#urien rheged

[gingersnaptaff]

hi anon again and no you didn't bore me at ALL!! i loved hearing about the welsh arthurian mythos and i want to know more. please tell me where i can read about them and tell me interesting facts you like about it!!!!!!!!

Anon, I am hugging u. Thank u for saying I didn't bore u!!! So glad u liked my mad ramblings!!!

Okay, so The Mabinogion is probably a good place to start. It contains four branches of Welsh mythology which sorta ties into Welsh Arthuriana because some of the gods (Manawydan, Pryderi, Gwyn ap Nudd, Mabon ap Modron, Bendigeidfran's head.) pop up in both. Also, it contains Culhwch and Olwen which is a tale concerning Arthur's cousin Culhwch going on a quest with Arthur and his knights so he can marry Ysbaddaden Pencawr's daughter, Olwen. It's believed to be the earliest-written Arthurian romance preserved in manuscripts. It also contains three other Arthurian romances which are either Welsh tales that have been adapted by De Troyes and then back into Welsh but with a twist, or just based on French romance tales that have been repressed for the Welsh. (Idk really know which one is true but they're all fun!!!)

There's also the tales of Lludd and Llefelys (a personal fave.), The Dream of Rhonabwy (a fictional dream containing Arthurian characters but also actually REAL LIFE Welsh ruler Madog ap Maredudd.), AND The Dream of Macsen Wledig which is essentially one man's quest to bonk a hot lady in Caernarfon. (Tbf, Macsen Wledig is somewhat of an Arthurian figure in his own right cuz he too is seen as a Mab Darogan (prophecised son) in Welsh Culture because he united the Welsh under one banner, and then died, and then Wales immediately split into kingdoms again.)

You can either access Charlotte Guest's translation which I am sure @queer-ragnelle has scanned, or Sioned Davies' new translation which has handy dandy footnotes and such.

There's also Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones translation which uses a lot of the medieval language but was also made into a beautifully illustrated book by Alan Lee (An illustrator who is famous for LOTR illustrations). Jeffrey Gantz's edition is, I think, the most recently published edition but you can tear Sioned Davies from my COLD DEAD HANDS. Or, if you like poetry, one of my old English lit lecturers, Matthew Francis, has done a poetry version of the four branches! It's amazing!!!!

Also, Naxos has an audiobook version read by Matt Addis which uses Guest's translation but is good for listening to. I love it.

(You'll also want Trystan ac Essyllt, 'The Triads of Britain' and 'The Arthur of the Welsh' which are written by Rachel Bromwich, and I recommend O.J. Padel's 'Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature' for more on how he's portrayed through that. And if you like modern re-tellings Seren Books has a box set of them! Each one is a re-telling of each branch of the Mabinogi, Culhwch and Olwen, the three romances, and the others. Very fun!)

Now in terms of my favourite things: Peredur being Urien's first cousin irl made me be like WHAT? Like, they're SO interconnected it's MADNESS. Urien, Owain, and Peredur are all related. Also, the fact that Welsh Arthuriana has swallowed up eight irl monarchs (Edern ap Nudd, Cunedda, Owain, Urien, Geraint, Peredur, Macsen Wledig, Cynon ap Clydno (Owain's sister, Morfudd's, lover), and Cynyr Ceinfarfog (Cai's dad), one poetic genius (Taliesin - who wrote about Urien as it goes!!! BTW read the tale of Taliesin. Sjdddkxk. The Jones and Jones translation has it, the Davies translation of the Mabinogi does not.), Emrys Wyllt who was the inspiration for Merlin, and sixty-seven thousand gods, as well as a few saints.

My favourite fact about Welsh Arthuriana is probably that Gwalchmai and Peredur probs had a relationship, Arthur is canonically in love with his boat, Cai literally says 'if u held my dick like that I'd die.' in Culhwch and Olwen, and Gwenhwyfar's a fuckin GIANTESS. 😍😍😍😍 I have many more facts but like I don't want to clutter the feed!!!!!

Hope my rambles were helpful in some way! Have a good day/night, anon! ☺️🧡

[gawrkin]

The French Arthurian Narratives really, really, really don't gel with Welsh Law.

So basically:

Morgan would have just divorce Urien using any bullshit excuse, backed up by magic.

Lancelot would've just paid blood-money for damages done to Arthur and Gawain's kin. (Not that it would stop Gawain if Gareth - and specifically Gareth - is killed, but still)

Guinevere would have just been divorced, beaten and/or humiliated like Rhiannon, but death penalty would have been unnecessary and excessive, especially if Arthur's sympathetic to his wife.

Arthur and Guinevere could've initiated divorce anytime for any reason. Especially, when there's a seven-year time period of cohabitation that determines whether or not Gwen is entitled to half of Arthur's property. Childless!Guinevere really makes it even questionable that Guinevere could've kept her queenship past three years, much less seven.

So, all in all, the Arthurian story we know and love only works if its culturally the French High Middle Ages (12-13th Century)

[sunshinemoonrx]

Reading Jenny Rowland's Early Welsh Saga Poetry (largely due to my interest in the stories around Urien Rheged) and had a moment of "oh! @wildbasil come pick up your boy"

...followed very quickly by the author, uh, roasting Gwyn for his pedestrian poetry???

Give the man a break lmao

[cicelythereaper]

If I wanted to get really into medieval welsh literature instead of just reading everything in our beloved Hergest duo, do you have any recommendations on where to begin?

hi! sorry it took me so long to answer this but hopefully the length of the answer means it's worth the wait. by "our beloved hergest duo" i'm assuming you mean the white book of rhydderch and the red book of hergest, and more specifically the texts collected as the mabinogion from those two manuscripts - if i'm wrong let me know. i'm also assuming that you mainly want to read in english translation, at least to start with.

there is a LOT of medieval welsh literature out there beyond the mabinogion but a lot of it is harder to access. this is a rough menu of options with my honest opinions about how easy it is to get at these things:

the triads of the island of britain (trioedd ynys prydein), aka a big long list of People And Things From Welsh Tradition (Some Possibly Made Up). for this you want rachel bromwich's edition and translation: there are four different editions of this and all of them are expensive (and three of them are out of print). i recommend keeping an eye out on secondhand book websites for the 2nd edition (1978) or the 4th (2014), or bugging your library to see if they have, or will buy, either of these. if you're currently at uni you may be able to get access to an electronic version of the 4th edition.

material about merlin. maybe start with geoffrey of monmouth's latin vita merlini - this is less a reflection of welsh tradition and more an extremely lengthy riff on it, but still very interesting. a new translation of it can be found here! medieval merlin material in welsh is basically all prophetic poetry, mostly from the black book of carmarthen. at the moment, the best place to find translations of this is in the romance of merlin, ed. peter goodrich (1990) - again i recommend looking out for a secondhand copy or talking to your library. hopefully the myrddin project at cardiff will soon have fresh editions and translations for us available online! (in the meantime, here's their twitter.) there's also armes prydein vawr, a somewhat different type of prophecy poem also associated with merlin/myrddin and generally dated to the 10th century, which you can find on archive.org here.

material associated with taliesin. this comes in many shapes and sizes. first of all, there's praise poetry attributed to taliesin and addressed to the 6th-century king urien of rheged: this is mostly translated in the two clancy anthologies i'm going to cite further down, but if you want the welsh text, the best place to find it is probably in ifor williams' edition (translated into english as the poems of taliesin by j. e. caerwyn williams, available from the dublin institute for advanced studies). second of all, there's All The Other Poetry Attributed To Taliesin: for this you want marged haycock's legendary poems from the book of taliesin and prophecies from the book of taliesin. again with these i recommend the secondhand or library approach. THIRD of all, there's a relatively late folktale about taliesin (this is where ceridwen and gwion bach come in): this you can find translated in patrick k. ford's the mabinogi (which it looks like you can get as a kindle or paperback comparatively cheap).

y gododdin, the massive poetic text attributed to aneirin about A Lot Of Dead Dudes In Southern Scotland. this is a tough one to get to grips with, i'm not gonna lie. if you want to get at the welsh text, the massive modern welsh edition by ifor williams (canu aneirin) is still the best there is, but he reorders the stanzas of the poem from the manuscript pretty radically. (to see the stanzas in order, look for daniel huws' facsimile edition of the book of aneirin - or, depending on how well you read medieval welsh handwriting, check out the manuscript itself.) for translations, i recommend joseph p. clancy's, which has multiple versions floating around - there's one in the triumph tree (ed. thomas owen clancy) and a slightly less full one in medieval welsh poems (joseph clancy's big anthology, now out of print). this is the most poetic while still being largely accurate, but if you're concerned about academic levels of accuracy, then i recommend balancing clancy out with kenneth jackson's the gododdin: the oldest scottish poem, which has the advantage of being designed to be used alongside ifor williams. FOR ALL OF THESE you'll need to hit up secondhand booksellers or libraries.

