II

At a first glance the literature of Wales is divided into three

perfectly distinct distinct branches: the bardic or lyric, which

shines forth in splendour in the sixth century by the works of

Taliessin, of Aneurin, and of Liware'h Hen, and continues through an

uninterrupted series of imitations up to modern times; the

Mabinogion, or literature of romance, fixed towards the twelfth

century, but linking themselves in the groundwork of their ideas

with the remotest ages of the Celtic genius; finally, an

ecclesiastical and legendary literature, impressed with a distinct

stamp of its own. These three literatures seem to have existed side

by side, almost without knowledge of one another. The bards, proud

of their solemn rhetoric, held in disdain the popular tales, the

form of which they considered careless; on the other hand, both

bards and romancers appear to have had few relations with the

clergy; and one at times might be tempted to suppose that they

ignored the existence of Christianity. To our thinking it is in the

Mabinogion that the true expression of the Celtic genius is to be

sought; and it is surprising that so curious a literature, the

source of nearly all the romantic creations of Europe, should have

remained unknown until our own days. The cause is doubtless to be

ascribed to the dispersed state of the Welsh manuscripts, pursued

till last century by the English, as seditious books compromising

those who possessed them. Often too they fell into hands of ignorant

owners whose caprice or ill-will sufficed to keep them from critical

research.

The Mabinogion have been preserved for us in two principal

documents--one of the thirteenth century from the library of

Hengurt, belonging to the Vaughan family; the other dating from the

fourteenth century, known under the name of the Red Book of Hergest,

and now in Jesus College, Oxford. No doubt it was some such

collection that charmed the weary hours of the hapless Leolin in the

Tower of London, and was burned after his condemnation, with the

other Welsh books which had been the companions of his captivity.

Lady Charlotte Guest has based her edition on the Oxford manuscript;

it cannot be sufficiently regretted that paltry considerations have

caused her to be refused the use of the earlier manuscript, of which

the later appears to be only a copy. Regrets are redoubled when one

knows that several Welsh texts, which were seen and copied fifty

years ago, have now disappeared. It is in the presence of facts such

as these that one comes to believe that revolutions--in general so

destructive of the works of the past--are favourable to the

preservation of literary monuments, by compelling their

concentration in great centres, where their existence, as well as

their publicity, is assured.

The general tone of the Mabinogion is rather romantic than epic.

Life is treated naively and not too emphatically. The hero's

individuality is limitless. We have free and noble natures acting in

all their spontaneity. Each man appears as a kind of demi-god

characterised by a supernatural gift. This gift is nearly always

connected with some miraculous object, which in some measure is the

personal seal of him who possesses it. The inferior classes, which

this people of heroes necessarily supposes beneath it, scarcely show

themselves, except in the exercise of some trade, for practising

which they are held in high esteem. The somewhat complicated

products of human industry are regarded as living beings, and in

their manner endowed with magical properties. A multiplicity of

celebrated objects have proper names, such as the drinking-cup, the

lance, the sword, and the shield of Arthur; the chess-board of

Gwendolen, on which the black pieces played of their own accord

against the white; the horn of Bran Galed, where one found whatever

liquor one desired; the chariot of Morgan, which directed itself to

the place to which one wished to go; the pot of Tyrnog, which would

not cook when meat for a coward was put into it; the grindstone of

Tudwal, which would only sharpen brave men's swords; the coat of

Padarn, which none save a noble could don; and the mantle of Tegan,

which no woman could put upon herself were she not above reproach.

[Footnote: Here may be recognised the origin of trial by court

mantle, one of the most interesting episodes in Lancelot of the

Lake.] The animal is conceived in a still more individual way; it

has a proper name, personal qualities, and a role which it develops

at its own will and with full consciousness. The same hero appears

as at once man and animal, without it being possible to trace the

line of demarcation between the two natures.

