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CABAL The hound of Arthur. According to Nennius, when Arthur was pursuing the
boar Troynt, Cabal's footprint was left on a stone in Wales, which moved from
its resting place at night, always returning in the morning, and that Arthur
erected a cairn over it. Another story makes Cabal take part in the hunt for
the boar Ysgithyrwyn. # 156 - 454 CABYLL-USHTEY The Manx Water-Horse, pale-greyish in colour, as dangerous and greedy as
the Highland Each-Uisge, pulling men and animals to their deaths. See: KELPIE.
# 100 CADBURY See: CAMELOT. CADO In the LIFE OF ST. CARANNOG (a medieval saint's life), he ruled with Arthur
in the West Country. He may be identical with Cadwy, son of Gereint. #
156 CADOC, SAINT This Welsh saint was supposed to be the son of King Gwynnlym of Glamorgan
and Gwladys of Brecon. In the LIFE OF SAINT CADOC of the saint, Arthur
demanded that Cadoc hand over to him a man named Ligessac who had killed some
of his followers and who had been in santuary with Cadoc for ten years. When
the matter was adjudicated upon, Arthur was offered a hundred kine (cattle) as
compensation. He demanded that they be red before and white behind. With God's
aid, they were produced, but they turned to bundles of fern when Arthur's men
seized them. # 156 CADOG One of the Twenty-four Knights of Arthur's Court. # 104 -
156 CADOR The ruler of Cornwall, variously described as king or duke. He was a
supporter of Arthur and helped him against the Saxons, defeating Baldulf and
Cheldric. A Cador, son of the King of Cornwall, friend of Caradoc Briefbras
and brother of Guignier, may be the same character. In origin, Cador may be
Cadwy, son of Gereint (# 243). Cador is also the name of a King of
Northumberland who became Kay's father-in-law. # 156 -
243 CADWALLON (Catwallaun) According to Geoffrey (# 243), the King of the Vendoti who
lived in North Wales. # 156 - 243 CADWR (cadoor) CADWY The son of Gereint and, according to the DREAM OF RHONABWY (part of the
Mabinogion), a contemporary of Arthur. See: CADO, and CADOR. #
156 CAEDMON, SAINT (d.680) He was a herdsman at Whitby, unlettered and simple. He suddenly
discovered that he could compose poetry and songs, and wrote a series of these
about the Creation, the early history of the Israelites and the last things.
He came to the attention of Saint Hilda of Whitby, who encouraged him. He
became a monk and was venerated on 11 February. Only nine lines of his poetry
survive in Bede. # 454 CAELIA The fairy queen, lover of Arthur's son, Tom a'Lincoln, to whom she bore a
son, the Faerie Knight. She eventually drowned herself. # 156 -
668 CAER Daughter of Ethal Anubal, wooed by Angus Og; She lived a dual life; accepts
the love of Angus Og. Caer means also: Wall, Castle, City. See: CAER
IBORMEITH. # 562 CAER GAI A place in Merioneth where, according to bardic tradition, Arthur was
raised. # 156 CAER IBORMEITH Daughter of Ethal Anubal, beloved of Angus. She was called 'a powerful,
many-shaped girl', because of her ability to change her shape. She spent one
year in human form and alternate years in the form of a swan. # 416 - 454 -
548 CAERLEON, GWENT # 562: Arthur's court held at Caerleon at Usk. # 156: A city on the River
Usk, one of Arthur's realm, according to Geoffrey who calls it the City of the
Legion. Geoffrey claims it was founded by King Belinus, perhaps the Beli of
the genealogies. Geoffrey says that Dubricius was its archbishop. # 702: This
town, which was the Isca Silurum of the Romans, is claimed by many as the
original site of King Arthur's Round Table, the legendary 'Camelot', which has
been confused with Camelford, and may even have been the prehistoric
earthworks known as Cadbury Castle. However, the first literary mention of
Arthur's Round Table is in Wace's French rhymed verse 'Le Roman de Brut',
written several centuries after the semi-mythological Arthur lived. Brut was a
mythical King of the Bri-tons, whose ancestry traces back to the famous
Aeneas. He accidental-ly killed his father, and took refuge first in Greece
then in Bri-tain. It was in recognition of the power of ancient Troy that he
cal-led the capital he established in Britain 'Troynovant' (New Troy). This
was the mythological name for pre-Roman London. See: TROY. # 156 - 562 -
702 CAERNARVON, GWYNEDD In Caernarvon Castle is the Eagle Tower, which is supposed by many to be
the place where the first Prince of Wales, Edward II, was born in 1284. This
is quite wrong, as documnets exist which show that the tower was built many
years afterwards on the instruction of this same Edward, long after he had
become king. Popular legend has Edward I standing with the new-born child on a
balcony, proclaiming to the Welsh that this would be their future native king.
It is said (perhaps jokingly) that Edward I presented the child as one who
could not speak English - implying of course that the king of Wales should
speak Welsh, a notion with which the Welshmen of that time would heartily
agree. However, the story is a fabrication, for the castle itself was not
completed until well over thirty years later. # 702 CAESAR, JULIUS Roman statesman, born 100 BC, made ruler of Rome 49 BC and assassinated 44
BC. In the VULGATE VERSION he is given the title of emperor (which he never
actually held) and is made the contemporary of Arthur. Merlin visited his
court in the form of a stag. Caesar had had a dream and Merlin told him that
the Wild Man of the Woods could divulge its meaning. The latter was captured
by Merlin and Grisandole and told Caesar that the dream was about his wife's
adultery. The romance of HUON DE BORDEAUX makes Caesar the father by Morgan Le
Fay of Oberon. # 156 - 604 CAILLAGH NY GROAMAGH, OR 'THE OLD WOMAN OF
GLOOMINESS' The Manx version of the Highland Cailleach Bheur and the Irish Cailleach
Bera. The Manx Cailleagh, as Gill tells us in A MANX SCRAPBOOK, seems to be
particularly unlucky, for she fell into the crevise called after her in trying
to step from the top of Barrule to the top of Cronk yn Irree Lhaa. The mark of
her heel is still to be seen. The Manx Cailleagh, like all the rest, is a
weather spirit. In Scotland winter and bad weather belong to her, but in Man
she seems to operate all through the year. If St Bride's Day (1 February) is
fine, she comes out to gather sticks to warm her through the summer; if it is
wet, she stays in, and has to make the rest of the year fine in her own
interests. A fine St Bride's Day is therefore a bad omen for the rest of the
year. She is said to have been seen on St Bride's Day in the form of a
gigantic bird, carrying sticks in her beak. Cronk yn Irree Lhaa is supposed to
be the usual home of the 'OLD WOMAN OF GLOOMINESS'. # 100 -
249 CAILLEACH BEARE, OR BERA (kill-ogh vayra) The ancient mountain mother of the south-west of Ireland.
South-west Munster was believed to be the abode of the dead and here the
Cailleach had lived for countless ages so that her successive husbands died of
old age while she enjoyed endless youth. She is almost identical with the
Cailleach Bheur of the Highlands except that she is not so closely connected
with winter nor with the wild beasts. She is a great mountain builder, and,
like many other gigantic Hags, she carried loads of stone in her apron and
dropped them when the string broke. Eleanor Hull gives interesting information
about both the Irish and the Highland Cailleachs in FOLKLORE OF THE BRITISH
ISLES. Mackenzie in SCOTTISH FOLK LORE AND FOLK LIFE decides that the Highland
tradition of the Cailleach is older and more deeply rooted than the Irish. See
also: CAILLEACH BHEUR. # 100 - 328 - 415 - 454 - 548 CAILLEACH BHEUR (cal'yach vare) The blue-faced lean hag of the Highlands who personifies
the season of winter, seems one of the clearest cases of the supernatural
creature who was once a primitive goddess, possibly among the ancient Britons
before the Celts. There are traces of a very wide cult: Black Annis of the
Dane Hills in Leicestershire with her blue face, Gentle Annie of Cromarty
Firth, the loathy hag in Chaucer's WIFE OF BATH'S TALE, Milton's 'blew meager
hag', the GyreCarline in the Lowlands of Scotland, Cally Berry in Ulster, the
Caillagh Ny Groamagh in the Isle of Man, and many other scattered references.
We learn most about her, however, in the Highlands of Scotland. The variety of
aspects in which she is presented is indicative of an ancient origin and a
widespread cult. There are many mentions of her and folk-tales about her in
the works of J. F. Campbell and J. G. Campbell, Mrs. W. J. Watson, and her
father Alexander Carmichael, Mrs. K. W. Grant and J. G. Mackay, but the most
comprehensive survey of the subject is to be found in Donald Mackenzie's
SCOTTISH FOLK LORE AND FOLK LIFE, in which he devotes a chapter, 'A Scottish
Artemis', to an examination of the activities of the Cailleach Bheur and the
various facets of her character, in which he finds a striking resemblance to
the primitive form of the Greek goddess Artemis. At first sight she seems the
personification of winter. She is called 'the daughter of Grianan', the winter
sun. There were two suns in the old Celtic calendar, 'the big sun' which
shines from Beltane (May Day) to Hallowe'en, and 'the little sun' which shines
from All Hallows to Beltane Eve. The Cailleach was reborn each All Hallows and
went about smiting the earth to blight growth and calling down the snow. On
May Eve she threw her staff under a holly tree or a gorse bush - both were her
plants - and turned into a grey stone. One can guess that many lonely standing stones were once sacred to her.
This is the first aspect of the Cailleach Bheur, but there are others.
According to some traditions, she did not turn to stone at the end of winter,
but changed into a beautiful maid. J. F. Campbell in his POPULAR TALES OF THE
WEST HIGHLANDS, VOL. III, tells a tale of a loathsome hag who appeared at the
house where the Feens lay and begged for a place to warm herself at the fire.
Fionn and Oisin refused her, but Diarmaid pleaded that she might be allowed to
warm herself at the fire, and when she crept into his bed did not repulse her,
only put a fold of the blanket between them. After a while he gave 'a start of
surprise', for she had changed into the most beautiful woman that men ever
saw. There is a striking similarity between this tale and 'The Marriage of Sir
Gawain', or 'The Wife of Bath's Tale'. If this were taken as part of the
primitive legend it would seem that the Cailleach Bheur represented a goddess
of both winter and summer, but that must be a matter of speculation. In
another version of the legend, she kept a beautiful maiden prisoner, with whom
her son fell in love. The two escaped, and the Cailleach launched bitter winds
against them to keep them apart. This is a version of the NICHT NOUGHT NOTHING
story with the sexes inverted. Presumably the escaping maiden was the summer.
However that may be, it is undoubted that the Cailleach is the guardian spirit
of a number of animals. The deer have the first claim on her. They are her
cattle; she herds and milk them and often gives them protection against the
hunter. Swine, wild goats, wild cattle and wolves were also her creatures.
In another aspect she was a fishing goddess. The Cailleach Bheur was also
the guardian of wells and streams, though sometimes a negligent one, as a tale
told by Mrs. Grant in MYTH, TRADITION AND STORY FROM WESTERN ARGYLL will show.
There are many of wells that were allowed to overflow from the negligence of a
human guardian, but it is here more appropriately attached to a supernatural
creature. The Cailleach was in charge of a well on the summit of Ben Cruachan.
Every evening she had to staunch its flow with a slab at sunset and release it
at sunrise. But one evening, being aweary after driving her goats across
Connel, she fell asleep by the side of the well. The fountain overflowed, its
waters rushed down the mountain side, the roar of the flood as it broke open
an outlet through the Pass of Brander awoke the Cailleach, but her efforts to
stem the torrent were fruitless; it flowed into the plain, where man and beast
were drowned in the flood. Thus was formed Loch Awe... The Cailleach was
filled with such horror over the result of her neglect of duty that she turned
into stone. This is one among many legends of the Cailleach Bheur. Indeed, a
whole book rather than a chapter might be written about the Cailleach Bheur
and the crowd of variants that surround her. # 100 - 130 - 131 - 132 - 136 -
415 CAILLECH (kai-leech) The Celtic name of Caillech (or Hag) meant a Veiled One. See
also: VEIL, and CAILLEACH. # 701 CAILTE MAC RONAIN (cwel'che moc rôn'in) One of Finn's companions; tells the story of Finn's
exploits to St Patrick. # 166 CAINTE, SONS OF (cân'che) Cian, Cu, Cethen. Cian was the father of Lugh Long-Arm. #
166 CAIRBRY Son of Cormac mac Art, father of Light of Beauty; refuses tribute to
Fianna. Clan Bascna makes war upon Cair'bry. # 562 CAIRD A smith or artificer. # 166 CAIRENN (ca'ren) The concubine of Eochu, mother of Niall of the Nine Hostages. She
was made to serve at the well by Mongfind, Eochu's first wife, and there gave
birth to Niall whom she feared to nurture because of Mongfind's jealousy.
However, the poet Torna fostered Niall and presented the boy to his father.
Cairenn was then released from menial work and clothed in the royal purple.
Niall's recognition of his mother, before all other considerations, rightly
enabled him to encounter Sovereignty with a kiss instead of abhorrence.
Cairenn is herself an earthly representative of Sovereignty. # 166 - 188 -
454 CAIRPRE CUANACH (câr'bre coo'ân ah) A warrior drowned during the battle between the
Ulstermen and the forces of Cu Roi mac Daire. # 166 CAIRPRE LIFFECHAIR (câr'bre lif'ê hâr) He exterminated the Fianna at the Battle of Gabhra
where he killed Oscar, Fionn's grandson. He was the son of Cormac mac Art,
King of Ireland; became king AD 277. He himself was also killed at the Battle
of Gabhra. # 166 - 188 - 454 - 467 CAIRPRE MAC ETAIN (câr'bre moc a'din) A poet of Tuatha De Danann, noted as a satirist. #
166 CAIRPRE NIAFER (câr'bre ne'â fàr) Son of Ross Ruad; king of Tara; enemy of CuChulain,
probably because of rivalry over Fedelm Noichride, daughter of Conchobar.#
166 CAIT SITH (cait shee) The Highland fairy cat. J. G. Campbell describes it as being as
large as a dog, black with a white spot on its breast, with an arched back and
erect bristles. This, probably, would be when it was angry. He says that many
Highlanders believed that these cats were transformed witches, not fairies. An
even larger and more ferocious cat, the demonic god of the cats, appeared in
answer to the wicked and ferocious ceremony of the Taghairm, which consisted
in roasting successive cats alive on spits for four days and nights until Big
Ears appeared and granted the wishes of the torturers. The last ceremony of
Taghairm was said to have been performed in Mull and was described in detail
in the London Literary Gazette (March 1824). The account is quoted by D. A.
Mackenzie in SCOTTISH FOLK LORE AND FOLK LIFE. But Big Ears was a monstrous
demon cat who had only a slight connection with the Cait Sith. # 100 - 131 -
415 CALADVWLCH See: EXCALIBUR. CALATIN CuChulain killed Calatin and his sons at the ford, but Calatin's wife had
three daughters, each with one eye, who avenged their family. They were
skilled in enchantment and caused CuChulain to see and hear a phantom host
fighting against his countrymen which spurred him on to his death at the hands
of Lugaid, whom they helped. # 266 - 454 CALIBURN (Welsh CALADVWLCH) Magic sword of King Arthur. # 562 CALLY BERRY The Ulster version of the Highland Cailleach Bheur. The Cally Berry is not,
as in the Highlands, a nature spirit, the personification of winter and the
guardian of the wild deer, but a malignant supernatural Hag. See also:
CAILLEACH BHEUR. # 100 CAM A river in Somerset, near Cadbury Castle. In a nearby field, Westwoods, a
large number of skeletons bear grim testimony to a battle and it has been
suggested that this was the site of Camlann. See also: ELY, and TROY. #
156 CAMAL A suitor of Hermondine, killed by Meliador. # 156 CAMBER Second son of Brutus, after whom Wales or Cambria is named. # 243 -
454 CAMBRENSIS, GIRALDUS The true Celts were certainly fair. Giraldus Cambrensis described even the
Irish Celts of the twelfth century as a fair race. See Appendix 1, BIOGRAPHY:
GERALD OF WALES. # 562 CAMBRIDGE The site of one of England's major universities, which, according to Prior
Nicholas Cantelupe (died 1441), received its charter from Arthur (# 476). An
even less likely tradition, current in Elizabethan times, was that the
university had been founded by the Spanish Prince Cantaber in Anno Mundi
3588.* CAMEL A river, the possible site of Camlann battle. # 156 CAMELIARD The kingdom of Leodegrance, who was Guinevere's father. It has been
suggested that it was in Scotland or else in south-west England. One of its
important cities was Carolhaise. # 156 - 418 CAMELOT Arthur's capital. According to the romances, it was named after a pagan
king called Camaalis. At the time when Joseph of Arimathea arrived in Britain,
it was the chief city of the country. In Joseph's time, King Agrestes ruled
it. He seemed to embrace Christianity but, after Joseph's departure,
persecuted the Christians until God drove him mad. The city is first mentioned
by Chrétien in his LANCELOT. Malory tells us the chief church was St.
Stephen's. Attempts have been made to identify Camelot. In Roman times
Colchester was called Camulodunum, which has a not-too-dissimilar sound. In
modern times, some have thought it was Cadbury Castle (Somerset) where, as we
know from archaeology, there was a leader's fortified dwelling during the
Arthurian period. A tradition that Camelot was Cadbury Castle also existed in
the sixteenth century. See: WINCHESTER. # 156 CAMILLE Enamoured of Arthur, this sorceress of Saxon ancestry captured him.
Lancelot rescued him and Camille killed herself. # 156 CAMLANN The site of Arthur's final battle. Malory has only Arthur, Bedivere and,
for a very brief period, Lucan survive this battle. Arthur was sorely, perhaps
mortally, wounded. In CULHWCH, a number of other survivors are mentioned -
Sandav, because he was so beautiful that all mistook him for an angel, and
Morvran, because he was so ugly that all supposed him a devil. We are also
told in CULHWCH that the battle was planned by nine people, one of whom was
Gwynn Hyvar, the steward of Cornwall and Devon. Others thought to have
survived the battle were Saint Derfel and Saint Petroc. Welsh tradition spoke
of seven survivors. The date of the battle has caused some debate. The ANNALES
CAMBRIAE state it was twenty-one years after Badon, perhaps intending AD 515,
520 0r 539. Geoffrey claims it was in 542. The Irish ANNALS OF TIGERNACH place
it in 541 and the Spanish ANALES TOLEDANOS much later, in 580. As to the site,
Malory favours Salisbury Plain. Slaughter Bridge on the River Camel (Cornwall)
is a traditional site, while Blackett and Wilson identify it with Camlan
(Wales). The DIDOT PERCEVAL places it in Ireland. See also: ODBRICT and
TREGALEN. # 72 - 156 CAMPBELL OF ISLAY, JOHN FRANCIS (1822-85) J. F. Campbell was the author of perhaps the most famous
collection of Scottish Folktales, POPULAR TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS, ORALLY
COLLECTED. He was a cousin of the Duke of Argyll, a grandson of the Earl of
Wemyss, was educated at Eton and Edinburgh University, and became a barrister.
He had much practical work to do in the world; as Secretary to the Lighthouse
Commision and Coal Commision he had detailed and voluminous reports to
prepare, but as a child he had been brought up in Islay with a Gaelic-speaking
nurse and had made many close friends among the island people. In a time when
Gaelic was despised and suppressed by the village dominies, and often by the
ministers as well, Campbell of Islay upheld it, and searched out the surviving
storytellers and the traditions of history, legend and belief that were still
lingering in the Highlands and Islands. His method of collection was an
examplar to all later collectors, for he trained a team of Gaelic speakers and
threw a great network over the whole area. Sometimes he travelled with his
collectors and trained them assiduously to accurate and lively oral
transmission. He published only the four volumes of his POPULAR TALES, but
left behind him a vast manuscript collection, much of which has been
translated and printed bilingually, according to the standard which he
established. A full and lively account of his life and the impact he made on
his contemporaries can be found in R. M. Dorson's classic work, THE BRITISH
FOLKLORISTS. # 100 - 191 CAMPBELL OF TIREE, JOHN GREGORSON (1836-91) Among the nineteenth century collectors of Highland tales and
traditions, two of the name of Campbell are of outstanding importance: J. F.
Campbell and J. G. Campbell. They were members of a band of collectors, among
them J. Mc Dougall and D. McInnes, encouraged and directed by Lord Archibald
Campbell. They pursued the same method of oral collection of Gaelic sources
with translations into English. Campbell of Islay's POPULAR TALES OF THE WEST
HIGHLANDS is well known, but Campbell of Tiree's contribution to folk
knowledge is nearly as important. John Gregorson Campbell was born in
Kingairloch, Argyllshire, the son of a sea-captain. His first schooling was in
Appin, from which he went to high school at Glasgow, and later to the
university, where he already began to collect oral traditions and cultivate
the aquaintance of good storytellers. He was called to the ministry, and in
1860 the Duke of Argyll appointed him to the ministry of Tiree and Coll, where
he worked for the rest of his life in a very happy relationship with his
parishioners. In the course of his work he provided material for two volumes
of the series WAIFS AND STRAYS OF CELTIC TRADITION, wrote SUPERSTITIONS OF THE
HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND, and contributed stories to various Celtic
journals. He corresponded with his fellow collectors, and particularly with
John Campbell of Islay. It was a time of keen intellectual activity in the
Highlands, not rivalled until the School of Scottish Studies began its
researches. # 100 CAMULOS Belgic war-god, eponymous deity of Camulodunum (Colchester). Coins bearing
his name have the symbol of the boar upon them. # 454 CANAN The father of Lac and grandfather of Erec. # 156 CANDACES The son of King Apollo of Liones; in his day Liones and Cornwall were
united. # 156 CANOR A King of Cornwall who was aided by the Irish king Gonosor. #
156 CANTERBURY This city was called Durovernum by the ancient Romans. The archiepiscopal
see was founded in AD 597. In Arthurian romance the Archbishop of Canterbury
was one of Arthur's advisers; he survived his final battle but was
subsequently murdered by Mark of Cornwall. The inclusion of an archbishop of
Canterbury in Arthurian saga is probably an anacronism, rather than an
assertion that there was a bishopric of Canterbury in pre-Saxon times.
According to the Scandinavian BRETA SOGUR, Arthur was buried at Canterbury. #
156 CAOILTE MAC RONAN (kwel che moc ronan) One of the Fianna, and their best runner. He released
Fionn from imprisonment by gathering two of every wild beast for his ransom. #
454 CAOINEAG (konyack) 'Weeper'. One of the names given to the Highland Banshee
(Caointeach is another). She belonged to the class of Fuaths. Unlike the
Bean-Nighe, she is not seen and cannot be approached to grant wishes. She is
heard wailing in the darkness at a waterfall before any catastrophe overtakes
a clan. Carmichael in CARMINA GADELICA, says that before the Massacre of
Glencoe the Caoineag of the Macdonalds was heard to wail night after night. #
100 - 136 CAOINTEACH (kondyuch) A localized form of the Caoineag, the Highland Banshee, which
belongs to Argyllshire, Skye and some of the neighbouring islands, and was
attached to the Macmillans, Mathisons, Kellys, Mackays, Macfarlanes, Shaws and
Curries. The name means 'wailer', and she has a peculiarly loud and lamentable
cry, rising at times to a kind of scream. Sometimes she beats clothes on a
stone like the BeanNighe. She has been described as a child or a very little
woman in a short green gown and petticoat with a high-crowned white cap. It is
not certain whether she is like a banshee in having no nose and one monstrous
tooth, but her habits seem to be the same. L. Spence gives an account of her,
and there is a story about her in MacDougall and Calder's work. In this tale
she wore a green shawl for mourning and served the Mackays. One wet cold night
she was keening softly outside the door, and a member of the family put out a
plaid for her. She was thus laid like a Brownie, and has never come back to
the Mackays. # 100 - 414 - 609 CAPELTHWAITE The name given to a Westmoreland local Bogie of the Black Dog type. He
could apparently assume any form at will, but preferred that of the calf-sized
black dog. There used to be a barn near Milnthorpe called Capelthwaite Barn
which was the home of one of these creatures. He was well disposed towards the
farm people, and used to round up their sheep and cattle for them. #
100 CAPTIVES IN FAIRYLAND From ancient times there have been traditions of mortals carried away into
Fairyland (Otherworld), or detained there if they ventured into a fairy hill
and were inveigled into tasting fairy food or drink, and so partaking of the
fairy nature. An early example is the story of Malekin given in the Medieval
Cronicle of Ralph of Coggeshall. Here we have an example of the most common
form of captive, a mortal changeling, stolen from his mother's side while she
was working in the fields, and apparently believing that he had a chance of
regaining his freedom every seven years. These little captives, fed from
infancy on fairy food and cosseted by fairy mothers, would presumably be
accepted in the end as full fairies. There was, however, a more sinister
reason given for their capture; it was said both in Scotland and Ireland that,
once in a seven years, the fairies had to pay a tribute to Hell, and that they
preferred to sacrifice mortals rather than their own kind. It will be
remembered that in the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, the Queen of Elfland had
some fears that Thomas might be chosen for the Teind. According to Lady Wilde, young men are often lured away if they are gifted
with powers of song and music, as Thomas the Rhymer was, or especially
handsome ones are desired as lovers by fairy princesses. Women, however, are
in much more danger of capture by the fairies than men. Nursing mothers are in
great demand to suckle fairy babies (for the quality of fairy milk seems to be
poor), and the time between child-birth and churching is one of great danger.
There are many stories of precautions successfully taken, or of the attempted
rescue of wives from the power of the fairies. Sometimes the fairies were
intercepted as they were carrying off their victim and never got into
Fairyland with her. 'The Laird of Balmachie's wife' is an example of this and
an exposure of the fairy method of capture. Sometimes the victim was
successfully rescued, as in Scott's story of MARY NELSON. But there were tragic stories of failure in the attempt. One among many is
the tale of THE LOTHIAN FARMER'S WIFE which Douglas tells in SCOTTISH FAIRY
AND FOLK TALES, when the husband made an attempt to rescue his wife from the
Fairy Rade (an attempt which had succeeded with Young Tamlane): The wife of a
farmer in Lothian had been carried off by the fairies, and, during the year of
probation, repeatedly appeared on Sunday, in the midst of her children,
combing their hair. On one of these occasions she was accosted by her husband;
when she related to him the unfortunate event which had separated them,
instructed him by what means he might win her, and exhorted him to exert all
his courage, since her temporal and eternal happiness depended on the success
of his attempt. The farmer, who ardently loved his wife, set out on
Hallowe'en, and, in the midst of a plot of furze, waited impatiently for the
procession of the fairies. At the ringing of the fairy bridles, and the wild,
unearthly sound which accompanied the cavalcade, his heart failed him, and he
suffered the ghostly train to pass by without interruption. When the last rode
past, the whole troop vanished, with loud shouts of laughter and exultation;
among which he plainly discovered the voice of his wife, lamenting that he had
lost her for ever. The capture of beautiful young women to be brides to fairy kings or princes
was almost as common as that of nursing mothers, and these seem often to have
been the patients for whom fairy midwives were called out. A very clear
example of this is J. Rhys' story of Eilian of Garth Dorwen. Here the fairy's
bride went willingly and had always had something uncanny about her. Her
Golden Hair made her particularly attractive to the fairies. There was no need
to rescue her. This is the most complete Midwife to the Fairies Story that we
possess. Lady Wilde's ETHNA THE BRIDE is a representative of a Fairy Theft of
a young bride and of her rescue out of Fairyland. The classic Irish story of
Midhir and Etain is the epic version of the tale, and the medieval King Orfeo,
in which Hades becomes Fairyland, follows something on the same lines. The
Cornish FAIRY DWELLING ON SELENA MOOR tells of the failure to rescue a human
captive, but here the girl seems kept as a nursemaid rather than a bride.
Again the eating of fairy food was her undoing. One aspect of the fairy
captives is of especial interest and that is the friendly warning they often
give to humans who have inadvertently strayed into Fairyland. In THE TACKSMAN
OF AUCHRIACHAN it is a neighbour supposed to have been recently dead who warns
him of his danger, hides him and helps him to escape. Often the midwife is
advised by her patient what to do for her safety. As a rule this patient is a captive bride, and one can presume that it is
so in Lady Wilde's story of THE DOCTOR AND THE FAIRY PRINCESS. In the Irish
tales there are many examples of a 'red-haired man' who intervenes to rescue
people enticed into Fairyland, and who is supposed to be a mortal captive
there. One example is perhaps enough, drawn from Lady Wilde's ANCIENT LEGENDS
OF IRELAND, VOL. I. It is about a girl who was enticed into a fairy dance,
and, after dancing with the prince, she was led down to a gorgeous banquet:
She took the golden cup the prince handed to her, and raised it to her lips to
drink. Just then a man passed close to her, and whispered, 'Eat no food, and
drink no wine, or you will never reach your home again.' So she laid down the
cup, and refused to drink. On this they were angry, and a great noise arose,
and a fierce, dark man stood up, and said - 'Whoever comes to us must drink
with us.' And he seized her arm, and held the wine to her lips, so that she
almost died of fright. But at that moment a red-haired man came up, and he
took her by the hand and led her out. 'You are safe for this time,' he said.
'Take this herb, and hold it in your hand till you reach home, and no one can
harm you.' And he gave her a branch of the plant called Athair-Luis
(the ground ivy). This she took, and fled away along the sward in the dark
night: but all the time she heard footsteps behind her in pursuit. At last she
reached home and barred the door, and went to bed, when a great clamour arose
outside, and voices were heard crying to her 'The power we have over you is
gone through the magic of the herb; but wait - when you dance again to the
music on the hill, you will stay with us for evermore, and none shall hinder.'
However, she kept the magic branch safely, and the fairies never troubled her
more; but it was long and long before the sound of the fairy music left her
ears which she had danced to that November night on the hillside with her
fairy lover. Thomas the Rhymer is the one mortal-born inhabitant of Fairyland who
appears again and again as the leader and counsellor of the fairies, and seems
to have no backward looks towards Middle Earth and no remorse for human
mortals. Thomas of Ercildoune actually lived in Scotland in the late Middle
Ages, and the very tree where he met the Fairy Queen is still pointed out.
Robert Kirk, the seventeenthcentury author of THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH, was
another who was believed to have been carried into a fairy hill, the Fairy
Knowe at Aberfoyle. He was an unwilling prisoner and was thought to be held
because of his betrayal of fairy secrets. It will be seen that various motives
were ascribed for captures of mortals: the acquisition of bond-slaves,
amorousness, the enrichment brought by musical talent, human milk for fairy
babies, but perhaps the chief motive was to inject the dwindling stock with
fresh blood and human vigour. # 100 - 130 - 192 - 201 - 370 - 554 -
728 CAPTURED FAIRIES The marriage of a human man with a fairy wife seems generally to have been
a marriage by capture, except for the Gwrachs of Wales, who generally yielded
to wooing. Like the captured brides, however, they imposed a taboo, which was
in the end always violated. Wild Edric is an early example of a captured fairy
bride, complete with the taboo and the wife's final return to Fairyland. Many
other wives are Selkies or Seal Maidens, captured by the theft of their seal
skins. When, after years of married life, they regain their skins, they hurry
down to the sea at once. Ralph of Coggeshall's early tale of the Green
Children is an unusual one of fairies captured, for of the pair, the boy pined
and died and the girl never went back to her subterranean land, but married
and lived on like a mortal, keeping still some of the fairy wantonness. There
are scattered tales all over the country of the capture of the small helpless
fairies, most of whom escape in the long run. The most famous of these are the
Leprachauns. The man who is bold enough to seize one hopes to threaten him
into surrendering his pot of gold, for the Leprachaun is a hoarder, but there
has been no recorded case of success. The rule first laid down by Kirk that a
fairy can only be seen between two blinks of an eye holds good with him.
