Branwen

“ And while they all sought their arms, Bendigeid Vran supported Branwen between his shield and his shoulder.
Then the Irish kindled a fire under the cauldron of renovation, and they cast the dead bodies into the cauldron until it was full, and the next day they came forth fighting-men as good as before, except that they were not able to speak. Then when Evnissyen saw the dead bodies of the men of the Island of the Mighty nowhere resuscitated, he said in his heart, "Alas! woe is me, that I should have been the cause of bringing the men of the Island of the Mighty into so great a strait. ”

“ And on their way they rested in Anglesey, where Branwen, looking first towards Ireland and then towards Britain, cried with tears: “Woe is me that I was ever born, for two islands have been destroyed because of me!”
Then died poor Branwen of a broken heart, and they buried her in Anglesey, at a spot known henceforth as Ynys Branwen, “where a square grave was made for her on the banks of the Alaw, and there was she laid.” [1]
[1] From the “Mabinogion,” according to the version in Rev. S. Baring-Gould’s “Book of North Wales.” ”

“ When the strangers landed they saluted Bran and explained their business. Matholwch,233 King of Ireland, was with them; his were the ships, and he had come to ask for the hand in marriage of Bran's sister, Branwen, so that Ireland and Britain might be leagued together and both become more powerful. “Now Branwen was one of the three chief ladies of the island, and she was the fairest damsel in the world.”
The Irish were hospitably entertained, and after taking counsel with his lords Bran agreed to give his sister to Matholwch. ”

“ And this he places before thee, as a compensation for the wrong and despite that has been done unto Branwen. And Matholwch shall be maintained wheresoever thou wilt, either here or in the Island of the Mighty.” Said Bendigeid Vran, “Shall not I myself have the kingdom? Then peradventure I may take counsel concerning your message. From this time until then no other answer will you get from me.” “Verily,” said they, “the best message that we receive for thee, we will convey it unto thee, and do thou await our message unto him.” “I will wait,” answered he, “and do you return quickly.” ”

“ Then Bendigeid Vran took the letter and looked upon it. And when he had read the letter he grieved exceedingly at the tidings of Branwen's woes. And immediately he began sending messengers to summon the island together. And he caused sevenscore and four countries to come unto him, and he complained to them himself of the grief that his sister endured. So they took counsel. And in the council they resolved to go to Ireland, and to leave seven men as princes here, and Caradawc the son of Bran as the chief of them, and their seven knights. In Edeyrnion were these men left. ”

“ In connection with this myth the name Brons is of high import. This catcher of the fish, this lord of the Grail, at once suggests Bran, who is also a guardian of the magic cauldron. Professor Rhys (pp. 85-95) shows reason for looking upon Bran (as he is presented in the Mabinogi of Branwen) as the representative of an old Celtic god, Cernunnos, that Celtic Dis from whom, as Cæsar reports, the Gauls claimed descent, and who, as god of the otherworld and the shades was also god of knowledge and riches. We are thus brought back again to the fundamental conception of the Grail quest. ”

“ Bran looked at her with his twisted smile. "Aye, ride you back to him and tell him Queen Eleanor is trapped. He will love you for that, your dear lord."
Still Bran looked at her steadily and he said: "Why, cousin my queen, of you and me, it is Bran the fool I would rather be."
"Oh, I am a cursed woman!" she cried. "I must ever strike what I love. You are a true man."
"Nenny, nenny. Bran is the world's poor fool. Bran is a tool in your hand. Bran is the shoe on your foot. But Bran will bear you safe, cousin. See, there is Holy Church." ”

“ Bran shrugged.
"I like it not when the sheep dog runs with the wolves."
"Like no man till his head is gray, youth it buys what age must pay."
"Why, if this were a boy's fling, no harm. But what company does he keep? My lord of Leicester, old Hugh Bigod, the Earl of Clare. You are a younger man yourself, old Bran. It is a green head seeking the grey—and them who have grown grey as his father's enemies. God's my life, I think his mother's spirit works in him. ”

