Mabinogion IV: Largely Concerned with Pigs

The Myth: Myths of Wales! Knights! Kings! Faeries! Giants! Princesses! Vaguely Arthurian Imagery!
The Book: The Mabinogion
The Author:  Various bards of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This text: etext of a 1906 translation by Lady Charlotte Guest
Price: $2.48 (Dover Thrift Editions. There's also a free version at Project Gutenberg, but the stories are in a different order.)

And rounding out the fourth main book of the Mab, we discover the secret origin of pigs and why it's dangerous to stand on the edge of your bath.

Mabinogion IV: Math, son of Mathonwy
So Math, son of Mathonwy can't exist unless his feet are in the lap of a maiden, unless he's actually at war. It's not made at all clear whether this is curse or fetish. Regardless, Gilvaethwy, son of Don and nephew of Math, falls in love with one particular footmaiden, Goewin, and sulks. His brother, Gwydion, offers to help him, by clearing Goewin's lap of feet. Obviously, this means starting a war.

Pryderi, son of Pwyll - refer previous - has been given a herd of wondrous new animals from his friends-and-relations in Annwvyn. These beasts are small and even tastier than oxen, and they go by many names: swine, pigs, hogs and so on.

Depending on your reading of Annwvyn - Lady Guest's footnote has it as "Hades" - this makes pigs magical creatures from fairyland, divine creatures from paradise or demon creatures from hell.

Regardless, Gwydion promises Math he'll get some. He and his party disguise themselves as a bards and sing their way into in Pryderi's court. Gwydion uses his magic to conjure up twelve horses and twelve greyhounds with twelve shields which he offers in trade to Pyderi. He takes possession of the pigs and tells his men to get them back to Math pronto, on account of any moment now those dogs and horses are going to turn back into the fungus he made them from.

Gwydion drives the pigs back to Math as fast as their trotters will carry them, and presents them to court in triumph.

"What are those trumpets?" asks Math.

"That might be Pryderi's vengeful army after the pigs," says Gwydion.

Math rides out to meet Pryderi, leaving his footmaiden in the palace. Gilvaethwy turfs out the other footmaidens but, sinisterly, forces Goewin to remain.

Pryderi attacks but does pretty poorly. He surrenders and offers Math hostages, but on the retreat he can't stop his archers from taking potshots at Math's people, so it's pretty clear the war is still on. He sues Math for peace, offering to duel Gwydion to resolve the dispute, on account of he started it. Math, who never really wanted to go to war over a bunch of magic pigs, agrees.

"So can we get the pigs back?"
"No."
"Fair enough."

Gwydion, on account of being a wizard, wins, and Pryderi is slain. With no further use for them, the hostages are released, and Math heads back home to put his feet up.

Alas: Goewin no longer qualifies as a footmaiden, and she denounces Gilvaethywy and Gwydion the second they come in the door. Math compensates her by marrying her and giving her lands, and he sentences Gilvaethywy and Gwydion to spend a year as deer.

At the end of the deer year, the two brothers return with a fawn in tow. Realising that it's his kin, Math adopts it and has it baptised. Then he sentences the brothers to be wild pigs for a year, and sends them out.

At the end of the pig year, they return with a piglet. Math adopts it and has it baptised, and it turns into a little boy. He sentences his nephews to be wolves for a year, and drives them out again.

A year later they're back, with a puppy. Math sighs, adopts it and has it baptised. He declares the brothers crimes expiated, and orders them washed. The three animal brothers go on to be faithful servants of Math, although it's worth noting that the text has only the pig turning into a boy on baptism.

Three years without a footmaiden, Math asks his niece Arianrod if she qualifies. She claims to, but when she steps over Math's magic wand, a baby appears. Arianrod denies all knowledge and in fact pretends not to see this apparent offspring, so Gwydion takes the boy under his wing. Arianrod is not made a footmaiden.

Arianrod continues to disown the boy, and curses him that he will never get a name except one that she gives him. Gwydion disguises him as a shoemaker, and tricks Arianrod into naming him Llew Llaw Gyffes, because he shoots like a lion. Fine, she says, but he won't get any arms or armour unless she gives it to him. Gwydion and Llew disguise themselves as bards, and Gwydion creates the illusion of an imminent army. Just after Arianrod has finished dressing the boy in armour, Gwydion laughs and waves away the illusion.

Fine, says Arianrod, but he'll not marry any woman of any race of this earth.

This stumps Gwydion, so he complains to Math. Math and Gwydion use their sorcery to make the boy a wife out of flowers, and they call her Blodeuwedd. Llew and Blodeuwedd are married.

Blodeuwedd, however, is fickle. She falls in love with a wandering lord, Gronw Pebyr. Gronw offers to bump off her husband, but it turns out that he can only be killed in the most ludicrous of circumstances.