early welsh englyn poetry: by this i mean poetry in englyn metre about historic figures and landscapes. as academic sources/translations, if you can get your hands on them, i recommend jenny rowland's early welsh saga poetry (1990) and patrick sims-williams' new englynion y beddau (2023), but both of these are massive and expensive. a more approachable way to get at this material may be rowland's a selection of early welsh saga poems, which is intended more for classroom use - this you can get for relatively cheap as a paperback. you might also want to check out kenneth jackson's studies in early celtic nature poetry (dated, but i think he translates some of the less-studied englyn poetry in there: again, check with secondhand booksellers) and nicolas jacobs' early welsh gnomic and nature poetry (cheaper and easier to get, but untranslated, though he gives a useful glossary so you can attempt it yourself).

additional arthurian material. this is scattered across various places and manuscripts, but some good places to learn about it, if not necessarily read it, are o. j. padel's arthur in medieval welsh literature (2013, heavily recommended, you can get it cheap as a paperback); bromwich et al's the arthur of the welsh (1991), which iirc includes patrick sims-williams' translation of my beloved arthurian poem pa gur; and the new and exciting arthur in the celtic languages, ed. ceridwen lloyd-morgan and erich poppe (2019), which is going to give you a BIG and comprehensive overview of every text arthur has ever shown up in in welsh. for the last two you definitely want to go secondhand or through a library. EDITED TO ADD: [LOUD BUZZER NOISE] I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT NERYS ANN JONES' ARTHUR IN EARLY WELSH POETRY which came out in 2019! go buy it it's a £15 paperback! an absolute steal for what you get!

high and late medieval poetry of praise, lament and love: the bread and butter of the professional poet. these can be found in various places. for the gogynfeirdd, the high medieval poets, the medieval welsh texts (+ modern welsh paraphrases) can be found in the absolutely massive series cyfres beirdd y tywysogion, but this is not something to attempt to get without a powerful library on your side. the late medieval poetry, on the other hand, is edited in cyfres beirdd yr uchelwyr and can be found online here - which was news to me! much of this material has never been translated into english. for a good selection of translations of some of the best stuff, i really recommend joseph p. clancy's medieval welsh poems (find a secondhand copy or get your library to do it for you), and/or tony conran's welsh verse. a couple of good selections of the later medieval poetry are: the poetry of dafydd ap gwilym, ALL of which is available online in translation here; loomis and johnston's medieval welsh poems: an anthology; and dafydd johnston's galar y beirdd: poets' grief, which specifically collects poets' laments for their dead children.

RELIGIOUS MATERIAL, of which there is a shit-ton. my recommendations are definitely going to be missing some stuff (e.g. soul-and-body dialogues, descriptions of purgatory, etc) but here's what i've got. for material to do with welsh saints, i recommend this website, where you can find translations of a lot of the latin prose lives of saints and quite a few welsh poems about saints as well - and if you look at the bottom you'll see it lists a few more books you might want to look into. if you want an even fuller look at welsh saints' latin lives, albeit dated, see if you can get your hands on a secondhand/library copy of wade-evans' vitae sanctorum britanniae (1944). if you like genealogies, barry lewis i believe has just put out an edition and study of bonedd y saint, the genealogies of the welsh saints, available from the dublin institute for advanced studies (though it's not the cheapest thing out there).* there is also a lot of general religious poetry, which you can find edited in marged haycock's blodeugerdd barddas o ganu crefyddol cynnar (1994) and translated in mckenna's the medieval welsh religious lyric (1991).

*i should also say that if you're interested in medieval welsh genealogies in general, you want ben guy's medieval welsh genealogy - this is very technical and probably expensive but if you really need to know who's related to who in the welsh historical imagination, it's a great resource.

(pseudo-)historical texts: there are various of these. the most famous is geoffrey of monmouth's de gestis britonum (also known as historia regum britanniae, 'history of the kings of britain') - this you can find edited and translated by reeve & wright under the latter title. if you want to know about geoffrey's work but you can't get your hands on it or don't have time to read what is honestly a massive text, then i recommend karen jankulak's book geoffrey of monmouth - super useful and you can get it cheap as a paperback. then there are medieval welsh translations of this text (all known as brut y brenhinedd), some of which go on to become chronicles in their own right (brut y tywysogion). off the top of my head there are three different versions of brut y tywysogion which you can find in a good english translation: the peniarth 20 version (edited and translated by thomas jones, edition 1941, translation 1952); the red book of hergest version (ed. and trans. thomas jones, 1955); and brenhinedd y saesson (ed. and trans. thomas jones, 1971). you might also want to check out the medieval biography of gruffudd ap cynan (king of gwynedd 1081-1137), which starts as a latin text and is later translated into welsh. the latin text is edited and translated by paul russell as vita griffini filii conani (2005); the welsh text is edited as historia gruffud vab kenan (1977) and translated as a mediaeval prince of wales: the life of gruffudd ap cynan (1990) by d. simon evans.

edited to add: [LOUD BUZZER SOUND] I FORGOT ABOUT HISTORIA BRITTONUM AND SHOULD BE PUBLICLY SHAMED. this is a ninth-century latin historical text from north wales, it's weird as hell, i love it to bits and should probably actually read more of it. currently the edition everybody uses is john morris's nennius: british history and the welsh annals (1980), which is not the most expensive thing out there but certainly not the cheapest so get it through your library if you can. this is especially useful in conjunction with geoffrey's de gestis britonum because he was absolutely using it as a source.

the hardest thing to get at on this list: translation literature. by the time we get to the red book of hergest there's been a huge boom in medieval translations of french and latin texts into welsh - and these are often really fun and interesting to read, but under-studied! this is an issue because it means i basically cannot recommend you any english translations of them. if you're still interested and you want to plough through the medieval welsh yourself, here are some texts:

cân rolant, a welsh version of the 'song of roland' aka Violence Violence Violence, edited and translated by a. c. rejhon (1984) - the only thing on this list to have a recent translation, alas;

ystorya de carolo magno, edited by stephen williams, 2nd edition (1986) - a welsh version of the charlemagne legend, this is where cân rolant comes from;

ystoryaeu seint greal, a welsh translation of two french romances, queste del saint graal and perlesvaus: you can find the whole thing in the (very old, undoubtedly outdated) selections from the hengwrt mss volume 1, y seint greal, edited and translated by robert williams (1874-6), which is on archive.org here, and the welsh text of the first part is edited as y keis by thomas jones (1992);

ystorya bown de hamtwn, a welsh version of the romance of bevis of hampton, an absolutely insane text about the worst man in the world which i love dearly: the whole thing is edited (but not translated) by morgan watkin (1958); selected bits of it are edited with a useful glossary for classroom use by erich poppe and regine reck as selections from ystorya bown o hamtwn (2009);

a welsh bestiary of love, ed. g. c. g. thomas (2008) - a translation of the french bestiaire d'amour, aka Do You Want To Hear The Worst Man In The World Tell You Dubious Animal Facts? Of Course You Do;

kedymdeithyas amlyn ac amic, edited by patricia williams (1982), a welsh version of the french tale ami et amile about two identical friends;

chwedlau odo, a collection of fables, edited by ifor williams (1958);

chwedlau seith doethon rufein, edited by henry lewis (1958) - 'stories of the seven sages of rome'.

and finally, medical texts! if you want a look at medieval welsh medical practices and you want to learn a lot of plant names in middle welsh, check out diana luft's medieval welsh medical texts, which you can find online for free here.

i hope this is helpful! enjoy Experiencing Welsh Literature and best of luck getting your hands on it!

[queer-ragnelle]

The Body of Urien Rheged by Anonymous | More quotes at Arthuriana Daily

[mask131]

The fantasy in modern Arthuriana (2)

This is a loose translation of Claire Jardillier’s article “Les enfants de Merlin: le merveilleux médiéval revisité” (The children of Merlin: Medieval magic revisited), for Anne Besson’s study-compilation.