“ From the truffles to Bran, from Bran to the truffles, the good folk stared unbelieving. "How, in God's name?" quoth Godric.
"Where the beeches grow, there grow truffles," Bran shrugged.
"But you have no dog, man. Or—" he crossed himself and looked all about. "What aids you?"
Bran laughed. "Nenny, nenny. No dog, nor pig neither. Nay, nor ghost thereof. Bran hath only Bran. But Bran is the good earth's brother."
"You are more than a man."
"Yea, yea, or less, being a fool."
So they made a savoury meal, and when they began to be genial, "What is this Eudo, brother, that you love him so?" ”

“ But oh, Bran, Bran, it is to the King you must speak."
Bran smiled. "Thomas my brother, of two in a quarrel, was there ever a man who would not bid you school the other? Nay, you know him well. You loved him once——"
"And still would love him. He is my King and my true friend he was and out of nothing he made me."
"Sooth, sooth. But you know him. He is a hot man and quick to anger and when his rage is upon him he does wildly. And you—do you know yourself as well, Thomas, my lord?"
"Ay, a hard man am I," Becket smiled. ”

“ Night fell, the shutters were closed, Brangwen came in to tea, to the loaf and the pewter teapot, the child, silent and quivering, playing with glass beads, the house, empty, it seemed, or exposed to the winter night, as if it had no walls.
Sometimes there sounded, long and remote in the house, vibrating through everything, the moaning cry of a woman in labour. Brangwen, sitting downstairs, was divided. His lower, deeper self was with her, bound to her, suffering. But the big shell of his body remembered the sound of owls that used to fly round the farmstead when he was a boy. ”

“ Brangwen never smoked cigarettes, yet he took the one offered, fumbling painfully with thick fingers, blushing to the roots of his hair. Then he looked with his warm blue eyes at the almost sardonic, lidded eyes of the foreigner. The latter sat down beside him, and they began to talk, chiefly of horses.
Brangwen loved the other man for his exquisite graciousness, for his tact and reserve, and for his ageless, monkey-like self-surety. They talked of horses, and of Derbyshire, and of farming. The stranger warmed to the young fellow with real warmth, and Brangwen was excited. ”

“ By——"
"Nay, brother, by the eyes," says Bran and looked into his.
"God's body, tell my fortune, then. I do not fear." He stopped his horse.
"Have your will," Bran said. "Come down to earth and eat bread with me. We are all one life then," and he slid off his pony and opening his scrip set bread and meat and salt upon the grass. The Frenchman laughed at him but sat down and held out his hand. "Eat, brother," says Bran, grave as a priest.
"Nay, faith, he is quite mad, sir," says the girl. "He will see death in your face as like as not." ”

“ Bran was a cur, half silky and gracious Gordon setter, half woolly vulgarian of the Irish cottage breed, and to us, his comrades, a hero, an object of passionate faith, and, as such, the victim of many well-meant but excruciating honours. He wore, with docile consciousness of his absurdity, ornamental harness of strangling complications, and with it drew at a foot pace a grocer's box, mounted on wheels, while we walked before and after with fixed bayonets and all the gravity befitting a guard of honour operating in shrubberies teeming with banditti. ”

“ He saw the other fellow at the evening meal: a small, middle-aged man with iron-grey hair and a curious face, like a monkey's, but interesting, in its way almost beautiful. Brangwen guessed that he was a foreigner. He was in company with another, an Englishman, dry and hard. The four sat at table, two men and two women. Brangwen watched with all his eyes.
He saw how the foreigner treated the women with courteous contempt, as if they were pleasing animals. Brangwen's girl had put on a ladylike manner, but her voice betrayed her. She wanted to win back her man. ”

“ Then he found himself unable to cope with his adversary, whose every slain soldier recovered life by means of the sacred vessel. But Bran smote off the head of a hostile chief, and cast the bloody head into the bowl, when it burst, and its virtues ceased.
This basin was reckoned as one of the thirteen wonders of the Isle of Britain, brought by Merdhyn, or Merlin, in his crystal ark. That it is the same as Ceridwen’s cauldron is not improbable. Ceridwen was the Keltic Great Mother, the Demeter, the source of life, and the receptacle of the dead. ”

