FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>  
lim_), of an Oxford Jew, Berachyah Nakdan, known in the Records as "Benedict le Puncteur" (see my _Fables Of Aesop_, i. p. 170). Similar incidents occur in "Jack and his Snuff-box" in my _English Fairy Tales_, and in Dr. Hyde's "Well of D'Yerree-in-Dowan." The skilled companions of Kulhwych are common in European folk-tales (_Cf._ Cosquin, i. 123-5), and especially among the Celts (see Mr. Nutt's note in MacInnes' _Tales_, 445-8), among whom they occur very early, but not so early as Lynceus and the other skilled comrades of the Argonauts. _Remarks_.--The hunting of the boar Trwyth can be traced back in Welsh tradition at least as early as the ninth century. For it is referred to in the following passage of Nennius' _Historia Britonum_ ed. Stevenson, p: 60, "Est aliud miraculum in regione quae dicitur Buelt [Builth, co. Brecon] Est ibi cumulus lapidum et unus lapis super-positus super congestum cum vestigia canis in eo. Quando venatus est porcum Troynt [_var. lec._ Troit] impressit Cabal, qui erat canis Arthuri militis, vestigium in lapide et Arthur postea congregavit congestum lapidum sub lapide in quo erat vestigium canis sui et vocatur Carn Cabal." Curiously enough there is still a mountain called Carn Cabal in the district of Builth, south of Rhayader Gwy in Breconshire. Still more curiously a friend of Lady Guest's found on this a cairn with a stone two feet long by one foot wide in which there was an indentation 4 in. x 3 in. x 2 in. which could easily have been mistaken for a paw-print of a dog, as maybe seen from the engraving given of it (Mabinogion, ed. 1874, p. 269). The stone and the legend are thus at least one thousand years old. "There stands the stone to tell if I lie." According to Prof. Rhys (_Hibbert Lect._ 486-97) the whole story is a mythological one, Kulhwych's mother being the dawn, the clover blossoms that grow under Olwen's feet being comparable to the roses that sprung up where Aphrodite had trod, and Yspyddadon being the incarnation of the sacred hawthorn. Mabon, again (_i.e._ pp. 21, 28-9), is the Apollo Maponus discovered in Latin inscriptions at Ainstable in Cumberland and elsewhere (Huebner, _Corp. Insc. Lat. Brit._ Nos. 218, 332, 1345). Granting all this, there is nothing to show any mythological significance in the tale, though there may have been in the names of the _dramatis personae_. I observe from the proceedings of the recent Eisteddfod that the bardic name of Mr. W. Abraham, M
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>  



Top keywords:
vestigium
 

lapide

 

congestum

 
mythological
 
Builth
 
lapidum
 

Kulhwych

 

skilled

 

thousand

 

legend


Eisteddfod
 
According
 

stands

 

engraving

 

easily

 

Abraham

 

indentation

 

mistaken

 

bardic

 

Mabinogion


recent
 

Cumberland

 

Ainstable

 
inscriptions
 

Huebner

 
discovered
 
Maponus
 

Apollo

 

significance

 

dramatis


Granting

 

personae

 
observe
 
clover
 

blossoms

 
mother
 

proceedings

 

Yspyddadon

 

incarnation

 

sacred


hawthorn

 

Aphrodite

 
comparable
 

sprung

 
Hibbert
 
MacInnes
 

Cosquin

 

hunting

 
Trwyth
 

traced