II/ Wizards and witches

The fantastical elements within modern rewrites are often embodied in the most visible way by a few key characters. First and foremost among this magical cast is, of course, Merlin the enchanter, but also regularly the bard Taliesin, despite his lesser presence within the Matter of Britain. Taliesin indeed only appears obviously tied to Arthur within the Welsh sources, especially “Preiddu Annwn”, where he is part of the expedition led by Arthur to steal away the cauldron of resurrection from the Otherworld. We can make the hypothesis that is it because of the historical rewrites of the Arthurian legends that the character of Taliesin gained such an importance, since it is in the Welsh sources that he is most frequently seen, sources that modern rewriters especially love due to judging them more ancient and thus more “authentic” and more Celtic than the chivalry romances and knighthood romans of France and England. Since Wales resisted more strongly to the Saxon invader, then to the Normand influence, modern novelists like to use the “Mabinogion” and the Welsh poems to historicize their Arthur. Taliesin usually stays within his traditional role of bard, in accord to the historical and bibliographical information we have about him. While quite brief, these information naturally designate him as the symbol of the Arthurian legend within a “realistic” rewriting, as a character between the history and the myth.

[In the “Hanes Taliesin” mainly, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest and which follows her “Mabinogion” translations, we discover the two births of Gwyon Bach/Taliesin, is exploits as a bard within the court of prince Elphin, and some of his poems. The historical Taliesin seems to have been a bard at the court of Urien Rheged during the 6th century, and the poems attributed to him were preserved within the “Llyfr Taliesin” (The Book of Taliesin). It notably contains the famous “Cat Godeu” (Battle of the Trees) and the previously mentioned “Preiddu Annwn”. These Welsh poems, like many others, were translated and published by William F. Skene within his “Four Ancient Books of Wales”]

As such, within Fay Sampson’s “Daughter of Tintagel” cycle he becomes one of the five narrators that relate the life of Morgan. A first-person narration that give a voice to a secondary character of the medieval corpus is a fundamental trait of modern Arthurian literature : as such, we can hear Kai, Pelleas, Bohort, Rhys or Bedwyr, characters whose point of view is rarely given in legends, alongside the manifestation of more novel characters, such as Derfel, a shadowy warrior turned saint in the 6th century who narrates Bernard Cornwell’s “Warlord Chronicles”. [Respectively, Kai is heard within Phyllis Ann Karr’s The Idylls of the Queen and John Gloag’s Artorius Rex ; Pelleas within Stephen R. Lawhead’s Arthur and Courtway Jones’ In the Shadow of the Oak King ; Bohort within Dorothy Jane Roberts’ Launcelot my Brother ; Rhys within Gillian Bradshaw’s Kingdom of Summer ; Bedwyr within Catherine Christian’s The Sword and the Flame and Stephen R. Lawhead’s Arthur.]

Within Stephen Lawhead’s works, the role of Taliesin is more developed since he becomes the father, and so the precursor of Merlin (within Marion Zimmer Bradley’s, he is Merlin’s first incarnation). In his trilogy, the bard Talesin paves the way for Merlin, who will surpass his father in his role as the companion of the major hero, Arthur king of Britain. It is precisely this dimension that is often used by modern Arthurianists. [Stephen R. Lawhead wrote in reality five novels, the last two being a flash-back to episodes from between book 2 and 3. This Arthurian cycle is especially concerned with the questions of filiation, legitimacy and predestination. As such, Taliesin announces and foreshadow the coming of his son, a sort of messiah for the Britons, but Merlin himself works for the coming of Arthur, the savior of Britain as much on a spiritual level (the writings of Lawhead are distinctly Christian in tone) as on a political level. It is probably why we also see here a weird and exceptional element introduced, as Arthur is made the posthumous son of Aurelius, and not the bastard of Uther. Here Arthur is the product of an union blessed by the Church, and as such he descends from the first High-King, not from his replacement out of a “side-branch” of the family.]

We also have to note that modern rewrites love to tell what happened during the life of characters in the form of prequels – in this case, the youth of Merlin, which is rarely detailed in the Middle-Ages outside of his birth and his encounter with Vortigern. It was the case within Mary Stewart, the first author who was concerned with the wizard’s youth, and who sems to have deeply marked modern Arthurianists, since the same pattern can be found in other novels, including those of Stephen Lawhead. This concern with “what happened before” is not exclusively Arthurian, and can be seen within other contemporary sagas – Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blueberry… It is a tradition as old as the various “Childhoods” texts of the Middle-Ages. [Mary Stewart wrote “The Crystal Cave”, “The Hollow Hills” and “The Last Enchantment”. As a proof of the intertextuality of Arthurian novels, “the last enchantment” is an expression reused and exploited by Bernard Cornwell in the last part of his trilogy, where a dying Merlin, entirely devoured by his own student Nimue, preserves a “last enchantment” to allow Arthur and a few others to escape the battle of Camlan]

Be it Taliesin or Merlin, the first way the question of the magic implants itself within the narrative device is about the relationship between the king and his wizard. The magical element is thus tied to the political power, weighed down by a reality which, if not historical, is at least coherent. This heirloom is directly tied to the medieval sources, even if it is not obvious at first. The idea of an Arthur raised as a boy by Merlin owes much more to T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King” than to the medieval texts, where only a slow and complex evolution allowed the association of those two characters now seen as undividable. [White’s work is a set of five novels, first published separately, then compiled as one work in the 50s, and to which the last novel, The Book of Merlin, was added in 1977. This work is a precursor of all the rewrites that happened from the 60s onward, especially the first book that tells of Arthur’s childhood and his education by Merlin. It was a best-seller, and the adaptation of this first novel into an animated movie by Disney (63’s The Sword in the Stone) amplified its impact]. Indeed, within Geoffroy of Monmouth, Merlin and Arthur follow each other in the text… but never meet. It was within later rewrites, Wave, Lawamon, and in the French “Lancelot-Graal”, that the king and the enchanter will develop a more intimate relationship, culminating within Malory’s Morte Darthur. [In Geoffroy’s tale, the two characters at least never meet within the context of the tale. A doubt is allowed since in most of the manuscripts, Merlin makes a brief apparition at the very end of the “Historia”, where an “angelic voice” talks to Cadwallader, telling him that “God wishes that the Britons stop ruling within Britain until the moment that Merlin prophesized to Arthur” ; this sentence implies that Merlin might have been the king’s prophet, a role that will become more and more obvious in later rewrites]

This is due to the two characters, Merlin and Arthur, originally belonging to two distinct traditions. Once they became connected thanks to Geoffroy’s Historia Regum Britaniae, the two characters got closer and closer, and gained many interactions, just as Merlin’s interventions became more and more fantastical. This is very clear when we look at an episode shared by all the medieval Merlinian tales: the moving of the stones of Ireland to create Stonehenge. Within Geoffroy’s, it is a mechanical process. Within Wace, an unexplained way. Finally, within Lawamon, it becomes a powerful spell that makes the stone “as light as feathers”. Modern authors follow this tradition and often reuse this episode, or a similar one, in what we can call “the motif of the dancing stones”. In the same way, within Lawhead’s novel, a child Merlin proves his powers to an assembly of druids by making the stones of a cromlech levitate. Stonehenge plays an important role for Cornwell: it becomes the place of a ghost-filled ceremony during which Merlin gives Excalibur to Arthur. Even among comic books, Merlin makes stones dance before amazed mortals. [It is within the first volume of the BD series “Merlin” by Jean-Luc Istin and Eric Lambert, “La colère d’Ahès” (The Wrath of Ahès). The dancing stones of Istin and Lambert are quite similar to the ones described by Lawhead, and the scenarist confessed having read the “Pendragon Cycle”. We find in this “Merlin” the same habt of syncretizing religions as within Lawhead’s works (father Blaise is a former druid, and offers Merlin as a symbol of the union of religions).]

We find back here what we said before: the historicized Arthurian literature of the 60s-80s greatly deprived the medieval text of their fantasy, and since the 80s-90s we have a slow re-appropriation of the medieval magic within novels that still, however, wish to be historical. In other terms – the stones are dancing again, but they are always dancing in a mentioned 6th century.

Before Lawamon, Merlin only acted during the lifetime of Aurelius and Uther, before disappearing for no reason after Arthur’s birth. However, the encounter between those two historical characters was too tempting to be avoided, and we can see a true shift between Geoffroy and Malory (for example), which today leads to the many tales in which Merlin acts as the teacher, tutor, or even adoptive father of Arthur. This filiation is helped by two elements. On one side, that is an elliptic moment covering Arthur’s childhood in medieval texts, and we go from him as a baby to him as a young fifteen-year old king. [We find within Lawamon the beginning of an explication: child-Arthur was raised by elves at Avalon. This idea was reused by Parke Godwin within the novel “Firelord”.] On the other hand, we can see that all of his next of kin die around the same time. In front of this absence of parents, it is very tempting to remove Ector (the father of Kay and the tutor of the royal child in the tradition) and put in his place a more familiar and impressive character, Merlin the wizard.

