Josef Baudiš

“ We find in Irish genealogies occasional names of the Túatha Dé Danann. We might explain these facts simply as arising out of the euhemeristic tendencies of the Irish genealogists, according to which the Christian historians endeavoured to change the old Irish nature gods into old kings; but such a tendency must have been supported somehow by the old tradition, for instance by the occurrence of the Túatha Dé Danann in the old pedigrees, or by a tradition according to which the old gods lived on the earth. Such traditions are by no means rare in the mythical history of nations. ”

“ Of course, Arawn did expect that Pryderi would be less abstinent than he was, but this feature is not isolated in folklore. We know that Siegfrid was also not supposed to pay merely platonic attentions to Brunhild, and for this calumny he had to pay dearly. In the Twin Brothers' story the same motive occurs. There can, of course, be no doubt that there had existed another shape-shifting motive in which the man (or woman) takes another shape to get access to the object of his admiration. ”

“ This theory, however, does not account for all the tales which refer to the Other World, because there are stories where the inhabitants of the Other World are by no means friendly to the intruders into their domains. Again, it has to be proved whether the Irish síde do not owe their origin to ancestor-worship; and finally, the above-quoted theory presupposes that the old Celtic cultus was in olden times so developed and uniform that there was no room for contradictory ideas as regards the posthumous existence of man and more general conceptions of the universe. ”

“ In modern Irish folk-tales we find a similar motive: a mortal man is requested by the sídheógai to help them in their match against other sídheógai, or he is to assist them in kidnapping the King of France's daughter.
From these later parallels we may argue that there was a belief that a human being is able to vanquish the fairy people, etc., and this doctrine may be the real reason why Arawn requests Pwyll to fight for him against Havgan. ”

“ We must not forget, further, that for primitive man there was no precise break between death and life. The dead lived in the tomb (or in the Other World) the same life as he lived in this world, and it was not believed impossible that the dead could revive again. ”

“ It would be only natural then if the slaying power of the sword were explained, not as a possession of the hero who is to be killed, but as a supernatural quality of the sword itself, and so it is possible that in this way the story-teller came to evolve the idea of a magical weapon. There is, however, still another motive which does not occur in the External Soul theme: the hero can be slain only under certain conditions; otherwise he is deathless: Llew cannot be killed either within a house or without ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 89 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”

“ This story is known as a modern folk motive through the whole of Europe. But here the resemblance between the two brothers accounts for the situation.
(c) As to the third motive, we often find that a magician or spirit can be killed only in some particular way, i.e. there are certain taboos limiting his life-powers. In the theme we are studying the taboo is that the hero shall not give his adversary a second stroke. [2] In modern Irish stories we find another motive: the giant's head after it has been hewn off creeps to the body again, and the hero prevents its reunion with the body ”

“ Now, there might be another question: are the Irish sídheógai identical with the inhabitants of Annwvn, and what is Annwvn? There are scholars who accept two Other Worlds, i.e. "the Land of the Dead" and Elysium. Mr. M‘Culloch (The Religion of Anc. Celts, p. 370) is of the opinion that "the origin of the Celtic Elysium belief may be found in several myths of a golden age long ago in some distant Elysian region, where men had lived with the gods. Into that region brave mortals might still penetrate. ”

“ According to one story Cúchulainn had a horse, or two horses, which were of the same origin as himself (I think that these horses are identical with Cúchulainn's horses, which are really represented as supernatural beings) ; according to another story there was no mention of the horses, and so there were tales "how Cúchulainn got his horses." These supernatural birth stories, as represented in Irish, seem sometimes to make a compromise, according to which the child has a nominal human father (whose name the child bears) , but the real father is the higher being whose incarnation the child is. ”

“ Gwri Wallt Euryn was a local hero of Gloucester, and so one could only suppose that both tales (that of Mabon and that of Gwri) have risen in the same locality; but if we accept the identity of Gwri and Mabon, we have to presume that the story told about Pryderi was originally told about Gwri, [14] and we must accept then that both the birth and the imprisonment story related originally to Gwri Wallt Euryn, and what would remain then for Pryderi? Nothing at all. And yet Mr. Gruffydd postulates that Pryderi was originally a son of an immortal being who took possession of him [third night] . ”

“ These ideas of conception presuppose a very primitive civilisation, such as we find to-day among the Arunta people of central Australia, according to whose ideas the conception is due to an ancestral spirit entering into the woman; when the child is born he is a reincarnation of that ancestral spirit. ”

“ The fact that Mongán, when three nights old, was taken by his father Manannan to fairyland might reflect a similar idea: the child considered as a god's son belongs to the god (in the Removed Barrenness motive the child was also believed to be god's gift) ; this would, however, imply a slightly different motive, i.e. a Supernatural Birth, of which we have found some traces in the first branch of the Mabinogi ”

“ The main divergence is that the Irish tale had originally an External Soul motive (Ériu, vii. pp. 200 ff.) , of which the Welsh story has no unmistakable traces; here the hero (Llew) is invulnerable except with a certain weapon and in a certain position. This magic weapon might be perhaps a remnant of an external soul motive: in Irish story Cúrói's sword is a necessary instrument for destroying Cúrói's soul, because it is his own sword. ”

