gwydion – Lee Duigon

I am reminded of an ancient Welsh tale from The Mabinogion.

The hero Pryderi, for services rendered, received a wonderful gift from the king of Underworld–pigs. At that time, those were the only domestic pigs in Britain. All the other chieftains were jealous.

For reasons too shameful to relate here, Prince Gwydion, trickster and magician, schemed to get the pigs away from Pryderi. He tried to earn them as a reward, but Pryderi had already promised the king of Underworld not to sell the pigs or give them away.

So Gwydion said, “I know a way you can let me have the pigs without breaking your promise: neither sell them nor give them to me, but trade them to me in return for something better.”

Pryderi’s eyes dazzled. In return for the pigs, Gwydion was offering him a dozen thoroughbred horses and a dozen pure-bred greyhounds, and both horses and hounds came fully equipped with trappings and accessories in finest gold and silver. Unable to resist such a wonderful offer, Pryderi let Gwydion have the pigs.

And Gwydion said to his servants, “We’ll have to drive these pigs off in a hurry, boys. The magic will only be good until the morning.”

And in the morning Pryderi’s steeds and greyhounds, and all the gold and silver, turned back into dead leaves, broken twigs, and toadstools: for they had never been anything but an illusion conjured up by Gwydion.

This was free stuff before free stuff was invented! This was a man who should have known better parting with something of real value in return for empty, glittering promises. Pryderi wound up losing his life, too: Gwydion killed him when he tried to recover his pigs.

Beware Gwydion’s gifts. If he were alive today, he’d be giving you Social Justice in return for your freedom. And whatever he gave you would turn into crap in the morning.

What kind of kook comes up with a title like The Mabinogion? Well, strictly speaking, this book doesn’t have a title. It’s just some ancient stories that wound up in a collection in the Middle Ages, and later on the woman who translated them from Welsh into English decided to call it The Mabinogion because the first four stories end with lines like “With that this Branch of the Mabinogi ends.” Nobody knows what a Mabinogi is supposed to be. It may be a 19th-century editorial error.

Some of these stories were already terribly old when they were copied down 800 years ago. So old, in fact, that by the Middle Ages no one understood them anymore. We don’t know who first told these tales, or when, or whether anything in the stories is a reflection or a messed-up memory of something that really happened. All we know is that they’re really cool stories that people have been enjoying for a very long time.

My favorite is Math Son of Mathonwy, which is the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, whatever that means. It tells the story of Gwydion the Magician, who couldn’t find a wife for his son and so wound up making a flower-maiden–yes, that means a girl made out of flowers–to be the young man’s bride. Or is it Branwen Daughter of Llyr, in which the gigantic Bran the Blessed wades across the Irish Sea to rescue his sister Branwen from a cruel mis-marriage?

Back in the 20th century, Evangeline Walton rewrote the Four Branches of the Mabinogi into coherent fantasy novels, which were reprinted in paperback circa 1970, when the success of The Lord of the Rings created a nearly insatiable market for fantasy. Walton’s series, starting with The Island of the Mighty is really quite good. I enjoyed those books, and still have them.

But the original (if we may call any translation an original) is much wackier, and tantalizing. I keep asking myself, what are these stories really all about? I love to delve into the roots of things, but I don’t think anyone has yet dug all the way down to the roots of The Mabinogion.

These ancient tales, whose meaning has been dissolved by time, have provided much inspiration for my own Bell Mountain series. Not that I would dare rip off such startling scenes as “the cauldron of rebirth”–if one of your warriors is slain in battle, toss him into this big pot and he’ll come out a virtually indestructible monster–but I don’t mind borrowing a proper name or two.

Just dipping into The Mabinogion from time to time revs up my imagination. I think it might work some magic on you, too. Give it a chance.