We talked before of the habit of “prequels”: the cyclical temptation of modern novels, which in a way mimics the Arthurian medieval tradition of a condensed and fractioned writing of the whole Arthurian legend (usually in three volumes), favorizes the writing of the origins, of the “before Arthur”. The introduction of Merlin, but also of Taliesin, proves this attraction for what Anne Besson calls an “Arthurian prehistory”. For Stephen Lawhead, the link between the various generations (Taliesin, father of Merlin, Merlin spiritual father of Arthur) insists upon the greatness and the predestination of the king of the Britons, the bearer of Light. Even when the Arthurian tale is limited to a single novel, it is not unusual to see it begin with the generation before Arthur: it was the case with Victor Canning’s “The Crimson Chalice”, where a third of the novel follows the events that led to Arthur’s birth (even though here Arthur’s parents are named Tia and Baradoc, and bear no resemblance to Igraine or Uther).

To all the reasons described above, we must add the fictional temptation of having characters coexisting to allow a powerful confrontation. But this temptation also bears a prevalent trait of the modern Arthurian fiction, and of its dialogue with the sources. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see a rearrangement, to various degrees, of the links that traditionally unite the characters. As such, in most sources Ygerne is the wife of Gorlois and the mother of Arthur, but she can be his half-sister and the mother of Medraud within Rosemary Sutcliff’s “Sword at Sunset”. The same Ygerne becomes Gorlois’ daughter, not his wife, in Stephen Lawhead’s work, as the author plays with the writing of the myth, has his Merlin-narrator laugh about the mad rumors that circulated about the siege of Tintagel “I have even heard it said that Ygerna was Gorlas’ wife – Imagine that!”). The marvelous does not escape this kind of more-or-less extreme shifts: the case of the female characters, of their relationship to magic, and of their role within history is especially revealing.

[thenntrewrite]

I love making OCs, and this rewrite will inevitably have a lot of them, or at least a good handful of them. I'll write out a list and make little blurbs for each of them—the skeleton of the characters, if you will! Aleron/Morgan le Fay: The main protagonist of the rewrite that's a celestial-faerie hybrid. She's the former princess of the Kingdom of Tintagel that becomes a traveling mage that lives for thousands of years. She's the oldest companion of Meliodas and the main alchemist/doctor of the group. Also the stocker of the Boar's Hat. Prior to that, she's usually the royal court mage of kingdoms. Rhiannon/Igraine Pendragon: The mother of Aleron, the wife of Gorlois and the older sister of Avalon. Once was considered the best of the Goddess mages, but she died during the war. She gets reincarnated as Igraine le Fay many, many centuries later and marries Uther Pendragon to have their son, Arthur Pendragon. The memories of her past are restored early in her life, and she was the one who hired Aleron as her own personal royal court mage—a counter to Merlin and simply to have her daughter from another life closer to her. Gorlois: The father of Aleron and the husband of Rhiannon. He was once remarked as a great king, and a remarkable battle tactician. He was friends with Gloxinia until the faerie king deflected to the demons. Gorlois survived the war and died when he reached old age. Avalon: The younger sister of the dearly departed Rhiannon. A Goddess warrior that lives and breathes the path of the blade. She sealed her soul in the body of birds, living on for thousands of years. She harbors a deep hatred for demons. Eventually, she wound up in a pet shop in the Kingdom of Rheged and purchased by King Urien due to her beautiful feathers. Bavmorda: One of the best mages around. She was one of the many teachers Aleron has had. Not much is known about her, but she has a deep seated fear of her former student and vowed to kill her. Kilia: The younger sister of Ban, and a beast-man. She was thought to be dead when Ban couldn't find her, but she miraculously survived thanks to unlocking her ability to shapeshift into a human. Kilia lives on to prosper and eventually leaves Ravens behind to pursue a career in helping others, like how her big brother always did for her. She'll either become a nurse or a schoolmaster for young children. Shivani: A vampire that acts on her own. Not trusting Izraf, she deflected to build her own kingdom of vampires. She tries to marry a human king the same time Aleron became the royal court mage in the same kingdom. Eventually, they go from enemies to frenemies (She was once fused with Kilia as a character, but I decided last minute it's better if they were two separate ones). Urien Rheged: The human king of Rheged and the younger brother of King Lot of Lothian. He hired Aleron as a royal court mage, and finds himself going through the seven stages of grief when he's charmed by the stoic mage who could care less about the human. It's a one-sided hate-love relationship. He disliked Arthur Pendragon when he first ascended to the throne, but eventually became one of his closest allies and friends, often involving himself in any wars or affairs with Camelot. Dinah: A mischievous beast-man crow that Aleron saved from hunters a decade before the main story. She becomes loyal to the hybrid and refers to her often as master, even though Aleron told her many times not to call her that. Usually she stays a small crow and perches on Aleron's shoulder or staff, opting to stick with the mage at all times. She becomes the unofficial familiar of the mage.

Part II

[ofglories]

Title: N/A characters: Taliesin, Morgan warnings: n/a

Autumn nights in Rheged were cold, naturally, being further north than even Gwynedd could be this time of year.

At least in the lowlands, such as they were.

But here... Well.

Taliesin leaned back, resting his head against the wall of his prison, taking in the hunter's moon beyond the window. The silver light was all the illumination that filled the tower room, the fire in the hearth having long died earlier that day. It wasn't as if the cold could truly harm him, the bard wasn't sure when the last he had even developed a mild fever was, but the discomfort was annoying. Discomfort made it harder to listen to the whispers of the Awen. Made it easier to be distracted by the creaking of long-dead Coel's palace in the night wind. And made it easier for the current ruler of the kingdom to convince him with promises of a warm bed.

Shameful though it was, Taliesin had allowed himself to be won over by such honeyed words more than once since his imprisonment.

Such a frustration it could be, having a body that craved comfort.

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose as he attempted to shut out the sounds of the castle. The noises of humans and animals both in slumber and waking. For a moment it worked. Silence reigning long enough for the gentle melody of the Awen to begin to whisper in his ears. Then an interruption.

Footsteps on the stone steps of the tower.

Too light and careful to be the king's heavy boots and heavier pride.

The bard kept his eyes closed even as the lock in the door clicked, and the heavy oak swung open. Candlelight? No, he surmised with a peek through his lashes. Witchlight. The queen, then. Hands likely full with her children still too young to walk or... anything, really, besides perhaps managing foods besides milk.

Morgan closed the door, slowly, before walking close enough that he could catch the faint threads of the herbal scent that lingered around the woman.

Uncannily familiar in smell to his own mother.

Finally, with a sigh, Taliesin opened his eyes to stare up at the queen, spreading his pale hands in almost mockery of welcome.

"How unusual for you to visit my chambers, daughter of Avalon. Last I recall, you said my presence was an abomination and an insult," a smile as sweet as honey, were it not for the acid delicately covering his words. Let it never be said that even when imprisoned, even when shackled with iron and silver and his magic suppressed to a mere trickle was Taliesin penn Baird not a force to be reckoned with. The bard's smile grew sharper at the discomfort in Morgan's face, twisting her fair features into something pained for a moment.

Just a moment, before it was smoothed and her wintry eyes looked down at him calmly.

"Indeed. That Uriens keeps you as a pet is indeed an insult and an abomination, Lord Taliesin," Morgan agreed, voice as regal as it ought to be for a daughter of kings such as her.

Still, Taliesin scoffed at the title, waving it away with the clattering of his chains.

"None of that, girl. Tell me what you want, this is no pleasure visit for small talk even if you've brought the twin stars with you."

Silence for a moment, the wind blowing just enough to rustle Morgan's raven hair. Then, slowly, she sank to her knees to meet golden eyes with pale blue. Taliesin jolted, uncomfortable with her sudden closeness, and the desperation visible now in the tightness of her expression.

"I leave Rheged tonight, Chief of all Bards. And I require a task of you before I do so."

"...What would you have me do when I am powerless due to the machinations of your husband, Morgan le Fae?" the bard sighed, shoulders drooping.

Always a task, always a duty.

But perhaps this one would be easy enough?