However fast your grip, you must keep your eye on him through rough and
smooth, or he will slip between your fingers like water. Perhaps the same rule
held good for the pixy at the Ovkerry, of whom William Crossing wrote in his
TALES OF DARTMOOR PIXIES. An old woman who lived on the Moors was going home
with an empty basket from the market after selling her goods. When she got
near the bridge which spans Blackabrook at the Ockerry a small figure leapt on
to the road and began capering in front of her. He was about eighteen inches
high, and she recognized him as a pixy. She paused for a moment, wondering if
she should turn back for fear of being Pixy-Led; but she remembered that her
family would be waiting for her, and pressed steadily on. When she got to the
bridge the pixy turned and hopped towards her, and she suddenly stooped down,
picked him up, popped him into her empty basket and latched down the lid, for
she thought to herself that instead of the pixy leading her she would lead the
pixy. The little fellow was too tall to leap about in the basket, but he began
to talk and scold in an unknown gibberish, while she hurried proudly home,
longing to show her catch to the family. After a time the stream of gabbling
stopped, and she thought he might be sullen or asleep. She thought she would
take a peep at him, and lifted a corner of the lid very cautiously, but there
was no sight or feel of him, he was gone like a piece of dried foam. No harm
seems to have come to her, and, in spite of losing him, she felt proud of her
exploit. I. Skillywidden and Coleman Gray tell of little fairies who were carried
into human houses but got back to their own family in the end. In the sadder
tale of BROTHER MIKE the little captive never escaped, but pined and died.
Ruth Tongue has a story of a rather rare waterspirit, an ASRAI, who pined and
melted away under the heat of the sun like a stranded jelly-fish when a
fisherman caught it and tried to bring it home to sell. Most of these fairies,
great or small, seem powerless to avenge the wrong offered to them, though
other fairies avenge much more trifling injuries with Blights and Illnesses,
or even death. # 86 - 100 - 167 - 540 CARADAWC Son of Bran; rules Britain in his father's absence. #
562 CARADOC King of Vannes and Nantes, who married the unfaithful Ysaive, niece of
Arthur. See: CARADOC BRIEFBRAS. # 156 CARADOC BRIEFBRAS His epithet 'briefbras' (short arm) is a pseudo-translation into French of
Welsh 'freichfras' (strong-armed). In the romances, he was the son of Eliavres
the wizard and Ysaive, wife of King Caradoc of Vannes and Nantes. When Caradoc
Briefbras confronted Eliavres about his parentage, Eliavres and Ysaive caused
a serpent to twine around his arm and it took the combined efforts of his
wife, Guignier, and her brother, Cador, to rid him of it. When King Mangoun of
Moraine sent him a horn to expose any infidelity on the part of the wife of
him who drank from it, Caradoc's draught showed his wife to be faithful. In
Welsh tradition Caradoc's wife was Tegau Eurfon, his father Llyr Marini, his
son Meuric and his steed Lluagor. He was the legendary ancestor of the ruling
house of Morgannwg and may have founded the kingdom of Gwent in the fifth
century. # 156 - 604 CARADOS Also called the King of Carados, he was one of those kings who rebelled
against Arthur at the outset of his reign. B. Saklatvala (# 574) identifies
him with the Saxon leader Cerdic. # 156 - 574 CARADOS OF THE DOLOROUS TOWER He had an enchantress for a mother. He captured Gawain and lodged him in a
dungeon. Lancelot slew him, striking off his head with the only sword which
could kill him, and Gawain and other prisoners were thus freed. Carados was
the brother of Sir Turquine. # 156 - 418 CARANNOG, SAINT (Sixth century) He was possibly of Welsh origin. Arthur had taken
possession of his floating altar, which had gone astray, but he returned it
when Carannog drove off a serpent at the king's behest. # 26 -
156 CARATACUS A historical personage, King of the Catuvellani, a tribe of Britons who
lived in the vicinity of modern-day St Albans, at the time of the Roman
invasion of Britain in AD 43. He led a hard-fought anti-Roman campaign, but
was eventually handed over to his foes by Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes.
He was then pardoned by the Emperor Claudius. E. Ratcliffe (# 542) argues that
the stories of Caratacus became misplaced in folklore and that he was the
original of Arthur. A somewhat similar argument is advanced by J. Whitehead.
Both Ratcliffe and I. H. Elder regard Caratacus as identical with Arviragus,
while E. R. Capt avers that he was Arviragus' cousin. # 156 - 542 -
726 CARBONEK This castle contained the Palace Adventurous, wherein was the Grail. #
156 CARDUINO A knight who was brought up secretly after his father, Dondinello, had been
poisoned. He went to Arthur's court and then on a quest to succour Beatrice
who, with her subjects, had been turned into animals by a wizard. Carduino
slew the wizard and restored Beatrice to her former shape by kissing her. They
married. # 156 - 238 CARELL Reputed father of Tuan. # 562 CARIADO In Thomas's TRISTAN, a knight in love with Iseult who told her that Tristan
had married Iseult of the White Hands. # 156 CARL OF CARLISLE A giant who was host to Gawain, Kay and Bishop Baldwin. He had become a
giant because of a spell which was broken when, at his own behest, his head
was duly cut off by Gawain. Gawain married his daughter. Arthur knighted him
and made him Lord of Carlisle. He became a Knight of the Round Table. # 156 -
401 CARLACHS A race or nation. In Irish romance, the King's son, the Black Knight,
became one of Arthur's knights and was killed by the Knight of the Lantern. #
156 CARNAC At Carnac, Brittany, the Ménec alignment, made after 2500 BC with over a
thousand stones, is set with two other alignments in a crowded landscape of
dolmens (burial chambers), menhirs (single stones) and cromlechs
(groups of stones). The stones are regimented, probably for ritual; but each
stone is individual, with an overwhelming personality. At the culmination of
the alignments are the presumed stones of sacrifice. Surveys in the 1970s
Professor Thom argued for two important astronomical observatories near
Carmac. He concluded that the Manio and Grand Menhir Brisé menhirs had been
erected as foresights towards the eight major risings and settings of the
moon. Several sites, he believed, could have been the backsights from which
observers would have seen these lunar events. Omitted from the gazetteer are
some non-megalithic (or non-existing) sites. There are good reasons for
doubting the astronomical function of many stones in the two 'observatories'.
Not to be forgotten in this prehistoric wonderland is the museum at
Carnac-ville. The objects on display, from the flints and the pots to the
casts of carved stones, are vividly revealing of the lives of the people who
erected and used the menhirs, the rows and the tombs. # 117 -
342 CARNED ARTHUR In Welsh folk belief Arthur was buried under the cairn in Snowdonia. #
156 CARNWENNAN Arthur's dagger. # 156 -346 CARPATHIANS Earliest home of mountain Celts was ranges of the Carpathians. #
562 CARRAS King of Recesse, the brother of King Claudas, he waged war against Arthur,
until Gawain persuaded him to stop. # 153 - 156 CARTHAGINIANS Celts conquered Spain from the Carthaginians. Greeks break monopoly of
trade of the Carthaginians, with Britain and Spain. #
562 CARVILIA In the works of Torquato Tasso (1544-95) the Italian poet, a daughter of
Morgan Le Fay. # 156 CASCORACH Son of a minstrel of the Danaan Folk; Cas'corach and St. Patrick. #
562 CASTELLORS Son of Aminabad and ancestor of Arthur according to the pedigree provided
by John of Glastonbury. See: GARCELOS, and MANAEL. # 156 -
344 CASTLE EDEN A village in Co. Durham, said to be haunted by Arthur's knights in the
guise of chickens. Arthur's hall was once thought to have stood there. # 156 -
753 CASTLE KEY An earthwork, modern Caynham Camp (Shropshire) which, according to the
medieval HISTORY OF FULK FITZWARIN, was built by Kay. #
156 CASTLE OF MAIDENS A castle in Arthurian romance said to contain young women, either as
inmates or prisoners. Duke Lianour ruled it, but seven brothers slew him and
took it over. They in turn fell at the hands of three of Arthur's knights and,
afterwards, the duke's daughter took charge of it. With regard to its origin,
Geoffrey said that Ebraucus, King of Britain, founded the Castle of Mount
Agned which later became known as the Castle of Maidens. As to its location,
it may have been identified with Edinburgh which, in the Middle Ages, was
known as Castellum (or Castra) Puellarum, but some of the tales place it in
the vicinity of Gloucester. # 26 - 156 CASTLE OF WONDERS The lame king, who is identical with the lord of the Castle of Wonders,
would have been made whole again, if Perceval (Peredur) had asked the meaning
of what he saw. # 562 CASTLE RUSHEN Beneath this castle on the Isle of Man are said to be giants, buried in
caves by Merlin who defeated them. # 156 CASTLERIGG STONE CIRCLE On a plateau among the hills to the east of Keswick is one of the most
impressive ancient stone circles in the north of England, the Castlerigg,
sometimes called the 'Carles' or 'Druids Circle', ... a dismal cirque Of Druid Stones, upon a forlorn moor. as Keats wrote in the nineteenth century. The 'cirque' consists of 38
standing stones arranged in an oval approximately 107 feet maximum diameter,
with an inner rectangular setting of 10 stones. About 300 feet to the
south-west is an outlier. Castlerigg, like most of the stone circles of
Britain, is a calendrical marker, though in this respect it is probably unique
in that instead of using a large number of specially sited standing stones
outside its circle as markpoints, it makes use of the distinctive shapes of
the surrounding mountains. The line of orientation in such circles is usually
fixed by three single points (indicated by stones, one of which is usually an
outlier, or stone free of the outer circumference of the circle) along a
single sighting line. In Castlerigg, however, there are several orientation points with only two
siting points within some of the orientations, the third (necessary to mark
accurately a continuation line) being fixed by distinctive points on the
surrounding hills and mountains: thus, in this remarkable circle, the stones
are integrated perfectly into the surrounding horizon, to mark out the rhythms
of the seasons. The most important work done on stone circles in the present
century is that of Professor Thom, who has personally surveyed hundreds of
such sites and has come to some far-reaching conclusions about their
calendrical properties. It is therefore interesting to observe that Thom
himself remarks that the curious evidence of the outlier at Castlerigg yielded
one of the lines which, in Thom's words 'convinced the author of the necessity
to examine the calendar hypothesis in detail'. # 702 CASWALLAWN # 562: Son of Beli; conquers Britain during Bran's absence. # 454: Welsh
king. In popular memory, Cassivellaunos, the Belgic king of Catuvellauni, who
had led the tribes against Caesar in 54 BC survived as Caswallawn. The
'Triads' cite him as being the suitor of Fflur, and remember him as one of the
three golden shoemakers, along with Manawyddan and Llew. In 'Branwen, Daughter
of Llyr', he conquers Britain in the absence of Bran, by means of his magic
mantle. See: THIRTEEN TREASURES OF BRITAIN. # 104 - 272 - 439 - 454 -
562 CAT The cat does not play a large part in Celtic tradition but it was
associated with chthonic powers and was thus funerary, also a prophetic
animal. In Roman Gaul and in Irish lore there was a 'Little Cat' as a guardian
of treasure; it turned into a flaming object and burned the thief to ashes.
There was an island inhabited by men with cat-heads. In Celtic saga there were
Monster Cats to be fought by the Hero, the cat taking the place of the Dragon.
The Welsh Great Cat was born of the enchanted sow Henwen, originally a human;
it could eat nine score warriors. Monster cats and sea-cats appear in Irish
tradition of probably Celtic origin. In Irish myth the eldest son of a hog had
a cat's head and was known as 'Puss of the Corner'. # 454: The cat is now so
domesticated it seems impossible to imagine mythical Britain being ravaged by
a giant wild-cat, but so it was, until Arthur and Cai overcame it, according
to an early Welsh text. Indeed the cat has not been necessarily appreciated
for its virtues in British folklore where it often appears as the totem of
black witches. One unpleasant form of divination among the Scottish Gaels was
'taghgairm', by which a live cat was spitted over a fire until other cats
appeared to relieve its distress by answering the question set by the operator
of this method. Among the Gaelic peoples it was a powerful totem of many
tribes. Caithness is named from the clan of the Catti, or cat-people, while in
Ireland, Fionn fought against a tribe of CAT-HEADS, possibly warriors with
catskin over their helmets. # 100 - 161 - 225 - 454 CAT COIT CELIDON The site of one of Arthur's battles in the southern reaches of Scotland, in
the area once known as Silva Caledoniae (Wood of Scotland). # 156 -
494 CATH PALUG A monstrous member of the cat family which appears in Welsh Arthurian
poetry. The adjective Palug means 'clawing'. In the poem PA GUR, we are
told that Kay went to Anglesey with a view to killing lions and was especially
prepared for an encounter with Cath Palug. The poem is incomplete, but it may
have told how Kay slew the beast. Welsh tradition told how the creature was
produced by the pig Henwen and thrown into the sea, only to be raised by the
sons of Palug on Anglesey. (Geoffrey Ashe suggests that a captive leopard,
kept by a Welsh king, may have given rise to the tale.) In Continental tales
we learn how Arthur slew a giant cat near Lake Bourget in the French Alps.
This combat is commemorated in the local names Col du Chat (cat's neck), Dent
du Chat (cat's tooth) and Mont du Chat (cat's mountain). In French the animal
was called Capalu. In the ROMANEZ DE FRANCEIS (medieval romance) Arthur fought
the cat Capalu in a swamp and it killed him. It then invaded England and
became king. It has been suggested that we may have here an alternative
tradition of Arthur's death. In BATAILLE LOQUIFER (medieval romance with
limited Arthurian content) there is a youth called Kapalu, a servant of
Morgan. # 104 - 156 CATH SITH The Cat of the Sidhe: a fairy cat. Highlanders believed that the Cait Sith
was really a transformed witch not a fairy. The King of this otherworldly
company of cats was called Big Ears and he would appear to answer questions
set by a dinner engaged in taghairm - the roasting of a cat over fire. See:
CAT. # 100 - 454 CATHBAD (cáh'vah) # 562: Chief Druid of Ulster. Wedded to Maga, wife of Ross the
Red; his spell of divination overheard by CuChulain; draws Deirdre's
horoscope; casts evil spells over Naisi and Deirdre. # 454: The druid of
Conchobar mac Nessa and his father. He prophesied that the boy who took arms
on a certain day would outstrip all of Ireland's heroes. CuChulain heard him
and 'took valour' as a warrior that day, although he was but a boy. Cathbad
also foretold the sorrow which Deirdriu would cause Conchobar and the whole of
Ulster. # 166 - 266 - 454 - 548 - 562 CATHOLIC CHURCH All affairs, public and private, were subject to the Druids authority, and
the penalties which they could inflict for any assertion of lay independence,
like the medieval interdicts of the Catholic Church, on popular superstition
alone, were enough to quell the proudest spirit. Here lay the real weakness of
the Celtic polity. # 562 CATHUBODUA This Celtic goddess of war's name means Battle-Crow. Inscriptions have been
found to her in Europe, but she is undoubtedly associated with Badh or Bodh,
the Irish battle-goddess. # 389 - 454 CATIGERN A son of Vortigern. # 156 - 243 CATTLE RAID OF COOLEY, THE is the central epic of the Ulster cycle. The oldest version goes back
probably to the eighth century. The tale opens with the famous 'Pillow Talk' a
racy dialogue between Queen Medb of Connacht and her hen-pecked husband,
Ailill. The queen, on finding that her possessions equal those of her husband,
except for one bull, the White-Horned of Connacht, determines to make up the
deficiency by gaining possession of the most famous bull in Ireland, the Donn
of Cooley, which is the property of Daire, a chieftain of Ulster. When Medb
learns that she cannot obtain the Donn as a loan, she determines to take the
animal by force and gathers an army to invade Ulster. Owing to the temporary
debility of all the adult warriors of Ulster, the seventeen-year-old CuChulain
undertakes to oppose Medb's host single-handed. When Medb hears of CuChulain,
she inquires about him from the Ulster exiles in her army and learns of his
boyish exploits. As the result of an agreement between Medb and CuChulain, the
Ulster champion meets at a ford on the border of the two provinces a single
Connacht warrior each day over a period extending from Samhain (the beginning
of winter) till the beginning of spring. The men of Connacht finally succeed
in invading Ulster and carrying off the Donn of Cooley, but they are later
defeated by the Ulstermen, now restored to their normal strength. The Donn of
Cooley, after slaying the WhiteHorned of Connacht, returns to his native
district and utters mad bellowings of triumph till his heart bursts and he
dies. In spite of obvious imperfections, 'The Cattle Raid of Cooley' is a
splendid example of an epic in the making. It shows many evidences of literary
artistry and is not without passages of marked power and impressiveness. The
combat between CuChulain and his friend Ferdiad is one of the most famous
passages in early Irish literature. # 166 CATTLE RAID OF FROECH, THE 'The Cattle Raid of Froech' has a peculiar title. Froech's 'cattle raid' is
nothing more than the recovery of his own cattle ( and his wife) from beyond
the Alps; moreover, this exploit, which has a late look to it, is tacked on to
the main tale, which could better have been called 'The Wooing of Findabair'.
And the tale itself is unusual, for it is a mythological story - and with the
personae of the Mythological Cycle - pressed into the service of the Ulster
Cycle, as a preliminary tale to 'The Cattle Raid of Cuailnge'. It begins in
the realm of the Sidhe, with Froech going to ask presents of his aunt, Boand
(compare Froech's cattle with the hounds of Arawn in 'Pwyll Lord of Dyved':
white animals with red ears are always from the otherworld); immediately, the
setting shifts to the heroic warrior-world of Connachta, though Froech returns
to the Sidhe for healing after his battle with the water monster. The theme of 'The Cattle Raid of Froech', that of the young hero who must
win his love away from her unwilling father, appears also in 'The Wooing of
Etain' and 'The Dream of Oengus'; it is a degraded form of the familiar
regeneration motif. The mythic - actually folkloric, in this manifestation -
pattern imposes an uncharacteristic degree of villainy on Ailill and Medb.
(Also uncharacteristic is the dominance of Ailill - elsewhere in the Ulster
Cycle it is Medb who is the strong partner.) The version in Gantz's 'Early
Irish Myths and Sagas', however, is neither mythic nor heroic so much as
literary and psychological. More attention is paid to motivation here than in
any other early Irish story: Medb is guilt-stricken at having neglected
Froech's retinue, Findabair refuses to elope with Froech but admonishes him to
bargain for her, Froech rejects the bride price as excessive even for Medb,
Ailill tricks Froech into entering the water monster's lake and seems to
regret the ruse only because Froech survives it, Findabair asserts her
independence of her father after he has accused her of giving her ring (and by
implication herself) to Froech. Even the dialogue is unusually subtle. Oddly,
though, Froech's lie about how he received the ring is never challenged - is
this an extraordinarily ironic touch, or did the storyteller simply forget
that Findabair actually does give Froech the ring? - and Findabair, even after
producing the ring on the salmon platter, is not allowed to go away at once
with Froech. # 236 CATUVELLANI A tribe of Britons. See: CARATACUS. # 156 CATWALLAUN LONGHAND A North Welsh ruler who is said to have driven the Irish (led by Serigi)
out of Anglesey about the year AD 500. He may be identical with Cadwallon who,
according to Geoffrey, ruled Gwynedd in Arthur's time. #
156 CAULD LAD OF HILTON, THE One of the domestic spirits which is half brownie, half ghost. It was
supposed to be the spirit of a Northumbrian stable boy killed by one of the
past Lords of Hilton in a fit of passion. He was heard working about the
kitchen at nights, but he was a perverse spirit, for he would toss about and
disarrange whatever had been left tidy, but clean and tidy whatever had been
left dirty or in disorder. He used to be heard singing sadly at night. He was
unnecessarily pessimistic, however, for the servants put their heads together
and laid out a green cloak and hood for him. At midnight he put them on and
frisked about til cock-crow singing, 'Here's a cloak and here's a hood,the
Cauld Lad of Hilton will do nae mair good!', and with the dawn he vanished for
ever. # 100 CAULDRON # 701: The cauldron was the prime female symbol of the pre-Christian world.
Among the Celts, the Three Matriarchs kept the Magic Cauldron of Regeneration
at the bottom of a lake, until it was brought up by Bran the Blessed to
resuscitate men slain in battle. This Celt god moved on into the Grail cycle
of myths, as Bron the Fisher King, and his cauldron became confused with the
Christian version of the lifegiving, blood-filled vessel. - There can be no
doubt that the cauldron represented the womb of the Great Goddess, who was
often a trinity. It is certain also that men used to believe their
reincarnation and rebirth depended upon entering such a uterine vessel to be
reconstituted by its magic. Celtic cauldrons of regeneration came from the
Land Beneath the Waves because the Sea Goddess was held to be the universal
birth-giver. The god Cernunnos was dismembered and boiled in a cauldron in
order to rise again from the dead. A boiling cauldron gave rebirth and/or
magic power to Taliesin. Cauldrons continued to be worshiped as symbols of the universal womb even
into Christian times, as long as pagans met together to carry on their
religion. # 454: In ancient Celtic myth there were several cauldrons
dispensing variously the properties of life, death, inspiration and wisdom. It
is generally understood that these gave way in time to the image of the Holy
Grail and became incorporated into the Hallows of Britain. Arthur went in
search of such a cauldron to the very gates of Annwn. Bran possessed a
cauldron which re-animated dead men. In the story of Taliesin, Ceridwen owned
a cauldron which gave inspiration. # 287 - 439 - 451 - 454 - 461 - 563 - 701
pp 124-5 CAULDRON BRONZE THE, FROM BRAA See: BRAA, THE BRONZE CAULDRON FROM. CAULDRON OF ABUNDANCE See equivalent, STONE OF ABUNDANCE. See also: GRAIL. CAULDRON OF CERIDWEN In their rites the Welsh bards made a decoction of berries and herbs and
sea foam in a vessel, which is the cauldron of the goddess Ceridwen of Celtic
mythology. In the Greek mysteries of the goddess Ceres a decoction of flowers,
barley, salt and sea water was used. In both rites, after a little of this had
been taken by the initiates, the residue was regarded as poisonous and
accursed having symbolically taken the sins and pollutions which had been cast
out of the candidates. The cauldron was prepared by a ritual in which nine
maidens warmed it with their breath. In the Greek mysteries nine maidens
representing the nine muses (connected with Orpheus) were thought to be imbued
with similar special powers. Strabo connects the Druidesses with the
priestesses of Bacchus (Dionysos).
# 455: W. B. Crow: The Mistletoe Sacrement, p 54 ff CAULDRON, THE GUNDESTRUP See: GUNDESTRUP CAULDRON, THE. CAVE Caves were the great natural womb symbols and Mother Earth images worshiped
by primitive peoples. A cave sacred to the Triple Goddess in the guise of
'three fairy sisters,' was revered up to the eighteenth century AD in
Denbighshire (Clwyd, Cymru), by folk who claimed to see the sister's
footprints around the magic spring. Another sacred cave and spring in Scotland near Dunskey was still used for healing magic in 1791, when people
came to bathe at change of moon. # 701 p 335 ff CAVERSHALL A castle in Staffordshire where, according to local legend, Arthur held
court and succoured a lady. The existing castle dates from the thirteenth
century. # 156 CAVES IN WALES THAT HOLD SECRETS People have throughout the ages held a fascination for caves. A wide
variety of traditions associated with caves occurs in Welsh folklore and the
stories may concern smuggling, secret places where heroes are sleeping or
fugitives have hidden, treasure has been concealed or mythical beasts have had
their lairs. There are many caves in Wales where King Arthur and his knights
are said to be sleeping, waiting to be called on when their country has need
of their services. Such caves are supposed to exist on Lliwedd near Snowdon or
at Craig y Dinas in the Neath Valley. We are also informed that King Arthur's
treasure is buried in a cave at Llangwyfan on Anglesey and his magical adviser
is imprisoned in a cave yet to be discovered on Myrddin's Hill near
Carmarthen. Another Welsh hero sleeping in a cave is supposed to be Owain Llawgoch
(Owain of the Red Hand). Some stories tell us that he sleeps in a cave in the
cliff face below the romantic ruins of Carreg Cennen Castle and that he awaits
the time when he will return to the outer world to become king of Britain.
This hero's real name was Owain ap Thomas ap Rhodri (Owain son of Thomas,
grandson of Rhodri), and he lived some six hundred years ago. It is believed
that he was a direct descendant of Llewelyn, the last true Prince of Wales.
"Owain Lawgoch, one of the last chieftains who fought against the English,
lies with his men asleep. And here they will lie until wakened by the sound of
a trumpet and a clang of arms on Rhywgoch, when they will arise and conquer
their Saxon foes driving them from the land". Twm Shon Catti was another Welsh
folk hero who made use of a cave in a wild and remote corner of Wales. It is
situated on a rocky hillside overlooking some waterfalls on the River Tywi
about 12 miles north of Llandovery. His real name was Thomas Jones and during
the sixteenth century he seemed to achieve a reputation as a sort of Robin
Hood robbing the rich and giving to the poor. He used this small rock shelter
as a hiding place when escaping from the local sheriff. Such caves as Porth yr
Ogof near Ystradfellte in the Brecon Beacons National Park were visited in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by travellers who made amazing claims with
regard to their lengths. Some even believed that caves led down to the very
depths of Hell and wrote such descriptions as: 'We found this cave very
hollow, and so dark... we thought certainly we had come to the confines of the
Infernal Regions, or some such dismal place, and we began to be afraid to
visit it for although we entered in frolicksome and merry, yet we might return
out of it sad and pensive and never more to be seen to laugh whilst we lived
in the world, such dreadful apprehension seized upon some of us.' Exaggerated
descriptions of the lengths of the caves were often coupled with accounts of
adventurous dogs who disappeared down dark holes in the ground eventually to
emerge many miles away. Other stories may concern a musician who enters a cave
and is never seen again, though for years after his disappearance people claim
to hear his music still playing. Such an example concerns a cave near
Llanymynech in North Wales. A harpist apparently discovered that a local cave
led beneath Llanymynech Church. He subsequently laid a wager with his mates
that his harp would be heard in church one Sunday but he would not be there.
According to the story, one Sunday as he foretold, his harp was heard from
beneath the church floor but the underground harpist was never seen again
although his music could still be heard on certain occasions. #
49 CAW According to Welsh tradition, the father of Gildas, Hueil and Cywyllog. Caw
himself was regarded as a saint. # 156 - 320 CEASG (keeask) The Highland mermaid, also known as Maighdean na Tuinne or
'maiden of the wave'. Her body was that of a maiden while her tail was that of
a young salmon. She was able to grant three wishes, if captured and could only
be overcome by the destruction of her soul, which was normally kept elsewhere,
in an object or land-feature. See: MERROW. # 100 - 454 CEI (ky) Key. CEITHLIONN (ceh'lin) Wife of Balor; fought in the Battle of Moytura, in which she
mortally wounded the Dagda. # 166 CELIDOINE Son of the first Nascien who came to Britain and became king of Scotland.
He was an ancestor of Galahad. His name seems to have been derived from
Caledonia, the Latin term for Scotland. # 156 - 434 -
604 CELIDON/CELLYDON/CAT COIT CELIDON The name of the great forest of Arthurian Britain, site of one of Arthur's
battles. Merlin was said to have wandered there in his madness. # 242 - 454 -
630 CELTAE One of three peoples inhabiting Gaul when Caesar's conquest began. #
562 CELTCHAR CELTCHAIR # 562: (kelt-yar) The huge grey warrior, son of Uthecar Hornskin, lay
moaning on his bed under the Debility curse, laid on him and others by Macha.
# 454: Celtchair was a Red Branch warrior who, in the act of slaying his
adulterous wife's lover, let fall a drop of blood upon the fidchell (chess)
board which Conchobar mac Nessa and CuChulain were playing at. This was a
breach of hospitality for which Celtchair was ordered to perform three
separate feats to rid Ireland of three plagues. He had to kill Cu Roi mac
Daire's brother, Conganchas, who was devastating the land but who was
invulnerable to ordinary weapons. He learned from Conganchas' wife, Niamh,
that her husband could be slain only by having spear-tips thrust into the
soles of his feet. The second plague was an otherworldly dog which he slew.
The last plague was another dog who he dispatched but whose venomous blood
trickled from Conganchas' spear on to him, by which he died. # 166 - 454 -
562 CELTDOM, GOLDEN AGE OF As astronomers have discerned the existence of an unknown planet by the
perturbations which it has caused in the courses of those already under direct
observation, so we can discern in the fifth and fourth centuries BC the
presence of a great power and of mighty movements going on behind a veil which
will never be lifted now. This was the Golden Age of Celtdom in Continental
Europe. # 562 CELTIC Diffusion of Celtic power in Mid-Europe. The battle of Rome took place on
july 18 AD 390, that ill-omened Dies Alliensis which long perpetuated
in the Roman calendar the memory of the deepest shame the republic had ever
known. For nearly a year the Celts remained masters of the city. A treaty was
concluded and for almost a century there was peace between the Celts and the
Romans. Contributing to upbreaking of the Celtic Empire was evidently, that
certain Celtic tribes allied themselves with their old enemy, the Etruscans,
in the third Samnite war. 2. Celtic place names found throughout Europe and in
the British Isles. Among several other examples take the word dunum, so
often traceable in Gaelic place names in the present day (Dundalk, Dunrobin,
etc.), and meaning fortress or castle. It occurred very frequently in France
Lug-dunum (Lyon), Viro-dunum (Verdun), and in the Netherlands
where the city of Leyden goes back to Celtic Lug-dunum. 3. Early Celtic
Art. Relics of ancient Celtic art-work dating back to 750 to 400 Bc were
discovered in Hallstatt, Austria. These relics betoken in some cases a high
standard of civilisation and considerable commerce. 4. The etymological
history of Celtic words are very interesting , but far too voluminous for this
column, and for interested readers we refer to the ancient work: Jubainville's
PREMIERS HABITANTS, ii 355-356. - 5. Weakness of Celtic policy made space for
Teutonic predominance and which became the main political factor in the
development of the European nations. 6. Celtic religion was based entirely on
Druidism as the priesthood, but with a huge amounts of local gods, goddesses
and heroes. See also CATHOLIC CHURCH. 7. The Tumulus at New Grange in Ireland are traditionally, besides the
dwelling place of fairies, the burialplace of High Kings of pagan Ireland. 8.