"So, how can you be killed, husband? No reason."
"Don't worry about it. It's kind of complicated and boring."
"But suppose you one day accidentally find yourself in complicated and boring circumstances, and, I'm literally the only person who can save you? I should know."
"That sounds reasonable."

So Blodeuwedd explains to Gronw that he needs to prepare a spear that has ritually prepared for a year, and he has to use it to strike Llew Llaws Gyffes while he has one foot on a riverside bath with a thatched roof over it, and the other on a buck. Gronw points out that it seems unlikely that Llew will just happen to be standing with one foot on the bath and one foot on a buck. Good point, says Blodeuwedd.

A year later, she has worked it out. "Husband," she says, "that one-foot-on-the-bath, one-foot-on-a-buck thing sounds absolutely ludicrous. Can you demonstrate what it would look like?"

"Sure," says her husband, earning minus seventeen points for good thinking.

Gronw throws his spear and hits Llew on the side. Llew panics and turns into an eagle and flies off. Gronw goes back to the castle and installs himself as lord of the manor, with Blodeuwedd at his side.

Gwydion and Math hear about these goings on, and Gwydion sets out to investigate. For no adequately explained reason, his chosen method of investigation is to follow a pig that leaves its sty in the morning, wanders off who knows where, and comes back just in time for the sty's gate to be closed in the evening.

Sometimes, you've got to follow your hunches. Tthe pig leads him straight to a strangely familiar eagle. Gwydion coaxes it down with song, where it turns into a sick and hungry Llew.

They retire to Math's castle. Math raises an army to take back Llew's own lands, and they take Blodeuwedd captive. For her crimes, Blodeuwedd is sentenced to life as an owl.

At this point, Grolw sends a message saying, I didn't really mean it, it was her fault, she tricked me, please don't kill me. This seems reasonable, and Gwydion asks only one thing: that he be allowed to repeat the blow that turned him into an eagle. Grolw asks if he's allowed a shield. Sure, says Gwydion, so Grolw picks up a huge slab of rock.

Grolw takes up his perch on the bath and the buck, and Llew launches his spear. It goes right through the rock and right through Gronw Pebry. Justice is served, and apparently the rock is still there.

Thus ends this portion of the Mabinogion.

Next: Kilhwch, Olwen, and more pigs.

Mabinogion III: Mice and Manawyddan

The Myth: Myths of Wales! Knights! Kings! Faeries! Giants! Princesses! Vaguely Arthurian Imagery!
The Book: The Mabinogion
The Author:  Various bards of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This text: etext of a 1906 translation by Lady Charlotte Guest
Price: $2.48 (Dover Thrift Editions. There's also a free version at Project Gutenberg, but the stories are in a different order.)

The third bit of the Mab is back in fairly solid fairy tale territory.

Mabinogion III: Manawyddan, son of Lyrr
So the seven heroes from the last story reintegrate back into society, and Manawydden realises to his sorrow that he doesn't actually have a kingdom to call his own. "Never fear," says young Pryderi, "I have my Dad's seven cantrevs of Dyved, plus like a dozen from my wife and some more of Dad's, plus some sort of obscure claim to some lands in the Underworld. You can marry my mum and rule Dyved until like you die or something."

These heroes have spent eighty years in Gwales without ageing, and Rhiannon hasn't, but there are possibilities:
(a) no time has passed in the outside world
(b) Rhiannon, being kind of magical herself, hasn't aged much either, or
(c) Rhiannon is remarkably well-preserved for her hundred or so years.

Pryderi's wife Kicva wasn't in Gwales either.

Whichever it is, Manawyddan thinks it's a good deal, and agrees. Pryderi tells his mum that he has a new dad, and she also agrees. Pointedly.

Everything goes swimmingly to begin with, as Manawyddan and Rhiannon and Pryderi and Kicva perform their feudal duties as the best of friends. But then one day, there comes a thunderous mist, and when the mist lifts, everyone in Dyved is gone.

Welsh Family Dyved takes this in their stride for a couple of years, hunting and scavenging through their lands (it's not looting if you're the Prince), but eventually they get bored and head off to Hereford in Lloegyr, where they set up as saddle makers.

Thing is, though, that although they're terribly good at it, Hereford already has saddle makers. These plot to introduce the clan to certain key aspects of Lloegyr's commercial competition policy by beating them to death. Pryderi is an enthusiastic convert to the cause and proposes a reciprocal fatal beating, but Manawyddan points out that fatal beatings are illegal if you're a craftsman and they might be up for a highly embarrassing prison sentence. The family leaves.

"Oh, come on, Manawyddan. We can take these guys."
"You want to explain it to the king? He's my cousin, dude. It'd be so embarrassing."
"I'm telling you, these guys have never fought anything bigger than a buckle!"
"No!"

They try again in a couple more towns, working as shield makers and shoemakers, but in each town they are visited by murderous representatives of the local craftsmen's collectives, and in each town Manawyddan restrains Pryderi from adopting the local industrial negotiation practices. Each town, they leave.