"I cannot take my children with me, they do not deserve a life of wandering and being hunted by their father." No. Taliesin felt a tendril of dread creep down his spine. "Morfudd... She has more Faerie in her than I would wish, and so she needs a teacher. I require a recommendation, for I know you know best. And Yvain... Will be in your care, ancient one."

It was like being slapped and kissed at the same time.

Taliesin shuddered looking at the boy, Yvain, sleeping against his mother's shoulder so comfortably. With his midnight hair and porcelain cheeks, for just a moment the bard saw another child in his place. Another with raven dark curls to be placed in his ruinous hands.

That last child he had raised with so much love that her loss had crushed what remained of his heart to dust.

"...Go... Go to Gwynedd, in the mountains on the coast. Light a fire with winter flowers and driftwood," he choked out, eyes still fixated on the boy even as he motioned vaguely to the girl, "Tell Gwydion that I sent you to deliver her unto his care. But I cannot raise this boy."

"You can and shall."

"I will not!" Taliesin stood with shout, wincing at how it stirred the children to whimper in their sleep. "I haven't the heart for that anymore, Morgan. My heart was lost with my starling daughter, I cannot love another child as they need to grow well," he continued with a strangled whisper, eyes turned once more towards the moon.

Morgan stood with a whisper of samite on weathered wood, walking close carefully as one would with a spooked horse.

Then, without warning his arms were full of sleeping babe, Yvain snuffling lightly in his slumber. Taliesin inhaled sharply, eyes wide as he looked first at the child then at the boy's mother, features softened with a gentle smile.

"You can still love, else you would not have told me who would be best for Morfudd. I place my trust in you, Taliesin, as well as the life of this child I love. He will not be another Branwen."

"He will. They always are. They always die so young..."

"What isn't young, to a being older than even this island such as yourself?"

Another smile, so heartrendingly gentle that it made the bard sob as he pulled Yvain close in a gentle hold so like he had held his last child. Morgan's touch to his cheek was cool, unlike her husband's blazingly hot palms. Unlike his mother's rough grip when she had encountered him as a man grown. The queen leaned forward, pressing a delicate kiss to Taliesin's brow, before stepping away towards the window.

Now he took notice of the cloak of feathers she wore, doubtless woven to grant her flight.

"...You'll become a queen of the land of eternal spring, young Morgan," he managed as she stepped onto the ledge, the wind catching her hair in full now. Moonlight made it look like stars were trapped in the dark curls, glittering brightly as the breeze tousled it. "Some may remember you as a villain, others a hero. But you shall always be the queen that is remembered."

She smiled, turning to look at him once more, eyes bright with magic and freedom.

And then she flew, leaving the bard and the prince behind in the Kingdom of Ravens.

[verecunda]

For a joke I poked fun At him, the old man, Though I loved no one more Before I knew him. Now I see fully How much he gives me. To God in Heaven Alone I will yield him.

Oh God, I think I'm starting to ship Taliesin/Urien Rheged. Someone beat me over the head with something. 😂

Though, you have to admit, fierce ancient British warlord/his snarky court bard is a dynamic with potential...

[subjects-of-the-king]

A New Theory on the Saxon Settlement of England

An original essay of Lucas Del Rio

Note: My previous recent essay had focused on the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and to some extent it was a more general historiography. Continuing with a historiographical theme, I had initially intended to follow it with an essay comparing primary accounts of conflict and warfare between Brythonic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the early Middle Ages. During my research, I developed a personal theory that I propose below.

Little is known for sure of the years that immediately follow the withdrawal of the Roman army from Britain sometime around 410. The Latin works that were characteristic of the Roman era almost completely vanish except for a few texts penned by a handful of monks. Literature in Old English does not appear for centuries and is long limited to hymns and poetry, as is virtually everything written in Welsh. Histories written on Britain that discuss this era are mostly from much later in the Middle Ages. The first manuscript of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical text on England commissioned by King Alfred the Great, does not appear until 891. It is sometimes difficult for modern historians to determine when their medieval counterparts recorded the truth versus when they jotted down contemporary legends, especially when they were often writing centuries after the alleged events occurred. Meanwhile, conclusions from archaeological evidence are largely guesswork. 

Several names have been coined for this era, including “Sub-Roman Britain,” “Dark Age Britain,” and “Britain in the Age of Arthur.” Developments that historians do know of are reflected in these terms. Roman Britannia now ceased to exist, and the provinces there which had for centuries been under the central control of Rome had fragmented. The Britons had regained their former autonomy, with the Romans that stayed behind now dwelling in the decaying remains of once prosperous towns. Petty tribal kingdoms reappeared and resumed their old quarrels with one another. Decentralization of national authority meant that there were numerous tiny armies led by local chiefs rather than a massive imperial force that could crush insurgencies. With no organized administration beyond competing warlords, society no longer functioned the way that it had before. Roads ceased to be maintained, aqueducts fell into disuse, bandits opportunistically plundered the countryside, Irish and Norse pirates raided the coasts for loot and slaves, and a barter economy took the place of the discontinued system of Roman coinage.

Not all historians agree that everything about Britain after the Romans left represented a “Dark Age,” however. French writer Jean Markale goes as far as to call the era a “Celtic renaissance.” It is true that the end of Roman administration allowed the Celtic Britons to govern themselves once again, and not always in small chiefdoms. The medieval Welsh clergyman Geoffrey of Monmouth writes of a new Brythonic dynasty emerging in the wake of Roman withdrawal. While Geoffrey of Monmouth is very frequently criticized by scholars, modern historians do recognize that Britain did indeed have some very powerful Celtic kings such as Urien ruling over vast realms like Rheged at the start of the Middle Ages. Some of the wars between these kingdoms were said by contemporary Britons such as the bard Taliesen to have seen massive battles, descriptions of which can still be found in Welsh poetry. Local economies, infrastructure, and security all collapsed, but Celtic culture clung on through these calamities. Christianity fused with traditional pagan elements to form the British Church, which held certain unique beliefs from Rome despite occasional accusations of heresy by popes. Through the efforts of members of this church, especially St. Patrick, the other Celtic nation of Ireland also saw most of her population converted to Christianity. 

Sub-Roman Britain has thus sometimes been romanticized by the Celts of later eras, who do not hold the view that this was truly the Dark Ages. The most immortal hero of the Celtic Britons symbolizes this phenomenon to a greater extent than anyone or anything else that can be said about the period, hence why the term “Age of Arthur” has been used by some scholars and enthusiasts. On one hand, Arthur can be viewed as representing the glory of the Celtic Britons, although he can also be said to be a personification of their downfall as told by their descendants in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. By the late Middle Ages, there had been a number of popular “Arthurian romances,” and these novels tended to focus on classic tales such as the sword and the stone, the knights of the round table, and the quest for the holy grail. While some aspects of these stories had roots in Celtic lore, the King Arthur that authors were writing about in the 1400s was far removed from Celtic society. Descriptions of Camelot and his court were actually more representative of that time than the Brythonic era. To the old Britons, however, Arthur was a king intent on preserving the traditional Celtic ways. His earliest appearances in two early medieval chronicles, the 833 work The History of the Britons and the 1136 work The History of the Kings of Britain, portray him as a heroic leader who battled the invading Saxons.

More modern archaeological finds do not indicate there being a sole “King of the Britons,” as Arthur is often called, anytime after the Romans withdrew their armies. Perhaps the Celtic Britons had a system where a single figurehead took charge of the different regional kings during a time of crisis, just as Cassivelaunus had done centuries earlier when the Britons resisted Julius Caesar. Maybe the knights of the round table were an echo of elite Brythonic warriors in the battles that Arthur led. The historicity of Arthur is irrelevant, however. What is more important is that the greatest significance of the most iconic figure of British lore is his involvement in an epic struggle between two peoples laying claim to the land that would become England. Such a narrative dominates much of English historiography. Gildas, the Venerable Bede, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry of Huntington, and many other early chroniclers highlighted a Saxon invasion that pitted them against the Britons in the southern half of the island. It created England, thus transforming the island of Britain forever. Since medieval times, historians have continued to tell this story.