The origins of the 'Celtic' immortality occurred first in Gaul under Roman
influence, and derive certainly from Egypt. The carvings in question are
pre-Celtic. They are found where no Celts ever penetrated. 9. Names of Celtic
Deities. The Megalithic People did not imagine their deities under concrete
personal form. Stones, rivers, wells, trees, and other natural objects were to
them the adequate symbols. But the imaginative mind of the Aryan Celt was not
content with this. And from there they were mixed up with the gods from the
antiquity and classical world. 10. The Celtic conception of Death, See:
OTHERWORLD. 11. Five factors of ancient Celtic culture. The popular superstitions and
magical observances. Secondly, a thoughtful and philosophic creed having its
central object of worship the Sun. Thirdly, a worship of personified deities
as Aesus, Teutates, Lugh and others as guardians of social laws. Fourthly, the
Romans were deeply impressed with the existence among the Druids of a body of
teaching of a quasi-scientific nature about natural phenomena and the
constitution of the universe. Lastly, the sacerdotal organisation and the
atmosphere of religious awe with which it was surrounded, became the sovereign
power, social, political, and religious, in every Celtic country. 12. It is
verified by many scolars that the descendants of the Megalithic People at the
present day are, on the psysical side, deeply impregnated with Celtic blood,
and on the spiritual side with Celtic traditions and ideals. 13. The Celtic
Cosmogony. In the early Irish accounts of the beginnings of things, we find
that it is not with the World that the narrators make their start - it is
simply with their own country, with Ireland; but what took the place of the
Biblical narrative in pre-Christian days we do not know, and unfortunately,
are now never likely to know. 14. 'Barddas'(i.e) is a work of certain current
of sixteenthcentury Cymric thoughts. What Europe owes to the Celt. His contribution to the culture of the Western world was a very notable
one. For some four centuries-about AD 500 to 900-Ireland was the refuge of
learning and the source of literature and philosophic culture for half Europe.
The myths and legends of the Gaelic and Cymric peoples kindled the imagination
of a host of Continental poets. True, the Celt did not himself create any
great architectural work of literature, just as he did not create a stable or
imposing national polity. His thinking and feeling were essentially lyrical
and concrete. Each object or aspect of life impressed him vividly and stirred
him profoundly; he was sensitive, impressionable to the last degree, but did
not see things in their larger and more far-reaching relations. He had little
gift for the establishment of institutions, for the service of principles; but
he was, and is, an indispensable and never-failing assertor of humanity as
against the tyranny of principles, the coldness and barrenness of
institutions.The institutions of royalty and of civic patriotism are both very
capable of being fossilised into barren formulae, and thus of fettering
instead of inspiring the soul. But the Celt has always been a rebel against
anything that has not in it the breath of life, against any unspiritual and
purely external form of domination. It is too true that he has been overeager
to enjoy the fine fruits of life without the long and patient preparation for
the harvest, but he has done and will still do infinite service to the modern
world in insisting that the true fruit of life is a spiritual reality, never
witout pain and loss to be obscured or forgotten amid the vast mechanism of a
material civilisation. # 562 CELTIC CROSS # 701: The symbol that we call the Celtic cross was known to the Hindus as
the Kiakra, a sign of sexual union: the cross (phallus) within the
circle (yoni). # 687: The seventh century saw the introduction of a monument similar in
intent to the old inscribed stones, but wholly different in origin and
craftsmanship from them. The cross-shaft in the lonely, picturesque churchyard
atBewcastle on the Cumberland Fells is cited as the first known example and,
for all we know, is the original of the whole series. The two striking
differences between this type of memorial and the earlier sort in the west are
(1) that they are the product of Christianity as re-introduced by Augustine
among the Angles and Saxons and not of the Celtic Church, and (2) that they
are the work of highly trained craftsmen. Who these craftsmen were and in what
country they learned their art is quite unknown. The mystery is heightened by
the fact that these crosses are confined with one exception to the Northern
area, and (of that date) are not known elsewhere. From this source, however, they spread to the whole of England, Wales,
Scotland, and Ireland. The exception mentioned is Reculver, where a similar
cross was seen by Leland in the sixteenth century, standing within the old
seventh century Saxon church between the nave and chancel. The fragments of
this same cross are now kept (but not well kept) in the neighbouring church at
Hillberough. In Ireland development came late, but nowhere else is the high
cross seen in such magnificence. The principal examples are at Monasterboice
and Kells. In Wales, development was also late. Here crosses were made
elaborate, but were never of first-rate craftsmanship. In the North, the
principal example is the Maen Achwyfan at Whitford (in Flintshire) which is
preserved by the Office of Works. # 687 - 701 CELTIC IMMORTALITY The classical writers felt rightly that the Celtic idea of immortality was
something altogether different from the Egyptian conception. It was both
loftier and more realistic; it implied a true persistence of the living man,
as he was at present, in all his human relations. # 562 CELTIC MYTHOLOGY There is little doubt that Celtic mythology, particularly that of Ireland,
tells of the gods of the Celts. The myths themselves speak of Celtic belief in
their deities and, although it is impossible to be certain how strong was
Christian belief at the time they were written down, it is possible that a
good proportion of this mythology is directly derived from the sacred lore of
the Druids. In no way do either the references to Celtic beliefs by Greek and
Roman writers or the archaeological evidence conflict with modern
interpretations of the mythology. Provided that too rigid a rapprochement is
avoided all three sources may be made to provide material for the study of the
beliefs of the Celts. All the evidence points to the existence of comparatively localised cults
and it is rare to find deities worshipped over wide areas. The cult of Lug is
exceptional. Place and tribal names hint at his cult in Spain, Switzerland and
Gaul as well as in Ireland. The restricted distribution of Romano-Celtic
inscriptions and the existence of eponymous tribal deities suggest local
tribal interpretations of chieftain-gods and mother-goddesses, although the
latter frequently enjoyed a wider distribution than those of male gods. The
mythology itself cannot be taken as evidence that there was normally a
widespread belief in specific gods. This is not to say that similar gods were
not worshipped under different names among different tribal groups. The
strongly marked aristocratic nature of Celtic society in the days of
independence suggests that the mythology relates to the gods of the
aristocracy and it is not certain either how far the ordinary peasant shared
in these beliefs, or how far he was allowed to participate in ritual
observances. The sorceress, Mongfhinn, to whom 'the women and common people
adressed their prayers' is the only figure in mythology who appears to have
been definitely worshipped by the ordinary people. The large number of single
inscriptions from RomanoCeltic times may refer to similar popular cults
centred on very localised Genii Loci who were frequently associated
with a more primitive worship of minor natural features. Among the common
people, too, there were many of pre-Celtic descent to whom the cult-practices
of earlier times may have proved adequate. To such people the aristocratic
gods of the Tuatha de Danann may have been too unapproachable, even if
access had been allowed them. It seems likely that the secret lore of the
Druids would have been denied to such people. Even the Celtic aristocracy
seems to have been impressed by the burial places of earlier inhabitants, so
much so that they were brought into their myths. To the peasantry in close
contact with the soil such relics of earlier cults, in which their ancestors
perhaps participated, may have seemed more potent than the gods of their newly
arrived overlords. As part of the earliest European literature after Greek and
Latin, Celtic Mythology has a value over and above that of a source for
ancient beliefs. In it is a rich store of priceless evidence for the way of
life of the Celtic aristocracy, their hopes and fears. It is an important part
of the record of a people who have made no small contribution to the European
heritage, in no way diminished by its lack of general recognition. # 428: Although the Celtic myths are relatively familiar to us, we know
virtually nothing about Celtic gods and even less about the cults practised
throughout the druidic area. In a passage on the Pharsalia which has
given rise to much comment, Lucan mentions 'cruel Teutates, horrible Esus and
Taranis whose altar is as bloody as that of the Scythian Diana'. Lucan,
however, was very much of a sycophant to Julius Caesar, and it is only to be
expected that he should have emphasised the savagery of Gallic cults so as to
justify the massacres ordered by the bald dictator and his successors, and
their policy of systematically exterminating druidism. The manuscript of
Lucan's work is covered with notes and comments by a zealous medieval
christian, who also had something to gain from pointing out the barbarity of
paganism; and it is from these that we learn that men were hung from trees and
torn into pieces in honour of Esus, that men were immersed in basins until
they asphyxiated in honour of Teutates and that the victims sacrific to
Taranis were burnt in the hollow trunk of trees. The last of these three
confirms Caesar's words about certain tribes who placed their condemned men in
huge cane dummies and burnt them (Gallic Wars, VI, 17). Anxious to demonstrate
his knowledgeability, Lucan's commentator identifies Teutates with Mercury,
Esus with Mars and Taranis with Dispater, whereas Gallo-Roman inscriptions
identify Teutates with Mars, Esus with Mercury and Taranis with Jupiter.
Obviously this kind of discrepancy is very little help. And then there is
Caesar (VI, 18) who says of the Gauls that 'the god they reverence most is
Mercury... next to him they reverence Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and Minerva.' Up until now all commentators on Gallic religion have based their arguments
on Lucan, Caesar and the many anthropomorphic images of supposedly
'Gallo-Roman' gods. There is considerable contradiction between these sources
and yet it is they which lie behind recent attempts to classify Celtic
divinities in some rational way. Interesting though such attempts may be, they
rest on the false premise that all Roman or Gallo-Roman sources can be totally
relied upon. In fact, the contradictions are evidence that even in Gallo-Roman
days there was confusion about Celtic gods. It would seem that the Romans knew
next to nothing about them but being unwilling to admit as much blithely
identified any one god with any other. More seriously still, it would appear
that from Caesar's time onwards, the Romans did not even know about their own
gods any more. # 382 - 428 CELTIC TERRITORY IN 1200 BC In his book WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD, Iman Wilkens suggests that the
combatants in the Trojan War must have been Celts, and it is not only because
of the names of the persons and places involved, but also because the two
territories correspond to a large extent, bearing in mind that not necessarily
all Celtic peoples were involved in the war. As regards the Achaeans from
continental Europe, it can be assumed that they were all Celts, in view of the
apparent unity of language and religion, though there were some Celts, notably
the Egyptians and the Libyans (from southwest France), who did not
participate. In the Troad, however, the demographic situation was different.
While the inhabitants of southeast England were Celts, their allies, mainly
from Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, were probably pre-Celtic peoples (but
already converted to Celtic religion) who spoke different and mutually
incomprehensible languages, as Homer mentions on several occasions, for
example: But for the Trojans, even as ewes stand in throngs past counting
in the court of a man of much substance to be milked of their white milk, and
bleat without ceasing as they hear the voices of their lambs: even so arose
the clamour of the Trojans throughout the wide host; for they had not all like
speech or one language, but their tongues were mingled, and they were a folk
summoned from many lands. (Ill. IV, 433-438) The pre-Celtic peoples are considered to be the builders of the megalithic
monuments found all over northern and western Europe. They are also thought to
be the first peoples to have been led by the Druids, who worshipped the sun at
sites such as Stonehenge in England. It would appear that the Celts adopted
and continued the Druidic tradition, which was in fact a much more ancient
Indo-European tradition close to that of the Brahmins. Through displacing or
absorbing the neolithic peoples, the Celts established themselves over the
greater part of Europe during the second and first millenium BC. A comparison
of two of several maps in Iman Wilken's book shows their expansion towards
Ireland, the Celtiberic peninsula, the southern half of France, Italy, the
Balkans, Greece (which during the Roman Empire was called the Prefecture of
Illyricum after the Celtic Illyrians), and even Turkey, while they lost ground
in Scandinavia and Germany. Not surprisingly, many western European
place-names were given to the new places to which Celts migrated. For example,
the Galates, originating in Gaul as their name indicates, who invaded Turkey,
must be at the origin of this country's present name, taken from the village
of Turkeije, near the left bank of the Schelde mouth. The Gauls also gave
their name to Galicia in northwest Spain and Galicia in Poland. The expansion
seems to be mainly due to their population growth. The Celtic alliance dominated Europe in the way the Roman Empire was to do
much later, the difference being that the Celts were united by a kind of
confederation based on consensus, while the Romans relied on centralized
political and military power. The Celtic alliance was nevertheless a force to
be reckoned with, as the Romans experienced, for example, when Rome was sacked
by the Celts in 387 BC. A few centuries later, the Druids of Gaul were to
conspire against the Romans with the Druids of the Galates in Turkey. In view
of the cohesion of the Celtic peoples and the effiency of the Druids in
political and military coordination, it is not so difficult to understand how
it was possible to unite the peoples of western continental Europe to wage war
in England. It was certainly there that the war took place, for according to
Thucydides, as we have seen, Greece at that time was inhabited by a great
number of tribes, with little or no contact with one another, living at mere
subsistence level. # 730 CELTIC WEAPONS Diodorus Siculus has given us a comprehensive description of Celtic armour
and weapons: 'For arms they have man-sized shields decorated in a manner
peculiar to them. Some of these have projecting figures in bronze, skilfully
wrought not only for decoration but also for protection. They wear bronze
helmets with large projecting figures which give the wearer the appearance of
enormous size. In some cases horns are attached so as to form one piece, in
others the foreparts of birds or quadrupeds worked in relief... Some of them
have iron breastplates, wrought in chain, while others are satisfied with the
arms Nature has given them and fight naked. Instead of the short sword they
carry long swords held by a chain of iron or bronze and hanging along their
right flank. Some of them have gold - or silver - plated belts round their
tunics. They brandish spears which are called Lanciae and which have
iron heads a cubit in length and even more, and a little less than two palms
in breadth: for their swords are not shorter than the spears of others, and
the heads of their spears are longer than the swords of others. Some of these
are forged straight, others are twisted and have a spiral form for their whole
length, so that the blow may not only cut the flesh but also tear it in pieces
and so that the withdrawal of the spear may lacerate the wound.' #
556 CELTIC, PRONOUNCING THE WORD The initial C of Celtic may be pronounced either soft (s) or hard (k)
Inasmuch as the Greeks, whose sources were oral rather than written, spelt
their word for the Celts KELTOI and inasmuch as c in Modern Irish and Welsh is
without exception hard, we can assume that the Celts themselves pronounced
this initial consonant as a k. # 237 CELTICA Never inhabited by a single pure and homogenous race. - Greek type of
civilisation preserved by Celtica. - Art of enamelling originated in Celtica.
- The Druids formed the sovran power in Celtica. - Brigit (Dana) widely
worshiped goddess in Celtica. # 562 CELTS AND GERMANS The country we call France today, was called Argos by the Celts in Homer's
time and subsequently Gallia by the Celtic Gauls in Roman times. To the
Romans, 'Gallia' sounded like 'Land of the Roosters', as Gallus is
Latin for rooster (and, of course, the cock has become the emblem of France).
The present name of the country stems from the Franks, a Teutonic tribe who
invaded the territory around 500 AD. As to the people of central Europe, they
never called themselves Germans nor their country Germany, which is probably
not a German word at all. According to the Italo-American linguist Mario Pei,
it comes from a Celtic root meaning 'neighbouring', seemingly akin to the
Latin Germanicus meaning 'having the same parents' (whence the English
'germane'). The Germans themselves call their country Deutschland, meaning
'Land of the people' from the Gothic root Deudisko, meaning 'people'.
The French name for that country, Allemagne, is a reminder of the Alemani, a
tribe living in the Black Forest in Roman times. Germany was often equated
with Prussia, which is a contraction of Borussia, the Russians themselves
being of Swedish Viking descent. They were called Rus for the first time by an
Arab diplomat, Ibn Fadlan, who arrived in Russia in 922 AD. #
730 CELTS AND HINDUS Countless studies on European pre-history, ancient languages and religions
have brought to light a surprising number of similarities between cultures of
the various peoples that lived in the vast area from Ireland to India and from
Scandinavia to North Africa. It also appears that the Druids had much in
common with the Shamans of Eastern Europe and the Brahmins of India. In Iman
Wilkens' book Where Troy Once Stood we find many names that are
identical in East and West. Cultural exchange over such great distances must
have taken place both via the Mediterranean and over land via the Russian
plains. The first route was taken by the 'Sea Peoples' who must have been
Celts from the Atlantic coastal areas, who arrived in the countries around the
Eastern Mediterranean around 1500 BC. Conversely, peoples from the Levant
sailed west to venture out in the Atlantic in search for tin and amber. The
Celts gave new names to existing places in the East including a name for the
newly discovered continent: Asia, after a daughter of Oceanus, while Persia
was named after Perseus and India after Indus. Other Europeans were in contact
with India and Persia via the land routes from the north as evidenced by the
origin of the Hindu religion, as described in the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA,
India was invaded around 1500 BC by European peoples living in Siberia and
Russia who called themselves Aryans. They brought with them their language,
Vedic Sanskrit (which is much older than classical Sanskrit), the horse and
the Vedic religion. Hinduism then developed slowly from the synthesis of the
sacrificial cults of the invaders with the religions of the various indigenous
peoples. According to the same source, Iran had known even earlier contacts
with the northern invaders, as evidenced by a near-kinship between Sanskrit
and the earliest Iranian language. In Europe, Sanskrit grammar and word roots
were also very similar to those of the 'younger' classical languages, such as
Greek, Latin, Gothic and Celtic. Linguists therefore classify virtually all
the languages which were spoken between Ireland and India as 'Indo-European'
languages, which include the Semitic languages but exclude those whose
structure, verb conjugations and word roots are of entirely different origin,
such as Basque, Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish. The modern language which is
closest to Sanskrit is, according to Mario Pei (The Story of Language),
Lithuanian, spoken on the Baltic coast. Cultural exchanges between West and
East could have taken place here as in Homer's time the influence of the
Druids extended as far east as Poland. West Europeans still use many Sanskrit
words today, such as Zodiac, Paradise, Karma, Shakra or Mandala, while many
are familiar with 'oriental' notions such as reincarnation and karma which may
well be of European origin. # 730 CELTS IN BATTLE Polybius, who lived between about 202 and 120 BC, gives a full account of
how the Celts fought at the battle of Telamon in 225 BC; it is worth quoting
at length because it highlights several recurring characteristics: 'The Celts
had drawn up the Gaesatae from the Alps to face their enemies on the rear ...
and behind them the Insubres .... The Insubres and the Boii wore trousers and
light cloaks, but the Gaesatae in their overconfidence had thrown these aside
and stood in front of the whole army naked, with nothing but their arms; for
they thought that thus they would be more efficient, since some of the ground
was overgrown with thorns which would catch on their clothes and impede the
use of their weapons.' On the other hand the fine order and the noise of the
Celtic host terrified the Romans; for there were countless trumpeters and horn
blowers and since the whole army was shouting its war cries at the same time
there was such a confused sound that the noise seemed to come not only from
the trumpeters and the soldiers but also from the countryside which was
joining in the echo. No less terrifying were the appearance and gestures of
the naked warriors in front, all of whom were in the prime of life and of
excellent physique. All the warriors in the front ranks were adorned with gold
torcs and armlets. The Romans were particularly terrified by the sight of
these men, but, led on by hope of gain, they were twice as keen to face the
danger. '... to the Celts in the rear their trousers and cloaks afforded good
protection, but to the naked men in front events turned out differently to
what they had expected and caused them much discomfiture and distress. For
since the Gallic shield cannot cover the whole body, because they were naked,
the bigger they were, the more chance there was of missiles striking home. At
length, unable to ward off the javelin throwers because of the distance and
the number of javelins falling upon them, in despair and distress some rushed
upon the enemy in wild rage and willingly gave up their lives; others,
retreating step by step towards their comrades, threw them into confusion by
their manifest show of cowardice.' The ancient writers dwelt upon the terrifying effect an army of Celts had
on their opponents; their great stature, their wild cries, their
gesticulations and prancings, the clashing of arms and blowing of trumpets -
all combined to terrify and confuse the enemy. As long as these demonstrations
of enthusiasm and bravado struck terror into the foe, the Celts would drive
all before them. 'For they were always most formidable while they were fresh.'
The whole race is war-mad, says Strabo, high-spirited and quick to fight, but
otherwise straightforward and not at all of evil character. When the two
armies were arrayed in line, the loud voice of the Celtic chief could
sometimes be heard. 'For they were accustomed ... to come forward before the
front line and challenge the bravest of the enemy drawn up opposite them to
single combat, brandishing their weapons and terrifying the enemy. Whenever
one accepts the challenge, they praise in song the manly virtues of their
ancestors, proclaiming also their own brave deeds. At the same time they abuse
and belittle their opponent, trying by their words to rob him of his boldness
of spirit beforehand.' The story of how Marcus Claudius Marcellus killed a
Gallic leader at Clastidium (222 BC) is typical of such encounters. Advancing
with a smallish army, Marcellus met a combined force of Insubrian Gauls and
Gaesatae at Clastidium. The Gallic army advanced with the usual rush and
terrifying cries, and their king, Britomartus, picking out Marcellus by means
of his badges of rank, made for him, shouting a challenge and brandishing his
spear. Britomartus was an outstanding figure not only for his size but also
for his adornments; for he was resplendent in bright colours and his armour
shone with gold and silver. This armour, thought Marcellus, would be a fitting
offering to the gods. He charged the Gaul, pierced his bright breastplate and
cast him to the ground. It was an easy task to kill Britomartus and strip him
of his armour. These spoils Marcellus offered to Jupiter. This is the only
story of its kind in which the name of the Celtic chief is recorded. In their
attempts to throw the enemy into confusion and terror, the Celts made great
use of noise. They yelled their war cries as they advanced, howling and
singing and brandishing their spears. Livy, in two different contexts, distant in time and place, vividly depicts
the noise accompanying their mad rush into battle. Describing the battle of
the river Allia, he says: 'they are given to wild outbursts and they fill the
air with hideous songs and varied shouts.' Of the Gauls in Asia he writes:
'their songs as they go into battle, their yells and leapings, and the
dreadful noise of arms as they beat their shields in some ancestral custom -
all this is done with one purpose, to terrify their enemies.' In sharp
contrast to the wild onset of the Celts, which was evident also during their
invasion of Greece, was the silent, orderly advance of the Greek army. When
the Gauls defeated the Roman army at the river Allia, they marched on Rome.
'They arrived at the city and entered at first in fear lest there should be
some treachery, but then, when they saw that the city was deserted, they moved
forward with equal noise and impetuosity.' On another occasion the Romans experienced a new form of noisy warfare:
'for standing up in chariots and wagons, the armed enemies came at them with
the great noise of hooves and wheels so that the unfamiliar din terrified the
horses of the Romans.' There was also the noise of trumpets. At the battle of
Telamon the number of trumpeters and horn blowers was incalculable. Diodorus
Siculus says they had trumpets peculiar to barbarians: 'for when they blow
upon them, they produce a harsh sound, suitable to the tumult of war.' The
Gauls also had their shouts of victory and triumph. 'They shouted "Victory,
Victory" in their customary fashion and raised their yell of triumph
(Ululatus)', and at Alesia 'they encouraged their men with shouts of
triumph (Clamore et Ululatu)'. There are several representations of
Celtic trumpets on classical sculpture, most notably at Pergamon in Asia
Minor, and on the triumphal arch at Orange in southern France, and a few
fragments of actual trumpets have survived. The mouth of a trumpet shaped in
the manner of a boar's head was found in 1816 at Deskford (Banffshire,
Grampian); although the trumpet itself no longer survives, the mouth may be
compared with the representations on the cauldron from Gundestrup in Denmark,
where the sectional nature of the trumpet construction is clearly shown. The
Deskford trumpet may originally have had ears and a mane rather like the
Gundestrup examples; when first discovered, however, it retained a movable
wooden 'tongue' which may have added vibration to the strident sounds blown
from it. The Deskford piece is usually dated to the middle of the first
century AD. Among the earlier representations of trumpets are those from the
temple of Athena Polias Nikephoros at Pergamon in Asia Minor dating to about
181 BC and celebrating the victories of Attalus I over the Galatian tribes in
the late third century BC. Trumpets, shields, standards, indeed all the
trophies are set out in a great display of spoils of war on the triumphal arch
at Orange. The large number of trumpets shown at Orange underlines the
impression of great noise during battle given by the classical writers. As
already mentioned, Polybius describes a contingent of Gaesatae (sometimes
taken as mercenaries, now more often as spearmen, which took part in the
battle of Telamon; they came from beyond the Alps to help the Gauls already in
north Italy (for example the Boii and the Insubres). The Celts of north Italy wore trousers and cloaks, but the Gaesatae fought
naked. At the battle of Cannae (216 BC) Polybius describes the naked Celts and
the Iberians with their short linen tunics with purple borders, and Livy
speaks of the Gauls naked from the navel up and of the Iberians with
dazzlingly white tunics bordered with purple. The Celts in Asia Minor seem to
have preserved this custom, for they too are described as naked in battle with
skin white because they were never exposed except in battle. Camillus, trying
to raise the morale of the Romans after the siege of the Capitol, pointed to
some naked Gauls and said: 'These are the men who rush against you in battle,
who raise loud shouts, clash their arms and long swords, and toss their hair.
Look at their lack of hardiness, their soft and flabby bodies, and go to it'.
Dionysus of Halicarnassus expresses the same sentiments: 'Our enemies fight
bare-headed, their breasts, sides thighs, legs are all bare, and they have no
protection except from their shields; their weapons of defence are thin spears
and long swords. What injury could their long hair, their fierce looks, the
clashing of their arms and the brandishing of their arms do us? These are mere
symbols of barbarian boastfulness.' # 556 CELTS THROUGH ROMAN EYES To the Romans the Celts presented a terrifying sight because of their tall
stature and their strange appearance. They were in many respects different
from Mediterranean peoples. The Celts were by far the tallest race in the
world, noticeable also for their white skin and fair hair. Although the Romans
had heard about the barbarian Celts, they first encountered them as warriors,
and it was in battle that their enormous size and strange appearance first
struck them. The Celtic chiefs who advanced to challenge their opposing Roman
leader to single combat were men of great physique, 'of stature greater than
human'; the story of the fight between Britomartus and Marcellus can be
compared to that between Goliath and David. The triumphal procession awarded
to Marcellus was said to be most remarkable for the riches of the spoils and
the gigantic size of the prisoners. Diodorus Siculus describes the Celts at
some length: 'the Gauls are tall of body, with skin moist and white; their
hair is blond not only by nature but also because they practise to increase
artificially the peculiar nature of their colouring. Some of them shave off
their beards but others let them grow moderately: the nobles shave their
cheeks but let their moustaches grow freely so as to cover their mouths.
Therefore, when they are eating, the moustaches become mixed in the food, and
when they are drinking, the drink passes as if through a strainer.' They had
unusual styles of hairdressing; they used to smear their hair with limewater
and then pull it back to the top of their head and over the neck to produce
something like a horse's mane. Tacitus tells of other similar treatments of
hair found among the Germanic tribes. Thus the Suebi are distinguished from
the other Germans by their particular hairstyle: 'they comb their hair
sideways and tie it in a knot ... often on the very crown.' All this elaborate
hairdressing was intended to give them greater height and to terrify their
enemies in battle. Silius Italicus mentions a warrior who had offered his
golden locks and the ruddy top-knot on the crown of his head to Mars if he
were victorious. The colour of the hair is usually referred to as fair, red or
flaxencoloured and even ginger. The men of Britain were taller than those of Gaul, but their hair was not
so fair, while the Germans differed only slightly from other Celts in that
they were wilder, taller and had redder hair. There is a story that Caligula,
anxious to make his triumph in Rome more spectacular, in view of the small
number of prisoners for display, picked out some very tall Gauls and made them
not only grow their hair longer but also dye it red. Strabo, quoting an
earlier source, makes a curious statement: 'they try to avoid becoming stout
and pot-bellied and any young man whose waist exceeds the measure of the
normal girdle is fined.' But such a weight-watching approach is contradicted
by others writers who tell of the Gauls gorging themselves with food and
drinking wine excessively so that their bodies soon become corpulent and
flabby. Consequently, when they exercised their bodies, they suffered quickly
from exhaustion and breathlessness. In the minds of classical writers the
women were not only like their men in stature, but they could also rival them
in strength. Ammianus Marcellinus described how difficult it would be for a band of
foreigners to deal with a Celt if he called in the help of his wife. For she
was stronger than he was and could rain blows and kicks upon the assailants
equal in force to the shots of a catapult. Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, was
said to be 'very tall and terrifying in appearance; her voice was very harsh
and a great mass of red hair fell over her shoulders.' According to Diodorus
Siculus, the Celts 'wear striking clothing, tunics dyed and embroidered in
many colours, and trousers which they call Bracae; and they wear
striped cloaks, fastened by a brooch, thick in winter and light in summer,
worked in a variegated, closely set check pattern.' Strabo says that instead
of the ordinary tunics they wore 'split tunics which have sleeves and reach
down to their thighs. Their wool is rough and thin at the ends and from it
they weave thick cloaks (SAGI) which they call Laenae.' The poet
Propertius tells how the huge Celtic chief Virdomarus, skilled in hurling his
javelins from his chariot and 'clothed in striped trousers', boasted of his
descent from the Rhine God. Three pieces of clothing are thus mentioned:
trousers, tunics and cloaks. The trousers would certainly be noticed by the
toga-wearing Romans. Trousers were worn especially by the cavalrymen, and the
Romans themselves adopted them from the mercenary Gallic cavalry they
enlisted. The tunic was probably a simple garment like a shirt, made of linen
and reaching down to the thighs. There was also the slightly different style
mentioned by Strabo - with slits and sleeves. The Iberians were said to wear short tunics bordered with a purple stripe
and dazzlingly white. The tunics were often dyed and embroidered and worn with
a gold-plated or silver-plated belt. The cloaks were made of wool; they were
heavy or light according to the season and were fastened at the shoulder by a
brooch. A defeated Celtic barbarian is shown on a fragment of a monumental
bronze statue from Volubilis in Roman Mauretania in north Africa; his
Bracae have what Piggott has described as 'loud and disparate check
patterns' and his cloak hangs loosely from his shoulders. Such an impression
of woven designs is also given in a description of Queen Boudicca, who wore a
tunis of many colours over which a thick cloak was fastened by a brooch. An outstanding characteristic of the Celtic people was their love of
decoration and ornament. 'They collect a great quantity of gold and use it for
decoration, not only the women but also the men. For they wear bracelets on
the wrists and arms, necklaces of solid gold, rings of great worth and even
gold corslets' (body armour for the upper part of the torso). The torc was one
of the most important ornaments worn by the Celts. It was a neck ring made of
a rod of metal (sometimes twisted), of bronze or gold according to the wealth
and status of the wearer. The two ends of the torc almost met, but the metal
was pliant, for it had to open sufficiently to let it on or off. (See also:
TORQUE). As with clothes, so with adornments, each man wore what he could
afford and what status demanded. It is obvious, however, that the Celts liked
to attract attention with flambuyant clothes and rich, decorative accessories.