Eventually they find themselves back in Dyved, where they go back to hunting and looting. After about a year of this, they see a white boar and set their hounds on it. The boar runs into a mysterious castle that wasn't there before, and one of the dogs follows it. Pryderi investigates, against Manawyddan's advice.

"That's one spooky castle. Maybe we should, you know, go home."
"You scared there might be shoemakers in there?"
"It's a bad idea, dude."
"You're not my real dad!"

The castle is completely deserted, and Pryderi can't even find the boar or the dog. What he does find is a magic fountain with a golden bowl - but when he picks it up, his hands are frozen to it, his feet are frozen to the stone slab, and he finds himself struck dumb.

Manawyddan goes home. Rhiannon is distinctly unimpressed with her husband, and stalks off to rescue her son. She enters the castle, finds Pryderi stuck to the fountain, touches the bowl, and is stuck and dumb herself.

Then the castle disappears.

"Guess I could try shoemaking again."
"Good plan."    

Manawyddan and Kicva go back to Lloegyr, but Manawyddan again struggles to adapt to the local craftsman culture and is again threatened by the militant shoemaker union. Kicva recommends violence, but Manawyddan sells his shoemaking concern, buys several sacks of grain, and they return once more to Dyved.

Manawyddan sows three crofts with grain, but when the time comes to harvest the first crop, he finds someone has beaten him to it, taking the ears of grain but leaving the stalks. The same thing happens to the second. Kicva recommends a stakeout.

"Unless, you know, you're worried it's a plague of shoemakers."

Come midnight, and there's the rumble of an approaching army. Of mice. They climb the stalks and chew off the heads and scamper. Manawyddan wades into battle, but lacking an area effect weapon he's unable to do much more than flail ineffectually at them. He ends up taking a single mouse captive, because it was too slow to run away.

Manawyddan is a Prince and knows how do deal with grain thieves: he sentences the mouse to hang. He is in the process of making a tiny gibbet, when a man in tattered scholar's robes approaches. Manawyddan realises how long it's been since he last saw another person in Dyved as he hears himself lamely explain that he has sentenced a mouse to hang as a grain thief.

The scholar asks that he doesn't. He offers money. Then horses. Then more horses than he can possibly imagine. Manawyddan says that the mouse has been sentenced to hang, and it's damn well going to hang. The scholar asks if there's anything that he wants, at all, ever. Manawyddan muses that he wouldn't mind seeing the curse lifted from Dyved. The scholar agrees, on account of it was him that put it there. He is Llwyd, son of Kilcoed, and was a friend of Gwawl, son of Clud. He is taking unofficial revenge on Rhiannon and Pryderi for the whole badger-in-the-bag thing.

Manawyddan says that he is a duly appointed legal lord of the land, and he has a sentence to carry out. What, he asks, is this mouse to you? The scholar says that it's his wife. His pregnant wife. Who sometimes likes to be a mouse. And could you please put her down, my lord?

Manawyddan drives a hard bargain: restore Dvyd to how it was. And its people. And Rhiannon. And Pryderi. And no sneaky taking revenge later for holding his mousewife to ransom. Llwyd agrees, noting that the last clause was pretty damn clever because he was totally going to take revenge. Only when Rhiannon and Pryderi are back at his side and the land is restored to his satisfaction does he give Llwyd his mouse back. And it turns out that she's pretty cute, when she's returned to human form.

All is once again well in Dvyd.

Thus ends this portion of the Mabinogion.

Next: Largely concerned with pigs.

Mabinogion II: Branwen and her Brothers

The Myth: Myths of Wales! Knights! Kings! Faeries! Giants! Princesses! Vaguely Arthurian Imagery!
The Book: The Mabinogion
The Author:  Various bards of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This text: etext of a 1906 translation by Lady Charlotte Guest
Price: $2.48 (Dover Thrift Editions. There's also a free version at Project Gutenberg, but the stories are in a different order.)

The second part of the Mabinogion gets a bit mythic. The Mab as a whole tends toward fairy tale imagery crossed with Arthuriana, but this bit is kinda weird.

Mabinogion II: Branwen, Daughter of Llyr
So Matholwch, King of Ireland, comes to London to make a treaty: he wants to marry Branwen, the sister of Bendigeid Vran, King of the Isle of the Mighty. This meets everyone's approval so they set up tents at Aberffraw.

The tents are because Bendigeid Vran is bloody huge, and he doesn't fit into actual buildings.

In addition to the King, Branwen has a number of other brothers. Included in their number are two half-brothers on her mother's side. Nissyen is the nicest guy in the world; Evnissyen is a real dick.

