_Source_.--I have paraphrased the well-known poem of Hon. W. R.
Spencer, "Beth Gêlert, or the Grave of the Greyhound," first printed
privately as a broadsheet in 1800 when it was composed ("August 11,
1800, Dolymalynllyn" is the colophon). It was published in Spencer's
_Poems_, 1811, pp. 78-86. These dates, it will be seen, are of
importance. Spencer states in a note: "The story of this ballad is
traditionary in a village at the foot of Snowdon where Llewellyn the
Great had a house. The Greyhound named Gêlert was given him by his
father-in-law, King John, in the year 1205, and the place to this day
is called Beth-Gêlert, or the grave of Gêlert." As a matter of fact, no
trace of the tradition in connection with Bedd Gellert can be found
before Spencer's time. It is not mentioned in Leland's _Itinerary_, ed.
Hearne, v. p. 37 ("Beth Kellarth"), in Pennant's _Tour_ (1770), ii.
176, or in Bingley's _Tour in Wales_ (1800). Borrow in his _Wild
Wales_, p. 146, gives the legend, but does not profess to derive it
from local tradition.
_Parallels_.--The only parallel in Celtdom is that noticed by Croker in
his third volume, the legend of Partholan who killed his wife's
greyhound from jealousy: this is found sculptured in stone at Ap Brune,
co. Limerick. As is well known, and has been elaborately discussed by
Mr. Baring-Gould (_Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, p. 134 _seq._),
and Mr. W. A. Clouston (_Popular Tales and Fictions_, ii. 166, _seq._),
the story of the man who rashly slew the dog (ichneumon, weasel, &c.)
that had saved his babe from death, is one of those which have spread
from East to West. It is indeed, as Mr. Clouston points out, still
current in India, the land of its birth. There is little doubt that it
is originally Buddhistic: the late Prof. S. Beal gave the earliest
known version from the Chinese translation of the _Vinaya Pitaka_ in
the _Academy_ of Nov. 4, 1882. The conception of an animal sacrificing
itself for the sake of others is peculiarly Buddhistic; the "hare in
the moon" is an apotheosis of such a piece of self-sacrifice on the
part of Buddha (_Sasa Jataka_). There are two forms that have reached
the West, the first being that of an animal saving men at the cost of
its own life. I pointed out an early instance of this, quoted by a
Rabbi of the second century, in my _Fables of Aesop_, i. 105. This
concludes with a strangely close parallel to Gellert; "They raised a
cairn over his grave, and the place is still called The Dog's Grave."
The _Culex_ attributed to Virgil seems to be another variant of this.
The second form of the legend is always told as a moral apologue
against precipitate action, and originally occurred in _The Fables of
Bidpai_ in its hundred and one forms, all founded on Buddhistic
originals (_cf._ Benfey, _Pantschatantra_, Einleitung, §201).
[Footnote: It occurs in the same chapter as the story of La Perrette,
which has been traced, after Benfey, by Prof. M. Müller in his
"Migration of Fables" (_Sel. Essays_, i. 500-74): exactly the same
history applies to Gellert.] Thence, according to Benfey, it was
inserted in the _Book of Sindibad_, another collection of Oriental
Apologues framed on what may be called the Mrs. Potiphar formula. This
came to Europe with the Crusades, and is known in its Western versions
as the _Seven Sages of Rome_. The Gellert story occurs in all the
Oriental and Occidental versions; _e.g._, it is the First Master's
story in Wynkyn de Worde's (ed. G. L. Gomme, for the Villon Society.)
From the _Seven Sages_ it was taken into the particular branch of the
_Gesta Romanorum_ current in England and known as the English _Gesta_,
where it occurs as c. xxxii., "Story of Folliculus." We have thus
traced it to England whence it passed to Wales, where I have discovered
it as the second apologue of "The Fables of Cattwg the Wise," in the
Iolo MS. published by the Welsh MS. Society, p.561, "The man who killed
his Greyhound." (These Fables, Mr. Nutt informs me, are a pseudonymous
production probably of the sixteenth century.) This concludes the
literary route of the Legend of Gellert from India to Wales: Buddhistic
_Vinaya Pitaka--Fables of Bidpai_;--Oriental _Sindibad_;--Occidental
_Seven Sages of Rome_;--"English" (Latin), _Gesta Romanorum_;--Welsh,
_Fables of Cattwg_.