Like all intellectual disciplines, of course, the study of history evolves. Recent evidence has caused some scholars to challenge the notion that there was a grand war between Britons and Germanic peoples such as the Saxons. They say that the old idea that the Britons were systematically killed off and England was conquered is not supported by the new science of genetics, as the English today still share similar genes with the inhabitants of the region millenia prior to the alleged invasion. The remains found in 1995 of a prehistoric individual in Cheddar Gorge, despite being nine thousand years old, were discovered to be quite genetically related to the locals. A much larger genetic study stretching from 1994 to 2015 concluded that as little as twenty percent of modern English DNA is Germanic. Both of these findings are examples of why these scholars say that the earlier inhabitants of England were never exterminated by the Saxon newcomers and that they merely blended with the indigenous population. D. F. Dale, in his book The History of the Scots, Picts, and Britons: A study of the origins of the Scots, Picts, Britons (and Anglo-Saxons) in Dark Age Britain based on their own legends, tales, and testimonials, even suggests that there may have been a Germanic population in some parts of England even prior to the Roman conquest. Nor can the Britons be considered a homogeneous people, they say, for the same study that was completed in 2015 found great genetic variation between the modern Welsh, Scottish, and Cornish populations. 

All of this new evidence from a rapidly growing scientific field has prompted certain researchers to deny that there was a Saxon invasion at all. Instead, they say, there was a process of gradual settlement. Such a notion completely contradicts primary accounts, however. While medieval chroniclers can certainly be unreliable, they did genuinely understand aspects of their era that we undeniably cannot, and the fact that all of them agreed that there was a Saxon invasion makes it difficult to deny that it happened in some shape or form. Another finding from the aforementioned study could potentially show some degree of ethnic cleansing, for example. People living in Wales today show substantial genetic differences from all other regions of Britain, with the Welsh being more related than everybody else to the original British hunter-gatherers. Wales is a predominantly Celtic region and is notable for the fact that many of the locals still speak Welsh, a Celtic language, unlike Cornwall and Scotland where Cornish and Gaelic, respectively, are spoken only by a small minority of the populace. The Celts, then, can be shown genetically to be either the indigenous population of Britain or at least one who eventually mixed with an older group, and there was likely a great deal of violence in England to cause fewer of their descendants to live there than in Wales.

Considering, however, that all parts of Britain show far greater diversity than mere Germanic descent, it can be concluded that simply more Celtic Britons survived in Wales than in England. This does not mean that there was a genocide against the Britons per se, but rather that ethnic identity in early medieval Britain was closely linked to politics and war. Celts, Saxons, Scandinavians, and the Irish lived in every region, but certain areas were increasingly dominated by clusters of kings from one group or another. The Celts, once the unchallenged masters of the entire island, would go on to rule Wales and Cornwall. Meanwhile, England became the domain of the Saxons, and the Scottish emerged from earlier Celtic, Pictish, Irish, and Scandinavian inhabitants of the north of Britain. English, Welsh, and Scottish kings all had their own armies, of course, each composed primarily yet not not exclusively of their respective nationalities. These armies periodically clashed, and the fact that the kings and nobles belonged to certain ethnicities meant that civilians of other groups were more likely to be victims of violence during wars, even when a kingdom may have been very diverse. Within the various kingdoms in the different regions, one group may have had the privilege of controlling the nobility while another was forced to be under the yoke of serfdom. To put it simply, kings throughout the island had an array of subjects, although the hierarchy of society was still dependent on ethnicity, and the importance of this during wars led to regional stratification. 

To support these arguments, consider the writings of medieval chroniclers. Their stories share both many similarities and differences. All seem to agree that the island had once been the exclusive domain of the Britons, with the Picts and Scots arriving sometime before or during the Roman era. According to the English monk the Venerable Bede, in his 731 work Ecclesiastical History of the English People, states “some Picts from Scythia put to sea in a few longships, and were driven by storms around the coasts of Britain.” Later, “the Picts crossed into Britain, and began to settle in the north of the island.” In describing the origins of the Scots, the Venerable Bede writes “they migrated from Ireland under their chieftain Reuda and by a combination of force and treaty, obtained from the Picts the settlements that they still hold.” He tells both of these stories prior to his description of the arrival of the Romans. Welsh clergyman Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his 1136 book The History of the Kings of Britain, differs in this respect, instead writing of the Picts and Scots appearing at the time of Roman imperial control. Geoffrey of Monmouth writes that “a certain King of the Picts called Sodric came from Scythia with a large fleet and landed in the northern part of Britain which is called Albany.” Next, “Marius thereupon collected his men together and marched to meet Sodric” and “once Sodric was killed and the people who had come with him were beaten, Marius gave them the part of Albany called Caithness to live in.” Regarding the Picts and the Scots, he says that the latter “trace their descent from them, and from the Irish, too.”

These events occurred before the dawn of the Middle Ages and the subsequent coming of the Saxons to Britain, but they demonstrate a similar historical trend of wars based on ethnic control yet not ethnic cleansing. It was a middleground of sorts between genocide and mere settlement because there was indeed violence, although it was to assert political control rather than carry out a campaign of complete extermination. King Sodric of the Picts had the ambition of violently wrestling from the Romans territory that they controlled in Britain, with the Romans then tolerating a local Pictish presence once this hostile foreign king was removed as a threat. Reuda of the Irish would conquer territory that had formerly belonged to the Picts. They must have subjugated the Picts rather than killing them off, however, for the two peoples later mixed to form the Scots. Geoffrey of Monmouth writes that the “five races of people” in Britain were “the Norman-French, the Britons, the Saxons, the Picts, and the Scots.” When he wrote his chronicle, the Normans had conquered England relatively recently, and this shows that they made know attempt to wipe out the Saxons despite stripping them of their power. In his book History of the English, the last edition of which was completed in 1154, Henry of Huntington asserts that the Picts “have entirely disappeared, and their language is extinct.” The Picts thus eventually did die out. Since they survived for as long as they did and the evidence for their decimation was the fact that their language was no longer spoken, it can be concluded that the Picts were gradually assimilated after a long period of Scottish domination.

The appearance of the Picts and Scots in Britain was long before that of the Saxons and the coming of the Normans long after. Medieval accounts show that the newly arrived Saxons were initially quite aggressive towards the local Brythonic inhabitants. At the time that the Saxons emerged on British soil, there were already ongoing political struggles between kings of different ethnic groups. In the most contemporary account, the 540 text On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, the Romano-British monk Gildas describes how the Britons were to be ruined and conquered while “inviting in among them like wolves into the sheepfold, the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations.” These “northern nations” were presumably the Picts, for the Venerable Bede writes that the Britons “for many years this region suffered attacks from to savage extraneous races, Irish from the northwest, and Picts from the north.” They were vulnerable to attack because the Romans “informed the Britons that they could no longer undertake such troublesome expeditions for their defense.” According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, “about this time there landed in certain parts of Kent three vessels of the type which we call longships” which were “full of armed warriors and there were two brothers named Hengist and Horsa in command of them.”

Apparently, according to The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles commissioned by King Alfred the Great of Wessex centuries later, the reason that the 443 plea for aid was refused was because the Romans were struggling to fight Attila and his horde. With the Britons desperate for any form of help, Hengist and Horsa are said to have earned their trust and then stabbed them in the back. Historians today have no direct evidence for the legitimate existence of Hengist and Horsa other than chronicles written long after the Saxons had established a foothold on the island, yet the story nonetheless reflects a genuine historical timeline. Gildas, for example, claims that the Saxons arrived with full permission from “that proud tyrant Vortigern, the British king.” In The History of the Britons, a work of disputed authorship which may have been penned by the monk Nennius, the Saxon brothers are said to have become friends of Vortigern after their exile from Germany. The Venerable Bede says the result was that the Saxons commanded by Hengist and Horsa fought the Picts on his behalf and “received from the Britons grants of land where they could settle among them on condition that they maintained the peace and security of the island against all enemies in return for regular pay.” These events are early evidence that Britain in this era may have been divided into kingdoms with rulers of particular ethnic groups, but their subjects were a different story. Vortigern was a Britons who presumably was in a power struggle with one or more Pictish kings, although he was willing to both incorporate Saxons into his army and grant them fiefs. Furthermore, his kingdom was structured in a way where society was built around its ethnic makeup. Saxon warriors employed by Vortigern sound as if they earned actual wages, an extremely rare practice in the Middle Ages and even more so in the earliest centuries of the medieval era.