Evnissyen the Dickish decides, belatedly, that he doesn't actually approve of his sister's marriage, so he disfigures Matholwych's horses by cutting off their noses and lips. Matholwych takes offense at the insult and makes to leave. Bendigeid Vran points out that this was the act of, well, a dick. A blood relation, sure, but still a dick. There is some complicated dishonour negotiation where it is decided that Bedigeid Vran has been the more dishonoured, but Matholwych has nevertheless been insulted and the insult won't go away just like that. Bedigeid Vran sees the point and offers to replace all the horses, along with a staff of silver and a plate of gold and, because this reward was kind of small to his mind, he throws in a magic cauldron that restores the dead to life.

This cauldron had been brought to Britain by a pair of giants, exiled from Ireland for various crimes, including Grand Theft: Magic Cauldron. But they had been reformed and were considered model British citizens as far as Bendigeid Vran was concerned, usefully populating the Island with big, healthy, productive children. Matholwch takes his wife and cauldron and horses and goes home.

Back in Ireland, it turns out that while Matholwch was pretty ok with the whole "mortal insult" thing, especially with his shiny new cauldton, his foster brothers are rather less so. They kick up a fuss and take this out on Branwen, separating her from Matholwch and making her cook dinner every day and authorising the butcher to hit her on the side of the head. Understandably miffed, Branwen trains a starling to fly to Britain and tell her Brother what's going on. Suddenly, there's a forest of masts off the Irish coast.

"So, wife, the shepherds are talking about a forest where there wasn't one before, and a moving mountain. You understand weird shit, what's going on?"
"Oh, that's the British navy come to avenge the wrongs that have been done me. The mountain's my brother, you remember? He's probably pretty pissed off, on account of the wrongs that have been done me."
"I might...surrender and abdicate. A bit."

So there's war, and Matholwych soon discoveres that burning your bridges doesn't actually halt the enemy's advance if he can lie in a river and let his troops cross over his back. Matholwych surrenders, and builds a big pavilion to recieve Bendigeid Vran. But Matholwych has not capitulated as thoroughly as it looks: on every one of the hundred pillars holding up the pavilion has a leather bag, and in each of these bags is an enemy soldier. Evnissyen the Dickish asks what's in the bags and is told that they contain meal. He pokes one and finds that it feels suspiciously like a head, so he squeezes it until it pops. Because it's the kind of methodical psychopath he is, the Dickish One goes round squeezing each bag of meal to death.

Absent the secret army of treacherous treachery, the capitulation ceremony goes on according to its original program, and Matholwych and Branwen's son is named King of Ireland. Evnissyen the Dickish, for reasons of his own, decides to throw the boy into the fire. Branwen leaps onto the fire after him, but is rescued by Bendigeid Vran. The boy is not so lucky. The Irish spontaneously revolt, and the British discover that the callous murder of a hundred soldiers is less of a setback than you'd expect if your enemy has a magic cauldron that can bring back the dead.

The story recounts that Evnissyen has a pang of conscience that he's brought his brother to this terrible strait and sacrifices himself, diving into the boiling cauldron and sundering it from within. But even so, the British do not getting the best of this exchange, especially when Bendigeid Vran is shot in the foot with a poison dart.

"What happened to Evnissyen?"
"He sacrificed himself by throwing himself into the cauldron and destroying it from within."
"That doesn't sound like him."
"Well, he got thrown into the cauldron and it broke. Who's to say what really happened?"

And here it gets weird. Weirder than giant kings being a literal bridge to their people.

Seven of what we shall loosely call our heroes escape, including Pryderi from the previous story. Bendigeid Vran tells them to chop off his head and carry it with them, promising to be as sparkling a companion as he's ever been. He tells them to bury it in London, but there's no hurry, they'll probably spend eighty years or so getting there. Most of this time is spent camped out in Gwales, near a door that doesn't go anywhere.

"Right, so, I want you to go to London, and bury my head so that it faces France."
"Guys, is it weird that the boss's giant decapitated head is still talking to us?"
"But first, you should go to Gwales, where you can stay as long as you want and not get old."
"Guys?"
"Just don't open the magic door that doesn't go anywhere, because then you'll have to leave."
"Guys, the boss's giant decapitated head is giving us creepy mystical instructions. This is weeeeird!"

Branwen dies of grief, feeling responsible for the destruction of two kingdoms, even though it was Evnissyen who was responsible for the destruction of two kingdoms.

Eighty years later, the unaged heroes open the door that doesn't go anywhere and Bendigeid Vran's head is buried in London as instructed, where it protects the Island from invasion until it is disinterred some time in the distant future. Ireland, meanwhile, repopulates itself from the five pregnant women who survived the war by hiding in a cave.

Thus ends this portion of the Mabinogion.

Next: Of mice and Manawyddan.

Mabinogion I: The Mighty Pwyll

The Myth: Myths of Wales! Knights! Kings! Faeries! Princesses! Giants! Vaguely Arthurian Imagery!
The Book: The Mabinogion
The Author:  Various bards of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This text: etext of a 1906 translation by Lady Charlotte Guest
Price: $2.48 (Dover Thrift Editions, but there's also a free version at Project Gutenberg)

The first story in the Mabinogeon is full of fairy tale imagery and dream logic. Pwyll is a noble Prince of a fine land, just and heroic and just bright enough to get himself in trouble.