_Remarks_.--We have still to connect the legend with Llewelyn and with
Bedd Gelert. But first it may be desirable to point out why it is
necessary to assume that the legend is a legend and not a fact. The
saving of an infant's life by a dog, and the mistaken slaughter of the
dog, are not such an improbable combination as to make it impossible
that the same event occurred in many places. But what is impossible, in
my opinion, is that such an event should have independently been used
in different places as the typical instance of, and warning against,
rash action. That the Gellert legend, before it was localised, was used
as a moral apologue in Wales is shown by the fact that it occurs among
the Fables of Cattwg, which are all of that character. It was also
utilised as a proverb: "_Yr wy'n edivaru cymmaint a'r Gwr a laddodd ei
Vilgi_" ("I repent as much as the man who slew his greyhound"). The
fable indeed, from this point of view, seems greatly to have attracted
the Welsh mind, perhaps as of especial value to a proverbially
impetuous temperament. Croker (_Fairy Legends of Ireland_, vol. iii. p.
165) points out several places where the legend seems to have been
localised in place-names--two places, called "Gwal y Vilast"
("Greyhound's Couch"), in Carmarthen and Glamorganshire; "Llech y Asp"
("Dog's Stone"), in Cardigan, and another place named in Welsh "Spring
of the Greyhound's Stone." Mr. Baring-Gould mentions that the legend is
told of an ordinary tombstone, with a knight and a greyhound, in
Abergavenny Church; while the Fable of Cattwg is told of a man in
Abergarwan. So widespread and well known was the legend that it was in
Richard III's time adopted as the national crest. In the Warwick Roll,
at the Herald's Office, after giving separate crests for England,
Scotland, and Ireland, that for Wales is given as figured in the
margin, and blazoned "on a coronet in a cradle or, a greyhound argent
for Walys" (see J. R. Planché, _Twelve Designs for the Costume of
Shakespeare's Richard III._, 1830, frontispiece). If this Roll is
authentic, the popularity of the legend is thrown back into the
fifteenth century. It still remains to explain how and when this
general legend of rash action was localised and specialised at Bedd
Gelert: I believe I have discovered this. There certainly was a local
legend about a dog named Gelert at that place; E. Jones, in the first
edition of his _Musical Relicks of the Welsh Bards_, 1784, p. 40, gives
the following _englyn_ or epigram:
Claddwyd Cylart celfydd (ymlyniad)
Ymlaneau Efionydd
Parod giuio i'w gynydd
Parai'r dydd yr heliai Hydd;
which he Englishes thus:
The remains of famed Cylart, so faithful and good,
The bounds of the cantred conceal;
Whenever the doe or the stag he pursued
His master was sure of a meal.
No reference was made in the first edition to the Gellert legend, but
in the second edition of 1794, p. 75, a note was added telling the
legend, "There is a general tradition in North Wales that a wolf had
entered the house of Prince Llewellyn. Soon after the Prince returned
home, and, going into the nursery, he met his dog _Kill-hart_, all
bloody and wagging his tail at him; Prince Llewellyn, on entering the
room found the cradle where his child lay overturned, and the floor
flowing with blood; imagining that the greyhound had killed the child,
he immediately drew his sword and stabbed it; then, turning up the
cradle, found under it the child alive, and the wolf dead. This so
grieved the Prince, that he erected a tomb over his faithful dog's
grave; where afterwards the parish church was built and goes by that
name--_Bedd Cilhart_, or the grave of Kill-hart, in _Carnarvonshire_.