“ The crow is of course Bran in disguise, for the name Bran means ‘crow’ in the Breton tongue, and the rook is possibly his mother. In the most ancient Breton traditions the dead are represented as returning to earth in the form of birds. A number of the incidents in this piece are paralleled in the poem of Sir Tristrem, which also introduces a messenger who disguises himself for the purpose of travelling more safely in a foreign country, a ring of gold, which is used to show the messenger’s bona-fides, a perfidious gaoler, 228 and the idea of the black or white sail. ”

“ Bran is certainly not a dark god of blight, but rather the reverse, since his cauldron resuscitates the dead. In crossing to Ireland he carried his musicians on his back, and this may point to his being a divinity of musicians and bards. If so, he, as the Urdawl Ben ("Noble Head") , may be compared to the Uthr Ben ("Wonderful Head") of a Taliesin poem, which boasted of being a bard, harper, and piper, and equal to seven score professionals.32 Arthur disinterred Bran's head, not wishing to owe the defence of Britain to it. ”

“ The little Anna played about the farm, flitting constantly in to call something to her mother, to fling her arms round her mother's skirts, to be noticed, perhaps caressed, then, forgetting, to slip out again.
Then Brangwen, talking to the child, or to the dog between his knees, would be aware of his wife, as, in her tight, dark bodice and her lace fichu, she was reaching up to the corner cupboard. He realized with a sharp pang that she belonged to him, and he to her. He realized that he lived by her. Did he own her? Was she here for ever? Or might she go away? ”

“ The inhabitants ask him who he is; he tells them, and they reply, 'The voyage of Bran, son of Feval, is among our most ancient stories.' One man swims ashore, and the moment his foot touches earth he becomes a heap of dust. Bran sails away, and the story ends with a phrase which you already know—'The further adventures of Bran are unknown.'"
"How true! how true! the stories of our lives are known up to a certain point, and our further adventures are unknown."
They were glad of a little silence, and Evelyn sat striving to read her own destiny in the legend. ”

“ Sometimes, when it was cold, they stood to be lovers in the stables, where the air was warm and sharp with ammonia. And during these dark vigils, he learned to know her, her body against his, they drew nearer and nearer together, the kisses came more subtly close and fitting. So when in the thick darkness a horse suddenly scrambled to its feet, with a dull, thunderous sound, they listened as one person listening, they knew as one person, they were conscious of the horse.
Tom Brangwen had taken them a cottage at Cossethay, on a twenty-one years' lease. Will Brangwen's eyes lit up as he saw it. ”

“ Brangwen went on in her own way, following her own devices. She had her husband, her two sons and Anna. These staked out and marked her horizon. The other people were outsiders. Inside her own world, her life passed along like a dream for her, it lapsed, and she lived within its lapse, active and always pleased, intent. She scarcely noticed the outer things at all. ”

“ The darkest days of the year came on, the child was fretful, sighing as if some oppression were on her, running hither and thither without relief. And Brangwen went about at his work, heavy, his heart heavy as the sodden earth.
The winter nights fell early, the lamp was lighted before tea-time, the shutters were closed, they were all shut into the room with the tension and stress. Mrs. Brangwen went early to bed, Anna playing on the floor beside her. Brangwen sat in the emptiness of the downstairs room, smoking, scarcely conscious even of his own misery. ”

“ Anna was very proud in her bearing, too naturally indifferent to smaller bonds to satisfy Ilkeston, which would have liked to put her down. But Brangwen was having no such thing. If she chose to be royal, royal she should be. He stood like a rock between her and the world.
After the fashion of his family, he grew stout and handsome. His blue eyes were full of light, twinkling and sensitive, his manner was deliberate, but hearty, warm. His capacity for living his own life without attention from his neighbours made them respect him. They would run to do anything for him. ”

“ She threw her torches from afar upon the roof of the dun; but Bran as before hurled them into the stream.
Now the old woman circled around in the air looking for her sons. Fin was getting very weak from pain and loss of blood, for Cat-head was biting at his breast all the time.
Bran called out: "Rouse yourself, oh, Fin; use all your power or we are lost! If the old hag gets a drop from the vial upon the bodies of her sons, they will come to life, and then we're done for." ”