Part the First: Pwyll, Chief of Annwvyn
So Prince Pwyll is out hunting, and he comes across a stag that is being attacked by dogs. He kicks them off so he can set his own hounds on it. Turns out that this is a tremendous breach of monarchical hunting etiquette and Arawn, the king who owns the pack, is bloody furious.

This is where Pwyll differs from pretty much every ruler in history or myth: he admits that he's in the wrong and asks if there's any way he can make amends.

Turns out Arawn has exactly the sort of problem that Pwyll can solve: he asks Pwyll to rule his kingdom, Annwvyn, for a year, and at the end of it kill his direst enemy. After being reassured that Arawn will govern Dyved in his stead, Pwyll agrees.

"My wife's pretty hot, by the way. You'll like her."
"...uh. Ok?"

Oh, yeah: Arawn's kingdom is in Hell.

Still, it's a nice enough place, and Pwyll rules it well, happily partaking of hunting, mistrelsy, feasting and diversions. When the year is up, he follows the strange and restrictive ritual to kill Arawn's rival, and heads home.

"Ok, so you've got to hit him really hard, but then when he asks you to kill him you can't, because I did that last time and he came back good as ever, and you have to do it on this exact day, because he'll be expecting it, and then come back and we'll swap back. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Good." 

Arawn, it turns out, has ruled Dyved fairly and justly and perectly disguised as Pwyll, so that nobody knows any different. Except for all the wisdom and justice, which has been pretty remarkable, apparently.

Despite the fact that noone in either kingdom knew that their rulers had switched places, Pwyll is widely lauded for unifying Annwyvn and leading Dyved into prosperity, and is granted the title Chieftain of Annwvyn. This leads to an eternal friendship between the monarchs, even though Arawn got none of the credit. Humans, huh?

Part the Second: Bride of Pwyll
Prince Pwyll is told that if he stands on a particular hill, he won't be able to leave it without either recieving massive injury or seeing a wonder. Prince Pwyll opts to stand on that particular hill. Happily, it turns out to be the wonder: the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and he spent a year pretending to be a Faerie Queen's husband. He sends a page out to speak to her, but even at his fastest he can't catch up to her mild amble. So the next day they set out again, this time with a faster horse. Once again, the page can't catch up with the lady's gentle pace. On the third day, Pwyll himself rides out, and again can't catch up - until he has the brainwave of asking her to stop.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" she says.

Her name is Rhiannon, and it turns out she'd just been waiting for him to ask, because she's on the run from an arranged marriage and wants no-one but Pwyll. This suits Pwyll down to the ground, so he agrees to her terms: he's to wait a year and then come with a hundred knights to ask for her hand.

At the wedding feast, a churl comes up to Pwyll and asks a boon. Pwyll is feeling generous and also kinda drunk so he generously agrees to provide anything this man might ask.

Which his bride tells him was pretty fucking stupid.

Gwawl, son of Clud, demands his boon: Pwyll's bride for his own, on account of they had an arrangement previously. Rhiannon sighs and says, "Fine, whatever, come back in a year," but she has a plan. At the next wedding feast, Pwyll is to ask for a boon. Rather than simply asking for his bride back - this sort of thing could go on forever - he's to ask Gwawl, son of Clud, to fill a bag that she happens to have on her.

So a year later, at the wedding feast, Pwyll asks his boon: to have his magic bag filled with food and stuff. But the bag isn't easily filled. In fact, Pwyll says, what it really needs is for someone rich and landed to stomp down the food in it. Rolling his eyes, Gwawl, son of Clud agrees to stomp down the food in the bag, and is absolutely astonished when Pwyll pulls it up over his head and ties it off.

The assembled revellers take up the quaint Welsh pasttime known as "badger-in-the-bag", which is played with a bag, some heavy sticks, and a badger. Gwawl, son of Clud, plays the part of the badger, until Rhiannon's dad points out that, actually, killing the groom on his wedding night is somewhat undignified. You know, for a noble. Rhiannon points out Pwyll's superior bargaining position, and recommends that he ask for his bride back, oh, and also that the son of Clud swear off revenge for the entire episode, and that they shouldn't have to wait another year. Gwawl unsurprisingly agrees as long as he no longer has to be the badger, and they all live happily and non-vengefully ever after.

Part the Third: The Return of the Son of the Bride of Pwyll
Pwyll and Rhiannon are happily married, but after a couple of years the court starts to notice a worrying lack of maternal fertility. Give me another year, says Rhiannon, and sure enough a son is born within that very same year.

Except that the baby disappears from the nursery.

The ladies in waiting, not wanting to be blamed for losing the royal offspring, decide that the best thing they can do is kill some puppies and use the blood and bones to frame Rhiannon for killing and eating her baby.