The Roman soldiers were well aware of the splendid ornaments worn by their
opponents and before one battle they were told by their generals that soldiers
should not be adorned with gold and silver but should rely on their weapons
and their courage. These ornaments were more truly booty than arms, shining
brightly before the battle but ugly in the midst of blood and wounds. Athenaeus is the main authority on food; quoting Posidonius, he says:
'Their food consists of a small quantity of bread and a large amount of meat';
and quoting Phylarchus, 'Many loaves of bread are broken up and served
lavishly on tables as well as pieces of meat taken from cauldrons. 'Bread,
meat (boiled in a cauldron or roasted on a spit) and fish were the staple
foods. Fish was eaten, sometimes baked with salt, vinegar and cummin'. By
contrast the Caledonians and the Maeatae, according to Dio, never ate fish,
though it was in plentiful supply. Strabo speaks of large quantities of food,
milk and all kinds of meat, especially fresh and salted pork, and of the
Britons, who, though they had milk in abundance, did not make cheese. A
certain etiquette and precedence were observed at table, and good eating
habits were even noted. Though they were accustomed to eat voraciously,
raising up whole limbs in both hands and biting off the meat, they did it in a
cleanly fashion. No one started to eat without looking first to see if the
chief had touched what was set before him. In extending hospitality to
strangers they did not ask them who they were and what they wanted until they
had eaten. At more formal gatherings or celebrations they sat in a circle with
the chief or hero in the centre, his attendants and warriors around and behind
him, each with a position according to his status. Drink was served from
earthenware or bronze jugs and the meat on plates of bronze or in baskets.
When the joints of meat were served, the chief or hero took the thigh piece.
But if someone else claimed it, they joined in single combat to the death.
Frequently they used some chance circumstance to start an argument and then a
fight during dinner. They indulged in sham fights and practice feints and they
would end up either wounding or even killing their opponent. This love of
quarrelling and fighting even at a table was made all the easier, says
Polybius, because they usually ate too much and drank too much. The Celtic chiefs were accompanied in war and in piece by 'parasites' (the
word means fellow diner and has no pejorative meaning), who sang their praises
before the assembly; these entertainers were called bards. There are also
descriptions of great banquets prepared by rich kings. The gestures of lordly
prodigality and ostentation were typical of the autocratic tribal chief of the
period. Louernius, king of the Arverni, in an attempt to win favour, is said
to have ridden his chariot over a plain distributing gold and silver to all
who followed him. He also gave a feast to all who wished to attend, in a vast
enclosure, the sides of which were 1½ miles (2,4 km) long. He filled vats with
liquor, prepared great quantities of food and ensured service without
interruption for several days. A poet who arrived too late for the festivities
composed a poem praising the king's greatness and lamenting the fact he had
arrived too late. So charmed was the king by the song that he gave the poet a
purse of gold and won for himself a further poetic effusion. One feature which
has attracted frequent comment was the ability of the Celts to drink great
quantities of liquor, though one should not take Plutarch seriously when he
says that the Celts were so enthralled by the new pleasure of wine drinking
that they seized their arms, took their families and set off for Italy!
Athenaeus says: 'the drink of the wealthy is wine imported from Italy ... This
is unmixed, but sometimes a little water is added. The lower classes drink a
beer made from wheat and prepared with honey ... They drink from a common cup,
a little at a time, not more than a mouthful, but they do it rather
frequently.' The Cimbri were said to be demoralised by the delights of wine,
but the Nervii, a Gallic tribe famed for their indomitable ferocity, would not
allow wine and other luxuries to be imported because they believed that with
them the men would become too soft and effeminate to endure hardship. To
Polybius the Celts were merely a band of marauders who later became
mercenaries ready to join whichever side suited them in the war between the
Romans and the Carthaginians. They were brave and ostentatiously courageous
but reckless, impetuous and easily disheartened. Hannibal was eager to make
use of their enthusiasm before it wore off; but the Carthaginians and the
Romans too were apprehensive of the Celts, for they saw in them a lack of
fidelity and a mutual treachery. It is reported that Hannibal so distrusted
his new allies that he had a number of wigs made for himself, suitable for men
of all ages. He was sure that by changing his wigs constantly he would make it
difficult for the fickle Celts to recognise and perhaps kill him. Some writers
tend to dwell mainly on their lawlessness and savagery. Cicero, for example,
makes great use of this to rail against them. 'They thought it right to
sacrifice human beings to the immortal gods' and 'they find it necessary tp
propitiate the immortal gods and to defile their altars and temples with human
victims.' Polybius and Livy concentrate on the outrages committed by the Gauls
and on the barbarous character of the Galatians. There was always a tendency
for Greek or Roman writers to emphasize characteristics which did not conform
to their code of morality and perhaps give too much credence to the more
dramatic traveller's tales. Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, while not ignoring
the savagery of some Celtic practices, also describe some of the more pleasing
traits of their character. # 556 CELTS, THE # 562: Terms first found in Hecatæus, about 500 BC, he speaks of 'Nyrax, a
Celtic city', and 'Massalia (Marseilles), a city of Liguria in the land of the
Celts'. Equivalent, Hyperboreans. Herodutos speaks of the 'dwelling places of
Celts beyond the pillars of Hercules'. Aristotle knew that the Celts had
captured Rome, and that they set great store by warlike power. - Hellanicus of
Lesbos describes the Celts as practising justice and righteousness. Plato
disagrees and classes the Celts 'as drunken and combative'. - Their attack on
Rome, a history landmark of ancient times. - Dominion of Celts over MidEurope,
Gaul, Spain and the British Isles. - Among these races the true Celts formed
an aristocratic and ruling caste. Spain conquered from the Carthaginians by
the Celts. Northern Italy conquered from the Etruscans. Conquer the Illyrians
and make alliance with the Greeks. Conquests in the valley of Danube and Po.
Alexander the Great makes compact with the Celts. - Celtic decorative motives
derived from Greek art, and art of enamelling learnt by classical nations from
the Celts. - The influence on European literature and philosophy from the
Celts were significant. - True worship of the Celts, paid to elemental forces
represented by actual natural phenomena. Reincarnation in the modern western
sense, were for the Celts a reality incorporated in their daily life and
religious rituals. # 48: CREATION AND IMAGINATION: Before the end of the Bronze Age a class
system had begun to operate in western Europe. Rich chieftains were buried
with golden ornaments and their earthen fortresses appeared on many hilltops.
The people were separating into frequently warring tribes and by 1400 BC the
noble common purpose which had created Avebury and Stonehenge, when men and
women dedicated themselves to great communal tasks, appears to have
evaporated. Most of the causewayed camps were turned into hillforts and the
bigger ones, such as Maiden Castle, grew into packed cities within their great
walls and ditches. A complicated political system seems to have existed of
warlike tribal chieftains whose realms were fairly extensive. In Britain
particularly, where the hillforts jostle each other around the great
causewayed power centres, it seems likely that barons and lesser nobles
fortified themselves with earthen walls and defended homesteads, while the
kings or chiefs dwelt in grander style in minor fortified cities. The nature of the people was undergoing inevitable change. Instead of a
peaceable community, strongly attuned to the cosmic laws of being and the
magnetic forces of the earth, the hillforts seem to tell us of a newly
insecure and fractious society in which individual greed and ego were becoming
dominant. We can know quite a bit about what the people looked like and what
they wore and ate from the preserved bodies recovered from Danish bogs. We
know that a number of cereals were used to make bread and that it and meat
were the staple foods. The men wore woollen tunics and capes, with close caps,
while the women wore decorated woolen tunics, bonnets, girdles and tassels,
and hairnets. This uneasy society came to be joined - as early perhaps as 2000
BC - by new waves of settlers, the Celts; or one should say, by Celticspeaking
immigrants, for the Celts were never a very unified nation but rather were a
collection of volatile tribes with a taste for trade and art. 'Since the Celts
were always in a minority and did not, strictly speaking, constitute a single
Celtic race, the Celtic world was primarily a conglomeration of different
nations under a Celtic elite, the indigenous peoples being first enslaved and
then fused together by a common Celtic language, civilisation and religion.
They brought with them the knowledge of the wheel and the design of the war
chariot, and were later attributed with the discovery of how to smelt iron,
thus giving rise to the 'Iron Age'. Descriptions have come down to us from the
pen of a Greek writer, Poseidonius. He says: The Celts are terrifying in
appearance, with deep-sounding and very harsh voices... they wear a striking
kind of clothing - tunics dyed and stained in various colours, and trousers,
which they call Bracae and they wear striped cloaks... picked out with
a variegated small check pattern. Their armour includes man-sized shields,
decorated in individual fashion... on their heads they wear bronze helmets
.... To the frankness and high-spiritedness of their temperament must be added
the traits of childish boastfulness and love of decoration. They wear
ornaments of gold, torcs on their necks, and bracelets on their arms and
wrists, while people of high rank wear dyed garments besprinkled with
gold. The Celts seem to have originated from an area around the Caspian Sea,(See
also a theory displayed by # 730 below). Their eruption into the west came at
much the same time as a similar migration into India and Persia. It is thought
that the Celts and the Hindus shared a common ancestry in a race known as the
Battle-Axe People, whose mark was a perforated stone battle-axe and whose home
was in southern Russia; the language spoken by the Celts came from the same
source as Sanskrit, the classical language of the Hindus. Thus the Celtic
language is called Indo-European and it is not too far-fetched to see
correspondences between the Indian deities and those of the Celts; and
likenesses between the brahmins, the priest-astrologers of India, and the
druids, the priest-astronomers of Europe - in fact, much has been written
about the links between the two races. It is noticeable, for instance, that
Celtic gods are depicted seated in a similar meditation posture to the Hindu
deities, and that giant figures are carved on the hillsides of India as well
as of Europe. It might even be that the woad which was painted on the bodies
of Britons facing the Romans signified their allegiance to a particular god or
goddess, just as the white paint on a Hindu forehead indicates a follower of
Vishnu. Physically and emotionally, however, the two peoples drifted far
apart. The Hindus intermarried with older Indian races and developed a dark
skin and eyes, while the Celts became renowned for their fair, reddish hair
and piercing blue eyes. They were formidable warriors and were known for their
boasting and threats and also for their selfdramatisation. But with great
rapidity their moods would change to a dreamy sadness. Plato thought them
highly intelligent, although much given to drinking. They divided society into
three groups. The druids, who were learned priests, shamans and judges; the
military aristocracy, who were the power-holders and the heroes; and the free
men, who were farmers and owned cattle. Both men and women were thought to be
immensely brave in battle. Diodorus Siculus wrote that the Celtic women were not only like their men
in their great stature (the Celts were exceptionally tall and well-built), but
that they were also their equals in courage. Women were honoured in Celtic
society and lived in an equal way with men. A strict legal code ensured that
women could inherit property, and name and title were taken from the mother
rather than the father. They could marry whom they pleased and could claim
damages if molested. They took their place in battle beside the men. There
were two major waves of Celtic immigration and by 700-500 BC they had emerged
as one of the most important peoples of Europe. By 387 BC they had conquered
Rome (it fell, according to the Roman historian Livy, because of the terror
inspired by the 'magic' war-cry of the Celts, who went into battle naked) and
by 279 BC Delphi had fallen too, although both it and Rome were retaken later.
France (known as Gaul) was entirely Celtic and Britain too became one of the
Celtic strongholds as Rome advanced through Gaul. England was a centre for
culture and education and the sons of Gaulish chiefs were sent there for
instruction by the druids, the priests of the Celts. And from Iman Wilkens: WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD we can read this point of view
about the origin of the Celts: # 730: ...It is very difficult to obtain a
clear picture of the preChristian Celts from the transmitted texts, not only
because of the typical mixture of myth and reality, but above all because of
the very great lapse of time between events and their eventual recording in
writing. This greatly hampers any rigorous and systematic analysis of the type
that I have tried to apply to Homer's work, which itself certainly combines
myth and reality, but has the very great advantage of being an eye-witness
account transmitted orally for a relatively short period and written down as
early as the eighth century BC, the original text being preserved practically
intact until our own time, as I shall demonstrate below. Caesar recounts that
the Celts were using the Greek alphabet when the Romans arrived in Gaul, in
the first century BC: In the camp of the Helvetii were found, and brought to
Caesar, records written out in Greek letters... However, the knowledge
possessed by the initiates was transmitted entirely orally, often in the form
of verse or a kind of limerick. In the case of Homer's works, this technique
has helped considerably to preserve the original text without too many
modifications. One has the impression that the powerful rhythm of Homeric
verse also reflects the movements of the Ocean waves, but this effect is
unfortunately lost in prose translations. The impression one gets of the Celts
is that of a dynamic, but somewhat undisciplined people, proud, full of
imagination, loving freedom, adventure, feats of arms, tournaments and fêtes.
The Celts were renowned for their eloquence and their poetry, to such an
extent that a poet was held in much greater esteem than a common priest. The
bards accompanied their ballads on a type of lyre. Despite their
individualism, the Celts often acted together, while remaining suspicious of
any centralized authority. Their lack of discipline finally brought about
their downfall, but for a long period they dominated Europe militarily and
even sacked Rome in 387 BC. There is uncertainty about the origin of the
Celts. According to the more generally accepted theory, they spread outwards
from Central Europe, where many Celtic objects have been found, notably in
excavations at Hallstatt (Austria) and La Tène (French-speaking Switzerland),
to establish themselves on the Atlantic Coast, in the British Isles, the north
of Italy and Yogoslavia. However, according to another theory, the movement
was in the other direction, from the Atlantic coast and islands to the
interior of Europe. The second theory would appear to be confirmed by tha analysis in this book
of the origin of the peoples engaged in the Trojan War, for they were already
well-established on the Atlantic coast before the dates generally put forward.
Excavations have confirmed that the Celts were also well-established in
Denmark during the Bronze Age (from about 1500 to 500 BC) and it was there
that the famous Gundestrup silver cauldron was found. The Celtic tribe that
has moved the least is that of the Helvetii, who have been in Switzerland for
a very long time. The Italo-Celts lived in the north of Italy and the
Illyrians on the Adriatic coast. In Germany, the frontier between Celts and
Germans was ill-defined and in some cases we do not know whether a certain
tribe were Celts, Germans, Celticized Germans (i.e. converted to Celtic rites)
or Germanized Celts. It should not be forgotten that at that period peoples of
sometimes very different origins and cultures could be scattered throughout
the same region. Examples are the Germans and the Celts in Central Europe (as
shown by archaelogical evidence), and the nonGreeks and autochthons in Greece,
(as mentioned by Thucydides). Thanks to the Roman historians we have a good
picture of where the various Celtic peoples, from Scotland to the Balkans and
from Spain to the Baltic, were living at the beginning of our own era. That
Celts were living for a long time in the region of Cadiz in the extreme
southwest of Spain (Celtiberia) and in the north of Morocco is clear not only
from archaeological evidence, but also from the writings of historians such as
Ephorus, who demonstrated Celtic greatness in his UNIVERSAL HISTORY. There was
a certain unity of language, religion and culture among the Celts throughout
Europe. Although they never formed a great national or political entity they
were prepared to help one another against a common enemy, even though they
also fought among themselves. There was also another very important link
between them, at any rate for those who lived in coastal regions - the sea
routes. The Celts of the Atlantic regions were sea-faring peoples, 'friends of
the oar', as Homer calls them, who often undertook long voyages, as we shall
discover below. During their voyages or migrations, communication between the
different Celtic tribes must have been linguistically easier than it would be
today, because the different languages of the Indo-European family were more
homogeneous 3,000 years ago. Many words had the same root from one end of
Europe to the other; for example, 'horse' was Epo in Celtic and
Hippos in Greek. Wilken's book shows many more examples, and from the
grammatical standpoint, too, the languages of Europe more closely resembled
one another, for example, the conjugation of Gothic verbs contained elements
close to Latin. What is more, according to Louis Kervran: 'When Rome conquered
Gaul, the latter had been in contact with Greek civilization whose bridgehead,
since 600 BC, had been Marseille, at the mouth of the Rhône ... After the
arrival of the Romans, as a sign of resistance against the occupiers, Greek
continued to be the language of the intellectual élite.' Under these circumstances it must not have been very difficult to translate
Homer's works from a Celtic language into Ionian Greek, at the same time
commiting them to writing, since the Greeks had no taboo on writing.
Translation was certainly necessary, for despite a certain number of words in
common, Greek is far from being a Celtic language. But was it possible to make
a translation in hexameters (lines of six feet) without losing too many
details of the original text? The answer is affirmative, since there are
examples of translations into Dutch, one in hexameters and one in pentameters,
the former, in particular, being very close to the original. It is thus
perfectly possible that the epic history of the Trojan War was transmitted by
Celts living in central Europe to find its way to Greece, where it was
translated and preserved entirely intact, especially, as Henri Hubert assures
us, when talking about the period before 800 BC, that: 'If it can be taken as
proven that the Greeks came from the north, i.e. from central Europe, it is
not unreasonable to assume that they had contacts not only with the Illyrians
(thus confirming Thucydides), but also with the Italo-Celts and even the
Celts.' On the other hand, it is unlikely that a Greek author would have
composed the work himself on the basis of echoes he had heard of a war that
had taken place in some distant part of Europe several centuries before his
time, as the hundreds of coherent details in the text are so many indications
that the original poem was composed by an eyewitness. However, these details
correspond so little to the Greece of the period, or of today, that certain
commentators have concluded that the poet did not have a precise idea of the
places he was describing. We shall see below that the truth is quite the
reverse - the poet knew exactly what he was describing, but it had nothing to
do with Greece. Wilkens write in his book of 'Celts', although it would
perhaps have been more correct to call them 'proto-Celts' for their culture
had not yet come to match entirely what the traditional archaeologists call
'Celtic', which dates only from 800 BC. However, Homer mentions the legendary
mother of the Celts - 'glorious Galatea' - and describes the Celtic custom of
cremation. Wilkens therefore adopted the general rule of the archaeologist
Bosch-Guimpéra, who always speaks of Celts where funeral urns are found, and
Homer mentions such urns several times. Furthermore, when he is writing about
Celts and their migrations in Europe, he is not always referring to the time
of Homer, but possibly to any time in the thousand years before Christ,
because as yet we have no precise chronology of the development of their
culture. Wilkens continue: 'Let us hope that further research will enable us to
establish such a chronology. In the meantime, I have sometimes had to work
back from elements known about the Celts in the Roman era'. In part III in his
book, he returns to Galatea, who turns out to be a major key for the research
as she will be proof that the Celts were already around in the Bronze Age -
much earlier than assumed hitherto. The dynamic and inventive Celtic culture
brought a certain civilization to Europe before the Greeks and the Romans.
They were the first to construct harvesting implements and war chariots. They
invented tools still used today, such as pincers; they had keys; they forged
iron rims for their chariot wheels; they produced coats of mail. They shod
their horses. These shoes, at first in bronze, were not nailed, but had rings
round the edge through which a thong was passed to tie them in place. This
explains the use of such expressions as horses 'with flashing feet' or
'single-hooved horses' in Homer. The Celts taught the Greeks and Romans the
use of soap - Sapo in Celtic. They have left us some very beautiful
ornaments, in gold, such as fibulae (decorated clasps) and torques (collars),
and in bronze, such as phalerae (decorative bosses for horses' harness),
oenochoe (wine pitchers - it should not be forgotten that the Celts had
vineyards even in the north of Europe), situlae (square-shouldered vessels in
bronze or glass) and pans for evaporating seawater for salt. Other finds
include numerous decorated bronze swords and axes and chiefs' helmets covered
with gold or decorated with a bird of prey and, of course, a great deal of
pottery. But the Celts exelled above all in the nonplastic arts, such as
eloquence, poetry and music. Certain Celtic practices have persisted down to
our own day, such as that of starting the new day as from midnight, and
certain feast days have been adopted and adapted by the Christian religion. An
example of the latter is the 1 November, which was the feast of Samhain, which
marked the beginning of the new year for the Celts. They lit fires in the
night, not only to celebrate the new year, but also to communicate with their
dead, for if the barriers between the natural and supernatural were already
narrow, they believed them to be absent during Samhain night. All Saints, the
day the dead are specially remembered, is now celebrated on the 1 November,
and on Halloween fires are still lit. The beginning of spring was 1 May, the
day of Beltaine (or Apollo) when fires were lit and fertility rites were
celebrated, with dancing clockwise in circles. The flocks were let out and the
sailors went to sea after sacrificing the first vessel they had built during
the winter to the gods of the sea. # 25 - 48 - 327 - 366 - 380 - 428 - 562 -
730 CENCHOS Otherwise The Footless; related to Vitra, the God of Evil in Vedantic
mythology. # 562 CERDIC Traditionally, a Saxon leader who fought against the Britons in the
Arthurian period. A. G. Brodeur argues that he was entirely fictitious, his
name being taken from place names. He says that the West Saxons, of whom he
was supposedly the leader, only began their campaign by conquering the Isle of
Wight about AD 530. However, many authorities regard him as historical. He was
the supposed founder of the kingdom of Wessex. A problem is caused by his
name, however, which is Celtic, not Teutonic. This has led J. P. Clansy
(Pendragon) to suggest he may have been a rebellious British king. Perhaps,
speculates S. G. Wilsman (# 106), he was a one-time ally of Arthur's who
changed sides. However, Saklatvala (# 574) claims he was the King Carados of
Arthurian romance. G. Ashe (# 31) has produced the most interesting surmise of
all, that Cerdic was possibly a son of Arthur (whom he identifies as
Riothamus) who has gathered a mixed CeltoGermanic following on the Continent.
J. Morris maintains that the pedigree which makes him an ancestor of the
ruling house of Wessex is a fabrication. Asser's LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT
(ninth century unless, as has been contended, it is a forgery) claims that
Cerdic and his son Cynric were Jutes. # 31 - 103 - 106 - 156 - 484 -
574 CERNUNNOS (KER noon os) The Lord of the Animals, 'Horned One', whose images are found
in Romano-Celtic worship sites, and whose role as hunter and animal god is
preserved in Celtic legend and folk lore. He ruled the active forces of life
and death, giving and taking, in nature; in Romano-Celtic culture he was
associated with wealth and prosperity, due to his role as Guardian of the
Gateway to the Underworld where all potential forces and events originated. It
should be stated emphatically that this deity has far to less to do with
'fertility' and sexuality than is assumed in popular fantasy, for he is a god
of hunting, culling and taking. His purpose is to purify through selection or sacrifice, in order that
powers of growth and fertility may progress without stagnation. In this
context of purification and de-pollution, he should be an especially
interesting figure to us today, for he represents certain truthts known to our
ancestors which have been neglected by us at our peril. The figure of
Cernunnos from the Gundestrup Cauldron (second century AD) is probably the
best-known representation of the Celtic Horned God (See plate next page).His
very name is really the title, 'Horned One.' Holding a torc and a serpent,
wearing an antlered cap, he sits in a yoga pose with his right heel against
his genitals. Nearly all seated statues of Hindu deities show the same
conventional pose. The torc and serpent are also genital symbols, female and
male respectively. Cernunnos is the spirit of the sacrificed stag-god, a nature deity to whom
sacrifices were dedicated in order to maintain the wild creatures and the
cycles of nature with his holy blood. There has been considerable speculation
about Cernunnos' costume, which appears to be a form-fitting suit of ribbed
knitted fabric, with knee-length pants. It is one of the pieces of evidence
cited for the antiquity of the art of knitting among Celtic peoples. # 156: The name of a Celtic horned god. The name is only known from a
single inscription and it is possible the horned god went by a number of
names. As Merlin was associated with stags, it is possible he was connected
with the Cernunnos cult. # 454: His name means 'Horned One', and he is the
Lord of the Beasts. He is frequently depicted with one or more ram-headed
serpents, and has a torc of chieftainship about his neck. Some reliefs show
him with coin-filled purses. Since both metal and snakes are chthonic symbols,
it follows that Cernunnos was associated with the Underworld as well as with
earthly fertility. See: WILD HERDSMAN and BELATUCADOS. # 156 - 454 - 455 p 66,
110 - # 563 - 701 p 199 CERRIDWEN # 628: (Ker ID wen) The Welsh crone, or goddess of dark prophetic powers,
is represented by Cerridwen. Her totem animal is the sow, representing the
fecundity of the Underworld, and the terrible strenght of the Mother. Like
many Celtic goddesses, she had two children representing dark and light
aspects emerging from the One Goddess her daughter Crearwy being light and
beautiful, and her son Afagddu being dark and ugly. Cerridwen is keeper of the
Cauldron of the Underworld, in which inspiration and divine knowledge are
brewed. She brews for her son, and sets little Gwion to guard the cauldron;
but three drops fall out upon his finger, and he absorbs the potency of the
brew. The goddess then pursues Gwion through a cycle of changing shapes, which
correspond both to totem animals and to the turning of the seasons; this theme
is related to that of Mabon and Merlin, in which a divine youth is associated
with the orders and creatures of Creation. The Welsh legend, however, has a
significant ending, for Cerridwen, in the guise of a hen, swallows Gwion, in
the guise of an ear of corn. Nine months pass, and she gives birth to a
radiant child, known as Taliesin, a title attached to the greatest of Welsh
poets. # 156: This story seems far older than the period of the historical
Taliesin. It is similar to a tale told about the Irish hero, Finn mac Cumhal,
and may enshrine a Celtic divinatory practice involving thumb chewing. This
practice was known in early Ireland as Imbas Forosnai and seems to have rested
on the notion that chewing the raw flesh of the thumb imparted sagacity. # 156
- 272 - 628 p 88 ff CESSAIR She was the first settler in Ireland before the Flood. She came with fifty
women and three men. When her father Fintan, disappeared and her husband died
she herself died of grief. She was followed by all her women. Forty days after
their arrival in Ireland the Flood came. Only Fintan escaped, hiding in a
cave. # 454 - 469 CET MAC MATACH (cet' moc má'tah) A distinguished Connacht warrior; shames the Ulsterman at
Mac Datho's feast; wounds Conchobar with the calcified brain of Mesgegra;
according to one tradition brother of Ailill, king of Connacht. #
166 CETHAN (ke han) CETHERN MAC FINNTAIN (ce'hern moc fin'tan) 1. An Ulster warrior, son of Fintan mac Neill; 2. One
of Finn's teachers. # 166 CEUGANT (Infinity) The outermost of the three concentric circles representing the
totality of being in the Cymric cosmonogy, inhabited by God alone. #
562 CHAILLU, DU Given in his 'Viking Age', a rude rock-carving showing a number of ships
with men on board, and the circle quartered by a crossunmistakably a solar
emblem, like a number of Irish examples. # 562 CHAMPION OF IRELAND Test at feast of Briccriu, to decide who is the Champion of Ireland.
CuChulain proclaimed such by demon The Terrible. # 562 CHANGELINGS The eagerness of fairies to possess themselves of human children is one of
the oldest parts of the fairy beliefs and is a specific form of fairy theft.
Mentions of the thefts of babies are to be found in the MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES of
Ralph of Coggeshall and GERVASE OF TILBURY among others, through the
Elizabethan and Jacobean times, and right down to the beginning of the present
century. The fairies' normal method was to steal an unchristened child, who
had not been given proper protection, out of the cradle and to leave a
substitute in its place. This 'changeling' was of various kinds. Sometimes it
was a stock of wood roughly shaped into the likeness of a child and endowed by
glamour with a temporary appearance of life, which soon faded, when the baby
would appear to die and the stock would be duly buried. More often a fairy
child who did not thrive would be left behind, while the coveted, beautiful
human baby was taken. More often still the changeling would be an ancient,
withered fairy, of no more use to the fairy tribe and willing to lead an easy
life being cherished, fed and carried about by its anxious foster-mother,
wawling and crying for food and attention in an apparent state of paralysis.
The 'stock' method was most usually employed when the fairies had designs
against the mother as well as the child. A good example of a frustrated
attempt at such a theft is the Shetland tale 'Mind (Remember) da Crooked
Finger'. The wife of a Shetland crofter had just given birth to her first
child, and as her husband was folding his lambs he heard three loud knocks
coming from underground. He closed the folds and walked up through the
cornyard. As he came through the stacks he heard a loud voice say three times,
'Mind da crooked finger.' His wife had a crooked finger and he had a shrewd
notion that the Grey Neighbours were planning an attack on his wife and his
little bairn. But the goodman knew what to do. He went quickly to the house,
lighted a candle, took down a clasp-knife and a bible and opened them. As he
did so a great clamour and wailing broke out in the byre, which was built
against the house. He stuck the knife in his mouth with the blade pointing
forward, held the lighted candle in one hand and the opened bible in the
other, and made for the byre, followed by most of the neighbours who were
visiting his wife. He opened the byre door and threw the bible inside, and as
he did so the wailing redoubled, and with a great rush the fairies sped past
him. They left behind them a wooden stock, carved feature by feature and joint
by joint in the form of his wife. He lifted it up and carried it into the
house. 'I've won this from the Grey Neighbours,' he said, 'and I'll make it
serve my turn.' And for years afterwards he used the image as a
chopping-block, and the wife was never molested by the fairies again. Children were supposed to be stolen into Fairyland either to pay a Teind to
the Devil, to reinforce the fairy stock or for love of their beauty. Where
older people were stolen it was for specific qualities and they were replaced
by some form of the 'stock' and generally seemed to be suffering from a
'stroke', which is indeed 'the fairy stroke', generally given by Elf-Shot. The
true changelings are those fairy creatures that replace the stolen human
babies. See also: CAPTIVES IN FAIRYLAND. # 100 - 540 - 700 -
728 CHARLEMAGNE Tree- and stone-worship denounced by Charlemagne. #
562 CHARLES I (1600-49) King of Britain and Ireland. The grandson of Mary Queen of Scots,
Charles was well steeped in the misfortunes of the Stuarts. He upheld the
Divine Right of Kings, by which the mystical destiny of the king under God
gave him sovereign power in governing his country. He was deposed by Oliver
Cromwell and the Parliamentarians and executed. His was one of the latest in
the role of kingly sacrifices, whose cult was popularly acclaimed and
liturgically approved. His remembrance, on 30 January, was ordered by his son
Charles II and appears in the Book of Common Prayer as a day of fasting and
humiliation. Five churches are named after him. # 454 CHASTEL MARTE In PERLESVAUS, the king of this castle was Perceval's uncle. He seized the
Grail Castle but Perceval besieged him and he killed himself. # 112 -
156 CHASTIEFOL One of Arthur's swords. # 156 CHEERFULNESS A cheerful wayfarer, a cheerful giver and a cheerful worker are all likely
to gain the patronage of the fairies, who dislike nothing so much as grumbling
and moaning. See also: VIRTUES ESTEEMED BY THE FAIRIES. #
100 CHELDRIC In Geoffrey, a Saxon leader who brought reinforcements from Germany to
Colgrin and took part in the battles of Lincoln, Caledon Wood and Bath
(Badon), after which he fled. He was finally defeated and killed by Cador. # 156 - 243 CHELINDE The wife of Sador, who was the son of Brons. # 156 -
712 CHERRY OF ZENNOR A version of the story of the Fairy Widower, which appears in Hunt's
POPULAR ROMANCES OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND. It is very closely allied to 'Jenny
Permuen', also to be found in Hunt. 'Cherry of Zennor' is a curious story, and
throws a number of side-lights on fairy beliefs. Sometimes one is tempted to
believe that the story had a naturalistic foundation, and that it is an
unsophisticated girl's interpretation of a human experience. On the other
hand, it gives one quite a picture of the real traditions of underground
Fairyland, such as that which was entered by True Thomas. Cherry was one of a
large family living in Zennor, a small village in Cornwall, and when she got
to the age of fourteen it was time for her to go out into the world. She set
out to be hired at the local fair, but her courage failed her, and on the Lady
Downs she sat down and cried. Whilst she was still weeping a handsome,
well-dressed gentleman stood beside her, and asked what was troubling her.