Hengist and Horsa were two Saxons who had the ambitions of being kings of their own. The Venerable Bede writes that “a larger fleet quickly came over with a great body of warriors, which, when joined to the original forces, constituted an invincible army.” It was then that they chose to rise up against the Brythonic leadership, and the fighting did not strictly pit all groups against each other, for he also says “the Angles made an alliance with the Picts.” In these wars, it was the power of a king and not the power of the ethnicity he belonged to that mattered, and he would fight or partner with whoever he had to. Unfortunately for the Britons, they appeared to be cornered on all sides by the newer inhabitants of the island regardless of who fought alongside who at a given time. Gildas records the final and unsuccessful Romano-British plea for help from the imperial forces as including the haunting phrases “the barbarians drive us to the sea” and “thus two modes of death await us.” However, local leadership may still have been deliberately misrepresenting as genocidal persecution of what really just threats to their own power from Picts, Scots, and Saxons. 

Chroniclers in the centuries that followed demonstrate in their writings that the local rulers went many years without letting battlefield setbacks break their resolve. While both Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth tell of Vortigern fleeing to a remote hideout and eventually being killed, several of the historians note the victories won by a Romano-British general, or perhaps even king, named Ambrosius Aurelianus or Aurelius Ambrosius. According to the Venerable Bede, he was the last remaining leader in Britain from the Roman era and in 493 led the Britons to win a battle against the Angles for the first time. In one battle that Ambrosius apparently led, Henry of Huntington says that Horsa finally met his death. Geoffrey of Monmouth claims that Ambrosius and his brother Uther Pendragon both were poisoned by Saxon assassins, but the latter was the father of Arthur. Nennius writes of Arthur being chosen by the different Brythonic kingdoms to lead their warriors in twelve victorious battles against the Saxons. He states, however, that this did not cause Saxon leaders in Germany to cease continuing to provide support to those fighting in Britain.

All of these details suggest divisions in Britain between native kings and the Saxons, but none of them demonstrate anything beyond that. Vortigern must have been a highly influential king over large parts of Britain, or else he would not have had the power to have incorporated enough Saxon vassals into his domain for them to gradually muster such enormous military strength. If Vortigern was a king who exercised significant hegemony, it was strategically important for ambitious Saxon war leaders to drive him out of power, but nothing suggests a full-scale deliberate attempt to exterminate the native Britons of his kingdom. The chroniclers all record widespread violence against civilians, but this would have been a tactic of forcing the majority of them into submission. Gildas writes that the Britons “constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves forever to their foes.” Class divisions based on ethnicity, often very severe, were emerging in the new kingdoms that were ethnically diverse despite the ethnic divisions in the area of kingship. Mutual oppression unquestionably would have created major animosity and was certainly used by war leaders, such as Ambrosius and Arthur on the side of the Britons, to rally support. Saxons undoubtedly did the same.

In the centuries that followed the arrival of the Saxons, their kings assumed control of more and more of the island. Kingdoms led by Britons persisted in the southwestern regions of Wales and Cornwall, while in the north the Scots settled down and absorbed the Picts. Just as the Britons had historically quarreled, so, too, did the Saxons, who began to be called the “Anglo-Saxons” as they mixed with the Angles. Some of their kings, including Edwin and Oswiu of Northumbria, started to become quite powerful. The Anglo-Saxons found a sense of national unity when they faced a foreign invader of their own, the Vikings, in the 800s, with strong leaders such as Alfred the Great taking charge. During the 900s, the Kingdom of Wessex established the Kingdom of England after uniting all of the Anglo-Saxons and securing a dominant position over Wales and Scotland. A Welsh poem from that century called “Armes Prydein” prophesied that the greatest of the Brythonic leaders from the 500s and 600s would be reincarnated and unite Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Scotland, and Ireland against the English, yet this has long proven to be wishful thinking on the part of whichever wandering bard wrote its words. Many centuries later, however, the Anglo-Saxons have never fully replaced the indigenous Celts of Britain or her neighbors. Wales still has the Welsh, England still has the Cornish, France still has the Bretons, Scotland still has the Scots, and the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland still have the Irish, even though all but two of these six countries are now a part of the United Kingdom. Britain was diverse then and is diverse now despite the tensions still caused by differences in national identity.

[rake-rake]

@ofglories

"No. Whatever it is you're plotting, the answer is no." Arthur didn't even have to look for more than a glance to know Merlin was up to something. She usually got that kind of gleam to her eyes when tournaments were being prepared and wouldn't you know it. The King sighed, shaking his head as he set Rhongomyniad down. Another exhaustive training session in preparation for the tournament she was likely plotting some mischief for. "I need you to not cause any attempted or successful murders this time, Merlin. Rheged is attending and I won't let that arrogant Uriens think he's better than us again." ; from lancer arthur to merlin (ofglories)

Unprompted.

It is amusement in her eyes even when her lower lip sticks out in a manner of pout. A single clawed finger rises to wiggle before as she clicks her tongue, a tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow in a way you know she is about to impart some kind of lesson, whether you want it or not.

"My Liege, it is unbecoming of the King to deny a Lady before she's as much as pronounced a single word." Maybe, if she was a normal lady; but that was not the case, and if she just didn't feel like being an annoyance tight now she would've commended him for his reticence, "Besides, it is a tournament, yes? Injuries and near deaths are to be expected. Even more, it may be worrying otherwise. Who would enjoy such a spectacle without any thrill? No no, humans do love to bask on each other's suffering, after all."

And there it was. Maybe, sometimes, it could be easy to ignore it and turn a blind eye, simply forget when covered with a pleasant guise and words. Yet, the truth of her blood couldn't be hidden, nor did she want it to. Humans, to her, where a detached notion, something to look at through a window and marvel herself in their strange, inscrutable behaviors.

"I am simply here to lend some advice, as always. I would be more than willing to help you plan the details, yes? A strong and definite impression in something such as this is important as well, even beyond simply stating your might before others that doubt it. If you just shared your plans, I may help you elevate them to a new height, so that this occasion is one to remember for the years to come."

[gingersnaptaff]

Welsh myth ask What are you thoughts on myrddin and Gwenddydd

( I’m a fan of gwenddydd so I’m sad no talks about her )

ABSOLUTE B A N G E R OF A QUESTION. GWENDYDD!!!! ABSOLUTE BELOVED OF MY HEART WAHHHGHH!!!!!! Always down to talk about her. ALWAYS. She and Myrddin, in my dumbass personal opinion, are like those siblings that are like 'We will meet up every so often unless u are in DEEP DEEP SHIT and then I will come RUNNING.' I do headcanon that she came and helped Myrddin out of his madness after Gwenddoleu died. Also, I find her FASCINATING. She's kind of a forgotten character I feel even though like she's - to me - just as important as her bro. Also, their dialogue changed my LIFE. She deserves to be up there with Morgan Le Fay as a magical lady everybody loses their shit over.

Also, u do find it fascinating that Geoffrey of Monmouth makes her the wife of Rhydderch Hael as Peredur (Yes THAT Peredur) killed him!!! Like, I do wonder if Geoffrey was like 'Yes, she needed to prophesy her husband's death.' Also, the fact that Myrddin is like 'She won't come to me. I killed her daughter and her son.' EJJDJXDKXKXK MYRDDIN WHAT DID U DO?????

I think it is so intriguing how Welsh mythology has these strands of the fictional and the factional all tied in and if you unravel them then you will find something delicious along the way. Like Peredur, Myrddin, Owain, Urien, Cai, Taliesin, and hundreds of my beloveds all enmeshed because, hey, that's mythology.

[gawrkin]

Good(?) News for Morgan: Ywain may have versions where he's evil

[...]

Some Background:

[...]

[sunshinemoonrx]

A cold winter, an old poem, and Mabon ap Modron

Short is the day; let your counsel be accomplished.

(Image source at the end)

Mabon is a figure of medieval Welsh folklore with a relatively minor (if distinctly supernatural) role in the early Arthurian tale Culhwch ac Olwen; a hunter who must be released from a magical prison. Unlike a lot of figures floated as euhemerised deities on pretty questionable grounds, his connection to the god Maponos, worshipped in Britain and Gaul in the Roman era, is fairly sound.

Recently I've been reading Jenny Rowland's Early Welsh Saga Poetry (bear with me, this will all come together), which I was led to by my interest in the 6th-century north-Brittonic king Urien Rheged and the stories that sprung up around him and related figures (his bard the celebrated Taliesin, and his son Owain, later adapted into the Yvain of continental Arthuriana). It includes an early medieval poem called Llym Awel, which immediately struck a chord with me.

It begins with a description of the harshness of winter, then transitions into either a dialogue debating bravery/foolishness versus caution/cowardice, or (I favour this interpretation) a monologue in which the narrator debates this within himself. In the final section, the context is revealed; the narrator has a dialogue with his guide through this frozen country, the wise Pelis, who encourages him and their band to continue in order to rescue Owain son of Urien from captivity.

