will further reinforce that view. So data used by Hutton to prove a particular point about the lack of specific continuity within a particular culture, might be seen as validating the view he is trying to invalidate. How can this be so?

To answer this, we could take the approach of Hutton as an engagement on an axis between scepticism about the pagan origins of medieval characters and at the other end of the axis, say, the theories of Caitlin Matthews who provides a systematic set of correspondences between these characters and Brythonic deities and supposed religious practices. The scholars cited by Hutton are nowhere near this extreme end of the spectrum but do, in varying degrees, affirm the correspondence between pagan deities and medieval fictional characters. Brythonic pagans will of course draw succour from such views, but, I suggest, should not base their religious practices on them. If, instead, we think along an axis at right angles, or some other angle, off this continuum, and suggest that historical correspondence is not the point so much as the identification of the nature of deity, then the questions will b e different ones. Can the gods choose to reveal themselves by inhabiting stories? Does it matter (to them or us) if we actually call them gods? Can stories generate themselves as a vehicle for such a process and transform themselves over time? Such questions may seem fantastic in the context of the debate along the historical continuum axis. But if these matters are to be approached by those who think of themselves as adherents of a pagan religion, then they are questions that will be to the fore, informed by research and conclusions developed on the other axis – and indeed further other axes – but not ultimately determined by them.

Would one be deluded in asking such questions? That is something that can be asked of religious believers in any faith. The Welsh Quaker poet Waldo Williams asked it of himself, and concluded that no adherents of any religion had anything but their own experiences to rely on. ‘Belief’ can be a matter of communal or social choice, but this doesn’t necessarily entail experience of a deity. Those who do have such experiences will, perhaps, turn to scholarship to inform them of the history of such belief, and they may themselves undertake the sort of investigation of the sources of texts such as I have engaged upon in recent posts on the ‘Thomas’ legend (now brought together HERE.) . They may conclude as a result of such researches that certain texts are, or are not, linked to other texts or part of a systematic religious practice at a particular place and time. But this is a separate consideration to the one which may inform their appreciation of stories as expressions of particular aspects of deity.

True Thomas - Parallel Themes and Resonances

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

John Waterhouse

In addition to the Ballad and the 'Prophecies' of True Thomas, there is a body of Scottish fairy lore associated with Thomas. His coming and goings from the Otherworld feature in many tales such as this one->.

Whether these stem from the Ballad, or are a parallel development with the Ballad, is difficult to establish. Just as it is difficult to be certain whether either or both of these came from the tale which opens the 'Prophecies' or whether all stem from a common earlier source.

What is likely is that Thomas became a magnet for the folklore of the Otherworld, attracting stories to himself whose themes are also expressed elsewhere. He became a typological figure of the Otherworld journeyer, moving backwards and forwards across the borders of the two worlds.

In the first branch of Y Mabinogi Pwyll moves across that border and returns with the title 'Pen Annwn' , and by being an Otherworld ruler as well as a ruler of Dyfed,  his visitation from the Horse Goddess legitimates his rule. For Thomas the benefits are otherwise. But the idea of gaining insight, poetic or prophetic knowledge, or sovereign legitimacy is all bundled into this meme of the Otherworld's influence on human affairs. The application of such memes might vary across political, theological and cultural spheres as well as in different historical periods. Like much of the fabric of medieval life which was taken up in later periods, this tale became part of the ideology of poetic Romanticism when John Keats adopted the persona of Thomas as a thrall to the Muse. His own situation as a consumptive poet with little prospect of a long life, or of being able to pursue the woman he was attracted to, also determined a tragic context for his version. So here Thomas becomes a doomed and lovelorn Romantic poet in medieval guise, as depicted by John Waterhouse's painting based on Keat's poem, both of which express a barely supressed sexuality and resonances of guilt, elements included in one episode of the 'Prophecies'; but also a lost sovereignty, a chance not realised, a beguiling by an Otherworld that remains unattainable. Is that the quintessential modern expression of this meme?

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

  Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither’d from the lake,

  And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!

        

  So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

  And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow

  With anguish moist and fever dew,

    

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

  Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

  Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

      

  And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look’d at me as she did love,

  And made sweet moan.

    

I set her on my pacing steed,

  And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

  A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

     

  And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

  “I love thee true.”

She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,

      

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

  With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

  And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream’d

      

  On the cold hill’s side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—“La Belle Dame Sans Merci

  Hath thee in thrall!”