After some conversation he said that he was going out to hire a neat, tidy
girl to look after his little son, because he had recently been left a
widower. He praised Cherry's neatly-mended clothes and tidy looks, and hired
her to go along with him. They went an immense way, down and down twisting
lanes with high hedges closing above them. The gentleman lifted Cherry over
several streams and at lenght they came to a gate into a garden where flowers
of all seasons grew and flowered together. Birds were singing all round them,
and Cherry thought she had never seen so lovely a place. A little sharp-eyed
boy ran out to greet them, followed by an old, cross-looking woman. 'That's my
wife's mother,' said the gentleman, 'but she will only stay a few days to put
you in the ways of the place, and then she shall go.' The old woman looked
crossly at Cherry and took her in, muttering that she knew Robin would choose
a fool. It was a strange place, with long passages and a big room locked up,
into which the old woman led Cherry. It was full of what Cherry thought of as
dead people - presumably statues - and there was a coffin-like box in the
middle of the room which Cherry was set to polish. When she rubbed it hard it
made a strange, groaning sound, and Cherry fell down in a faint. Her master
ran in, picked her up and took her out, kissed and comforted her, and sent the
old woman away. Cherry's duties were very light and pleasant; she had to play
with the little boy, milk a cow who appeared mysteriously when she was called,
and anoint the little boy's eyes every morning with green ointment. The
pleasantest of her duties was to help her master work in the garden. At the
end of every row he gave Cherry a kiss, and she would have been very happy
there if it had not been that her master disappeared for many hours together,
and when he came back went into the locked room from which strange sounds
proceeded. Her little charge would answer none of her questions, but only said
'I'll tell Grannie' if she asked him anything; but she fancied that he saw
much more than she did, and his eyes were very bright; so one morning she sent
him off to pick some flowers and slyly put a crumb of the ointment in her own
eye. This produced a transformation: the garden was swarming with little
creatures. Her eyes smarted and she ran to the well to wash out the ointment.
At the bottom of the well she saw numbers of tiny people dancing, and to her
fury she saw her master among them, as tiny as they were, and on very familiar
terms with the little fairy ladies. Soon she saw her master coming back as his
normal size. He went up to the locked room and went inside. Cherry followed
him and peeped through the keyhole. He lifted the lid of the coffin and a lady
came out, sat down, and began to play upon the coffin,and all the statues
began to dance. Cherry ran away weeping, and when her master called her to
weed the garden with him, she was very sulky. At the end of the first row he
tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away saying: 'Go and kiss your little
midgets at the bottom of the well.' Her master looked very sad. 'Cherry, you
have been using the ointment that you were told not to use. I am sorry, but
you must go home, and old Grace must come back again.' Cherry cried and
besought, but he made her pack her clothes, and led her back the long uphill
way on to the Lady Downs. She never saw him again, and like many people who
have visited Fairyland, she did no good in the mortal world, but hung about
the Lady Downs hoping Robin her master would come back and see her. This is
one occasion on which the seeing eye was not blinded. Cherry's master had
shown great restraint. An interesting feature of this story is that old Grace
kept the village school. She was evidently a mortal, and therefore Robin's
first wife must have been mortal too. The Fairy Ointment would have been
necessary to give the little half-fairy fairy sight. It is as yet uncertain if
this needed to be used by whole fairies. # 100 - 331 CHESS The ancient oriental game of chess came into Celtic Britain at a very early
date, and was much esteemed as the Game of Kings, who learned tactics and
strategy from it, and the art of hiding their thoughts when they were in
conflicts. It was a game at which the aristocratic fairies, the Daoine Sidhe
of Ireland and the Sidh of Scotland, had great skill, and it was the habit of
wandering members of the sidhe to win great contests against mortals by
challenging them to three games, at each of which the winner was to choose his
stake. Invariably the mortal won the first two games and chose rich prizes,
but the supernatural stranger won the third, and imposed some almost fatal
task or asked for some next-to-impossible gift. It was by such a game that
Midhir won Etain from Eochaid. This motif is also common in Highland
folktales, as, for instance, in one of McKay's MORE WEST HIGHLAND TALES, 'How
the Great Tuairisgeal was Put to Death', in which the Young Tuairisgeal,
winning the third game of chess, puts the Young King of Erin under binding
spells to find out how the Great Tuairisgeal was put to death and to bring
back with him the Sword of Light by which he was slain. The young king
succeeds in the quest by the help of the woman and the horse which he won in
the first two games. This is a standard pattern in both Highland and Irish
tales. Chess as a sport of kings is illustrated in the tale of Finn, in the
episode when Young Finn, serving his stepfather, the King of Carraighe,
incognito, displayed both his ingenuousness and his royal blood by winning
seven games in succession against the king, who guessed his paternity and sent
him quickly away. # 100 - 464 CHESSMEN OF LEWIS In 1831 a high tide on the coast near Uig in the Isle of Lewis washed away
a sand-bank and exposed a cave in which there was a small beehive-shaped
building rather like the little domestic grinding querns to be found in the
Highlands. A labourer working near found it, and, thinking it might contain
some treasure, broke into it. He found a cache of eighty-four carved chessmen
ranged together. They had an uncanny look, and he flung down his spade and
ran, convinced that he had come on a sleeping company of fairies. His wife was
of sterner stuff and made him go back and fetch them. The greater part of them
are now in the British Museum. Replicas have been made of them, but the
originals, all mustered together, are much more impressive. A tradition has
arisen about them. It is said that the guards who take the guard-dogs round at
night cannot get them to pass the Celtic chessmen. They bristle and drag back
on their haunches. So perhaps the Highlander's superstition can be excused. #
100 CHESTER This city was named Deva in classical times but it was also known as the
City of the Legion, as was Caerleon-upon-Usk. R. B. Stoker, in his THE LEGACY
OF ARTHUR'S CHESTER (1965), argues that Chester, rather than Caerleon, was
Arthur's chief city. Geoffrey Ashe (#75) suggests that Arthur's battle at the
City of the Legion was fought there. ># 33 - 100 CHILDE ROLAND He rescued his sister, Burd Ellen, who was trapped in the Underworld by its
king, with the help of Merlin. # 68 - 76 - 454 CHILDREN OF LIR Lir and his son Manannan were gods of the sea. The story of The Children of
Lir is not as old as the story of the Children of Tuirenn but its theme
connects it with the earliest stories of Irish mythology. It is set in the
time after the conquest of the Gaels, when Tuatha De Danaan had taken to the
Sidh mounds of their underground kingdom. Lir, is the same character
used by Shakespeare in his play 'King Lear'. Once, at an election for kingship
where Lir was disregarded, he left his sidh at Fionnachaidh in northern
Ireland, and retired to the north in a rage. The two of Lir's wives died, and
the third, Aoife, was so jealous of Lir's children, that she turned them into
swans by her druidic wand. Sadly, the swan maiden Fionnguala called out to
Aoife, accusing her and prophesying her destruction. Aoife replied
triumphantly, 'that for at least three times three hundred years, and until a
man from Connacht in the north shall be united with a woman from Munster in
the south, will you were bound by the spell'. A lot of events occurred to the
four gifted and enchanted swans during these nine hundred years, but
eventually the prophesy was fulfilled: violence broke the long enchantment and
instead of singing swans, the king of Connacht and his new-wedded wife, the
daughter of the king of Munster, whose name was Deoca, saw before them, not,
indeed, the radiant forms of the Danaan divinities, but four withered,
snow-haired, and miserable human beings, shrunken in the decrepitude of their
vast old age. Lairken, the King, flies from the place in horror, but the
friend of the swans, the hermit prepares to administer baptism at once, as
death is rapily approaching them. And so it was done, and they went to heaven;
but the hermit, it is said, sorrowed for them to the end of his earthly days.
# 565 p 29 ff CHILDREN OF LLYR The British equivalents of the Irish Children of Lir. #
562 CHILDREN OF TUIRENN, THE FATE OF 'The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn' is one of a group of narratives known
in Irish tradition as 'The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling,' the others being
'The Exile of the Sons of Usnech', and 'The Fate of the Children of Lir.' The
first part of the story, telling how Nuada got his silver arm and how the
Fomorians came to invade Ireland, merely serves as an introduction and has
only a superficial connection with the main plot, which is concerned with the
tragically desperate attempts of the sons of Tuirenn to carry out the
impossible tasks imposed upon them by Lugh as the blood-price for his father,
Cian, who, like the other major personages, is of the Tuatha De Danann. The
narrative contains numerous references to the BOOK OF INVASIONS, and 'The
Second Battle of Mag Tured'. The tale, although it deals with events of the
remote past, is comparatively late in date. Contrasted with the earlier and
sterner pieces that compose the Ulster cycle, it may appear somewhat
overwrought and unduly burdened with romantic incident; yet it builds up to a
conclusion full of tragic pathos. # 166 CHLODOMER According to the eccentric R. W. Morgan (HISTORY OF BRITAIN), this King of
Orleans (reigned AD 511-24) died fighting against Arthur. Actually, he
perished in battle fighting against the Burgundians. #
156 CHOUGH The Cornish chough is believed to be the form in which Arthur exists, prior
to his coming again. # 454 CHRAMM According to J. Morris (# 484), he led a rebellion against Clothair, King
of the Francs, who was aided by Cunomorus (see MARK). Morris claims both fell
in the battle. # 156 - 484 CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES French poet, influential in bringing the Arthurian saga into the poetic
literature of Europe; Gautier de Denain the earliest continuator of him.
Variation of his 'Le Chevalier au lion' seen in 'The Lady of the Fountain'. -
The 'Tale of Enid and Geraint' based on Erec of Chrétien de Troyes. - Peredur
corresponds to the Perceval of Troyes; his 'Conte del Graal' or 'Perceval le
Gallois'. Manessier a continuator of Chrétien de Troyes (sometimes called
Chréstien de Troyes). # 562 CHRISTIAN Symbolism, the hand as emblem of power in Christian faith, which is heard
of by King Cormac and ere preached by St Patrick. Christian influences in
Ireland and the Milesian myth; Christian ideas, gathered around CuChulain and
his lord King Conor of Ulster; pagan ideals contrasted with Christian in Oisin
dialogues. Myrddin dwindles under influences. # 562 CHRISTIAN CELTS IN WALES The popular images of Wales between the Roman occupation and the arrival of
the Normans are of heroic warrior kingdoms and travelling saints, of Celtic
revival and of tradition of mythical history. The period has been referred to
by many terms, some accompanied by a confusion of definitions, such as the
Dark Ages, the Early Medieval period, the Early Middle Ages, the Early
Christian period, the Age of Saints, the Age of Arthur and the Later Celtic
period. While recent surveys have usefully employed terms equivalent to those
for Saxon England, such as 'Sub-Roman' (AD 350-450), Early Christian (AD
450-650), 'Middle Phase' (AD 650-850) and 'Cambro-Norse' (AD 850-1066). Over the last 40 years, considerable progress has been made in historical
and archaeological research into the period, with studies of charters and with
excavations at fortified sites such as Dinas Emrys (Gwynedd), Dinas Powys
(South Glamorgan) and Llangorse crannog (Powys), and at Early Christian
cemeteries such as Caer Bayvil (Dyfed), Caerwent (Gwent) and Capel Maelog
(Powys). The inscribed stones of various kinds are the most numerous visible
relics of the Christian Celts in Wales, and they form the backbone of the book
THE CHRISTIAN CELTS as National Museum of Wales published in 1991. They span a
period from the 5th to the 12th centuries, illustrate the Christianity and
artistic styles of Wales and provide evidence of its early society. CELTS AND KINGDOMS Until the end of the 4th century AD Wales was part of a Roman Empire united
to a varying degree by language, law and a sophisticated system of government.
From the 5th century a number of small independent tribal kingdoms or
territories developed in Wales, with root in Celtic Iron Age and Roman
traditions. The pattern of political developments is complex, with few
continuously dominant kingdoms and little sense of 'Celtic' unity. Some early
kingdoms may have maintained a semblance of late Roman authority but the
evidence for the 5th century is sparse. Latin terms are used to describe
official positions as if to suggest the inheritance of Roman power (for
example, St Patrick's father was a Decurio) and some personal and place
names derive from Roman antecedents. Gwent, for example, preserves the name of
the Civitas capital Venta Silurum (now Caerwent), where the
post-Roman use of an extra-mural cemetery outside the East Gate suggests that
it may have continued as the focus of a small successor state. However, there
was considerable political dislocation and change in the 5th and 6th
centuries, and the precise circumstances of the decline and abandonment of
late Roman sites are unclear. Irish raids and inter-regional hostilities
resulted in the refortification of some hillforts. Gradually smaller
territories were absorbed into the larger kingdoms. Dynastic change in Dyfed
and Gwynedd led eventually to political change. Following the death in AD 854
of Cyngen, last king of Powys (named as patron in the inscription on the
'Pillar of Eliseg'), the kingdom was absorbed into the larger kingdom of
Gwynedd. The growing ambition of Gwynedd in the late 9th century resulted in
the southern Welsh kings seeking protection from the Saxon king Alfred of
Wessex. Viking raids on the Welsh coast began in the mid 9th century, and the
10th century was characterised by dynastic instability. New ruling families
established themselves in the south-east by c. AD 950, and by the 11th century
further intrusive dynasties had moved into the south-west of Wales. A long
period of wide-ranging conflict between rulers ended with the arrival of the
Normans and the development of new conflicts. Christian communities existed in
parts of Wales under the later Roman Empire. While there may still have been
unconverted Britons in the 5th century, the history attributed to Nennius
(HISTORIA BRITTONUM) suggests that Christianity survived in some form into the
Early Middle Ages. It is significant that the earliest carved stones with
Christian associations are particularly numerous in Wales. The artistic,
religious and political development of the Principality during this period is
reflected in its Early Christian monuments and distinctive artefacts. #
547 CHRISTIANITY Conversion of Ireland to Christianity. People of Dana in their fall, and
attitude of Christendom. CucCulain summoned from Hel by St Patrick to prove
truths of Christianity to High King Laery. - The effect of Christianity on
Irish literature, are but for the early manuscripts in which the tales are
fortunately enshrined such a work as the TAIN BO CUAILGNÉ, the greatest thing
undoubtedly which the Celtic genius ever produced in literature - would now be
lost. # 562 CHRISTIANITY, LOST CELTIC In the so-called Dark Ages a religion flourished in the islands of Britain
which had more in common with Buddhism than with the institutional
Christianity of the West. It was based on a church founded without martyrs,
and one that neither inflicted suffering nor encouraged bitter theological
disputes. It was marked by compassion and moderation in all its dealings.
Above all, it was a religion of country people, for after the legions withdrew
from the Roman garrisons there were no towns in Britain, and it was practised
in tribal groups, by people who had previously worshipped their own local
deities through the rituals prescribed by the druids, who formed their
priestly caste. When news of Christianity first came to Ireland and mainland
Britain, the new faith was smoothly grafted onto the old. But the Roman Church
never accepted the Celtic belief, that man was born free of original sin, and
the final confrontation occured at Whitby (Streaneshalch) AD 664. 'That which is called the Christian religion existed among the Ancients,
and never did not exist, from the beginning of the Human Race until Christ
came in the flesh, at which time true religion, which already existed began to
be called Christianity.' St Augustine. 'Without going back to the 'beginning of the Human Race', I would like to
introduce this celebration of the Celtic Christian year by looking at its
distant origins in the Bronze Age, among the peoples who inhabited there
islands before the coming of the iron-forging Celts.' With these words leads
the author Shirley Toulson up to her introduction in her latest book THE
CELTIC YEAR, and she continues: 'They were the people who left the great stone
monuments and ritual henges all along the Atlantic seaboard; and who buried
their honoured dead in complex, majestic barrows, now mostly grassed over.
These barrows, and the artefacts found in the excavated graves within them,
are almost all we know of these early farmers whose ritual monuments make it
clear that they had a highly organized society and were capable of astounding
feats of technology. It is our loss that they seem to have had no written
language; and that although their stone and wooden circles, so carefully
aligned on aspects of sunrise and sunset, were obviously of great religious
significance, we can only guess at the ritual they enshrined.' Shirley Toulson
ends her inspiring introduction by saying that 'in the Celtic blessings and
prayers, we find a constant echo of the Essene advocacy of constant worship
formulated by the Egyptian Therapeutae, who affirmed 'At the beginning of each
of my daily tasks, when I leave or enter the house, when I rise, when I
stretch out on my couch, Him do I wish to celebrate'. The Therapeutae were an
Egyptian sect, described by the first-century Jewish scholar Philo, and
believed to have been formed from the remnants of the Essene community who
headed west from the Dead Sea after their dispersal following the fall of
Jerusalem. Their attitude of constant prayerful attention is familiar to us
today through the teaching of an even older tradition, Buddhism, and the
practice of constant mindfulness that is at the root of Buddhist practice. It
is this attitude which infused the saints of the Celtic church, who were
teaching six hundred years after the Incarnation, and whose way of life, if
not their doctrines, so closely resemble the precepts formulated by the Buddha
six hundred years before the birth at Bethlehem. I am not suggesting that
there was any direct historical link between Buddhism and the beliefs of the
Celtic saints, but I am sure that if we want to understand the depths of
Celtic spirituality we shall find the nearest parallels in the Buddhist
teaching of today as well as in the creation spirituality of such Christian
teachers as Matthew Fox*. Above all we will come close to Celtic thinking as,
inspired by the obvious threats to the survival of our planet, we learn to be
constantly mindful of the part we have to play in the divinity of the
universe.' CORMAC MAC AIRT PRESIDING AT TARA Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac in that assembly, flowing and
slightly curling was his golden hair. A red buckler with stars and animals of
gold and fastenings of silver upon him. A crimson cloak in wide descending
folds around him, fastened at his neck with precious stones. A torque of gold
around his neck. A white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with red
gold thread upon him. A girdle of gold, inlaid with precious stones, was
around him. Two wonderful shoes of gold, with golden loops upon his feet. Two
spears with golden sockets in his hands, with many rivets of red bronze. And
he was himself, besides, symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or
reproach. Version - Douglas Hyde. *See also: Martinus: THE THIRD TESTAMENT (# 431). # 676 -
678 CHRYSOSTOM, DION Testimony of Dion Chrysostom, to power of the Druids. #
562 CHURCH GRIM There is a widespread tradition that the churchyards were guarded from the
Devil and witches by a spirit that usually took the form of a Black Dog. Those
who saw it generally took it as a death warning. Mrs Gutch mentions it in
COUNTY FOLK LORE II, and William Henderson discusses it in FolkLore of the
Northern Counties. He attributes it to a foundation sacrifice and points out
that the Kyrkogrim of Sweden appears in the form of a lamb because, in the
early days of Christianity in Sweden, a lamb was buried under the altar, while
in Denmark the Kirkegrim took the form of a 'grave-sow'. Thomas Wright in his
ESSAYS says that the Yorkshire church grim can be seen about the churc in dark
stormy weather by day and night. It sometimes took the bell at midnight before
a death, and at a funeral the clergyman would see it looking out from the
tower, and could tell by its aspect whether the soul of the corpse was
destined for Heaven or Hell. In her COUNTY FOLK LORE collection VIII, Ruth
Tongue says that when a new churchyard was opened it was believed that the
first man buried there had to guard it against the Devil. To save a human soul
from such a duty a pure black dog was buried in the north part of the
churchyard as a substitute. In the Highlands, according to J. G. Campbell in
his SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND a similar belief
was held. It was the duty of the lastburied corpse to guard the graveyard till
the next funeral. # 100 - 131 - 274 - 302 - 674 - 754 CHURCHYARD MOULD Mould which came from an ancient churchyard, where all the soil consisted
of mouldering bodies, was valuable in spells, but was also considered
protective as a counter-charm against fairies or spirits. See also: PROTECTION
AGAINST FAIRIES. # 100 CHURNMILK PEG The unripe nut thickets in West Yorkshire are guarded by Churnmilk Peg.
According to Mrs Wright, who mentions her among the cautionary goblins in
RUSTIC SPEECH AND FOLK LORE, she beguiles her leisure by smoking a pipe. In
the North Country generally, Melch Dick performs the same function. # 100 -
752 CIAN MAC CAINTE (KEE an moc kiin't) Father of Lugh. When he encountered the sons of Tuirenn
- Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba - his enemies approaching, he turned himself into
a pig. Brian noticed that it was a magical beast and turned himself and his
brothers into hounds and gave chase to it. They eventually resumed their own
forms, but refused Cian quarter, stoning him to death. They attempted to bury
him six times, but only managed to cover him with a mound on the seventh
attempt. Lugh found his father's body with the help of the men of the
Sidhe, and vowed vengeance on his killers. Later legend saw him as an
evil druid who enjoyed changing his pupils into hares, while he followed as a
hound. The children of Tuirenn struck him with his own staff and turned him
into a boar, whence the earthwork dividing North and South Ireland is called
the Blavk Pig's Dyke, after his tremendous career from coast to coast. This
legend corresponds to that of TWRCH TRWYTH. # 267 - 439 - 454 -
548 CIARRAIGE LUACHRA (cer'i yi loo'ah ra) A hilly district between co. Limerick and co. Kerry. #
166 CIGFA Wife of Pryderi, daughter of Gwyn Gohoyw, of the royal line of Casnar
Wledig. After her husband and mother-in-law, Rhiannon, were spirited away into
the Otherworld, she was left alone with her father-in-law, Manawyddan with
whom she lived until the enchantments lying upon Dyfed were lifted. # 272 -
439 - 454 CIMBRI In 113 BC, a Roman army sent to support the Celtic kingdom of Noricum in
the Eastern Alps, against northern invaders, suffered defeat. The invaders
were known by the name of Cimbri, and later evidence suggests that the
bearers of this name came from Himmerland County, Jutland, although their
ranks had probably been considerably augmented on their way southwards. It is
important to forego any hasty ethnological deductions about the Cimbri on the
basis of their geographical starting-point. The personal names of their
leaders, such as are known, are all purely Celtic, and passages from Diodorus,
Strabo, and Pliny could all be taken as showing that the Cimbri spoke a Celtic
language. The name Teutones itself is a Latin form of the Celtic word meaning
'people', as already met in the Irish Tuath, and in the Gaulish deity
name Teutates. J. Aaten suggests that there might be some connection between
the Cimbri expedition, the Borremose Castle and the Gundestrup Cauldron. # 53
- 114 - 220 CIRCE A sorceress in classical mythology. She is found in Homer's ODYSSEY and
Apollonius Rhodius' ARGONAUTICA. In PERCEFOREST she married Bethides and
brought the Romans into Britain. See also I. Wilkens: WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD p 185 ff. # 156 - 198 -
730 CISSA A son of Aelle, he accompanied his father when he defeated the Britons. #
156 CITY OF SOULS A spirit-haunted, otherworldly city visited by Lancelot in PERLESVAUS. #
112 - 156 CITY OF THE LEGION The scene of one of Arthur's battles, according to Nennius. K. H. Jackson
(# 401) identifies it unhesitatingly as Chester, called Urbs Legionis in
Latin; but there is the possibility that it was Castleford which the Romans
called Legiolium. Geoffrey calls Caerleon the City of Legion. This city is
also referred to as Isca Legionis and Isca Legionum in early times. # 156 -
218 - 401 CIUTHACH (kew-uch) This Highland character, latterly a cave-haunting monster, was a
noble cave-dwelling giant in earlier romances. W. J. Watson in the CELTIC
REVIEW IX says: In view of the fact that traces of Ciuthach are found, one may
say, from Clyde to the Butt of Lewis, it is clear that at one time he played a
great role in the tradition of the West. Among all the confusion of the
traditions as they have come down to us, there may be, and probably is, an
ultimate historical basis... Throughout the references to him there runs the
feeling that Ciuthach was a hero, or the hero of a race different from the
Gael. Watson suggested that he might be a Pict; Professor Mac Ritchie, in the
next number of the CELTIC REVIEW, put forward the theory that he was a Finn.
Gill, in his SECOND MANX SCRAPBOOK, points out that it was Ciuthach whose cave
was visited by Diarmuid and Grania on their flight. # 100 -
249 CLAIRE Sister of Sagremor, who was saved from two giants by Guinglain. #
156 CLAMADEUS A king who laid siege to Blanchefleur's castle but was then slain by
Perceval in single combat. # 153 - 156 CLANN BASCNA One of the divisions of the Fianna of Erin; Cumhal, father of Finn, chief
of Clan Bascna; Cairbry causes feud between Clan Morna and Clan Bascna. #
562 CLANN CALATIN Sent by men of Erin against CuChulain. Fiacha, son of Firaba cuts off the
eight-and-twenty hands of Clan Calatin. CuChulain slays Clan Calatin, and the
widow gives birth to six children whom Maev has instructed in magic and then
looses against CuChulain. - Cause CuChulain to break his GEISE. #
562 CLANN CONAILL (clôn' con'al) The inhabitants of the district later known as Tir Connell
in Ulster. # 166 CLANN DEDAD (clön' da'gha) The subjects or followers of Cu Roi mac Dairi. #
166 CLANN EOGAIN (clôn' yo'wan) The residents of the district roughly corresponding with
modern Tyrone, earlier Tir Eogain. # 166 CLANN MORNA One of the divisions of the Fianna of Erin. - Lia becomes treasurer to
Clann Morna. - Cairbry causes feud between Clann Bascna and Clann Morna. #
562 CLARINE The mother of Lancelot in a German version of his story. She was the wife
of King Pant of Gennewis. # 156 - 686 CLARIS A Knight of the Round Table and a hero of the romance CLARIS ET LARIS.
Laris was his companion whom he rescued from Tallas, King of Denmark. He
married Laris's sister, Lidoine. # 30 - 156 CLARISSE Sister of Gawain. # 156 CLARRISANT # 156: A daughter of Lot and Morgause who married Guiromelant. She was the
mother of Guigenor. # 454: According to a single Arthurian romance she was the sister of
Gawain, who lived in a magic castle. Perceval overcomes her lover Guireomelant
in the same text, 'Sir Percevelle'. Nowhere else is Gawain said to have a
sister, but this is interesting as it brings the number of the Orkney clan up
to five - the others being Gaheris, Gareth and Agravaine. As a Goddess-figure,
their mother, Morgause of Orkney, should by rights have given birth to this
number of children. # 112 - 156 - 454 - 610 CLAS MYRDDYN Merlin's enclosure. The ancient British tradition that Britain itself was
watched over by Merlin as its guardian. Esoterically, Merlin's imprisonment by
Nimue has its basis in Clas Myrddyn - the place where Merlin is willingly
confined in order to watch over its fortunes. # 104 - 439 -
454 CLASTIDIUM A characteristic scene from the battle of Clastidium (222 BC) is recorded
by Polybius. 'The Gaesati, who were in forefront of the Celtic army, stripped
naked for the fight, and the sight of these warriors, on which glittered the
collars and bracelets of gold, filled the Romans with awe. Yet when the day
was over those golden ornaments went in cartloads to deck the Capitol of
Rome'. # 562 CLAUDAS King of the Desert Land, the opponent of King Bors, whose kingdom he seized
on the latter's death. After Bor's death, his sons fell into the hands of
Pharien whose wife was Claudas's lover. Claudas had them brought to him but
they escaped in the guise of greyhounds, killing his son, Dorin. A war took
place between Britain and Claudas when the latter imprisoned Guinevere, after
insulting one of her damsels. Claudas was supported by the Romans but they
were defeated. The realm of Claudas was identified with Berry, as in old
French Berrie signifies a desert. Clovis I, King of the Franks AD
481-511, is a possible prototype of Claudas. See: BRUMART, and PHARIANCE. #
156 - 418 - 604 CLEAN HEARTH The first recipe in old days for encouraging fairy visits and gaining fairy
favours was to leave the hearth swept and the fire clear. This seems some
indication of the contention that domestic fairies were of the type of the
LARES, the ancestral spirits who were the ghosts of those who had been buried
under the hearth according to the primitive custom in pre-classical times. See
also: VIRTUES ESTEEMED BY THE FAIRIES. # 100 CLEAR WATER A bowl of clear, fair water had to be left in any place where the fairy
ladies were supposed to resort with their babies to wash them by the fire.