“ Sometimes the thief of the children throws the suspicion of cannibalism directly on the mother by smearing her mouth with blood. A similar incident is found in the Abandoned Wife (Genofefa) Cycle, where the wife is blackmailed by the mother-in-law or by her jealous sisters (see Kittredge l.c. 241 f.) .
Now we find in the Mabinogi story a real Mysterious Hand motive, but we find also incidents which apparently belong to the other above-mentioned cycles, viz. (1) measures are taken to throw on Rhiannon a suspicion of cannibalism, (2) the mother is punished. ”

“ In such tales the cannibals are sometimes supernatural beings, and possibly their character may have risen—at least partly—from the human sacrifices, and so we must not be surprised if we find that not only the first-born but every child is stolen by a giant. ”

“ In Ireland Supernatural Birth stories are very frequent; usually a girl swallows a small animal, which is then reborn as the respective hero or heroine (Conchobar, Conall Cernach, Cúchulainn, Étáin) . In the story about Cúchulainn's conception we find, however, the version that in a certain mysterious house a child was born on the same night as two foals. ”

“ Gwri Wallt Euryn (=Pryderi) was given the horse born on the night the child was found.
According to the first passage we should expect that Rhiannon was barren, and that this barrenness was in some way removed. Stories of removed barrenness are very frequent in fairy lore. Sometimes the childless parents get a remedy from a mysterious being, but they are to give up the firstborn (son) , who, after having been given to the demon, breaks the shrine-taboo (vide M‘Culloch, Childhood of Fiction, 410–415) . ”

“ And, finally, the limits between the Human and the Superhuman are never strictly defined to the primitive imagination. Superhuman beings are only superior to men through their higher knowledge of magic, and if any mortal can acquire this knowledge he can rise to the same rank as the "immortals." A man can be immortal so long as he has the water of life, or so long as his soul is hidden (vide the Egyptian tale of Anpu and Bata, Flinders Petrie, Egyptian Tales, ii. 36 ff.) . The gods are jealous of their superior knowledge, so e.g. ”

“ This motive occurs very often in the Quest of the Water of Life or the Magic Bird. We know from the folk-tales that it is forbidden to take anything from the land of the fairies (unless, of course, the land is conquered) . From the Irish stories we know of magical castles where people are imprisoned by merely sitting down there, as in Bruidhen Chaorthainn. And so we must conclude that Pryderi's imprisonment belongs to this motive. [12] But this cannot be proved of Mabon. ”

“ If we find that all the traditions agree about a certain subject, it is little wonder; yet the inconsistencies in traditions are far more important, because they may represent a local tradition which may be more valuable than the current literary tradition. ”

“ Gruffydd finally identifies the kidnapping of the young Pryderi with the carrying off of Mongán by Manannán. But in the Welsh story the child is taken by a being which used to take also other beings besides children, and so the only way would be to presuppose that the Mysterious Hand motive was developed from the motive in which the supernatural father takes his son with him. ”

“ The man can help the gods or fairies in other ways. Gods really need the offerings of the people, and so do also the fairies who are, according to Irish folk-lore, entitled to spilled milk. The fairies are grateful when a hero aids their child (so, for example, in South Slav. Prince Marco and a Fairy) . ”

“ Now it is possible that Pryderi himself was in older tales represented as an incarnation of some spirit, for this would account for the fact that Pryderi is in Old Welsh poems brought in close relation with Annwvn. To explain such an incarnation a story of removed barrenness or rather some such incident as that found in Compert Conculaind might have been invented. Beside such a story there existed another pedigree explaining Pryderi's birth in some more natural way, and this tradition naturally prevailed in later times. ”

“ Miss Dobbs' researches are to be encouraged because the questions she deals with are often discussed with little or no method; yet a careful collection of materials is the only method possible. She gives a good collection of facts, and moreover quotes her sources in full so that everybody can judge for himself. ”

“ It might be also of some interest to compare the Irish story of Etain's kidnapping and the Pāli Jātaka, No. 327. The Irish story has preserved much better the original features: King Eochaid Airem lost a game (in chess) against the fairy King Mider, and Mider was entitled to name the stake, and he demanded Eochaid's wife Étáin, whom later he carried off It is important that he eloped as a bird. ”

“ Prydain is obviously invented to explain the name of the country. But this personage is unknown in old sagas, and so it seems possible that Pryderi is the original heros eponymos of the race which gave the name to the island. ”

“ The Mysterious Hand, etc.) and the imprisonment motive arise (thus, as we find them in Mabinogi) out of two independent motives, and they occur in two different stories. According to the investigations of Sir E. Anwyl they are of different local origin. The imprisonment motive, as it occurs in the third branch of the Mabinogi, goes back to the following formula: the hero is brought to a magical castle, he touches a thing which he ought not to, and he is imprisoned. ”

“ This is very important, because the sagas, especially in cases where a personage is inseparably connected with a saga motive, etc., cannot be so easily altered as a genealogy could be and often was.
Miss Dobbs seems to overrate the importance of the agreement of the Irish tradition, e.g. she says (p. 22) , "Taking all the traditions about Clanna D [edad] as a whole they are consistent and rational. ”

“ The story of Mongán belongs, of course, to the same group. It is, however, of importance that Mongán belongs to the Christian era, and so we must presuppose that some older tradition was applied to him. (We have many instances of the exchange of one person for another, so e.g. a story told in north Ireland (Donegal) about Cúchulainn is told in the south about Fionn mac Cumhail.) It is further to be noticed that Alexander the Great's birth story also has many motives similar to those of the Irish tale, so e.g. ”