Pwyll, no expert in anatomy, reluctantly sentences his wife to public humilation: she is to wait by the horse block at the outskirts of town every morning and tell passersby her crime, and if they ask she's to piggy-back them to court.

Not many people take her up on this offer.

On the other hand, Pwyll refuses to divorce her: the only grounds that the courtiers maight have are if she doesn't produce a child, and she has. Technically true is the best kind of true.

Meanwhile, though, Teirnyon Twryv Vliant, the best man in the world and a former vassal of Pwyll's, is having horse problems. Specifically, every time his prize mare foals, the offspring is gone by morning. No more, he says, and stakes out the stables. Sure enough, shortly after the foal is born, a giant claw comes through the window. Teirnyon cuts the thing off at the elbow, causing the spirit monster to retreat. Teirnyon follows, yelling at the beastie to stay the heck out of his stables. On the doorstep, he finds that the monster has dropped something: a silk-swaddled baby.

Teirnyon's wife tells everyone that she's been pregnant, and they name the child Gwri Wallt Euryn, apparently because he's blond. He's a strong and seemly kid, but he grows faster than an alien baby in a Star Trek episode, and in a couple of years they have a strapping young man who, they can't help but notice, bears an uncanny resemblance to Teirnyon's former boss.

Making enquiries, Teirnyon discovers the story of Rhiannon's crime and punishment. Teirnyon is no slouch in the adding-two-and-two-together department, and, besides, people are beginning to talk. Teirnyon and his wife make a gift of the horse that was saved on the same day the boy was found, and take him off to Dyved.

At the Dyved horse-block, they meet Rhiannon, who tells them how she killed and ate her suspiciously puppy-shaped offspring, and offers them a lift. They decline, and she accompanies them to the palace to meet Pwyll. At this point, Teirnyon says, "Hey, about that killed-and-eaten thing, funny story..." and introduces the boy. Gwri is renamed Pryderi, "Anxiety", and taken into his family, Teirnyon and his wife are fulsomely rewarded and everyone laughs at the silly little  misunderstanding.

And thus ends this portion of the Mabinogion.

Next: Branwen and her brothers.

Two Monsters and a Dragon: Beowulf

The Myth: Beowulf! A monster and his mum! Treasure! Magic swords! A dragon! Fabulous treasure from a lost race!
The Book: Beowulf
The Author:  Unknown, sometime in the eighth century. Possibly the ninth. No later than the eleventh. (Thanks, Wiki.)
This text: etext of a 1909 translation by F. B. Gummere in "English imitative meter".
Price: Nothin' (Kindle Free Library)


Beowulf kills a monster. Then he kills another monster. Fifty years later, he kills a dragon, and dies. Also, there are digressions into Geatish history and politics.

"So he came in the night?"
"Yeah, he wanted to give us a hand."
"And you...?"
"He found my hospitality disarming."
"By which you mean..."
"This is a fine hall, Hrothgar, I've got to hand it to you."
"Right. I get it."
"I ripped his arm off, is what I'm saying."
"I gathered. From the monster arm you're waving around."
"'cos I'm a champion of unarmed combat."
"Are you finished?"
"Yeah, I'm done."

Ok, yes, there's more to it than that. The poem is pretty awesome, all alliterative and bloody. The setting is detailed, the characterisation solid, the fighting visceral. The digressions are occasionally a bit weird, coming across as a sort of poetic product placement: "Have you considered such other fine poems as 'The Tragic Lay of Heremod' or 'The Epic of Freawuru'?" They may have meant more to an 8th-11th century audience.

But at the base of it, a hero fights monsters and wins. Then dies.
 
This is foundation stuff for the English language and well worth a read. And it's not that long. It took Redcrosse far more verbiage to kill his dragon, for example.

For Queene and Country: The Adventures of the Redcrosse Knight

The Myth: Gloriana, the Faerie Queene! Mythic England! Magic queens! Knights! Ladies! Witches! Sorcerers! Giants! Lions! Dragons! More allegory than you could possibly imagine!
The Book: The Faerie Queene (Book I)
The Author: Edmund Spenser, 1590
This text: etext of a 1903 edition, edited by George Armstrong Wauchope
Price: Nothin' (Kindle Free Library)



In the first book - actually, in the preamble, a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh - a young country boy presents himself at the court of the Faerie Queene herself, Gloriana, saying that he wants to be a knight. At the same time, a young woman, Una, presents herself at the court, asking that the Queene aid her land, which is beset by a dragon. The Queene, in an admirable display of efficiency, knights the boy and sends him off with Una, as per their respective requests.

"Somehow I thought this would be harder. Like, there might be a test or something." "You're still here? Dragons don't slay themselves, kid."