      

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

  With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

  On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

       

  Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,

  And no birds sing.

True Thomas : What Can We Say About Sources?

The Remains of Thomas of Erceldoune's Tower in modern-day Earlston

Having looked at the parallel narratives of the ‘Prophecies’ and the Ballad, what can now be said of the likely source of each of them? We know that the earliest manuscript of the ‘Prophecies’ is from the 14th century and that it is supposed to be the work of the historical Thomas of Erceldoune who lived over a hundred years earlier. There are two reason to think that the four extant manuscripts stem from an earlier version rather than being accurate copies of an earlier text. The first is that, although the story seems to have originated in Scotland, the language suggests that the author was from the North of England. This suggests an adaptation of a Scottish tale. Some commentators have felt that the change from the First Person to the Third Person, and then back again, also suggests a source in an earlier version. The tales begins “As I went out …” and continues using ‘I’ until Thomas sees the Lady. The narration then changes with “He said …” and remains in the Third Person through all the central events until “My lovely lady said to me” when she informs Thomas that they are to return. It then remains in the First Person. Was there an earlier version entirely in the First Person, told by Thomas of Erceldoune, and if so was he relating on his own account a story already known to him? This trail ends here.

What of the Ballad? We can trace the record back a little beyond its first emergence in print. Two version appeared early in the Nineteenth Century, one from Walter Scott and the other from Robert Jamieson. Information about how their versions were obtained is contained in the letters of Robert Anderson, a doctor from Edinburgh who was also a literary historian. He published Lives of the English Poets in 1795 and a critical edition of the works of Samuel Johnson in 1815. He carried on an extensive correspondence with other literary men including Bishop Percy, whose Reliques of Ancient English Poetry had been published in 1765. (*) In communicating with Percy about Scottish border ballads in September 1800, Anderson refers to “a pretty large MS collection of old Scottish ballads, communicated by Mrs Brown, wife of Dr Brown, minister of Falkirk”. He reports that Mrs Brown “learned them all when she was a child by hearing them sung by her mother and an old maid-servant”. Mrs Brown had also been visted by Robert Jamieson earlier that year. Anderson then relates that, together with Robert Jamieson, he visited Walter Scott and they discussed the Ballad of True Thomas which had been obtained from Mrs Brown. Anderson spoke of his "suspicion of modern manufacture, in which Scott had secretly anticipated me”, as Mrs Brown was fond of ballads and herself wrote verse. But he concluded that “her character places her above the suspicion of literary imposture”, a view which James Murray, the editor of the ‘Prophecies’ treated with some skepticism.

But it should be noted that, in December 1800, Anderson again wrote to Percy about some ballads that had been passed to Wm Tytler by Professor Thomas Gordon of Aberdeen in 1783. Gordon was Mrs Brown’s father. These ballads had come from the same woman later identified by Mrs Brown, together with an aunt, a Mrs Farquharson, although Gordon does not mention his wife as a source. Mrs Brown herself later wrote to Tytler’s son who had enquired about the ballads, saying “I do not pretend that these ballads are correct in any way as they are written down entirely from my recollection, for I never saw one of them in print or manuscript”.

As Mrs Brown seems to have communicated a large number of ballads to a variety of different people, all apparently from memory, it is possible that she did not give all of them exactly the same versions. But this does not explain the considerable difference between Scott’s and Jamieson’s versions. And it does seem odd that she is the only source for the Ballad. We might wish to consider here that Anderson also reported to Percy that Jamieson proposed to publish his own collection of old ballads “with interpolated stanzas written by himself”. These later appeared as Popular Ballads and Songs(1806). We might think that Jamieson was more likely to anglicize the ballad in order to popularise it, or that Scott would be more likely to want to keep the Scottish flavour. Jamieson’s version certainly has all the indications of an adaptation by him in line with his stated intentions. Scott, however, was clearly also working from the ‘Prophecies’. He set out his version of the Ballad followed by a second section by himself but based on the ‘Prophecies’ and a third section in which he imaginatively created an epilogue. These are scrupulously separated. But could he have been influenced, or more than influenced, by the ‘Prophecies’ in transcribing a text of the ‘traditional’ Ballad obtained from Mrs Brown’s dictation?

-*-

* For Anderson’s correspondence, see 

Illustrations of Literary History of the Eighteenth Century by J B Nicholls (1848)