THE VICTORIES OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS
The powers of light were, however, by no means invariably successful in
their struggles with the powers of darkness. Even Gwydion son of Dôn had
to serve his apprenticeship to misfortune. Assailing Caer
Sidi—Hades[347] under one of its many titles,—he was caught by Pwyll and
Pryderi, and endured a long imprisonment.[348] The sufferings he
underwent made him a bard—an ancient Celtic idea which one can still see
surviving in the popular tradition that whoever dares to spend a night
alone either upon the chair of the Giant Idris (the summit of Cader
Idris, in Merionethshire), or under the haunted Black Stone of Arddu,
upon the Llanberis side of Snowdon, will be found in the morning either
inspired or mad.[349] How he escaped we are not told; but the episode
does not seem to have quenched his ardour against the natural enemies of
his kind.
Helped by his brother, Amaethon, god of agriculture, and his son, Lleu,
he fought the Battle of Godeu, or “the Trees”, an exploit which is not
the least curious of Celtic myths. It is known also as the Battle of
Achren, or Ochren, a name for Hades of unknown meaning, but appearing
again in the remarkable Welsh poem which describes the “Spoiling of
Annwn” by Arthur. The King of Achren was Arawn; and he was helped by
Brân, who apparently had not then made his fatal journey to Ireland. The
war was made to secure three boons for man—the dog, the deer, and the
lapwing, all of them creatures for some reason sacred to the gods of the
nether world.
Gwydion was this time not alone, as he apparently was when he made his
first unfortunate reconnaissance of Hades. Besides his brother and his
son, he had an army which he raised for the purpose. For a leader of
Gwydion’s magical attainments there was no need of standing troops. He
could call battalions into being with a charm, and dismiss them when
they were no longer needed. The name of the battle shows what he did on
this occasion; and the bard Taliesin adds his testimony:
“I have been in the battle of Godeu, with Lleu and Gwydion,
They changed the forms of the elementary trees and sedges”.
In a poem devoted to it[350] he describes in detail what happened. The
trees and grasses, he tells us, hurried to the fight: the alders led the
van, but the willows and the quickens came late, and the birch, though
courageous, took long in arraying himself; the elm stood firm in the
centre of the battle, and would not yield a foot; heaven and earth
trembled before the advance of the oak-tree, that stout door-keeper
against an enemy; the heroic holly and the hawthorn defended themselves
with their spikes; the heather kept off the enemy on every side, and the
broom was well to the front, but the fern was plundered, and the furze
did not do well; the stout, lofty pine, the intruding pear-tree, the
gloomy ash, the bashful chestnut-tree, the prosperous beech, the
long-enduring poplar, the scarce plum-tree, the shelter-seeking privet
and woodbine, the wild, foreign laburnum; “the bean, bearing in its
shade an army of phantoms”; rose-bush, raspberry, ivy, cherry-tree, and
medlar—all took their parts.
In the ranks of Hades there were equally strange fighters. We are told
of a hundred-headed beast, carrying a formidable battalion under the
root of its tongue and another in the back of its head; there was a
gaping black toad with a hundred claws; and a crested snake of many
colours, within whose flesh a hundred souls were tormented for their
sins—in fact, it would need a Doré or a Dante to do justice to this
weird battle between the arrayed magics of heaven and hell.
It was magic that decided its fate. There was a fighter in the ranks of
Hades who could not be overcome unless his antagonist guessed his name—a
peculiarity of the terrene gods, remarks Professor Rhys,[351] which has
been preserved in our popular fairy tales. Gwydion guessed the name, and
sang these two verses:—
“Sure-hoofed is my steed impelled by the spur;
The high sprigs of alder are on thy shield;
_Brân_ art thou called, of the glittering branches!
“Sure-hoofed is my steed in the day of battle:
The high sprigs of alder are on thy hand:
_Brân_ ... by the branch thou bearest
Has Amaethon the Good prevailed!”[352]
Thus the power of the dark gods was broken, and the sons of Dôn retained
for the use of men the deer, the dog, and the lapwing, stolen from that
underworld, whence all good gifts came.
It was always to obtain some practical benefit that the gods of light
fought against the gods of darkness. The last and greatest of Gwydion’s
raids upon Hades was undertaken to procure—pork![353]
Gwydion had heard that there had come to Dyfed some strange beasts, such
as had never been seen before. They were called “pigs” or “swine”, and
Arawn, King of Annwn, had sent them as a gift to Pryderi son of Pwyll.