Then the poem actually starts, and the lad is now the Redcrosse Knight, on account of the red cross on his surcoat. He sets out with the lady and her dwarf. It's not an easy trip. The three are constantly tricked, captured, threatened, tilted at and generally harassed. They're hassled by the shifty wizard Archimago, the faithless, seductive witch Duessa, the Saracen brother-knights Sansloy, Sansjoy and Sansfoy, and a full cast of giants and monsters. Luckily, despite having been given the job without even addressing the selection criteria, the boy turns out to be pretty good at knighting and kind of okay at resisting seduction. Una, despite being less martial, has a useful knack for being protected by a lion at key points in the narrative. Also, King Arthur arrives to save the day and banish Duessa to hell.

According to the annotations, this is all highly allegorical and probably terribly witty to the Elizabethan crowd. Redcrosse represents Holiness (and England, and Protestantism), Una represents Truth, the dwarf is Common Sense, the lion is Reason (and the Reformation, and Henry VIII) and they fight against dishonesty, falsehood, treachery, misery, hypocrisy and so on (and also France, the Pope, Catholics, Spain, Jesuits and other nasties). You probably need to be an Elizabethan courtier to get all the references, and if you're an Elizabethan courtier you're probably actually in it.

Anyway, eventually, they make it to Una's home country, which is Eden, and Redcrosse squares off against the dragon (Satan, and also maybe Spain). This is a drag-out, knock-down, three-day battle, where Redcrosse and the dragon each give as good as they get. At the end of the first day, Redcrosse is killed but falls into Eden's life-giving well. At the end of the second, Redcross is burned and poisoned but healed by a balm from the tree of life. Finally, Redcrosse wins. He and Una are betrothed, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except, say, Duessa, or Archimago.

--

The Faerie Queene is supposed to represent some of the most beautiful writing in the English language.

I don't really see it.

Certainly, I'm not transported the way I was with the (English translation of) the Kalevala, or with Beowulf, or even the latter parts of the Mort. Part of this, I suppose, is that the enthusiastic Elizabethan spelling adds a layer of complication, so that to the modern eye (well, mine), the rhymes and rhythms are a bit wonky. And part of it is the allegory, which can be hilariously unsubtle or weirdly oblique. Overall, it becomes a bit of a struggle.

That said, the dragon bit is awesome.

And the baby daughter rather likes it.

Next: The Temperate Knight.

Georgians in Arabia: The Knight in the Panther Skin

The Myth: Georgia's national epic - Adventure! Romance! Wild animals! Love, both thwarted and true! Questionable fashion choices! Manly men doing manly things! More weeping and swooning than you'd think!
The Book: The Man in the Panther's Skin
The Author: Shot'ha Rust'haveli, sometime in the twelfth century
This text: etext of a 1912 translation by Marjory Scott Wardrop
Price: $3.76 (Amazon Digital Services)

So lets talk about the Knight in the Panther's Skin.


Avt'handil
We first meet Avt'handil, who is in love with the King of Arabia, T'hinat'hin, daughter of the Old King Rostevan. (For clarity: T'hinat'in is not a Queen, but a King in her own right, much like King T'hamara of Georgia, Rust'haveli's patron. T'hamara comes in for some fulsome praise in the introductory verses.) Avt'handil is generalissimo of Arabia and does not wear a panther skin. One day while out hunting, Rostevan and Avt'handil come across a knight who does wear a panther skin. This knight murders several of their servants and disappears without talking to anyone. The mystery of this mysterious figure torments the Old King, so the Young King sends Avt'handil on a quest to find out.

Avt'handil quests for three years, and is just about to give up and go home, when he meets three bandits (or, two bandits and a corpse) who have just been beaten up by an uncommunicative man wearing a panther skin.

Tariel
Avt'handil finds the figure in a cave, along with a maidservant. He asks the knight for his story, so that he may return to his King and, desperately, his King. The knight, Tariel, spins his tale of woe: he was the foster son of the King of India and generalissimo, and he fell in love with the King's daughter, Nestan-Daredjan. He fell so much in love with her that he took to his bed, overcome with weeping and swooning, until a message from his bloodthirsty beloved tells him through her maidservant Asmat'h, that he can better prove his love by conquering the neighbouring lands. Which he does.

"Seriously, what's this weeping and swooning shit? Go and kill someone."

Victorious, Tariel returns home, where the King asks his opinion on who should marry his daughter. Since the princess is cloistered with her Aunt until such time as she be married, Tariel is reluctant to admit that he has met her, and instead says, "Uh, I dunno," leading to the King nominating a Persian Prince. This distresses both the Princess and the generalissimo, who conclude that the only reasonable course of action is murder.

"I shall kill him and his entire army!"
"That's excessive. Just kill him."

When asked to explain his murderous rampage, Tariel says, "I just didn't want a foreigner to sit on the throne which is mine by right as your foster son, it has nothing to do with your daughter, haha, how ridiculous, how could I possibly be in love with your daughter?" The King nevertheless intuits that his daughter's chastity had been compromised, and vows to murder both her and his sister. The Aunt, a sorceress, learns of this plot, and kills herself out of spite, sending the princess into sorceress exile.