(There then follow several more stanzas which seems to be a totally separate poem--Llywarch Hen, a different figure with his own saga-cycle, laments the death of his son. The traditional interpretation was that all this was a single poem, the narrator of the first part was Llywarch's son, and this shift represented a 'flash forward' to after the expedition ended poorly. Rowland points out various inconsistencies that point to this whole section being a different poem altogether, motivated by a mistaken interpolation of an earlier stanza with names from the Llywarch cycle)

Where this comes back to my introduction is the book also theorises that the story the poem is telling was originally about Mabon, not Owain. Rowland points to several instances where the two were conflated; from early poetry in the Book of Taliesin to the 'Welsh Triads' (lists of things/people/ideas bards used as aids to remembering legends) to much later folklore. As mentioned, one of the only stories we have about Mabon centres around his role as an "Exalted Prisoner" (as the Triads put it) whose release bears special significance, while no other such story survives about Owain.

This is obviously all conjectural, but I feel there's even another angle of support for the idea the book doesn't consider. The Romano-British/Gallo-Roman Maponos was very consistently equated with Apollo, god of the sun, in inscriptions (most of which show worship located in the same area of Owain's later kingdom of Rheged, which could support the possibility of folklore getting mixed together). Certainly identification with a god who appears as idealised beautiful youth would fit his name--"Mabon son of Modron/Maponos son of Matrona" is basically "Young Son the son of Great Mother". This could be all there was to the connection; Roman syncretism wasn't always 1:1. But it's entirely possible both figures shared the spectrum of youth-renewal-sun associations, or that Maponos originally didn't but picked these up over centuries of being equated with Apollo.

Whatever the case (and with emphasis that this is not sound enough to be considered anything like scholarship, just an interesting "what-if"), if Apollini Mapono was associated with the sun as well as youth, wouldn't it make perfect sense for the story of journeying to release him from captivity to have a winter setting? The winter is harsh, but if the sun can be set free, warmer times will come again.

(I'm a little hesitant in writing this, because "seeing sun-gods everywhere" was a bit of a bad habit of 19th-century scholars whose work is now disproven, especially in Celtic studies, and the internet loves to let comparative mythology run wild with vague connections, but I think the case is reasonable here)

I'll put below Rowland's translation of the poem, with the Llywarch stanzas removed (so something like its 'early' form):

Sharp is the wind, bare the hill; it is difficult to obtain shelter. The ford is spoiled; the lake freezes: a man can stand on a single reed.

Wave upon wave covers the edge of the land; very loud are the wails (of the wind) against the slope of the upland summits - one can hardly stand up outside.

Cold is the bed of the lake before the stormy wind of winter. Brittle are the reeds; broken the stalks; blustering is the wind; the woods are bare.

Cold is the bed of the fish in the shadow of ice; lean the stag; bearded the stalks; short the afternoon; the trees are bent.

It snows; white is its surface. Warriors do not go on their expeditions. The lakes are cold; their colour is without warmth.

It snows; hoarfrost is white. Idle is a shield on the shoulder of the old. The wind is very great; it freezes the grass.

Snow falls on top of ice; wind sweeps the top of the thick woods. Fine is a shield on the shoulder of the brave.

Snow falls; it covers the valley. Warriors rush to battle. I do not go; an injury does not allow me.

Snow falls on the side of the hill. The steed is a prisoner; cattle are lean. It is not the nature of a summer day today.

Snow falls; white the slope of the mountain. Bare the timbers of a ship on the sea. A coward nurtures many counsels.

Gold handles on drinking horns; drinking horns around the company; cold the paths; bright the sky. The afternoon is short; the tops of the trees are bent.

Bees are in shelter; weak the cries of the birds. The day is harsh; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . White-cloaked the ridge of the hill; red the dawn.

Bees are in shelter; cold the covering of the ford. Ice forms when it will. Despite all evading, death will come.

Bees are in captivity; green-coloured the sea; withered the stalks; hard the hillside. Cold and harsh is the world today.

Bees are in shelter against the wetness of winter; ?. …; hollow the cowparsley. An ill possession is cowardice in a warrior.

Long is the night; bare the moor; grey the hill; silver-grey the shore; the seagull is in sea spray. Rough the seas; there will be rain today.

Dry is the wind; wet the path; ?….. the valley; cold the growth; lean the stag. There is a flood in the river. There will be fine weather.

There is bad weather on the mountain; rivers are in strife. Flood wets the lowland of homesteads. ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The stooped stag seeks the head of a sheltered valley. Ice breaks; the regions are bare. A brave warrior can escape from many a battle.

The thrush of the speckled breast, the speckle-breasted thrush. The edge of a bank breaks against the hoof of a lean, stooping, bowed stag. Very high is the loud-wailing wind: scarcely, it is true, can one stand outside.

The first day of winter; brown and very dark are the tips of the heather; the sea wave is very foamy. Short is the day; let your counsel be accomplished.

Under the shelter of a shield on a spirited steed with brave, dauntless warriors the night is fine to attack the enemy.

Strong the wind; bare the woods; withered the stalks; lively the stag. Faithful Pelis, what land is this?

Though it should snow up to the cruppers of Arfwl Melyn it would not cause fearful darkness to me; I could lead the host to Bryn Tyddwl.

Since you so easily find the ford and river crossing and so much snow falls, Pelis, how are you (so) skilled?

Attacking the country of ?. does not cause me anxiety in Britain tonight, following Owain on a white horse.

Before bearing arms and taking up your shield, defender of the host of Cynwyd, Pelis, in what country were you raised?

The one whom God deliver from the too-great bond of prison, the type of lord whose spear is red: it is Owain Rheged who raised me.

Since a lord has gone into Rhodwydd Iwerydd, oh warband, do not flee. After mead do not wish for disgrace.

We had a major cold snap here recently, and having spent day after day going "WHY is it so COLD" every time I emerged from a pile of blankets and hot water bottles--and even having come through it, I'm sure we'll be right back there in the coming months--needless to say, a lot of this stuff resonated.

Rowland discusses some ambiguous lines that suggest the narrator is ultimately overcoming their doubts to boldly press on throughout the poem, even before Pelis chimes in:

A coward nurtures many counsels. i.e. "Deliberating this isn't getting anything done"

Despite all evading, death will come. i.e. "When danger approaches, hiding won't help."

A brave warrior can escape from many a battle. i.e. "Conversely, you can survive by meeting that danger head-on."

There will be fine weather. i.e. "Amid all this description of how cold and miserable it is now, a reminder that warmer times will come again"

Short is the day; let your counsel be accomplished. i.e. "Let's hurry up and act decisively."

-with brave, dauntless warriors the night is fine to attack the enemy. i.e. "Fighting during night (much less during winter) is rarely done in this era because it's hard and it sucks, but we're built different, we'll simply handle it."

In my opinion, many of these would take on an interesting dimension with the above interpretation vis a vis Mabon; it's best to press on through the cold and difficult conditions, because success (the release of the sun from frozen "imprisonment"--a metaphor the poem uses multiple times with animals) will bring an end to those conditions. If the sun can be released, there will be fine weather.

Now, I'm not saying there was some "lost original version" of this poem itself. It's a medieval poem about Owain, and quite a moving one in that context; frankly the addition of the Llywarch stanzas, even if they change the meaning, might make it more moving still. But I do agree it's a distinct possibility that the story the poem was retelling was originally one about Mabon, and I would add that it has perhaps gone unappreciated that this could contain otherwise unattested details to the story of the Exalted Prisoner, and just why it was so important to set Maponos Apollo free.

And on a personal level, especially these past couple weeks while I shiver and glance at the mounting ice outside, I can't help be touched by the imagery of summoning up the courage to press on through the cold to find this buried god.

- - -

For further reading, Rachel Bromwich's Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, as well as going through the Triads themselves, contain an encyclopedia of every figure mentioned in them (so near enough every figure of medieval Welsh legend, literature and folklore, including all the ones mentioned here), and runs down basically everything we know about each one. An invaluable resource.

Image at the top: Winter in Gloucester, site of Mabon's imprisonment in Culhwch ac Olwen. Publicly downloadable. Link to the photographer's gallery:

[wanderingcotabussurgetank]

Urien Rheged by Nitrox Marquez

[long-live-the-may-queen]

("Pen Urien" from "Canu Urien" in J. Rowland, 1990, Early Welsh Saga Poetry)