The tale of Kilhwch and Olwen, the most extraordinary of the

Mabinogion, deals with Arthur's struggle against the wild-boar king

Twrch Trwyth, who with his seven cubs holds in check all the heroes

of the Round Table. The adventures of the three hundred ravens of

Kerverhenn similarly form the subject of the Dream of Rhonabwy. The

idea of moral merit and demerit is almost wholly absent from all

these compositions. There are wicked beings who insult ladies, who

tyrannise over their neighbours, who only find pleasure in evil

because such is their nature; but it does not appear that they incur

wrath on that account. Arthur's knights pursue them, not as

criminals but as mischievous fellows. All other beings are perfectly

good and just, but more or less richly gifted. This is the dream of

an amiable and gentle race which looks upon evil as being the work

of destiny, and not a product of the human conscience. All nature is

enchanted, and fruitful as imagination itself in indefinitely varied

creations. Christianity rarely discloses itself; although at times

its proximity can be felt, it alters in no respect the purely

natural surroundings in which everything takes place. A bishop

figures at table beside Arthur, but his function is strictly limited

to blessing the dishes. The Irish saints, who at one time present

themselves to give their benediction to Arthur and receive favours

at his hands, are portrayed as a race of men vaguely known and

difficult to understand. No mediaeval literature held itself further

removed from all monastic influence. We evidently must suppose that

the Welsh bards and story-tellers lived in a state of great

isolation from the clergy, and had their culture and traditions

quite apart.

The charm of the Mabinogion principally resides in the amiable

serenity of the Celtic mind, neither sad nor gay, ever in suspense

between a smile and a tear. We have in them the simple recital of a

child, unwitting of any distinction between the noble and the

common; there is something of that softly animated world, of that

calm and tranquil ideal to which Ariosto's stanzas transport us. The

chatter of the later mediaeval French and German imitators can give

no idea of this charming manner of narration. The skilful Chretien

de Troyes himself remains in this respect far below the Welsh story-

tellers, and as for Wolfram of Eschenbach, it must be avowed that

the joy of the first discovery has carried German critics too far in

the exaggeration of his merits. He loses himself in interminable

descriptions, and almost completely ignores the art of his recital.

What strikes one at a first glance in the imaginative compositions

of the Celtic races, above all when they are contrasted with those

of the Teutonic races, is the extreme mildness of manners pervading

them. There are none of those frightful vengeances which fill the

Edda and the Niebelungen. Compare the Teutonic with the Gaelic

hero,--Beowulf with Peredur, for example. What a difference there

is! In the one all the horror of disgusting and blood-embrued

barbarism, the drunkenness of carnage, the disinterested taste, if I

may say so, for destruction and death; in the other a profound sense

of justice, a great height of personal pride it is true, but also a

great capacity for devotion, an exquisite loyalty. The tyrannical

man, the monster, the Black Man, find a place here like the

Lestrigons and the Cyclops of Homer only to inspire horror by

contrast with softer manners; they are almost what the wicked man is

in the naive imagination of a child brought up by a mother in the

ideas of a gentle and pious morality. The primitive man of Teutonism

is revolting by his purposeless brutality, by a love of evil that

only gives him skill and strength in the service of hatred and

injury. The Cymric hero on the other hand, even in his wildest

flights, seems possessed by habits of kindness and a warm sympathy

with the weakv. Sympathy indeed is one of the deepest feelings among

the Celtic peoples. Even Judas is not denied a share of their pity.

St. Brandan found him upon a rock in the midst of the Polar seas;

once a week he passes a day there to refresh himself from the fires

of hell. A cloak that he had given to a beggar is hung before him,

and tempers his sufferings.

If Wales has a right to be proud of her Mabinogion, she has not less

to felicitate herself in having found a translator truly worthy of

interpreting them. For the proper understanding of these original

beauties there was needed a delicate appreciation of Welsh

narration, and an intelligence of the naive order, qualities of

which an erudite translator would with difficulty have been capable.

To render these gracious imaginings of a people so eminently dowered

with feminine tact, the pen of a woman was necessary. Simple,

animated, without effort and without vulgarity, Lady Guest's

translation is a faithful mirror of the original Cymric. Even

supposing that, as regards philology, the labours of this noble

Welsh lady be destined to receive improvement, that does not prevent

her book from for ever remaining a work of erudition and highly

distinguished taste. [Footnote: M. de la Villemarque published in

1843 under the title of Cantes populaires des anciens Bretons, a

French translation of the narratives that Guest had already

presented in English at that time.]

The Mabinogion, or at least the writings which Lady Guest thought

she ought to include under this common name, divide themselves into

two perfectly distinct classes--some connected exclusively with the

two peninsulas of Wales and Cornwall, and relating to the heroic

personality of Arthur; the others alien to Arthur, having for their

scene not only the parts of England that have remained Cymric, but

the whole of Great Britain, and leading us back by the persons and

traditions mentioned in them to the later years of the Roman

occupation. The second class, of greater antiquity than the first,

at least on the ground of subject, is also distinguished by a much

more mythological character, a bolder use of the miraculous, an

enigmatical form, a style full of alliteration and plays upon words.