Dirty water or empty pails were commonly punished by pinching or lameness. See
also: FAULTS CONDEMNED BY THE FAIRIES and VIRTUES ESTEEMED BY THE FARIES. #
100 CLEENA A Danaan maiden once living in Mananan's country. - One of the most notable
landmarks of Ireland was the Tonn Cliodhna, or 'Wave of Cleena,' on the
seashore at Glandore Bay in Co. Cork. The story about Cleena exists in several
versions, which do not agree with each other except in so far as she seems to
have been a Danaan maiden once living in Mananan's country, the Land of Youth
beyond the sea. Escaping thence with a mortal lover, as one of the versions
tells, she landed on the southern coast of Ireland, and her lover, Keevan of
the Curling Locks, went off to hunt in the woods. Cleena, who remained on the
beach, was lulled to sleep by fairy music played by a minstrel of Mananan,
when a great wave of the sea swept up and carried her back to Fairyland,
leaving her lover desolate. Hence the place was called the Strand of Cleena's
Wave. # 562 CLERIADUS The husband of Meliadice, one of Arthur's descendants. He succeeded
Philippon, Meliadice's father, as King of England. # 156 -
198 CLIDNA See: CLEENA, and TONN CLIDNA. CLIGÉS Son of Alexander, son of the Emperor of Constantinople and his wife
Soredamor, daughter of Lot. When Cligés's uncle Alis (Alexius) was emperor he
married Fenice with whom Cligés fell in love. Unable to court her in the
circumstances, he went to Arthur's court. In due course, Alis died and Cligés
married Fenice. His story is told in Crétien's romance CLIGÉS, perhaps a
different person, in YDER. # 30 - 156 CLIM OF THE CLOUGH (Kläm of the klaaff) CLITON A sister of Morgan. # 156 - 242 CLODION A son of Pharamond, killed in combat by Tristan. # 21 -
156 CLOG CALENDAR The calendar was marked on a long piece of thick wood in the earliest
times, but was by the late medieval period also drawn on strips of paper in a
form closely resembling that reproduced by Moses Cotsworth of Acomb. # 730: It may be pointed out in passing that the twelve signs of the zodiac
were not used for astrology in the Bronze Age (about 1200 BC). The Celts had
designated thirty-six other constellations for this purpose, for their year
was not divided into twelve months, but into thirty-six periods of
approximately ten days each. Each of these periods was also associated with a
specific type of tree. # 137 - 702 - 730 CLOTHAIR King of soissons, later King of all the Franks. J. Morris (# 484) claims
that Cunomorus (see MARK) fell in a rebellion against him in AD 560. # 156 -
484 CLOVER Shamrock. The national symbol of Ireland. CLURICAUNE
CLURACAN (kloor-a-cawn) One of the solitary fairies of Ireland. Thomas Crofton
Croker has several stories of him as a kind of buttery spirit, feasting
himself in the cellars of drunkards, or scaring dishonest servants who steal
the wine. Sometimes he makes himself so objectionable that the owner decides
to move, but the Cluricaune pops into a cask to move with him, as the boggart
did in Lancashire. The Cluricaune described by Crofton Croker wore a red
nightcap, a leather apron, pale-blue long stockings and silver-buckled,
high-heeled shoes. Presumably his coat was red, for solitary fairies were
generally supposed to be distinguished from trooping fairies by wearing red
instead of green coats. # 100 - 165 CLUSIUM Siege of Clusium, Romans play Celts false. Vengeance exacted by Celts. #
562 CLYDNO One of Arthur's warriors, father of Cynon in Welsh tradition. #
156 CLYDNO EIDDYN The cauldron of Clydno Eiddyn was one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain.
># 104 - 156 CO-WALKER Kirk, in his SECRET COMMONWEALTH, names a double, such as the Germans call
a DOPPELGÄNGER, a 'Co-walker'. In the North it is called a Waff and is
said to be a death token. Kirk, however, considers it to be one of the
fairies, and says: They are clearly seen by these Men of the Second Sight to
eat at Funeralls (and) Banquets; hence many of the Scottish-Irish will not
teast Meat at these Meittings, lest they have Communion with, or be poysoned
by, them. So are they seen to carrie the Beer or Coffin with the Corps among
the middle-earth Men to the Grave. Some men of that exalted Sight (whither by
Art or Nature) have told me they have seen at these Meittings a Doubleman, or
the Shape of some Man in two places; that is, a superterranean and a
subterranean Inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all Points, whom
he notwithstanding could easily distinguish one from another, by some secret
Tockens and Operations, and so go speak to the Man his Neighbour and Familiar,
passing by the Apparition or Resemblance of him. On the next page he continues: They call this Reflex-man a Co-walker, every way like the Man, as a
Twin-brother and Companion, haunting him as his shadow, as is oft seen and
known among Men (resembling the Originall), both before and after the
Originall is dead; and wes also often seen of old to enter a Hous, by which
the People knew that the Person of that Liknes wes to Visite them within a few
days. This Copy, Echo, or living Picture, goes att last to his own Herd. # 100
-370 COCIDIUS A Northern war-god often associated by the Romans with Mars. He is depicted
as a stylized Celtic warrior with spear and shield. # 454 - 563 -
709 COCK # 161: In Celtic tradition the Cock has chthonic associations as a bird of
the underworld. Sacred in early Britain, the cock had the chthonic aspect of
the Gallo-Roman Mercury, was an attribute of the gods of the underworld and of
the Celtic Mother Goddess; the cock was sacrificed on Bride's Day. # 454: The
cock has ever been the bird of dawning whose call dispels the horrors of the
night. Numerous folk-songs and stories attest to this understanding, and in
many night-visiting songs where by a dead lover comes to his woman's bed by
night, his ghost is dispelled by the cock crowing. # 161 -
454 COEL According to a sixteenth-century manuscript, an ancestor of Arthur through
his mother. Stuart-Knill also claims he was one of Arthur's ancestors. He was
possibly a historical figure who flourished in the North Country in the early
fifth century. Tradition gives him a wife named Stradwawl (road-well) and a
daughter called Gwawl (wall), which tends to reinforce this. Gwawl may have
been the wife of Cunedda. J. Morris suggests that he was the last Dux
Brittaniarum. A great body of legend grew up about him. He was thought to have
been the founder and ruler - king (Henry of Huntingdon), duke of Colchester
(Geoffrey of Monmouth), - tradition pushing him back some centuries. His city,
according to legend, was besieged by the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus
(ruled AD 305-306) for three years, after which Constantine married Helena,
Coel's daughter. Their son was Constantine the Great (born AD 265). A
fourteenth-century manuscript says Coel became king of all Britain and died in
AD 267. The adjective HEN (old) was applied to him. There can be little doubt
he was the Old King Cole of nursery rhyme. # 156 - 484 -
648 COFFEY, GEORGE Keeper of the collection of Celtic antiquities in the National Museum,
Dublin. He explored and described the Tumulus of New Grange thoroughly, and
the facts about it is recorded in: Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,
Vol. XXX, pt. i. (1892), and 'NEW GRANGE' from 1912. #
562 COINCHEND The wife of Morgan, king of the Land of Wonders. She was the mother of
Delbchaem, whom she kept guarded because of a prophecy that said on the
marriage of her daughter, she herself would die. She kept the girl in a
fortress palisaded with stakes upon each of which was the head of an
unsuccessful suitor. She fought Art but was beheaded by him. This story
corresponds to Gereint's adventure in Joy of the Court episode. # 188 - 454 -
548 COLCHESTER This was Camulodunum in Roman times. See: CAMELOT. #
156 COLEMAN GRAY A Cornish example of the Captured Fairies, this is the name of a little
Pisky boy who was adopted by a human. It is given by Hunt in POPULAR ROMANCES
OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND, from T. Quiller Couch in NOTES AND QUERIES: 'There is
a farmhouse of some antiquity with which my family have a close connection;
and it is this circumstance, more than any other, that has rendered this
tradition concerning it more interesting to us, and better remembered than
many other equally romantic and authentic. Close to this house, one day, a
little miserable-looking bantling was discovered alone, unknown, and incapable
of making its wants understood. It was instantly remembered by the finder,
that this was the way in which the piskies were accustomed to deal with those
infants of their race for whom they sought human protection; and it would have
been an awful circumstance if such a one were not received by the individual
so visited. The anger of the piskies would be certain, and some direful
calamity must be the result; whereas, a kind of welcome would probably be
attended with great good fortune. The miserable plight of this stranger
therefore attracted attention and sympathy. The little unconscious one was
admitted as of the family. Its health was speedily restored, and its renewed
strength, activity, intelligence and good-humour caused it to become a general
favourite. It is true the stranger was often found to indulge in odd freaks;
but this was accounted for by a recollection of its pedigree, which was not
doubted to be of the piskie order. So the family prospered, and had banished
the thought that the foundling would ever leave them. There was to the front
door of this house a hatch, meaning a half-door that is kept closed when the
whole door behind it is open, and which then serves as a guard against the
intrusion of dogs, hogs, and ducks, while air and light are freely admitted.
This little being was one day leaning over the top of this hatch, looking
wistfully outward, when a clear voice was heard to proceed from a neighbouring
part of the townplace, calling, 'Coleman Gray, Coleman Gray!' The piskie
immediately started up, and with a sudden laugh, clapped its hands,
exclaiming, 'Aha! my daddy is come!' It was gone in a moment, never to be seen
again. # 100 - 331 COLGREVANCE # 156: A Knight of the Round Table who hailed from Gore. There are
different accounts of his death. In one version he was killed by Lionel, but
in another he was one of those who surprised Lancelot and Guinevere together
and was slain by the escaping Lancelot. # 454: Before becoming a Knight of the
Round Table he first encountered the Adventure of the magic fountain in
Broceliande. When water was poured from a basin over an emerald stone at its
brim, a black knight appeared with a challenge. Colgrevance was defeated,
though he managed to escape and it was his story which awakened the interest
of Owain, who was successful and himself became guardian of the fountain for a
time. # 156 - 418 - 454 COLGRIN According to Geoffrey, he became leader of the Saxons when Uther died.
Arthur defeated him at the River Douglas, so he fled to York where he was
besieged by Arthur. His brother Baldulf joined him there. Reinforced by
Cheldric, who brought Saxons with him from overseas, they fought Arthur
unsuccessfully at Lincoln and Caledon Wood. They left for Germany but came
back and landed in Britain again. They were defeated by Arthur at Bath (Badon)
where Colgrin fell. # 156 - 243 COLLEN, SAINT (kothlen) Saint Collen was a Welsh saint of the seventh century. Like many
of the Celtic saints, he was of a pugnacious and restless disposition, and
during his career he spent some time in Somerset. It was here that he
encountered the fairy king. S. Baring-Gould, in his LIVES OF THE SAINTS,
summarizes his story from a Welsh Life of Saint Collen, not translated into
English at the time when Baring-Gould was writing. This accounts for the
confusing statement that the king of the fairies on Glastonbury Tor was called
Gwyn ap Nudd and his dominion was over Annwn. # 54 - 100 COLLOQUY OF THE ANCIENTS A collection of tales mentioning St Patrick and Cascorach. The interest of
'Colloquy' lies in the tales of Keelta. Of the tales there are about a
hundred, telling of Fian raids and battles, but the great number of them have
to do with the intercourse between the Fairy Folk and the Fianna. With these
folk the Fianna have constant relations, both of love and war. One of the best
is that of the fairy Brugh, or mansion of Slievenamon, which Keelta
tells a story of. # 562 COLLOQUY OF THE OLD MEN, THE Chief among the earlier tales dealing with Finn and his companions is the
famous COLLOQUY OF THE OLD MEN. This long and elaborate piece, composed not
far from AD 1200, is a framework story in which are embedded a large number of
heroic tales and place-name legends. At the beginning of the narrative Oisin (Ossian) son of Finn, and Cailte
son of Crunnchu mac Ronain, accompanied by a small band, are represented as
the only survivors of Finn mac Cumaill's great fian. A century and a half have
elapsed since the death of Finn and the battles in which the fian met with
destruction. After visiting Finn's old nurse, Oisin and Cailte separate, one
going north to seek Oisin's mother, who is one of the Tuatha De Danann; the
other moving south toward Tara. On the way Cailte and his companions meet with
St Patrick and accept Christianity. St Patrick's interest in the traditions of
Ireland elicits from Cailte many stories of the pagan heroic age. On arriving
at Tara, Cailte and St Patrick find Oisin installed in the court of King
Diarmuid mac Cerbaill. There the ancient heroes entertain the guests with
tales of pagan Ireland. Whether the piece as a whole emanates from
ecclesiastical or secular sources, it is both surprising and pleasant to find
at such an early period a representation of friendly and sympathetic relations
between pagan and Christian. # 166 - 562 COLOMBE The lover of Lanceor, the son of the King of Ireland. When Lanceor was
slain by Balin, she killed herself. # 156 - 418 COLOUR Colour was important in Celtic representations of the underworld, and the
White Bull was the chief sacrifice of the Druids at the cutting of the
mistletoe. White doves are an almost universal symbol of peace and are
particularly associated with the Mother Goddesses and Queens of Heaven and
were sacrificed to them; they were emblems of feminity and maternity. #
161 COLOUR OF FAIRY CLOTHES See: DRESS AND APPEARANCE OF THE FAIRIES. COLUMBA, SAINT # 562: Symbol of the feet and St Columba in rockcarvings in Ireland. # 454: (c.521-97) He was born in Donegal of the royal Ui Neill line and was
trained as a monk under Saint Finnian of Moville. He borrowed a copy of
Jerome's new translations of the Psalms from the Magh Bile monastery in order
to copy it. The original owners judged that the copy should remain with them
since 'every cow has its calf'. The resulting battle at Coodrebhne saw Columba
as an opponent in arms, rather than in Christian temperance, and he sent
himself into exile from Ireland, in remorse. He converted many of the Irish
settlers in Scotland, as well as King Brude of the Picts. He founded his
monastery on Iona which became in time the burial place and assembly of
Scottish kings. Many monastic settlements sprang from the influence of Iona.
Columba, although he swore never to see Ireland again, returned to champion
the social obligations of the Irish in Scotland to the Irish High Kings. He
also arbitrated between the Church and the bards, whose position was seriously
endangered: Irish poets had become feared and hated due to their practice of
satirizing ungenerous patrons (considered in its magical light, since satires
could cause physical effects) and because of their extortionate retainers.
Columba was himself a poet and his arbitration ensured that Irish poets should
be allowed to exercise their ancient function. He is remembered on 9 June. #
454 - 562 COMPOSITE ANIMALS Celtic cult animals have horns, symbols of supernatural power or divinity,
and are depicted as birds, horses, and serpents. Among northern nomadic people
several heads may be portrayed as a single body. # 161 COMYN, MICHAEL 'Lay of Oisin in the Land of Youth,' by Michael Comyn, was composed about
1750 and ended the long history of Gaelic literature. It has been estimated
that if all the tales and poems of the Ossianic Cycle which still remain could
be printed they would fill some twenty-five volumes of about 500 pages each.
Moreover, it could have been recovered from the lips of what have been called
an 'illiterate' peasantry in the Gaelic-speaking parts of Ireland and the
Highlands. # 562 CONAIRE MOR # 166: (con'á re mor') King of Ireland near the beginning of the Christian
era, grandson of Etain and Cormac, king of Ulster and son of Mess Buachalla.
Sometimes referred to as son of Eterscel, king of Ireland, who was the husband
of his mother. # 454: He was proclaimed King of Tara after he had been prophesied by a
druid. He was given a great many geasa (prohibitions) by his otherworldly
father such as not sleeping in a house from which firelight could be seen
after sunset. His foster brothers, jealous of his success, conspired to bring
him to Da Derga's hostel, where Conaire was compelled to break each of his
geasa. He was there attacked and betrayed and although his champion, Mac Cecht
fought valiantly to defend him, he died. Only Conall Cernach escaped. # 562: Conaire Mor was in possesion of the singing sword. He descended from
Etain Oig, daughter of Etain. His mother was Mess Buachalla, and his
foster-father was Desa. His foster-brothers were Ferlee, Fergar, and Ferrogan.
Nemglan commands him go to Tara, where he is proclaimed King of Erin. Nemglan
declares his geise, and Conaire is lured into breaking his geise. The three
Reds and Conaire at Da Derga's Hostel, where they are visited by the Morrigan.
# 166 - 188 - 454 - 562 CONAIRE MOR, THE BIRTH OF According to the REVUE CELTIQUE there are a number of conflicting
traditions about the parentage of Mes Buachella and her son Conaire Mor, King
of Ireland. 'The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel' has that she was the
daughter of Cormac mac Art and his wife Etain. Etain had proved barren until
she conceived this daughter after being given a pottage by her mother, a woman
from the sid-mounds. Cormach married again and ordered his daughter to be
abandoned in a pit. Two servants were entrusted with the task, but they lost
heart when the child laughed as they were putting her in the pit and they left
her instead in the calf-shed of the cowherds of Eterscel, great-grandson of
Iar, King of Tara. The cowherds reared her and she was named Mes Buachalla,
'the cowherd's foster-child'. According to other sources Mes Buachalla was the
daughter of Ess, who conceived her either through incest with her father,
Eochaid Airem, King of Tara, or through intercourse with the sid-folk of Bri
Leith. Eochaid ordered the destruction of the child, but she was left in a
kennel, with a bitch and her whelps, at the house of a herdsman. We now revert
to 'The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel'. The cowherds kept the girl
concealed in a house of wicker-work which had only a roof-opening, but King
Eterscel's folk discovered her and told him of their find. It had been
prophesied that a woman of unknown race would bear Eterscel a child, so he
sent people to break into the wicker house and bring her to him. Before this
was done, a bird came through the skylight and told the girl what was being
planned. He shed his bird-plumage on the floor and she gave her love to him.
He told her that she would have by him a son, whose name would be Conaire, and
that he should not kill birds. She was then betrothed to Eterscel. Others say,
however, that Eterscel was Mes Buachalla's father. # 548 CONALL ANGLONNACH (con'al ân'glôn ah) Son of Iriel Glunma; one of the twelve great chariot
fighters of Ulster. # 166 CONALL CERNACH, THE BIRTH OF Conall Cernach's mother was Findchoem, daughter of Cathbad and wife of
Amairgen. She suffered from 'hesitation of offspring', and when a druid told
her that she should bear a noble son if she paid him a good fee, she
accompanied him to a well over which he sang spells and prophecies. He then
told her to wash in the water, and 'you will bring forth a son, and no child
will be less pious than he to his mother's kin, that is to the Connachtmen'.
Findchoem then drank a draught from the well and swallowed a worm. That worm
was in the boy's hand in his mother's womb and it pierced the hand and
consumed it. Druids baptized the child into heathenism, prophesying as they
did so the havoc he would eventually wreak upon the men of Connacht. Cet, the
mother's brother, who, although he knew of the prophecies, had protected his
sister until her delivery, now drew the child towards him and put it under his
heel and bruised its neck. Thereupon the mother exclaimed: 'Wolfish (conda) is
the treachery (fell) you work, O Brother.' 'True,' said Cet, 'let Conall
(Con-feall) be his name henceforward.' Whence he was called wry-necked Conall.
See also: CONALL OF THE VICTORIES. ># 548-642 CONALL OF THE VICTORIES - CONALL CERNACH
# 166:(con'al cârn'ah) # 562: Member of Conary's retinue at Red Hostel.
Amorgin, his father, found by him at Teltin. Shrinks from test (re) the
Championship of Ireland. - Under the Debility curse. Avenges CuChulain's death
by slaying Lewy. - His 'brain ball' causes death of Conor mac Nessa. - Conall
slays Ket. # 454: Conall the Victorious preceded CuChulain as the great hero of the
Red Branch Warriors in Ulster. He was the only survivor of the destruction of
Da Derga's hostel, where Conaire (Conary) was killed. With Loegaire, he
appears as CuChulain's rival in the story of Bricriu's Feast where the three
heroes contended for the hero's portion of the feast and were challenged by Cu
Roi mac Daire to the beheading game. # 166 - 454 - 562 CONAN Conan Meriadoc became the first ruler of Brittany, according to Geoffrey of
Monmouth (# 243). Gallet claims that he is one of Arthur's ancestors. ># 55
- 156 - 243 CONAN MAC LIA Son of Lia, lord of Luachar; Finn makes a covenant with Conan mac Lia.#
562 CONAN MAOL One of the Fianna. Like Bricriu of the Red Branch Knights and Kay (Cai) of
the Round Table Knights, Conan was the thorn in the side of his fellows, yet
he performed many reckless deeds in their honour. He mounted the horse of the
Giolla Deacair, and went to Tir na Tairngire until he was rescued by Fionn. #
267 - 454 - 467 - 504 CONANN Fomorian king. # 562 CONARE (kon AR ee) CONCHOBAR MAC NESSA (con ho'var or con'th har) Conor mac Nessa. Son of Nessa and Cathbad. He
was born on the same day as Christ. Nessa won for him the right to be King of
Ulster from Fergus mac Roigh. He was uncle of CuChulain. He wished to marry
his ward, Deirdriu, but when she fled with Naoisi and his brothers to Alba he
gave chase. Although he promised to forgive them, he killed Deirdriu's
abductors and slept with her. A sling-shot was lodged in his brain which
surgeons could not remove lest he die. On hearing of the crucifixion of Christ
he over-exerted himself trying to avenge him, the sling-shot then fell out of
his head and he died. See also: CONOR MAC NESSA. # 166 - 188 - 352 -
454 CONCHOBAR, THE BIRTH OF If we attempt to arrange the material of the Ulster cycle in its
traditional order, we come first upon a group of narratives dealing with the
births of several of the leading personages. There are certain facts in the
life of every hero that the folk feel they are entitled to know. Among these
are his birth, his marriage, and his death. Birth stories, though naturally
coming first in traditional chronology, are usually later in date of
composition than stories dealing with the hero's mature achievements. 'The
Birth of Conchobar' exist in two versions, of which at least one was composed
as early as the eighth century. According to the oldest account, Conchobar,
who figures as king of Ulster in the most ancient Irish tales, was the son of
Nessa, princess of Ulster, by Cathbad, the official druid of the Ulster court.
Both in the sagas and in the annals Conchobar is represented as having been
born on the same day as Christ and as having died upon receiving the news of
his crucifixion. Through the strategem of his mother he displaced Fergus mac
Roig, the rightful king of Ulster, and reigned in his stead. Though he appears
at times cruel and unscrupulous, he is generally represented as a brave
warrior and a just ruler. # 166 CONDWIRAMUR # 156: In Wolfram, the wife of Perceval and Queen of Brobarz. # 562: A
maiden wedded by Parzival. # 156 - 562 - 748 CONGANCHAS MAC DAIRE The brother of Cu Roi. He was one of three plagues which Celtchair was
obligated to overcome, for Conganchas ravaged the land and was invulnerable to
ordinary weapons. Celtchair made his daughter, Niamh, marry this man so that
she might discover how to overcome him. She learned that he was vulnerable in
the soles of his feet and calves of his legs, into which sharp spears could be
stuck, and so Celtchair killed him. This tale is clearly related to the
British Grail story of Peredur. # 208 - 454 CONN CET CATHACH Conn of the Hundred Battles. King of Ireland beginning AD 177, son of
Rechtmar, husband of Becuma. He agreed to the banishment of Art, his son by a
former marriage. The year of his union with Becuma caused Ireland to become a
wasteland , without corn or milk. His druids said that the land could only be
healed through the bloodshed of a boy of sinless parents. He went on a quest
for such a boy, leaving the kingdom to Art in his absence. Conn travelled to
the Otherworld, and begged that the beautiful youth called Segda Saerlabraid
be allowed to come to Ireland and be bathed in waters which would heal the
land. Segda realized what was intended but he was willing to die. Just then a
lowing cow and a wailing woman appeared (see RIGRU ROISCLETHAN). She asked the
druids what was in the bags on the cow's back. They could not tell her. She
judged that the cow should be killed in place of the youth and that the bags
be opened. They revealed a bird with one leg and a bird with twelve legs. The
birds contended, and the woman revealed that the druids were the twelvelegged
one who lost the combat, and Segda was the one-legged one. She then called on
Conn to execute his druids for false judgement and to put away Becuma. Conn
also discovered, by accident, the Stone of Fal (See HALLOWS) which screamed
under the feet of a rightful king, the same number of times as he would have
reigning heirs. When the druid would not tell him who they would be, Conn had
a vision of Sovereignty with her cup of gold and Lugh who told him the number
of kings to succeed him. Some scholars disagree about Conn's reigning years.
Tom Peete Cross and Clark Harris Slover have him start his reign in the first
half of the second century after Christ, while Rolleston and others argues
that he died AD 157. # 166 - 188 - 352 - 438 - 454 - 548 CONN MAC LIR One of the children of Lir, son of Aobh. His stepmother turned him into a
swan. See: CHILDREN OF LIR. # 562 CONNACHT Ethal Anubal, prince of the Danaans of Connacht. - Ailell and Maev, mortal
King and Queen of Connacht, Angus Og seeks their help in efforts to win Caer.
- Origin of the name of the province, Leinster is traditionally derived from
the invasions of the Gauls armed with spear-heads called Laighne, and
as they were allotted lands in Leinster, the province was called in Irish
Laighin after them - the Province of Spearmen. - CuChulain makes a
foray upon Connacht, and descends upon host of the province under Maev. Ket a
champion. Queen Maev reigned in Connacht for eighty-eight years. Connacht was
'the land of the children of Conn' he who was called Conn of the Hundred
Battles, and who died AD 157. See: CONN CET-CATHACH. #
562 CONNLA CONLAOCH Son of CuChulain and Aifa. - Before CuChulain left the Land of Shadows he
gave Aifa a golden ring, saying that if she should bear him a son he was to be
sent to seek his father in Erin so soon as he should have grown so that his
finger would fit the ring. And CuChulain said, 'Charge him under Geise
that he shall not make himself known, that he never turn out of the way for
any man, nor ever refuse a combat. And be his name called Connla.' Aifa sends
him to Erin. When he landed in Ireland he met and was challenged by CuChulain.
Although he knew his father and could have killed him easely, Connla missed
the mortal blow and was killed by his father. CuChulain then saw the ring and
realized whom he had slain. # 266 - 454 - 562 CONNLA THE FAIR, THE ADVENTURES OF This story is one of the most ancient in Cross' and Slover's ANCIENT IRISH
TALES, dating probably from the eighth century. Its directness and restraint
are in distinct contrast to the more florid narrative method of THE DEATH OF
FINN and THE SECOND BATTLE OF MOYTURA. The observant reader is in no danger of
mistaking the economy and terseness of this story for barrenness of
imagination. The struggle of the father for possession of his son is told in
almost as few words as Goethe's famous 'Erl-King,' and although artistic
comparison between the old Irish tale and the great modern ballad would be
unprofitable, we cannot fail to recognize a strong emotional kinship between
them. It will be noted that the story is thrown into the form of the
'Dinnsenchas'. Of course this is only a mechanical trick. The widespread theme
of the mortal who follows a supernatural woman to Fairyland is here
artificially linked to the explanation of the name. Having the prediction of
St Patrick come from the lips of one of the pagan fairy folk is an engaging
touch. Conn the Hundred-Fighter, the father of Art and Connla, was one of the
earliest high-kings of Ireland. According to the annals he flourished during
the first half of the second century after Christ. # 166 CONNLA'S WELL Equivalent, Well of Knowledge. Sinend's fatal visit to Connla's Well. #
562 CONNLA, THE TRAGIC DEATH OF Connla is the son whom, according to THE WOOING OF EMER, the warlike Aife
was destined to bear to CuChulain. The story of how the boy followed CuChulain
to Ireland and was there slain by his own father reminds us of the famous epic
tale of Sohrab and Rustem, best known to English readers through Matthew
Arnold's poem of that name. The story of Connla probably existed in tradition
before it was first recorded in the eighth century, and it is one of the few
tales of the Ulster cycle that has maintained its popularity among the folk in
more recent times. Numerous versions of a ballad on the death of Connla have
been taken down from popular recitation during the last century. The title is
sometimes given as 'The Tragic Death of the Only Son of Aife (Oenfer Aife)'.
Tom Peete Cross and Clark Harris Slover have the tale in their ANCIENT IRISH
TALES. # 166 CONOR MAC NESSA Son of Fachtna and Nessa; proclaimed King of Ulster in preference to
Fergus. CuChulain brought up at court of Conor mac Nessa. Grants arms of
manhood to CuChulain. While at a feast on Strand of the Footprints he
describes Connla. His ruse to put CuChulain under restraint. - His guards
seize Naisi and Deirdre. Suffers pangs of the Debility curse. The curse
lifted, and he summons Ulster to arms. Christian ideas have gathered about end
of Conor. His death caused by Conall's 'brain ball'. He figures in tale
entitled THE CARVING OF MAC DATHO'S BOAR; he sends to mac Datho for his hound.
See also: CONCHOBAR MAC NESSA. # 562 CONRAD A bishop who unsuccessfully charged Merlin with heresy. # 156 -
238 CONSTANCE The wife of King Ban and mother of Lancelot in Italian romance. # 156 -
238 CONSTANS In Geoffrey of Monmouth, he was the son of King Constantine of Britain and
brother of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther. This makes him Arthur's uncle. When
Constantine died, Vortigern persuaded Constans to become king. He had first to
leave the monastery in which he had immured himself. He was only a puppet king
and eventually Vortigern brought about his assassination by Picts. In French
romance he is called Moine but this word merely signifies a monk. See: IVOINE.
# 156 CONSTANTINE # 156: 1. Arthur's grandfather. The brother of Aldroenus, King of Brittany,
he was made King of Britain and had three sons, Constans, Aurelius Ambrosius
and Uther. He was stabbed to death by a Pict. In Welsh genealogies Constantine
is given a father called Kynnvor while, according to Gallet, his father was
King Solomon of Brittany. It has been suggested that the original of
Constantine was the Roman emperor Constantine III (ruled AD 407-11). He was an
ordinary soldier who was made emperor by the Roman troops in Britain, despite
the fact that there was a Roman Emperor of the West, called Honorius, ruling
at the time. Constantine landed in Gaul and established himself at Arles, his
son Constans leaving a monastery to join him, just as, according to Geoffrey
'Constans, son of Constantine, left his monastery to become King of Britain'
(See CONSTANS). One of Constantine's subordinates, Gerontius, then rebelled
and threw off Constantine's rule. Gerontius defeated and killed Constans.
Constantine, however, like Maximus, was led on to intervene unsuccessfully and
fatally in Italy itself, and he was compelled to surrender with another of his
sons to the forces of Honorius, and both suffered execution in the summer of
AD 411. If Arthur indeed died in AD 542, this Constantine lived too early to
be the grandfather of the historical Arthur; but, if he lived earlier, the
relationship is not impossible. - 2. Historically, a sixth-century King of
Dumnonia. In Arthurian romance, he was Arthur's cousin, son of Cador of
Cornwall who succeeded him as King of Britain. The sons of Mordred rebelled
against him, but Constantine defeated them. He killed them separately, each
before an altar where he was seeking santuary. See: ALDROENUS. # 562: Arthur
confers his kingdom on Constantine. # 156 - 232 - 243 -
562 CONSTANTINOPLE Formerly called Byzantium, this city was renamed after Constantine the
Great. At the time when the Roman Empire was divided into two, Constantinople
became the capital of the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. Emperors who ruled
there in the traditional Arthurian period were Honorius (AD 395-423), Marcian
(AD 450-57), Leo I (AD 457-74), Leo II (AD 474), Zeno (AD 474-75 and again
476- 91), Basilicus (AD 475-76), Anastasius I (AD 491-518), Justus I (AD
518-27) and Justinian I (AD 527-67). Geoffrey says that the Byzantine emperor
contemporary with Arthur was Leo, and G. Ashe identifies him with Leo I. In
CLIGÉS, the imperial family of Constantinople is showing its kinship with Lot
of Lothian. In PEREDUR (see MABINOGION) the Empress of Constantinople was the
paramour of Peredur (Perceval) with whom she was said to have dwelt for
fourteen years. She had previously aided him by giving him a stone which
rendered him invisible to the afanc. In FLORIANT ET FLORETE the Emperor is
Filimenis. # 156 - 237 - 272 - 346 CONTE DEL GRAAL See: GRAIL. CORANIANS A demoniac race called Coranians, harass land of Britain. #
562 CORBENIC The castle of the Grail Kings. The name possibly derives from the words
'Corps Benit' (Blessed Body), and has been seen as one of the riddles of the
Grail. # 454 - 461 CORBON Son of Renoart and Morgan (consequently Arthur's nephew) in BATAILLE
LOQUIFER (an obscure medieval romance which also contains a few Arthurian
references). # 156 CORC He was born Conall mac Luigthig and was fostered by a witch, Fedelm. During
a ritual, his ear became magically singed and so he was called Corc or red. He
was fostered by Crimthann, his cousin, who sent Corc to the King of the Picts
with a secret ogham message on his shield, implying that the King kill the
bearer. However, a scolar, whom Corc had rescued from slavery, altered the
characters so that they bore a favourable meaning. Corc was welcomed and
married the Pictish king's daughter. He returned home after his cousin's death
and founded a dynasty of his own at Femhen. Shortly afterwards he discovered
the site of his descendant's royal fortress, Cashel. Beleaguered in a
snowstorm, he beheld a vision of a yew-bush growing over a stone and angels
going up and down before it. His druids told him that whoever kindled a fire
on that stone should be king of Munster forever. So Corc founded the dynasty
of the Munster Eoghanacht or People of the Yew. See also: CRIMTHANN. #
454 CORCADYNA Landing of Ith and his ninety warriors at Corcadyna in Ireland. #
562 CORDELIA Youngest daughter of King Lear. She refused to flatter her father and was
wed to Aganipus, King of the Franks, without a dowry. She later received her
father when he had been beggared and outcast by her elder sisters Goneril and
Regan. She became Queen of Britain after his death. In earliest Celtic legend
she is Creuddylad, daughter of Llyr. Her sisters' husbands captured her and
she committed suicide in prison. Her story is similar to the folk-heroine,
Cap-O-Rushes. Shakespeare reworked the legend in KING LEAR. # 243 -
454 CORINEUS He accompanied Brutus as leader of the second group of Trojans. He was
given Cornwall as his province and wrestled with the giant GogMagog. #
243 - 454 CORMAC (côr'moc ul'fa da) 1. Cormac Ulfada, son of Art, grandson of Conn
CetCathach. High King of Ireland; King Cormac was supposed to have heard of
Christian faith long before it was preached in Ireland by St Patrick ordered
that he should not be buried at the royal cemetery by the Boyne, on account of
its pagan associations. Finn and Cormac feasted at Rath Grania; See also:
CORMAC MAC ART. 2. Son of Lactighe. King of Ulster, 48 BC; grandfather of
Conaire Mor; marries Etain Oig; puts her away owing to her barrenness; 3.