From this incident is elicited a very common Welsh proverb [that given
above which occurs also in 'The Fables of Cattwg;' it will be observed
that it is quite indefinite.]" "Prince Llewellyn ab Jorwerth married
Joan, [natural] daughter of King John, by _Agatha_, daughter of Robert
Ferrers, Earl of Derby; and the dog was a present to the prince from
his father-in-law about the year 1205." It was clearly from this note
that the Hon. Mr. Spencer got his account; oral tradition does not
indulge in dates _Anno Domini_. The application of the general legend
of "the man who slew his greyhound" to the dog Cylart, was due to the
learning of E. Jones, author of the _Musical Relicks_. I am convinced
of this, for by a lucky chance I am enabled to give the real legend
about Cylart, which is thus given in Carlisle's _Topographical
Dictionary of Wales_, s.v., "Bedd Celert," published in 1811, the date
of publication of Mr. Spencer's _Poems_. "Its name, according to
tradition, implies _The Grave of Celert_, a Greyhound which belonged to
Llywelyn, the last Prince of Wales: and a large Rock is still pointed
out as the monument of this celebrated Dog, being on the spot where it
was found dead, together with the stag which it had pursued from
Carnarvon," which is thirteen miles distant. The cairn was thus a
monument of a "record" run of a greyhound: the _englyn_ quoted by Jones
is suitable enough for this, while quite inadequate to record the later
legendary exploits of Gêlert. Jones found an _englyn_ devoted to _an_
exploit of a dog named Cylart, and chose to interpret it in his second
edition, 1794, as _the_ exploit of a greyhound with which all the world
(in Wales) were acquainted. Mr. Spencer took the legend from Jones (the
reference to the date 1205 proves that), enshrined it in his somewhat
_banal_ verses, which were lucky enough to be copied into several
reading-books, and thus became known to all English-speaking folk.
It remains only to explain why Jones connected the legend with
Llewelyn. Llewelyn had local connection with Bedd Gellert, which was
the seat of an Augustinian abbey, one of the oldest in Wales. An
inspeximus of Edward I. given in Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, ed. pr. ii.
100a, quotes as the earliest charter of the abbey "Cartam Lewelin,
magni." The name of the abbey was "Beth Kellarth"; the name is thus
given by Leland, _l.c._, and as late as 1794 an engraving at the
British Museum is entitled "Beth Kelert," while Carlisle gives it as
"Beth Celert." The place was thus named after the abbey, not after the
cairn or rock. This is confirmed by the fact of which Prof. Rhys had
informed me, that the collocation of letters _rt_ is un-Welsh. Under
these circumstances it is not impossible, I think, that the earlier
legend of the marvellous run of "Cylart" from Carnarvon was due to the
etymologising fancy of some English-speaking Welshman who interpreted
the name as Killhart, so that the simpler legend would be only a
folk-etymology.
But whether Kellarth, Kelert, Cylart, Gêlert or Gellert ever existed
and ran a hart from Carnarvon to Bedd Gellert or no, there can be
little doubt after the preceding that he was not the original hero of
the fable of "the man that slew his greyhound," which came to Wales
from Buddhistic India through channels which are perfectly traceable.
It was Edward Jones who first raised him to that proud position, and
William Spencer who securely installed him there, probably for all
time. The legend is now firmly established at Bedd Gellert. There is
said to be an ancient air, "Bedd Gelert," "as sung by the Ancient
Britons"; it is given in a pamphlet published at Carnarvon in the
"fifties," entitled _Gellert's Grave; or, Llewellyn's Rashness: a
Ballad, by the Hon. W. R. Spencer, to which is added that ancient Welsh
air, "Bedd Gelert," as sung by the Ancient Britons_. The air is from R.
Roberts' "Collection of Welsh Airs," but what connection it has with
the legend I have been unable to ascertain. This is probably another
case of adapting one tradition to another. It is almost impossible to
distinguish palaeozoic and cainozoic strata in oral tradition.
According to Murray's _Guide to N. Wales_, p. 125, the only authority
for the cairn now shown is that of the landlord of the Goat Inn, "who
felt compelled by the cravings of tourists to invent a grave." Some old
men at Bedd Gellert, Prof. Rhys informs me, are ready to testify that
they saw the cairn laid. They might almost have been present at the
birth of the legend, which, if my affiliation of it is correct, is not
yet quite 100 years old.