Of this number are the tales of Pwyll, of Bramwen, of Manawyddan, of

Math the son of Mathonwy, the Dream of the Emperor Maximus, the

story of Llud and Llewelys, and the legend of Taliessin. To the

Arthurian cycle belong the narratives of Owen, of Geraint, of

Peredur, of Kilhwch and Olwen, and the Dream of Rhonabwy. It is also

to be remarked that the two last-named narratives have a

particularly antique character. In them Arthur dwells in Cornwall,

and not as in the others at Caerleon on the Usk. In them he appears

with an individual character, hunting and taking a personal part in

warfare, while in the more modern tales he is only an emperor all-

powerful and impassive, a truly sluggard hero, around whom a pleiad

of active heroes groups itself. The Mabinogi of Kilhwch and Olwen,

by its entirely primitive aspect, by the part played in it by the

wild-boar in conformity to the spirit of Celtic mythology, by the

wholly supernatural and magical character of the narration, by

innumerable allusions the sense of which escapes us, forms a cycle

by itself. It represents for us the Cymric conception in all its

purity, before it had been modified by the introduction of any

foreign element. Without attempting here to analyse this curious

poem, I should like by some extracts to make its antique aspect and

high originality apparent.

Kilhwch, the son of Kilydd, prince of Kelyddon, having heard some

one mention the name of Olwen, daughter of Yspaddaden Penkawr, falls

violently in love, without having ever seen her. He goes to find

Arthur, that he may ask for his aid in the difficult undertaking

which he meditates; in point of fact, he does not know in what

country the fair one of his affection dwells. Yspaddaden is besides

a frightful tyrant who suffers no man to go from his castle alive,

and whose death is linked by destiny to the marriage of his

daughter. [Footnote: The idea of making the death of the father the

condition of possession of the daughter is to be found in several

romances of the Breton cycle, in Lancelot for example.] Arthur

grants Kilhwch some of his most valiant comrades in arms to assist

him in this enterprise. After wonderful adventures the knights

arrive at the castle of Yspaddaden, and succeed in seeing the young

maiden of Kilhwch's dream. Only after three days of persistent

struggle do they manage to obtain a response from Olwen's father,

who attaches his daughter's hand to conditions apparently impossible

of realisation. The performance of these trials makes a long chain

of adventures, the framework of a veritable romantic epic which has

come to us in a very fragmentary form. Of the thirty-eight

adventures imposed on Kilhwch the manuscript used by Lady Guest only

relates seven or eight. I choose at random one of these narratives,

which appears to me fitted to give an idea of the whole composition.

It deals with the finding of Mabon the son of Modron, who was

carried away from his mother three days after his birth, and whose

deliverance is one of the labours exacted of Kilhwch.

"His followers said unto Arthur, 'Lord, go thou home; thou canst not

proceed with thy host in quest of such small adventures as these.'

Then said Arthur, 'It were well for thee, Gwrhyr Gwalstawd

Ieithoedd, to go upon this quest, for thou knowest all languages,

and art familiar with those of the birds and the beasts. Thou,

Eidoel, oughtest likewise to go with my men in search of thy cousin.

And as for you, Kai and Bedwyr, I have hope of whatever adventure ye

are in quest of, that ye will achieve it. Achieve ye this adventure

for me.'"

They went forward until they came to the Ousel of Cilgwri. And

Gwrhyr adjured her for the sake of Heaven, saying, "Tell me if thou

knowest aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken when three

nights old from between his mother and the wall." And the Ousel

answered, "When I first came here there was a smith's anvil in this

place, and I was then a young bird; and from that time no work has

been done upon it, save the pecking of my beak every evening, and

now there is not so much as the size of a nut remaining thereof; yet

all the vengeance of Heaven be upon me, if during all that time I

have ever heard of the man for whom you enquire. Nevertheless I will

do that which is right, and that which it is fitting I should do for

an embassy from Arthur. There is a race of animals who were formed

before me, and I will be your guide to them."

So they proceeded to the place where was the Stag of Redynvre. "Stag

of Redynvre, behold we are come to thee, an embassy from Arthur, for

we have not heard of any animal older than thou. Say, knowest thou

aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken from his mother when

three nights old?" The Stag said, "When first I came hither there

was a plain all around me, without any trees save one oak sapling,

which grew up to be an oak with an hundred branches. And that oak

has since perished, so that now nothing remains of it but the

withered stump; and from that day to this I have been here, yet have

I never heard of the man for whom you enquire. Nevertheless, being

an embassy from Arthur, I will be your guide to the place where

there is an animal which was formed before I was."

So they proceeded to the place where was the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd.

"Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, here is an embassy from Arthur; knowest thou

aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken after three nights

from his mother?" "If I knew I would tell you. When first I came

hither, the wide valley you see was a wooded glen. And a race of men

came and rooted it up. And there grew there a second wood; and this

wood is the third. My wings, are they not withered stumps? Yet all

this time, even until to-day, I have never heard of the man for whom

you enquire. Nevertheless I will be the guide of Arthur's embassy

until you come to the place where is the oldest animal in the world,

and the one that has travelled most, the Eagle of Gwern Abwy."

Gwrhyr said, "Eagle of Gwern Abwy, we have come to thee an embassy

from Arthur, to ask thee if thou knowest aught of Mabon the son of

Modron, who was taken from his mother when he was three nights old."

The Eagle said, "I have been here for a great space of time, and

when I first came hither there was a rock here, from the top of

which I pecked at the stars every evening; and now it is not so much

as a span high. From that day to this I have been here, and I have

never heard of the man for whom you enquire, except once when I went

in search of food as far as Llyn Llyw. And when I came there, I

struck my talons into a salmon, thinking he would serve me as food

for a long time. But he drew me into the deep, and I was scarcely

able to escape from him. After that I went with my whole kindred to

attack him, and to try to destroy him, but he sent messengers, and

made peace with me; and came and besought me to take fifty fish

spears out of his back. Unless he know something of him whom you

seek, I cannot tell who may. However, I will guide you to the place

where he is."

So they went thither; and the Eagle said, "Salmon of Llyn Llyw, I

have come to thee with an embassy from Arthur, to ask thee if thou

knowest aught concerning Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken away

at three nights old from his mother." "As much as I know I will tell

thee. With every tide I go along the river upwards, until I come

near to the walls of Gloucester, and there have I found such wrong

as I never found elsewhere; and to the end that ye may give credence

thereto, let one of you go thither upon each of my two shoulders."

So Kai and Gwrhyr Gwalstawd Ieithoedd went upon the shoulders of the

salmon, and they proceeded until they came unto the wall of the

prison, and they heard a great wailing and lamenting from the

dungeon. Said Gwrhyr, "Who is it that laments in this house of

stone?" "Alas there is reason enough for whoever is here to lament.

It is Mabon the son of Modron who is here imprisoned; and no

imprisonment was ever so grievous as mine, neither that of Lludd

Llaw Ereint, nor that of Greid the son of Eri." "Hast thou hope of

being released for gold or for silver, or for any gifts of wealth,

or through battle and fighting?" "By fighting will whatever I may

gain be obtained."

We shall not follow the Cymric hero through trials the result of

which can be foreseen. What, above all else, is striking in these

strange legends is the part played by animals, transformed by the

Welsh imagination into intelligent beings. No race conversed so

intimately as did the Celtic race with the lower creation, and

accorded it so large a share of moral life. [Footnote: See

especially the narratives of Nennius, and of Giraldus Cambrensis. In

them animals have at least as important a part as men.] The close

association of man and animal, the fictions so dear to mediaeval

poetry of the Knight of the Lion, the Knight of the Falcon, the

Knight of the Swan, the vows consecrated by the presence of birds of

noble repute, are equally Breton imaginings. Ecclesiastical

literature itself presents analogous features; gentleness towards

animals informs all the legends of the saints of Brittany and

Ireland. One day St. Kevin fell asleep, while he was praying at his

window with outstretched arms; and a swallow perceiving the open

hand of the venerable monk, considered it an excellent place wherein

to make her nest. The saint on awaking saw the mother sitting upon

her eggs, and, loth to disturb her, waited for the little ones to be

hatched before he arose from his knees.

This touching sympathy was derived from the singular vivacity with

which the Celtic races have inspired their feeling for nature. Their

mythology is nothing more than a transparent naturalism, not that

anthropomorphic naturalism of Greece and India, in which the forces

of the universe, viewed as living beings and endowed with

consciousness, tend more and more to detach themselves from physical

phenomena, and to become moral beings; but in some measure a

realistic naturalism, the love of nature for herself, the vivid

impression of her magic, accompanied by the sorrowful feeling that

man knows, when, face to face with her, he believes that he hears

her commune with him concerning his origin and his destiny. The

legend of Merlin mirrors this feeling. Seduced by a fairy of the

woods, he flies with her and becomes a savage. Arthur's messengers

come upon him as he is singing by the side of a fountain; he is led

back again to court; but the charm carries him away. He returns to

his forests, and this time for ever. Under a thicket of hawthorn

Vivien has built him a magical prison. There he prophesies the

future of the Celtic races; he speaks of a maiden of the woods, now

visible and now unseen, who holds him captive by her spells. Several

Arthurian legends are impressed with the same character. Arthur

himself in popular belief became, as it were, a woodland spirit.

