CELTIC MYTHOLOGY (Illustrated Edition). T. W. Rolleston
summer sun? The mythologists have not made use of this incident. On the whole the evidence for Llew as a sun-god is not convincing. The strongest reason for identifying him with Lug rests on the fact that both have uncles who are smiths and have similar names—Govannon and Gavida (Goibniu). Like Amæthon, Govannon, the artificer or smith (gôf, "smith"), is mentioned in Kulhwych as one whose help must be gained to wait at the end of the furrows to cleanse the iron of the plough.337 Here he is brought into connection with the plough, but the myth to which the words refer is lost. A Taliesin poem associates him with Math—"I have been with artificers, with the old Math and with Govannon," and refers to his Caer or castle.338
Arianrhod, "silver wheel," has a twofold character. She pretends to be a virgin, and disclaims all knowledge of her son Llew, yet she is mistress of Gwydion. In the Triads she appears as one of the three blessed (or white) ladies of Britain.339 Perhaps these two aspects of her character may point to a divergence between religion and mythology, the cult of a virgin goddess of whom myth told discreditable things. More likely she was an old Earth-goddess, at once a virgin and a fruitful mother, like Artemis, the virgin goddess, yet neither chaste nor fair, or like a Babylonian goddess addressed as at once "mother, wife, and maid." Arianrhod, "beauty famed beyond summer's dawn," is mentioned in a Taliesin poem, and she was later associated with the constellation Corona Borealis.340 Possibly her real name was forgotten, and that of Arianrhod derived from a place-name, "Caer Arianrhod," associated with her. The interpretation which makes her a dawn goddess, mother of light, Lleu, and darkness, Dylan, is far from obvious.341 Dylan, after his baptism, rushed into the sea, the nature of which became his. No wave ever broke under him; he swam like a fish; and hence was called Dylan Eil Ton or "son of the wave." Govannon, his uncle, slew him, an incident interpreted as the defeat of darkness, which "hies away to lurk in the sea." Dylan, however, has no dark traits and is described as a blonde. The waves lament his death, and, as they dash against the shore, seek to avenge it. His grave is "where the wave makes a sullen sound," but popular belief identifies him with the waves, and their noise as they press into the Conway is his dying groan. Not only is he Eil Ton, "son of the wave," but also Eil Mor, "son of the sea."342 He is thus a local sea-god, and like Manannan identified with the waves, and yet separate from them, since they mourn his death. The Mabinogi gives us the débris of myths explaining how an anthropomorphic sea-god was connected with the goddess Arianrhod and slain by a god Govannon.
Another Mabinogion group is that of Pwyll, prince of Dyved, his wife Rhiannon, and their son Pryderi.343 Pwyll agrees with Arawn, king of Annwfn (Elysium), to reign over his kingdom for a year. At the end of that time he slays Arawn's rival Havgan. Arawn sends him gifts, and Pwyll is now known as Pen or Head of Annwfn, a title showing that he was once a god, belonging to the gods' land, later identified with the Christian Hades. Pwyll now agrees with Rhiannon,344 who appears mysteriously on a magic hillock, and whom he captures, to rid her of an unwelcome suitor Gwawl. He imprisons him in a magical bag, and Rhiannon weds Pwyll. The story thus resolves itself into the formula of the Fairy Bride, but it paves the way for the vengeance taken on Pryderi and Rhiannon by Gwawl's friend Llwyt. Rhiannon has a son who is stolen as soon as born. She is accused of slaying him and is degraded, but Teyrnon recovers the child from its super-human robber and calls him Gwri. As he grows up, Teyrnon notices his resemblance to Pwyll, and takes him to his court. Rhiannon is reinstated, and because she cries that her anguish (pryderi) is gone, the boy is now called Pryderi. Here, again, we have Märchen incidents, which also appear in the Fionn saga.345
Though there is little that is mythological here, it is evident that Pwyll is a god and Rhiannon a goddess, whose early importance, like that of other Celtic goddesses, appears from her name, a corruption of Rigantona, "great queen." Elsewhere we hear of her magic birds whose song charmed Bran's companions for seven years, and of her marriage to Manawyddan—an old myth in which Manawyddan may have been Pryderi's father, while possibly in some other myth Pryderi may have been child of Rigantona and Teyrnon (=Tigernonos, "king").346 We may postulate an old Rhiannon saga, fragments of which are to be found in the Mabinogi, and there may have been more than one goddess called Rigantona, later fused into one. But in the tales she is merely a queen of old romance.
Pryderi, as has been seen, was despoiled of his swine by Gwydion. They were the gift of Arawn, but in the Triads they seem to have been brought from Annwfn by Pwyll, while Pryderi acted as swineherd.347 Both Pwyll and Pryderi are thus connected with those myths which told of the bringing of domestic animals from the gods' land. But since they are certainly gods, associated with the gods' land, this is perhaps the result of misunderstanding. A poem speaks of the magic cauldron of Pen Annwfn, i.e. Pwyll, and this points to a myth explaining his connection with Annwfn in a different way from the account in the Mabinogi. The poem also tells how Gweir was imprisoned in Caer Sidi (=Annwfn) "through the messenger of Pwyll and Pryderi."348 They are thus lords of Annwfn, whose swine Gweir (Gwydion) tries to steal. Elsewhere Caer Sidi is associated with Manawyddan and Pryderi, perhaps a reference to their connection as father and son.349 Thus Pryderi and Pwyll belong to the bright Elysium, and may once have been gods of fertility associated with the under-earth region, which was by no means a world of darkness. Whatever be the meaning of the death of Pryderi at the hands of Gwydion, it is connected with later references to his grave.350
A fourth group is that of Beli and his sons, referred to in the Mabinogi of Branwen, where one of them, Caswallawn, usurps the throne, and thus makes Manawyddan, like MacGregor, landless. In the Dream of Maxen, the sons of Beli are Lludd, Caswallawn, Nynnyaw, and Llevelys.351 Geoffrey calls Beli Heli, and speaks of an earlier king Belinus, at enmity with his brother Brennius.352 But probably Beli or Heli and Belinus are one and the same, and both represent the earlier god Belenos. Caswellawn becomes Cassivellaunus, opponent of Cæsar, but in the Mabinogi he is hostile to the race of Llyr, and this may be connected with whatever underlies Geoffrey's account of the hostility of Belinus and Brennius (=Bran, son of Llyr), perhaps, like the enmity of the race of D^on to Pryderi, a reminiscence of the strife of rival tribes or of Goidel and Brython.353 As has been seen, the evidence for regarding Beli as D^on's consort or the equivalent of Bile is slender. Nor, if he is Belenos, the equivalent of Apollo, is he in any sense a "dark" god. He is regarded as a victorious champion, preserver of his "honey isle" and of the stability of his kingdom, in a Taliesin poem and in the Triads.354
The personality of Casswallawn is lost in that of the historic Cassivellaunus, but in a reference to him in the Triads where, with Caradawc and Gweirydd, he bears the title "war king," we may see a glimpse of his divine character, that of a god of war, invisibly leading on armies to battle, and as such embodied in great chiefs who bore his name.355