Cormac Connlonges (con'lung yes) Son of (Conchobar) Conor mac Nessa who went
into voluntary exile in Connacht after the killing of the sons of Usnech, for
whom he was one of the sureties; rallies to Maev's foray against Ulster. See
also: CORMAC COND LONGES. # 166 - 562 CORMAC COND LONGES The son of Conchobar mac Nessa. He was exiled because his championship of
Fergus mac Roigh at the treachery of Conchobar's slaying of the sons of Usna.
As Conchobar lay dying, he asked his son to return and become king. Despite a
prophecy warning of the possible outcome, Cormac went. During his stay at a
hostel, Craiftine played his harp so soothingly that Cormac slept and was
overpowered by soldiers. # 208 - 454 CORMAC MAC ART Son of Art and grandson of Conn Cet Chathach. He was stolen by a shewolf
and raised as one of her cubs. He was recognized as Art's son because of his
perceptive judgements in a case of litigation. He restored Tara to its former
greatness. He visited Tir Tairngire where he was given the silver
branch of Manannan. While there he encountered the cup of truth. If three
falsehoods were said over it it broke, but if three truths were said over it
it reunited. He was the father of Grainne, wife of Finn mac Cumhail, whom he
appointed chief of his warband or Fianna. He died choking on a salmon-bone. He
is credited with being an early Christian, refusing burial at the usual
cemetery of Bruig na Boinne (the river Boyne), but being buried upright with
his face to the East. His great wisdom caused him to be called the Irish
Solomon. # 166 - 188 - 454 CORMAC MAC ART, THE BIRTH OF Many strange births appear in the Cycles of the Kings. According to O'
Grady's SILVA GADELICA, this is how Cormac mac Art was born. Before the battle
against Lugaid Mac Con, in which he was slain, Art son of Conn of the Hundred
Victories spent the night as guest of a smith named Olc Acha. It had been
prophesied that a great honour would derive from the smith and he asked Art to
lie with his daughter Étain that night. This he did and Cormac was conceived.
Before departing to the battle in which he knew he would die, Art instructed
Étain to take the child to be fostered by his friend Lugna in Connacht. When
her time drew near Étain set out for Lugna's house so that the child might be
born there, but as soon as she arrived in that country her pain took her and
she gave birth to her son on a bed of brushwood collected by her maid. Thunder
boomed, and Lugna on hearing it exclaimed: 'Noise - thunder - birth of king',
and realizing that it was Cormac that was born he set forth to seek him.
Meanwhile, Étain went to sleep, leaving the child in the care of her maid. But
the maid also fell asleep and a she-wolf came and carried the child away and
thereafter brought him up with her whelps in a cave. Lugna found the
distraught mother, took her home, and offered a reward for a clue to the
infant's whereabouts. One day a man named Grec chanced upon the cave, and in
front of it he saw a child on all fours amidst gambolling wolf-cubs. The
child, together with the cubs, was brought to Lugna's house and Lugna hailed
him as Conn's victorious representative. He named him Cormac, which was in
accordance with Art's instructions. # 504 - 548 CORMAC'S ADVENTURES IN THE LAND OF PROMISE
King Cormac, the hero of the narrative with the title 'Cormac's adventures
in the Land of Promise,' which is brought in Cross' and Slover's ANCIENT IRISH
TALES, was the son of Art. The piece is not a single unified story; it is a
collection of narratives based on an ancient account of various legal ordeals,
and later expanded into a story of a visit to the fairy world. Here, as in
other stories from the same selection, we see illustrated the strong tendency
toward moralizing and social criticism exhibited by Irish literature of the
middle period. These stories, of course, are not told entirely for the purpose
of expounding the legal or social ideas to which they refer; they merely
capitalize upon an already established interest and follow the usual Irish
literary habit of furnishing a narrative to explain every well-known fact. #
166 CORNWALL The realm of King Mark. Actually, in Arthurian times, part of the kingdom
of Dumnonia, though it is not impossible that someone called Mark ruled
territory within this kingdom. # 156 CORONATION STONE Now at Westminster Abbey, is the famous Stone of Scone; The LIA FAIL and
Coronation Stone. # 562 CORPRE Poet at court of King Bres. # 562 COSMOGONY The Cymric Cosmogony. God and Cythrawl, standing for life and destruction
in Cymric cosmogony. See also: BARDDAS. # 562 COTSWORTH, MOSES (1859-1943) Advocate of calendar reform; originator and director of
International Fixed Calendar League. He lived in the village of Acomb in
Northumberland. His work was instrumental in forming many of the notions
connected with the modern view of stone circles and related lore. Cotsworth's
main interest was calendrical form, attempting to persuade people to move from
the complex modern calendrical system of 12 months per year to one of 13
months of 28 days each, plus the last day of June in each year as the yearday.
(He was appointed expert to League of Nations committee on calendar reform
(1922-31). In the course of researching the background to these reforms in
such places as Egypt and the Middle East, he began to conceive of the hidden
purpose of the stone circles and standing stones as calendrical markers and
regulators of a particular kind, and almost incidentally offered some useful
insights into the design of the mysterious 'Clog Calendar', which was widely
used in ancient times for measuring the passage of the days and relating these
to the festivals. Many of Cotsworth's notions are widely accepted today, but
when he first published his findings, in his remarkable book THE RATIONAL
ALMANAC, he was laughed to scorn. Among his more interesting proposals was the
recognition that the degree of 360 divisions of a circle was derived from the
lunarwidth measurement of a sunrise/sunset arc at the latitude of the
pyramids. He took the moon's vertical diameter of 31', and divided this into
the tropical arc (the variation between solstice points) of 46 minutes and 54
seconds to obtain 90 links or lunar (31') repetitions, which he proposed was
the earliest method of measuring sky curves and angles and from which
eventually developed the notion of there being 4 x 90' divisions in the entire
circle of the sky. He showed that the central tower of the Minster at York was
orientated in such a way as to reflect the sunrise/sunset on the longest and
shortest days thus, for example, the shortest day sunrise (December 22nd) is
on the SE corner of the tower, while the sunset is on the SW corner. He
developed notions of Silbury Hill as a sighting point for calendrical
measurements, and saw the construction of this extraordinary mound as being
done for much the same purposes as the pyramids. For more on Cotsworth, see
also: CLOG CALENDAR and STONEHENGE. # 702 COUDEL An early king of Northgalis who fell fighting against the Christians as
described in the ESTOIRE. # 156 COURECHOUSE The sword of King Ban. # 156 COVENTINA A river-goddess whose cult was centred upon the temple at Carrawburgh,
Northumberland. A relief depicts the triple goddess, each aspect holding up a
jar of water in one hand and pouring out water with the other. Local springs
were held in reverence as natural foci of divine energy.# 264 -
454 COW # 454: So central to the economy of Britain and Ireland was the cow in
early times that it was considered a unit of currency. In Ireland, for
instance, a slave-woman was worth three cows. Lords were called 'bo-aire' or
cow-lord. Until the last two hundred years, drovers' roads were the main
routes across country and , anciently, the two halves of the Celtic year were
determined by the movement of cattle: Beltaine marking their coming into
summer pasture and Samhain being the time when winter-slaughter of cattle was
undertaken, to lay down stocks of meat against the long cold time and to
conserve the strength of the herd. The cow was considered to be under the
special protection of Saint Brigit, who was invoked to keep the beasts in good
health and to promote their milk-yield and fertility. The bleached hide of
cows made the vellum upon which the very stories in this present book were
originally recorded by clerics. The cow is also under the protection of Saint
Colomba who would, however, not allow any on Iona because 'where a cow is,
there a woman is also, and where a woman is, trouble follows.' # 161: The cow appears frequently in Celtic mythology as a provider of
nourishment for entire communities, like the magic cows of Manannan, one
speckled, one dun, with twisted horns, who were always in milk. The chthonic
cow is depicted as red with white ears, and there are otherworld cows which
emerge from under the waters of a lake and numerous cows connected with
otherworld beings, with magic and supernatural powers. The WELSH TRIADS refer
to sacred otherworld cows and to the Three Prominent Cows of the Island of
Britain. # 161 - 225 - 454 CRADELMENT # 156: A king of Northgalis, one of those who rebelled against Arthur at
the outset of his reign. # 454: King of Norgalles (North Wales) in Arthur's
time, he was one of the rebel kings whom Arthur defeated at the beginning of
his reign. As the grandson of King Ryons, it is perhaps not surprising that he
is an unpleasant character. # 156 - 454 CRAEB RUAD (crav' roo'a) See: RED BRANCH. CRAFTINY CRAIFTINE # 562: King Scoriath's harper; sings Moriath's lovelay before Maon;
discovers Maon's secret deformity. # 454: He was harper to Labraid Longseach.
He gained his harp due to a peculiarity of his master's, for Labraid had
horse-ears. This blemish was kept secret from everyone lest Labraid be
deposed, but his barber knew and he was sworn to secrecy. However, he could
not restrain himself from telling a tree. This was cut down and made into a
harp for Craiftine but when it was played, it revealed the truth about the
King. Craiftine also harped the parents of Moriath to sleep so that Labraid
could love her. Cormac Cond Longes slept with Craiftine's wife, to revenge
which, Craiftine was a party to Comac's death, again by lulling him asleep. 08
- 454 - 562 CRAIG-Y-DINAS A rock in Wales which featured in a story told by Iolo Morgannwg. Iolo
Morgannwg was the bardic name of Edward Williams (1747-1826). He collected a
great deal of early Welsh lore but, as a bard, felt he could augment it.
Consequently he is not regarded as a reliable source. In Iolo's story a
Welshman, led by a magician, found Arthur and warriors sleeping in a cave
there, guarding treasure. A similar tale, narrated by J. Rhys, has a
Monmouthshire farmer as its protagonist. For tales of a similar nature set in
England, see ALDERLEY EDGE, and THOMPSON. A cave called O'gor Dinas near to
Llandebie was also thought to house the sleeping Arthur. # 156 -
554 CRAMPS These were often the penalty for annoying the fairies. Scolding and
ill-temper were specially punished in this way. See also: BLIGHTS AND
ILLNESSES ATTRIBUTED TO FAIRIES. # 100 CRANE # 161: Celtic mythology has both solar and underworld symbolism for the
crane. It is associated with the solar deities, especially in their healing
aspect; it is also depicted with weapons and battle objects. It is a
supernatural creature and appears riding on the bags of human-headed horses
and in connection with magic cauldrons. On an ancient altar in France three
cranes are depicted standing on the back of a bull. But the crane is also a
form of Pwyll, King of the Underworld, and as such a herald of death. A
completely contrary symbolism obtains in Gallic lore where the crane is a bad
omen, depicting meanness, parsimony and evil women. It is an attribute of the
Gaulish Mercury and Mars, and as such is connected with war and death. # 454:
The crane is no longer native to Britain, but there is a strong Celtic
tradition that cranes are people transmogrified into bird-shape, possibly for
a penance. Saint Columba turned a queen and his handmaid into cranes as a
punishment. One of the wonders of Ireland was supposed to be a crane which
lived on the island of InisKea, Co. Mayo; it has been there since the
beginning of the world and will live there until the day of judgement. The
imperturbable patience of the crane was associated with the Cailleach, and was
a secret, magical bird. Its skin went to make Manannan's Cranebag. # 161 - 225
- 454 - 563 CRANE BAG This receptacle for the ancient Hallows of Ireland was owned by Manannan
mac Lir. It was formed from the skin of Aoife, Manannan's son's mistress, who
had been changed into a crane because of her jealous behaviour. In it were
kept Manannan's house, shirt, knife, the belt and smith's hook of Goibniu, the
shears of the King of Alba, the helmet of the King of Lochlann, the belt of
fish-skin, and the bones of Asal's pig which the son of Tuirenn had been sent
to fetch by Lugh. The treasures were only visible at high-tide, at the ebbtide
they would vanish. The bag was passed from Manannan to Lugh, then to Cumhal
and finally to Fionn. The contents of the crane's bag correspond to the
Hallows of Annwn and to the treasures guarded by Twrch Trwyth. # 267 -
454 CREDNE # 562: The artificer of the Danaans. # 454: He helped forge the weapons for
the Tuatha de Danaan. He was a worker in bronze. He assisted Diancecht in
making Nuadu's silver hand and arm. # 166 - 454 - 562 CREIDDYLEDD # 156: A maiden over whom Gwyn, son of Nudd, and his followers fought the
followers of Gwythr, the son of Greidawl, at each May Kalends (or May Day) and
were fated to do so until Doomsday. The episode is taken from Celtic mythology
and the protagonists were probably originally divine figures. # 562: Daughter
of Lludd; combat for possession of her every May-day, between Gwythur ap
Greidawl and Gwyn ap Nudd. # 454: She eloped with Gwythyr ap Greidawl, but was
abducted by Gwynn ap Nudd before he could sleep with her. Arthur judged that
neither man should have her and that each should fight for her every May Day
until Judgement Day: whoever won on that occasion would be the winner. This
ancient motif recalls the mystery drama of the Winter and Summer combat for
the hand of the Flower Maiden, or Spring. This theme is also preserved within
the story of Tristan, Isolt and King Mark. And suggestion has been made (#
346) that Creiddyledd is the original of Shakespeare's CORDELIA. # 104 - 156 -
272 - 346 - 439 - 454 - 562 CREIDNE She was a woman warrior within the Fianna, having fled from where her
father had begotten three sons upon her. # 454 CREIRWY Daughter of Cerridwen and Tegid Foel. The Triads cite her as one of the
three fair maidens of Britain. # 272 - 439 - 454 CRICH (creh) A territory or a boundary. # 166 CRICH CUALANN (creh' coo'â lan) The District of Cuala, in what is now co. Wicklow, near
Dublin. # 166 CRIMBIL The Welsh for a changeling; quoted in BENDITH Y MAMAU. #
100 CRIMMAL Rescued by his nephew, Finn. # 562 CRIMTHANN (crif'han) Griffin, son of Fidach. High King of Ireland, cousin of Corc and
also his foster-father, brother of Mongfind. After Crimthann's wife
complained, unjustly, of Corc's attentions to her, he sent his cousin to the
King of the Picts with ogham inscriptions on his shield which only the Pictish
King could read - they indicated that the bearer should be slain. However,
Crimthann soon died and Corc returned home to the kingship. See also: CORC. #
166 - 454 CRIMTHANN NIA NAIR (crif'han ne'a na'ir) Son of Lugaid of the Red Stripes; King of Ireland;
killed in an attempt to slay CuChulain. # 166 CRODHMARA These are fairy cattle which give three times the amount of milk of an
ordinary beast. # 454 CROKER, THOMAS CRAFTON (1798-1854) The first field-collector of folk-tales in Ireland, and indeed
the first in the British Isles if we except Walter Scott. The first volume of
FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND appeared in 1823 when
Crofton Crooker was working in London as clerk to the Admiralty. It was an
immediate and immense success; Jacob Grimm translated it into German and Scott
wrote a lengthy and eugolistic letter which Croker printed in the second
volume of 1828. Croker met Sir Walter Scott, corresponded with Grimm, and
indeed with most of the leading folklorists of his time, and maintained a high
reputation as an authority on fairy-lore which has long outlasted his life. #
100 - 165 CROM CRUACH # 562: (crom croo'ach) Gold idol (equivalent, the Bloody Crescent) referred
to in 'Book of Leinster;' worship introduced by King Tiernmas. # 454: The gold
and silver image to which the Irish offered their first fruits and first-born
in pagan times. It stood on the plain of Mag Slecht in Ulster. It bent down to
Saint Patrick and was overcome, sinking back into the earth. # 454 -
562 CROMLECH See: DOLMENS. CRONOS Greek Cronos ate his children by Rhea - all except Zeus who escaped this
fate and caused Cronos to regurgitate his siblings. He then punished his
father by chaining him whilst asleep and imprisoning him on the island of
Ogygia. Cronos is the ruler of the Golden Age - a period of everlasting joy.
This legend has been amalgamated with those concerning British traditions of
the Blessed Islands of the West, wherein the Golden Age and the earthly
paradise combine to make a place of otherworldly peace. Cronos' legend runs as
an undercurrent through the career of Bran who rules over a similar
otherworldly realm. # 25 - 258 - 439 - 454 CROP-EARED DOG This earless, tailless creature who, despite his dogginess, was fully able
to converse in human speech, was one of the heroes of the Irish romance
EACHTRA AN MHADRA MHAOIL. He was an enchanted prince named Alexander, son of
the King of India. His step-mother, Libearn, had turned him and his brothers
into dogs to ensure that her son, the Knight of the Lantern, would obtain a
handsome inheritance. When this knight humiliated Arthur and his court, the
Crop-eared Dog and Gawain went to track him down. When their quarry had at
lenght been captured, he changed Alexander back to his own shape. Alexander
eventually became ruler of India. # 156 CROSS From the earliest days of Christianity the cross was believed to be a most
potent protective symbol against fairies and all evil spirits. It is even
possible that cross-roads had a pre-Christian significance, as sacred to the
god of limits and a place of sacrifice. The cross in all its forms was
protective - the 'saining' or crossing of one's own body or that of another, a
cross scratched on the ground or formed by four roads meeting, a cross of
wood, stone or metal set up by roadside, a cross worn as a trinket round the
neck, all these were believed to give substantial protection against devils,
ghosts or fairies. Sometimes this protection was reinforced by carrying a
cross of a particular material - of rowan wood, for instance, for this wood
was a protection of itself - or for trinkets crosses of coral or amber, both
of some potency. # 100 - 661 CROW # 701: 'Crow' really means a family of closely related carrion-eating birds
including the rook, raven, and carrion crow. One of the Goddess's archaic
forms, the crone Coronis, was a 'crow' who was transformed into the virgin
mother of the physician-god Asclepius; but other, similar forms appeared in
myths as harbingers of the hero's death. The Goddess Badb transformed herself
into a crow, Badb Catha, to confront the Celtic hero CuChulain and thereby
announce his doom. # 161: The white crow appears in Celtic lore as Branwen,
sister of Bran. Crows can be a form adopted by fairies, usually with ill
intent, and are therefore dreaded. # 454: Like the raven, crow is primaily associated with battle and death.
The Irish for 'crow' is 'badh', a name given to one of the battle-goddesses
associated with the Morrighan. The crow exemplifies the function of
assimilation and reintegration within the mythic structure.# 161-389 - 454 -
701 CRUACHAN AI (croo'â han) Rath Cruachan. Royal seat of Ailill and Medb, now Rathcroghan
between Belanagare and Elphin in co. Roscommon. # 166 CRUDEL Pagan king of Britain who threw Joseph of Arimathea and his followers into
prison, where they were sustained by the power of the Grail. The captives were
ultimately released by Mordrains and Seraphe, who had converted to
Christianity and become followers of the Grail. # 454 CRUNDCHU CRUNNCHU MAC AGNOMAN # 166: (crun'hoo) Son of Agnoman; # 562: Macha comes to dwell with
Crundchu. # 454: The husband of Macha who foolishly boasted his wife's prowess
and speed in the hearing of the king. She expired after having beaten the
king's race-horse, cursing Ulster with her last breath.#
166-367-454-562 CRYSTABELL Daughter of Sir Prinsamour in the romance of 'Sir Eglamour of Artoys'. Her
complex story includes a series of escapes and misunderstandings in which she
first loses her lover Eglamour, then her son, who is stolen by a griffin.
Later she accidently marries her own offspring, only to discover her mistake
in time to find Eglamour and marry him! # 454 CRYSTAL BALL A crystal ball two and a half inches in diameter surmounts the Scottish
scepter. The use of such balls has been traced back to the Druids. They were
still known as 'stones of power' in Sir Walter Scott's days. Another sphere of
smoky quartz, which the Scots called CAIRNGORM, is now in the possession of
the British Museum and is reputed to be the famous 'shew-stone' of Dr. Dee,
the court diviner to Queen Elizabeth I of England. See also: DEE, JOHN. #
701 CU CHULAINN (koo chul-inn or koo hoo lin) See: CUCHULAIN. CU ROI MAC DAIRE (coo' rô e moc da'i re) A powerful chieftain in Munster with great
otherworldly powers. He appropiated many otherworldly Hallows which the
Ulsterman had captured, including his wife, Blanaid, loved by CuChulain. She
deceived him and enabled CuChulain to kill him. Cu Roi disguised himself as
the Wild Herdsman and challenged the heroes of Ulster to play the Beheading
Game with him. He is the Celtic prototype of the Green Knight. His death was
avenged by Lugaid, his son. See also: CU ROI MAC DAIRI, THE TRAGIC DEATH OF. #
166 - 266 - 399 - 439 - 454 CU ROI MAC DAIRI, THE TRAGIC DEATH OF
The saga 'The tragic death of Cu Roi mac Dairi' is one of a group which
belong to the oldest parts of the Ulster cycle and which center around Cu Roi
mac Dairi, a half demonic personage with magic powers, who, according to
tradition, resided in the south of Ireland. He is associated especially with
Kerry, where the remains of a prehistoric fortification in the Slemish
Mountains are still known as Caher Conree, 'Cu Roi's City.' It is not
surprising that the composers of the Ulster cycle should conceive the idea of
representing their beloved hero, CuChulain, as victorious over this great
southern champion. CuChulain, being only a beardless youth, usually wins by
startegem rather than by open warfare. The story told in 'The Tragic Death of
Cu Roi mac Dairi' must have been widespread; there are numerous versions of it
in early Irish and its fame even spread across the channel into Wales. #
166 CU SITH (coo-shee) This, the Fairy Dog of the Highlands, was different from other
Celtic fairy hounds in being dark green in colour. It is described by J. G.
Campbell in SUPERSTITIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. It was the size of a
two-year-old stirk (yearling bullock). It was shaggy, with a long tail coiled
up on its back, or plaited in a flat plait. Its feet were enormous and as
broad as a man's; its great footmarks were often seen in mud or snow, but it
glided along silently, moving in a straight line. It did not bark continuously
when hunting, but gave three tremendous bays which could be heard by ships far
out at sea. As a rule the fairy dogs were kept tied up inside the Brugh to be
loosed on intruders, but sometimes they went with women looking for human
cattle to milk or to drive into the sithein, and sometimes a cu sith would be
allowed to roam about alone, taking shelter in the clefts of the rocks. This
cu sith would be terribly formidable to mortal men or dogs, but those loosed
in the Brugh in J. F. Campbell's tale of the 'Isle of Sanntragh' were driven
back by the mortal dogs when they approached human habitations. Bran, Finn's
elfin dog, was different in appearance. Other fairy dogs are generally white
with red ears, and the commonest supernatural dogs in England are Black Dogs.
# 100 - 130 - 131 CUACHAG (cooachack) According to Mackenzie in SCOTTISH FOLK LORE AND FOLK LIFE, and
also to Professor W. J. Watson in HISTORY OF CELTIC PLACENAMES IN SCOTLAND,
the Cuachag was a Fuath. It was a river sprite, which haunted Glen Cuaich in
Inverness-shire, which is connected to it by name. Like all the Fuathan, it is
a dangerous spirit. # 100 - 415 - 707 CUALGNE, CATTLERAID OF - QUALGNY - COOLEY
(koo ile nyeh) Táin Bó Cualgne. 'The Cattle-Raid of Cooley' is the central
epic of the Ulster cycle. It exists in several versions, the oldest of which
goes back probably to the eight century. The tale opens with the famous
'Pillow-Talk' - a racy dialogue between Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connacht and her
hen-pecked husband, Ailill. The queen, on finding that her possessions equal
those of her husband, except for one bull, the White-Horned of Connacht,
determines to make up the deficiency by gaining possession of the most famous
bull in Ireland, the Donn of Cooley, which is the property of Daire, a
chieftain of Ulster. When Medb learns that she cannot obtain the Donn as a
loan, she determines to take the animal by force and gathers an army to invade
Ulster. Owing to the temporary debility of all the adult warriors of Ulster,
the seventeen-year-old CuChulain undertakes to oppose Medb's host
single-handed. When Medb hears of CuChulain, she inquires about him from the
Ulster exiles in her army and learns of his boyish exploits. As the result of an agreement between Medb and CuChulain, the Ulster
champion meets at a ford on the border of the two provinces a single Connacht
warrior each day over a period extending from Samhain (the beginning of winter
1 November) till the day of spring. The men of Connacht finally succeed in
invading Ulster and carrying off the Donn of Cooley, but they are later
defeated by the Ulstermen, now restored to their normal strenght. The Donn of
Cooley, after slaying the WhiteHorned of Connacht, returns to his native
district and utters mad bellowings of triumph till his heart bursts and he
dies. In spite of obvious imperfections, THE CATTLE-RAID OF COOLEY is a
splendid example of an epic in the making. It shows many evidences of literary
artistry and is not without passages of marked power and impressiveness. The
combat between CuChulain and his friend Ferdiad is one of the most famous
passages in early Irish literature. Cualgne corresponding roughly to the
modern parish of Cooley in co. Louth. # 166 - 562 CUCHULAIN # 166: ( koo hoo lin or koo chul-inn ) # 562: Ulster Hero in Irish saga;
duel with Ferdia; son of Lugh and Dectera; loved and befriended by goddess
Morrigan; his strange birth; earliest name Setanta; 'his praise will be in the
mouths of all men' said Druid Morann. His name derived from the hound of
Cullan; claims arms of manhood from Conor; wooes Emer; Laeg, his charoteer;
Skatha instructs, in Land of Shadows; overcomes Aifa; father of Connla by
Aifa; slays Connla; returns to Erin; slays Foill and his brothers; met by
women of Emania; leaps 'the hero's salmon leap'; the winning of Emer;
proclaimed the Champion of Ireland by The Terrible; places Maev's host under
GEISE; slays Orlam; battle-frenzy and RIASTRADH of CuChulain; compact with
Fergus; The Morrigan offers him love; threatens to be about his feet in bottom
of Ford; attacked by the Morrigan while engaged with Loch; slays Loch; Ferdia
consents to go out against him; Ferdia reproached by CuChulain; their
struggle; slays Ferdia; severely wounded by Ferdia; roused from stupor by
sword-play of Fergus; rushes into battle of Garach; CuChulain in Fairyland;
loved by Fand; vengeance of Maev upon CuChulain; Blanid, Curoi's wife, sets
her love on him; Bave personates Niam before; the Morrigan croaks of war
before him in his madness; Dectera and Cathbad urge him wait for Conall of the
Victories ere setting forth to battle; the Washer at the Ford seen by
CuChulain; Clan Calatin cause him to break his GEISE; he finds his foes at
Slieve Fuad; the Grey of Macha mortally wounded takes farewell of CuChulain;
he is mortally wounded by Lewy (Lugaid); his remaining horse, Black Sainglend,
breaks away from him; Lewy slays outright; his death avenged by Conall of the
Victories; reappears in later legend of Christian origin found in BOOK OF THE
DUN COW; St Patrick's summons from Hell to prove the truths of Christianity to
the pagan king. The Hero. CuChulain son of Sualtam, but really the son of Lugh. The great
Ulster hero, guardian of the Sacred Land. Like many heroes in ancient myth, he
bridges the human and divine, with parents in both worlds. His entire life is
set about with magical obligations and portents, and his sole function is to
defend his people and their land, even at the expence of his own life. # 454: Hero of the Red Branch Knights of Ulster. He was the son of Dechtire
and Lugh. His birth name was Setanta but he gained his adult name after
killing the fierce hound of Conchobar's smith Culainn. In recompence for the
loss, Setanta agreed to guard Culainn's forge until a suitable dog could be
found, and so he became Cu Chulainn (Hound of Culainn). He was fostered and
trained by the best men in Ulster. He wooed Emer, but her father would not
accept him until he had trained with Scathach of Alba. He fought her rival,
Aoife and lay with her engendering his only son, Conlaoch, whom he later
killed unknowingly. He was famed for his great skills: the salmon-leap, which
enabled him to leap over obstacles, and his use of the gaebolg, the great
spear which inflicted the death-blow. (This weapon corresponds to the spear of
Lugh, his father, whom he represents in mortal realms.) He accepted the
challenge of the club-carrying giant (Cu Roi mac Daire, in disguise) to the
Beheading Game at Bricriu's Feast at which he was proclaimed supreme champion
of Ulster. He later killed Cu Roi mac Daire who had humiliated him by shaving
his (CuChulain's) head, with the help of Blanaid. He defended Ulster
single-handed at the ford when Maeve of Connacht came against them: Ulster's
warriors were prostrate and enfeebled by the curse of Macha. Only CuChulain
(who was not a native Ulsterman) was able to fight on their behalf. He
accepted many single-combats, slaying all comers until Maeve sent his old
friend and fellow-pupil, Ferdiad, whom he reluctantly killed. He was finally overcome by Lugaid, son of Cu Roi mac Daire, with the help
of the daughters of Calatin. He bound himself upright to a pillar-stone in
order to face the imaginary host which had been conjured up by his opponents.
His death was avenged by Conall Cernach. CuChulain's battle-frenzy was
renowned: his body contorted itself horribly, blood spurted from his head in a
great gush and his anger was unquenchable unless a host of women were sent out
naked to meet his chariot. His sword was Cruaidin Cailidcheann (Hard-Headed).
His two horses which yoked his chariot were called Liath Macha and Dubh
Sanglainn. CuChulain loved many women apart from his wife, but he refused the
love of the Morrighan who became his implacable enemy, causing him to forsake
his geasa. His adventures and exploits can only be suggested in this entry. He
corresponds to Conchobar as Gawain does to Arthur. # 100: The unusual features of his appearance were that he had seven pupils
in each eye, seven fingers on each hand and even seven toes on each foot. His
cheeks were streaked yellow, green, blue and red. His hair was dark at the
roots, red as it grew out and fair at the tips. He was bedizened with
ornaments, a hundred strings of jewels on his head and a hundred golden
brooches on his chest. Such was his appearance in times of peace, and it was
apparently admired. When he was seized by war frenzy he was completely
changed. He turned round inside his own skin, so that his feet and knees were
to the rear and his calves and buttocks were to the front. His long hair stood
on end and each hair burned with a spark of fire, a jet of flame came out of
his mouth and a great arch of black blood spouted from the top of his head.