"The foresters on their nightly round by the light of the moon,"

says Gervais of Tilbury, [Footnote: An English chronicler of the

twelfth century.] "often hear a great sound as of horns, and meet

bands of huntsmen; when they are asked whence they come, these

huntsmen make reply that they are of King Arthur's following."

[Footnote: This manner of explaining all the unknown noises of the

wood by Arthur's Hunting is still to be found in several districts.

To understand properly the cult of nature, and, if I may say so, of

landscape among the Celts, see Gildas and Nennius, pp. 131, 136,

137, etc. (Edit. San Marte, Berlin. 1884);] Even the French

imitators of the Breton romances keep an impression--although a

rather insipid one--of the attraction exercised by nature on the

Celtic imagination. Elaine, the heroine of Lancelot, the ideal of

Breton perfection, passes her life with her companions in a garden,

in the midst of flowers which she tends. Every flower culled by her

hands is at the instant restored to life; and the worshippers of her

memory are under an obligation, when they cut a flower, to sow

another in its place.

The worship of forest, and fountain, and stone is to be explained by

this primitive naturalism, which all the Councils of the Church held

in Brittany united to proscribe. The stone, in truth, seems the

natural symbol of the Celtic races. It is an immutable witness that

has no death. The animal, the plant, above all the human figure,

only express the divine life under a determinate form; the stone on

the contrary, adapted to receive all forms, has been the fetish of

peoples in their childhood. Pausanias saw, still standing erect, the

thirty square stones of Pharse, each bearing the name of a divinity.

The men-hir to be met with over the whole surface of the ancient

world, what is it but the monument of primitive humanity, a living

witness of its faith in Heaven? [Footnote: It is, however, doubtful

whether the monuments known in France at Celtic (men-hir. dot-men,

etc.) are the work of the Celts. With M. Worsaae and the Copenhagen

archaeologists, I am inclined to think that these monuments belong

to a more ancient humanity. Never, in fact, has any branch of the

Indo-European race built in this fashion. (See two articles by M.

Merimee in L'Athenaum franfais, Sept. 11th, 1852, and April 25th,

1853.)]

It has frequently been observed that the majority of popular beliefs

still extant in our different provinces are of Celtic origin. A not

less remarkable fact is the strong tinge of naturalism dominant in

these beliefs. Nay more, every time that the old Celtic spirit

appears in our history, there is to be seen, re-born with it, faith

in nature and her magic influences. One of the most characteristic

of these manifestations seems to me to be that of Joan of Arc. That

indomitable hope, that tenacity in the affirmation of the future,

that belief that the salvation of the kingdom will come from a

woman,--all those features, far removed as they are from the taste

of antiquity, and from Teutonic taste, are in many respects Celtic.

The memory of the ancient cult perpetuated itself at Domremy, as in

so many other places, under the form of popular superstition. The

cottage of the family of Arc was shaded by a beech tree, famed in

the country and reputed to be the abode of fairies. In her childhood

Joan used to go and hang upon its branches garlands of leaves and

flowers, which, so it was said, disappeared during the night. The

terms of her accusation speak with horror of this innocent custom,

as of a crime against the faith; and indeed they were not altogether

deceived, those unpitying theologians who judged the holy maid.

Although she knew it not, she was more Celtic than Christian. She

has been foretold by Merlin; she knows of neither Pope nor Church,--

she only believes the voice that speaks in her own heart. This voice

she hears in the fields, in the sough of the wind among the trees,

when measured and distant sounds fair upon her ears. During her

trial, worn out with questions and scholastic subtleties, she is

asked whether she still hears her voices. "Take me to the woods."

she says, "and I shall hear them clearly." Her legend is tinged with

the same colours; nature loved her, the wolves never touched the

sheep of her flock. When she was a little girl, the birds used to

come and eat bread from her lap as though they were tame. [Footnote:

Since the first publication of these views, on which I should not

like more emphasis to be put than what belongs to a passing

impression, similar considerations have been developed, in terms

that appear a little too positive, by M. H. Martin (History of

France, vol. vi., 1856). The objections raised to it are, for the

most part, due to the fact that very few people are capable of

delicately appreciating questions of this kind, relative to the

genius of races. It frequently happens that the resurrection of an

old national genius takes place under a very different form from

that which one would have expected, and by means of individuals who

have no idea of the ethnographical part which they play.]