They were small animals, and their flesh was said to be better than the
flesh of oxen. He thought it would be a good thing to get them, either
by force or fraud, from the dark powers. Mâth son of Mâthonwy, who ruled
the children of Dôn from his Olympus of Caer Dathyl[354], gave his
consent, and Gwydion set off, with eleven others, to Pryderi’s
palace[355]. They disguised themselves as bards, so as to be received by
Pryderi, and Gwydion, who was “the best teller of tales in the world”,
entertained the Prince of Dyfed and his court more than they had ever
been entertained by any story-teller before. Then he asked Pryderi to
grant him a boon—the animals which had come from Annwn. But Pryderi had
pledged his word to Arawn that he would neither sell nor give away any
of the new creatures until they had increased to double their number,
and he told the disguised Gwydion so.
“Lord,” said Gwydion, “I can set you free from your promise. Neither
give me the swine at once, nor yet refuse them to me altogether, and
to-morrow I will show you how.”
He went to the lodging Pryderi had assigned him, and began to work his
charms and illusions. Out of fungus he made twelve gilded shields, and
twelve horses with gold harness, and twelve black greyhounds with white
breasts, each wearing a golden collar and leash. And these he showed to
Pryderi.
“Lord,” said he, “there is a release from the word you spoke last
evening concerning the swine—that you may neither give them nor sell
them. You may exchange them for something which is better. I will give
you these twelve horses with their gold harness, and these twelve
greyhounds with their gold collars and leashes, and these twelve gilded
shields for them.”
Pryderi took counsel with his men, and agreed to the bargain. So Gwydion
and his followers took the swine and went away with them, hurrying as
fast as they could, for Gwydion knew that the illusion would not last
longer than a day. The memory of their journey was long kept up; every
place where they rested between Dyfed and Caer Dathyl is remembered by a
name connecting it with pigs. There is a Mochdrev (“Swine’s Town”) in
each of the three counties of Cardiganshire, Montgomeryshire, and
Denbighshire, and a Castell y Moch (“Swine’s Castle”) near Mochnant
(“Swine’s Brook”), which runs through part of the two latter counties.
They shut up the pigs in safety, and then assembled all Mâth’s army; for
the horses and hounds and shields had returned to fungus, and Pryderi,
who guessed Gwydion’s part in it, was coming northward in hot haste.
There were two battles—one at Maenor Penardd, near Conway, and the other
at Maenor Alun, now called Coed Helen, near Caernarvon. Beaten in both,
Pryderi fell back upon Nant Call, about nine miles from Caernarvon. Here
he was again defeated with great slaughter, and sent hostages, asking
for peace and a safe retreat.
This was granted by Mâth; but, none the less, the army of the sons of
Dôn insisted on following the retreating host, and harassing it. So
Pryderi sent a complaint to Mâth, demanding that, if there must still be
war, Gwydion, who had caused all the trouble, should fight with him in
single combat.
Gwydion agreed, and the champions of light and darkness met face to
face. But Pryderi was the waning power, and he fell before the strength
and magic of Gwydion. “And at Maen Tyriawc, above Melenryd, was he
buried, and there is his grave”, says the Mabinogi, though the ancient
Welsh poem, called the “Verses of the Graves of the Warriors”[356],
assigns him a different resting-place.[357]
This decisive victory over Hades and its kings was the end of the
struggle, until it was renewed, with still more complete success, by one
greater than Gwydion—the invincible Arthur.
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Footnote 347:
Or the Celtic Elysium, “a mythical country beneath the waves of the
sea”.
Footnote 348:
See the _Spoiling of Annwn_, quoted in chap. XXI—“The Mythological
‘Coming of Arthur’”.
Footnote 349:
Rhys: _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 250-251.
Footnote 350:
_Book of Taliesin VIII_, Vol. I, p. 276, of Skene. I have followed
Skene’s translation, with the especial exception of the curious line
referring to the bean, so translated in D. W. Nash’s _Taliesin_. If a
correct rendering of the Welsh original, it offers an interesting
parallel to certain superstitions of the Greeks concerning this
vegetable.
Footnote 351:
Rhys: _Hibbert Lectures_, note to p. 245.
Footnote 352:
Lady Guest’s translation in her notes to _Kulhwch and Olwen_.
Footnote 353:
The following episode is retold from Lady Guest’s translation of the
Mabinogi of _Mâth, Son of Mathonwy_.
Footnote 354:
Now called Pen y Gaer. It is on the summit of a hill half-way between
Llanrwst and Conway, and about a mile from the station of Llanbedr.
Footnote 355:
Said to have been at Rhuddlan Teivi, which is, perhaps, Glan Teivy,
near Cardigan Bridge.
Footnote 356:
Poem XIX in the _Black Book of Caermarthen_, Vol. I, p. 309, of Skene.
Footnote 357:
“In Aber Gwenoli is the grave of Pryderi,
Where the waves beat against the land.”
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