One eye shot out on to his cheek and the other retreated back into his skull;
on his forehead shone 'the hero's moon'. His frenzy was so great that he had
to be plunged into three vats of icy water to bring him down to normal
temperature. These strange transformations seem to have been characteristic of
heroes, for something similar is reported of Lancelot of the Lake in LANCELET,
the German translation of a twelft-century romance. Eleanor Hull's book THE
CUCHULLIN SAGA gives a scolarly account of the whole legend. # 62: The pagan Iron-Age Celtic world of Ulster (ancient Ulaid) is
graphically preserved, albeit as a mythological fantasy, in the Ulster cycle
of early Irish storytelling. The young hero of the tales was CuChulain, who
bears some resemblance to the Welsh Pryderi: both births are associated with
colts which the heroes later own, and both are renamed later in life. These
stories served as an education for young Celtic noblemen, the vivid heroic
characters providing them with models of youthful warrior behaviour. Details
such as the miniature weapons and sports equipment reflect the military and
athletic training of them. # 62 - 100 - 166 - 266 - 329 - 454 - 507 - 562 -
628 p 70 -653 CUCHULAIN, THE BIRTH OF # 166: Cuchulain is the greatest figure in ancient Irish heroic literature.
He has been appropriately compared to Achilles in Greek and to Siegfried in
Germanic tradition. The story-tellers of ancient Ireland never tired of
recounting his deeds and attributing to him new exploits. His original name,
Setanta, appears to go back to remote times, and it is possible that he may be
a personage adopted by the Gaels from a still older population. The story of
his birth, composed originally in the eighth or ninth century, exists in two
versions, one of which is a combination of several conflicting accounts.
According to what seems the oldest tradition, CuChulain was the son of the
Tuatha De Danann prince Lugh and Dechtire (or Dechtine), the sister of King
Conchobar of Ulster. Later accounts represent him as son of Conchobar by his
own sister, or of the princess and Sualtam (or Sualtach), a petty chieftain of
Ulster, who is generally regarded as her mortal husband. The version here
mentioned, though probably later than that found in the oldest manuscripts, is
less obviously a patchwork of several accounts. Throughout his short but
brilliant career CuChulain reveals his supernatural origin. Even as a child of
five years he possesses remarkable strength and skill; when only six he slays
the terrible watchdog of Culann the Smith, thereby winning the name 'Hound of
Culann' (CuChulain); at seven he becomes a full-fledged warrior; at seventeen
he holds at bay the entire army of Connacht and her allies; and he is only
twenty-seven when he meets his death, fighting against overpowering odds. # 236: 'The Birth of CuChulain' exists in two quite different versions, one
going back, in written form, to the (now lost) Book of Druimm Snechtai, the
other being somewhat later; it is the earlier version that Jeffrey Gantz
present in his book 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas'. CuChulain, like Conare Mar,
has two fathers, but the story of his birth is clearly corrupt. In the
original version, Lug must have come to Deichtine (perhaps as a bird) in the
strange house and slept with her and left her pregnant; in this version,
Deichtine's visit to the Bruig accomplishes nothing, and there is no
connection between Lug and the tiny creature in the copper vessel. Lug himself
was one of the most important Irish deities. His continental counterpart, who was probably named Lugos, is identified by
Caesar as the Celtic Mercury and the most important of the Celtic gods, and he
gave his name to a number of European towns, including Lyon, Leiden and
Liegnitz (Legnica). In Irish literature, Lug is the most prominent of the
Tuatha De Danann in 'The Second Battle of Mag Tured'; while it is thus
appropriate that CuChulain, the greatest Irish hero, should be his son, the
tradition that makes him so may not be very old. The last section of the story
represents a not very refined attempt to explain why CuChulain was known as
the son of Sualtaim when his real father was Lug. Like the birth of the Welsh
hero Pryderi, the birth of CuChulain is contemporaneous with the birth of a
horse; and each hero subsequently receives the animal as a gift. CuChulain's
birth, however, is marked by other portents: the appearance and guidance of
the flock of birds, which clearly is from the otherworld, and the great
snowfall. The event takes place, oddly, at Bruig na Boinde (New Grange), a
site associated with the mythological tales and not with those about the
Ulaid, but it may have been chosen to underline the assertion that he is of
divine origin. That CuChulain is the son of Conchobar's sister suggests a
system of matrilinear descent in Ireland. CuChulain is also like Pryderi in that the name by which he is best known
is not the one he is given at birth. His original name, Setanta, means 'one
who has knowledge of roads and ways' and would have been suitable for a
divinity whose influence was widespread. # 166 - 236 CUCHULAIN, THE BOYHOOD DEEDS OF # 166: Among the most striking of the many narratives dealing with
CuChulain is a group of episodes from his childhood. The incidents in the
selection brought in Cross and Slover's ANCIENT IRISH TALES not only serve to
illustrate his precocity, a trait which is widespread among heroes of the
folk, but also to exemplify the conditions of child-fosterage among the
ancient Irish. This and other tales of CuChu-lain's youth are incorporated in
the great Ulster epic 'The Cattle-Raid of Cooley', where they are represented
as told to King Ailill and Queen Medb of Connacht by several of the Ulster
exiles enlisted in the Connacht army. They form a body of tradition which was
probably old at the time when the epic was composed. # 236: In Jeffrey Gantz's 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas' is 'The Boyhood
Deeds of CuChulain' presented in the earlier, less refined Lebor na huidre
version. Fergus and a number of other Ulaid(the Irish name for Ulster)
chieftains have transferred their allegiance to Connachta in protest at
Conchobar's treacherous slaying of the sons of Uisliu; and now, with the
Connachta about to attack Ulaid, the exiles are describing to Ailill and Medb
the boyhood feats of the great hero of the north. The first exploit recalls
the opening episode of the Welsh tale 'Peredur': a naive, callow youth leaves
his unwilling mother (he does not have a father, possibly because his real
father is understood to be either royal or divine) and goes forth to find his
proper companions (the boy troop of Emuin Machae in the one case, the knights
of King Arthur's court in the other). CuChulain's feats with his ball and
hurley and toy javelin and his complete dominance over the boy troop are
superhuman and at the same time pure play; Peredur, though merely precocious,
is yet more mature, for, as well as outrunning deer, he dispatches enemy
knights and even kisses women. The second extract explains how CuChulain once
saved Conchobar in battle. Even at this early stage of the Ulster Cycle,
Conchobar's role has deteriorated; and already CuChulain, as his sister's son,
appears as his natural heir. The third extract explains how Setanta came to be
known as CuChulain. Such stories are common in Irish saga, but this
explanation is unusually convincing - why else would a young hero be called
the 'Hound of Culand'? The mystery is rather in why the central character of
the Ulster Cycle, a figure whose divine origin is manifest, should have been
given a name so much more appropriate to a mortal hero, especially when his
original name suits him so well. In the case of both Pryderi and CuChulain, there are objections to the new
name: Rhiannon asks whether her son's own name does not suit him better, while
CuChulain himself expresses a preference for his original name; but, in each
case, the advice of a wise elder (the Chieftain of Dyved in the Welsh tale,
Cathub in the Irish one) prevails. The fourth extract seems modelled on the
tradition that Achilles chose a short life in order to win great fame. The
episode at the end, where CuChulain is seized by his riastarthae, or battle
fury, and has to be cooled off in vats of water, is entirely typical of him,
as is his shyness in the presence of bare-brested women. The antiquity of
these extracts is open to doubt: the mythic element is slight, and there is
considerable humour. # 166 - 236 CUCHULAIN, THE DEATH OF Near to Slieve Fuad, south of Armagh, CuChulain found the host of his
enemies, and drove furiously against them, plying the champion's
'thunder-feat' upon them until the plain was strewn with their dead. Then a
satirist, urged on by Lewy, came near him and demanded his spear (it was a
point of honour to refuse nothing to a bard; one king is said to have given
his eye when it was demanded of him). 'Have it, then,' said CuChulain, and
flung it at him with such force that it went clean through him and killed nine
men beyond. 'A king will fall by that spear,' said the Children of Calatin to
Lewy, and Lewy seized it and flung it at CuChulain, but it smote Laeg, the
king of charioteers, so that his bowels fell out on the cushions of the
chariot, and he bade farewell to his master and he died. Then another satirist demanded the spear, and CuChulain said: 'I am not
bound to grant more than one request on one day.' But the satirist said: 'Then
I will revile Ulster for thy default,' and CuChulain flung him the spear as
before, and Erc now got it, and this time in flying back it struck the Grey of
Macha with a mortal wound. CuChulain drew out the spear from the horse's side,
and they bade each other farewell, and the Grey galloped away with half the
yoke hanging to its neck. And a third time CuChulain flung the spear to a satirist, and Lewy took it
again and flung it back, and it struck CuChulain, and his bowels fell out in
the chariot, and the remaining horse, Black Sainglend, broke away and left
him. 'I would fain go as far as to that loch-side to drink,' said CuChulain,
knowing the end was come, and they suffered him to go when he had promised to
return to them again. So he gathered up his bowels into his breast and went to
the loch-side, and drank, and bathed himself, and came forth again to die. Now
there was close by a tall pillar-stone that stood westwards of the loch, and
he went up to it and slung his girdle over it and round his breast, so that he
might die in his standing and not in his lying down; and his blood ran down in
a little stream into the loch, and an otter came out of the loch and lapped
it. And the host gathered round, but feared to approach him while the life was
still in him, and the hero-light shone above his brow. Then came the Grey of
Macha to protect him, scattering his foes with biting and kicking. And then
came a crow and settled on his shoulder. Lewy, when he saw this, drew near and
pulled the hair of CuChulain to one side over his shoulder, and with his sword
he smote off his head; and the sword fell from CuChulain's hand and smote off
the hand of Lewy as it fell. They took the hand of CuChulain in revenge for
this, and bore the head and hand south to Tara, and there buried them, and
over them raised a mound. But Conall of the Victories, hastening to
CuChulain's side on the news of the war, met the Grey of Macha streaming with
blood, and together they went to the loch-side and saw him head-less and bound
to the pillar-stone, and the horse came and laid its head on his breast.
Conall drove southwards to avenge CuChulain, and he came on Lewy by the river
Liffey, and because Lewy had but one hand Conall tied one of his behind his
back, and for half the day they fought, but neither could prevail. Then came
Conall's horse, the Dewy-Red, and tore a piece out of Lewy's side, and Conall
slew him, and took his head, and returned to Emain Macha. But they made no
show of triumph in entering the city, for CuChulain the Hound of Ulster was no
more. # 562 CUCHULAIN, THE PHANTOM CHARIOT OF The Christian writers of early Ireland were more kindly disposed toward
their native pagan traditions than were the other newly converted peoples of
medieval Europe. Holy men associate freely with fairy beings, St Patrick
listens with delight to the exploits of Finn and Oisin, and he even uses his
divine power to call back CuChulain from the grave that the stiff-necked
Loegaire, pagan high-king of Ireland, may be led to accept the new faith.
Whoever conceived the idea of bringing together the most distinguished ancient
pagan champion and the most beloved of Christian saints had a truly poetic
imagination. # 166 CUCHULAIN, THE SICK BED OF This, like numerous other early Irish sagas, is a compilation based on
several versions of the same story. The tale in its earliest form probably
told how a mortal hero, having fallen under a fairy spell, was lured by the
fairy people to the Happy Otherworld, where he was healed of his malady or
assisted the supernatural folk in their tribal feuds. In Cross' and Slover's
ANCIENT IRISH TALES, the present form of the story the double visits of the
fairy messengers to the ailing CuChulain, the double account of Loeg's
experiences in the fairy realm, as well as other repetitions and
inconsistencies are the result of the unskilled work of the compiler and
interpolater to whom the oldest extant versions are due. Noteworthy also is
the fact that in this tale, as in THE WOOING OF EMER, CuChulain's wife Emer
plays a prominent part. # 236: 'The Wasting Sickness of CuChulain & The
Only Jealousy of Emer' is one of the more remarkable Irish tales: part myth,
part history, part soap opera. Even the text is unusual, for it is a
conflation of two different versions. After the first quarter of the tale,
there appears an interpolation (which is omitted in the translation brought in
J. Gantz: 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas') detailing CuChulain's advice to
Lugaid Reoderg after the latter has been made king of Temuir; when the story
proper resumes, CuChulain is married to Emer instead of to Eithne Ingubai, and
Loeg is making a second trip to the otherworld with Li Ban. The two versions
have not been well integrated, and much evidence of confusion and duplication
remains; but it is hard to say which tradition is older. Throughout the rest
of the Ulster Cycle CuChulain's wife is named Emer, just as Conchobar's is
named Mugain and not Eithne Attenchaithrech. The story opens on a historical
note, with a description of how the Ulaid celebrated Samuin (Samhain), the
annual end-of-the-year assembly; but the arrival of beautiful,
red-gold-chained, otherworld birds on the lake at Mag Muirthemni and the
appearance of the women, one in green and one in crimson, who beat CuChulain
with horsewhips testify to the story's mythic origin. The central idea is also
that of the first section of the Welsh 'Pwyll Lord of Dyved': the shadowy
rulers of the otherworld have need of mortal strength; the pursuit of the hero
by the otherworld beauty, moreover, is common to the second section of
'Pwyll'. Much of the tale is related in verse, and, while the poetry is
neither particularly old nor particularly dense, it is clear and brilliant and
affecting: At the doorway to the east, Near the end of the tale, the tone shifts towards the psychological an
unusual circumstance in these stories - as Fand and Emer fight over CuChulain;
the writing, which seems very literary at this point, is emotional but never
sentimental. Even the poetry assumes a gnomic quality: Emer complains that
'what's new is bright ... what's familiar is stale', while Fand merely points
out that 'every rule is good until broken'. Although Fand ultimately yields -
after CuChulain has been moved by Emer's plea - she admits that she still
prefers CuChulain to her own husband; CuChulain, seeing her leave, wanders
madly into the mountains of Ulaid (Ulster), and it requires the spell of
Conchobar's druids and Manandan's magic cloak to make him forget. The story is the original source for Yeats's play THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF
EMER. # 166 - 236 CUGHTAGH (cootah) A cave-dwelling spirit, but, according to Gill in A SECOND MANX
SCRAPBOOK, the Cughtagh is seldom mentioned now, though the creature is merged
into the class of cave-haunting Bugganes. Gill thinks that the Highland
Ciuthach, now a disagreeable cave spirit, but earlier a more noble character,
a chivalrous giant, is closely related to it. # 100 -
249 CUIMHNE She was a cailleach who assisted Mongan to retrieve his wife, Dub Lacha
from Brandubh. She magically changed into a beautiful woman so that Brandubh
was willing to exchange Dubh Lacha for her. After Mongan and his wife has
gone, she resumed her normal hag-like appearance. This is one of the only
instances when the transformatory hag after having become beautiful resumes
her former shape, although this is threatened by Ragnell in the Gawain and
Ragnell story. # 208 - 454 CUIRITHIR He was a poet who loved Liadin. When she refused to marry him and became a
nun, he became a monk. He was exiled from Ireland after which Liadin died of
grief. # 454 CULHWCH # 454: Son of Celyddon Wledig, nephew of Arthur. His mother, Goleuddydd,
bore him after having been terrified by the sight of pigs, so that he was
called Culhwch or Pig-Sty. His father remarried on the death of Goleuddydd.
Culhwch's stepmother laid a gease upon Culhwch that he should marry none other
than Olwen, the daughter of Yspaddaden Pencawr, the giant. He went to Arthur's
court and there demanded, in the names of all present, that his uncle help him
procure Olwen. At the court of Yspaddaden, Culhwch was given thirty-nine
'anoethu' or impossible tasks, which must be fulfilled before he can marry
Olwen, all of which are performed with the help of Arthur's court. The chief
task was to hunt the Twrch Trwyth, a giant boar, for which are required many
particular horses, hounds and men, including Mabon, the wondrous youth, whose
finding is narrated in this story. Other tasks include the voyage of Arthur to
the Underworld in order to obtain some of the Hallows or Thirteen Treasures of
Britain - a feat which is likewise related in a ninth-century Welsh poem, the
Preiddu Annwn. Yspaddaden's power is overthrown and Culhwch marries Olwen.
See: HALLOWS. # 156: With the aid of Arthur's men, Culhwch performed some of these tasks
and married Olwen. The question arises as to why Culhwch did not perform all
the tasks on the list. Commentators are not sure whether this was due to mere
carelessness on the part of the composer of the romance or whether a portion
of the story became lost in transmission. See: WRNACH. ># 104 - 156 - 272 -
346 - 378 - 399 - 439 - 454 CULLAN His feast to King Conor in Quelgny; CuChulain slays his hound; CuChulain
named the 'Hound of Cullan'; his daughter declared responsible for Finn's
enchantment. # 562 CUMAL (coo'val) A female slave; also a designation of value equal to three cows.
# 166 CUMHAL (coo'al) Chief of the Clan Morna, son of Trenmôr, husband of Murna of the
White Neck, the father of Finn; slain at battle of Knock. #
562 CUNDRIE KUNDRIE # 156: The name of two women in Wolfram: 1. A Grail damsel learned in star
lore. She told Perceval that his wife and sons had been summoned to the Grail
Castle and that the Grail Question would now free Anfortas and his family. 2.
Daughter of Arthur's sister Sangive and Lot. She married Lischois. # 454: The
name, in Parzival, of the Loathly Lady who also mocks and helps the Grail
Knight on his quest. She is analogous to Sovereignty in her hag-like aspect. #
156 - 451 - 454 - 461 - 748 CUNEDDA A ruler of the Votadini in North Britain who migrated with a number of his
subjects to Wales round about AD 430. He rid a large part of Wales of Irish
settlers. His pedigree suggests that his was a Roman family in origin, running
as follows: Tacitus - Paternus - Aeternus Cunedda. According to BRUT Y
BRENHINEDD, a medieval Welsh history, Cunedda's daughter, Gwen, was the mother
of Eigyr (Igraine), Arthur's mother, thus making Cunedda Arthur's
great-grandfather (# 35). Cunedda may have married Gwawl, daughter of Coel. #
57 - 156 CUNOBELINUS King of the Catuvellani who, in the first century, made himself ruler of a
considerable part of south Britain. He is the king called Cymbeline by
Shakespeare. In Welsh tradition he is a relation of Arthur. #
156 CUP # 701: Symbolism of the cup is complex, beginning with matriarchal images
of the womb vessel and passing on to its patriarchal replacement, another kind
of blood-filled chalice of resurrection. To medieval pagans, witches, and
alchemical mystics the cup was a universal symbol of the mother element, water
- especially the waters of the sea womb that was supposed to have given birth
to the earth and all that lived on it. In Celtic tradition the magic cup from
the sea meant Truth. It would break in three pieces if three lies were spoken
over it, but if three truths were spoken over it, it would recover. # 399 -
701 p 132 CUP OF THE LAST SUPPER Identical with the Grail. Equivalent, the Magic Cauldron. #
562 CUP-AND-RING-MARKINGS # 562: No light on the meaning of Cup-and Ring-Markings in connection with
Megalithic monuments; Example in Dupaix' 'Monuments of New Spain;'
reproduction in Lord Kingsborough's 'Antiquities of Mexico.' # 82: Strange
carved stones, globe- or drum-shaped, have been found at various sites in
Britain, and have remained one of the mysteries of archaeology, but these
artefacts could well be earlier forms of cursing stones or psychic generators.
This idea could also be extended to include such enigmas as cup and ring
marks and other prehistoric rock carvings. Pavlita* has found that his
generators can release their energy and cause small wheels to turn, or are
able to charge a rod which can then be used to pick up non-ferrous metals and
minerals. They have also been used to increase plant growth and slightly alter
the molecular structure of water. Such experiments, and others being conducted
today, indicate the feasibility of a belief in the ability of one mind to
influence another at a distance. If we relate this knowledge to the cursing
stones, it seems possible that wishes, prayers, and curses were able to be
placed into stones and the beneficent or maleficent energy released later to
have its effect upon the intended recipient. Alternatively, the effect on concentrating on the 'staring pattern' on the
cursing stones, bringing the full force of the sender's malice into play,
could have resulted in the malice being transmitted telepathically and
instantaneously to the unfortunate recipient. If we extend this idea and
suggest that cup and ring marks and other prehistoric rock carvings were also
intended to work as 'staring patterns', perhaps they could have been used to
help produce or distribute the earth current, by concentration as already
described. The widespread distribution of such enigmatic carvings throughout the
British Isles, as described by Evan Hadingham in his ANCIENT CARVINGS IN
BRITAIN, gives strength to this possibility. * (from Ostrander and Schroeder's: PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES BEHIND THE IRON
CURTAIN). # 47 - 82 - 462 - 562 CURETANA
*Since the creation of the world. # 156 - 476
three trees of brilliant crystal,
whence
a gentle flock of birds calls
to the children of the royal fort.
The sword of Holger. See: OGIER. # 156
CUROI
(cur REE) Father of Lewy, husband of Blanid; slain by CuChulain. # 562
CUSCRAID
(coos'cri) The 'Stammerer'. Son of Conor mac Nessa (Conchobar); wounded through the throat by Cet mac Matach; under Debility curse. # 166 - 562
CUSTENNIN
# 562: Brother of Yspaddaden; assists Culhwch (Kilhwch) in his quest for Olwen. # 454: The giant herdsman who guards the flocks of Yspaddaden Pencawr, who deprived him of his living and inhabited his lands. His twenty-four sons were all destroyed by the giant, except Goreu, whom his mother hid in a cupboard. He aids Culhwch and his companions to defeat Yspaddaden, although it is Goreu who eventually avenges his father. # 272 - 439 - 454 - 562
CUTHBERT, SAINT
(634-87) He became a monk of the Celtic Church after receiving a vision of Saint Aidan's spirit ascending to heaven. After the synod of Whitby (see Saint Hilda), when Celtic customs were brought into line with the universal church of Rome, he accepted the reformations and became Prior of Lindisfarne. He was a life-long misogynist. A legend tells that he had been falsely accused of fathering a child and he swore never to allow a woman to approach him again. There is still in Durham Cathedral, where he is buried, a line supposedly demarking the portion of the church forbidden to women. His love of animals offsets this attitude. His long hours of prayer standing upright in the sea were relieved by the breath of seals who dried him after his labours. His feast-day is 20 March. # 454
CWN ANNWN
(koon anoon) The Welsh hell hounds, something of the same kind as the Gabriel Ratchets, the Wish Hounds and the Seven Whistlers. Like these they are death portents, but they do not, like the Devil's Dandy Dogs, do actual destruction. Sikes in BRITISH GOBLINS describes their howl, which grows softer as they draw closer. Near at hand they sound like a cry of small beagles, but in the distance their voice is full of lamentation. Sometimes a voice sounds among the pack like the cry of an enormous bloodhound, deep and hollow. To hear them is taken as a certain prognostication of death. They are usually white with redtipped ears. Pwyll encountered them when he met Arawn's hunt. # 100 - 596
CYCLE OF FINN, OSSIAN, AND THEIR COMPANIONS, THE
The third of the great cycles of Irish heroic literature is known as the Finn, or Ossianic cycle. According to the Irish annals, Finn flourished during the third century after Christ, but the earliest references to him in literature do not appear until several hundred years later, and the vast majority of the tales about him are found in manuscripts dating from the twelfth and later centuries. These accounts, composed at various times from the Middle Ages down to the nineteenth century, differ greatly in their conceptions of Finn. Though all regard him as the chief of a Fián, or warrior band, among whom the most distinguished heroes are his son Oisin (Ossian) and his grandson Oscar, one group of tales represents him as the head of a sort of national militia in the employ of one of the high-kings of Ireland, usually Conn the Hundred-Fighter; another, as powerful enough to oppose the high-king; while a third, perhaps the latest, elevates him to a position superior to all opponents, portraying him as a slayer of monsters, a general benefactor of his country, and above all, a national defender of Ireland against foreign invaders, especially the dreaded Vikings. The Finn cycle differs markedly from that of Ulster. The tales are much more numerous and were in general written down at a much later date than those of Ulster. Moreover, few of them furnish linguistic evidence of having been composed before the twelfth century, nor do they as a rule contain references to ancient manners and customs such as those that give the Ulster epics their value as pictures of preChristian culture. Whereas the Ulster tales, as we have seen, are usually written in prose interspersed with semi-lyric passages in verse, the Finn material contains not only narratives in prose but also many poems of the ballad type. Though few tales of the Ulster cycle have been preserved in modern Irish folk-lore, the exploits of Finn and his companions have formed a part of the popular literature of Gaelic-speaking Ireland and Scotland from the Middle Ages to the present day. In other words, the Ulster epic appears to have been from the eighth or ninth century the literary property of the aristocracy, while the Finn material was perhaps from the beginning the literature of the folk and consequently was more or less modernized by each succeeding generation of folk poets and popular story-tellers. As to the origin of the Finn epic, much remains yet to be learned. It appears from early references in the annals and other sources that Finn's company was only one of many Fiána, or bands of warriors which existed in ancient Ireland and were a recognized feature of the social system. Since the oldest traditions represent Finn as having his chief stronghold on the hill of Almu, the modern Allen, near Kildare, it has been inferred that his Fián belonged to Leinster. Opposed to Finn are other Fiána, especially the Fián of Goll mac Morna, which is identified with Connacht. According to one view, the Fiána of Finn and his opponents were bands of soldiers levied by the ruling Milesian high-kings upon the older subject peoples of Ireland. These bands were forced to be ready to take up arms at any time and consequently were prevented from earning a livelihood by continuous application to the occupations of peace. Hence they lived in war times by depredation and in peace by hunting. Professor Eoin MacNeill calls the Finn epic the 'epic of a subject race' and thus explains the scarcity of Finn material in the earliest Irish manuscripts as well as the continued popularity of the Finn ballads and stories among the folk. # 166
CYCLES THE, OF IRISH LEGEND
The Mythological; the Ultonian; Ossianic; Certain stories of Ultonian, not centred on Cuchulain; the Ossianic and Ultonian contrasted. The Mythological Cycle comprises the following: 1. The coming of Partholan into Ireland. 2. The coming of Nemed into Ireland. 3. The coming of the Firbolgs into Ireland. 4. The invasion of the TUATHA DE DANANN, or People of the god Dana. 5.The invasion of the Milesians (Sons of Miled) from Spain, and their conquest of the People of Dana. # 562
CYFARWYDDION
(Ki-Varud-jion) The traditional story-teller in Wales. They preserved genres of story, each with its own magical spell. The oral memory of the Celts was impressive even by the standards of non-literate societies. The memorization of 250 prime stories and 100 secondary stories was part of the curriculum of a Celtic poet in her twelveyear training period. After the conquest of the Celtic realms, these stories were zealously retained and passed down to worthy recipients. See also: SEANACHIES. # 437 p 12 ff
CYHYRAETH
(kerher'righth) The Welsh form of the Highland Caoineag (the Weeper). Unlike the Gwrach Rhibyn, it is seldom seen, but is heard groaning before a death, particularly multiple deaths caused by an epidemic or disaster. Sikes in BRITISH GOBLINS gives several oral accounts of the Cyhyraeth. Prophet Jones describes the noise it made as 'a doleful, dreadful noise in the night, before a burying'. Joseph Coslet of Carmarthenshire was more explicit. He said that the sound was common in the neighbourhood of the river Towy, 'a doleful, disagreeable sound heard before the deaths of many, and most apt to be heard before foul weather. The voice resembles the groaning of sick persons who are to die; heard at first at a distance, then comes nearer, and the last near at hand; so that it is a threefold warning of death. It begins strong, and louder than a sick man can make; the second cry is lower, but not less doleful, but rather more so; the third yet lower, and soft, like the groaning of a sick man almost spent and dying'.
This reminds one of the three approaching cries of the Cwn Annwn. Like the Irish Banshee, the Cyhyraeth wailed for the death of natives who died away from home. On the Glamorganshire coast, Cyhyraeth passes along the sea before a wreck, and here it is accompanied by a kind of corpse-light. Like corpse candles (see under WILL O' THE WISP), this foretells the path a corpse is to take on the way to the churchyard. In a story about St Mellon's churchyard a ghost is reported as having been seen, but, as a rule, Cyhyraeth is an invisible and bodiless voice. # 100 - 596
CYLEDYR THE WILD
One of the followers of Arthur in CULHWCH, he obtained the shears from between the ears of the boar Twrch Trwyth. # 100 - 346
CYMBELINE
(See also: CUNOBELINUS) King of Britain, trained in the household of Augustus Caesar. He handed over his kingdom to his son, Guidarius, who refused to pay tribute to the Romans. Behind the legend stands the historical Cunobeline, a minor British king. Shakespea re, drawing upon Holinshed's 'Cronicles', wrote a play, 'Cymbeline', in which many minor traditions of British mythology are incorporated. # 243 - 454
CYMEN
A son of Aelle, he accompanied his father when he defeated the Britons. # 156
CYMFARCH
The father of Urien. # 104 - 156
CYMRIC MYTHS AND TALES
In Wales there has existed for a considerable time a body of teaching purporting to contain a portion, at any rate, of that ancient Druidic thought which, as Caesar tells us, was communicated only to the initiated, and never written down.
This teaching is principally to be found in two volumes entitled 'Barddas' (q.v.), a compilation made from materials in his possession by a Welsh bard and scholar named Llewellyn Sion of Glamorgan, towards the end of the sixteenth century, and edited with a translation, by J. A. Williams ap Ithel for the Welsh MS. Society. Modern Celtic scholars pour contempt on the pretensions of works like this to enshrine any really antique thought. Thus Mr. Ivor B. John: 'All idea of a bardic esoteric doctrine involving pre-Christian mythic philosophy must be utterly discarded.' And again: 'The nonsense talked upon the subject is largely due to the uncritical invention of pseydo-antiquaries of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.'
Still the bardic Order was certainly at one time in possession of such a doctrine, and had a fairly continuous existence in Wales. Comparison between Gaelic and Cymric myths. The Welsh material is nothing like as full as the Gaelic, nor so early. The tales of the MABINOGION are mainly drawn from the fourteenth-century manuscript entitled THE RED BOOK OF HERGEST. One of them, the romance of TALIESIN, came from another source, a manuscript of the seventeenth century.
The four oldest tales in the MABINOGION are supposed by scolars to have taken their present shape in the tenth or eleventh century, while several Irish tales go back to the seventh or eight. The influence of the Continental romances of chivalry is clearly perceptible in the Welsh tales; and, in fact, comes eventually to govern them completely. # 562
CYNON
(ku non) The lover of Morfudd, Owain's twin sister, in Welsh tradition. # 156