Tariel wanders the world in the company of Asmat'h, also disgraced, and befriends P'hridon, prince of Mulghazanzar. P'ridon has an inheritance dispute with his cousins, which Tariel resolves through violence. The two knights, with and sans panther skin, swear eternal brotherhood. It transpires that P'hridon has seen Nestan-Daredjan, and in fact fallen in love with her. However, despite this intelligence Tariel loses the trail of his princess. He retires to a cave on the plains with Asmat'h, now his sworn sister, and resolves to go mad. He takes to dressing in a panther skin because panthers are pretty cats that remind him of his beloved.


More Avt'handil
It is in this state that Avt'handil has found him. Avt'handil is overwhelmed with brotherly love - to the point of weeping and swooning - and the two knights swear eternal brotherhood. Avt'handil then returns home to relate the story to the King and the King. However, he is struck with longing of the weeping and swooning kind for his sworn brother, and makes to leave. King T'hinat'hin understands completely, having witnessed a lot of this weeping and swooning on her own behalf, but the King Rostevan is outraged and forbids it. Reasoning that he's no use to his King as a weeping and swooning wreck, Avt'handil sneaks out and heads for the plains.

He arrives to find Tariel half dead, near a panther and a lion, fully dead. Tariel has lost the will to live, but Avt'handil tells him to buck the hell up, he didn't abandon his country and his girlfriend the King to travel half way to Turkey for a brother who'll just die. Especially not when there's a princess to find and, if possible, rescue!

Avt'handil swears to undertake the quest himself, and rides off to pick up the quest.

"I'm off. No sneaky killing yourself while I'm away!"

The first port of call is Mulghazanzar, which might be Turkey. P'hridon is impressed by Avt'handil from the get-go, but is overjoyed to learn of Tariel. The two knights, without panther skins, swear eternal brotherhood, and P'hridon provides some warriors for Avt'handil's quest. Avt'handil continues on, and comes across a band of merchants beset by pirates. Avt'handil solves their problems with violence, and they carry him across the sea and make him their chief.

In the guise of a merchant leader, Avt'handil arrives in the Sea-King's city of Gulansharo, which is possibly Venice. He is invited to meet with the chief merchant of the city, Usen, which he does. Usen's wife, P'hatman, falls for Avt'handil and sets about seducing him. Avt'handil discovers that Nestan-Daredjan has been seen in these parts and in fact this palace, and allows himself to be seduced. P'hatman has a former suitor who needs settling with violence, and once Avt'handil has settled him with violence, he confesses that he is not actually a morally-lax merchant prince but in fact a fine upstanding knight on a heroic rescue mission, and therefore probably shouldn't have been seduced so easily. P'hatman spills the beans.

Yes, she says, Nestan-Daredjan was here. P'hatman and her husband had captured her from the slaves who were carrying her, and took her into their own house where they (a) kept her presence a secret and (b) both fell in love with her. Usen made the mistake of boasting of the captive to the King, but before the King could take her for himself, the princess escaped and was promptly captured by evil sorcerous Kadjis. The evil sorceress-King of the Kadjis seeks to marry her to her son when he comes of age, so while Nestan-Daredjan is imprisoned in an impregnable rock fortress guarded by ten thousand mad warriors and a sorceress-King, there's not a lot of time pressure. Avt'handil goes back to the cave to get Tariel, and they return to P'hridon to come up with a rescue plan.
 
Three brothers, one cat-skin
P'hridon supplies three thousand of his best warriors, and the three  debate the best way to take an impregnable sorcerous fortress.

"Stealth?"
"Not very heroic, is it?"
"Subterfuge?"
"Again..."
"Suicidal frontal attack?"
"Avt'handil won't let me kill myself."
"Something tricky involving tactics?"
"Worth a shot, I guess."

Superior tactics win the day, and the impervious fortress turns out to be pervious after all. Tariel and Nestan-Daredjan are reunited. P'hridon marries them, gallantly accepting that Tariel saw her first. The newlyweds plan to return to India and wrest the throne from Nestan-Daredjan's father, but Tariel refuses until Avt'handil is married to his beloved, the King. Avt'handil takes a surprising amount of persuading, but in the end concedes that Arabia is in fact on the way, so he returns, apologises to the King for leaving him in the lurch, and marries King T'hinat'hin. They live happily ever after.

It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that neither P'hridon nor Ashmat'h get to marry anyone.

--

I enjoyed with this one, but it must be said that the translation is not an elegant one - it's overly literal and occasionally uncertain, without any sort of poetic flow. There are a lot of unfamiliar metaphors: eyelashes of jet, faces of crystal and ruby, teeth of coral, bodies like aloe trees, faces that burn like the sun with beauty. The Georgian-Arabian idea of courtly love is also quite different from what I'm used to, and involves an awful lot of weeping and swooning.

But there's high adventure, military maneuvers, brotherhood, romance, all that stuff. It was fun.