Rocks sit in Llyn Dinas at dawn in Snowdonia National Park in Bethania, Wales. Llyn Dinas nestles in a valley a few miles north of Beddgelert where the sad story of Gelert is set. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Myths and legends, traditional stories passed down the generations from adult to child, told by the fire or round the table as long as people have gathered to eat, drink, sing or pluck a harp, are really a kind of history. Myth is how people explained the world, long ago, and such stories are often associated with real places.
This year is the centenary of the birth of T Llew Jones, writer of many fine children’s books in Welsh. Twenty five years ago, I was commissioned to translate his retelling of 26 traditional stories Lleuad yn Olau (One Moonlit Night). This is my top 10 favourite Welsh myths, all contained in this wonderful collection.
Walkers at Llyn y Fan Fach in the Brecon Beacons National Park at Powys, Wales Photograph: Alamy
1. The first myth I loved was The Girl from Llyn y Fan Fach. When I was a child, my father took me to the lake below the Black Mountain in Carmarthenshire, and told me how, long ago, a young man, watching his cattle by the lake, sees a beautiful girl rise from the water. She vanishes, then returns twice more. Each time he asks her to stay. They fall in love. Her father lets them marry, but warns that if the young man touches her three times with metal, he will lose her. Over the years he accidentally taps her with a horseshoe, a ring, and a bridle, and she runs home to the lake. My father told me the magic place of metal in the story means it might come from a time when Stone Age people first met Iron Age tribes, with their iron swords and flashing jewellery.
The legendary King Arthur’s sword embedded in stone. Photograph: Richard T Nowitz/Corbis
2. Arthur’s name is first mentioned in a great sixth-century poem called The Gododdin, about a real battle - they were times of warring tribes in Britain. The Sword in the Stone tells us that, just before his death, King Uthr Pendragon gives his baby son, Arthur, to the care of Merlin the wizard, in the hope that his boy would grow up to save Britain. Years later, a young boy does what no one else could do. He draws the sword from the stone. He is the boy Arthur.
3. In Arthur’s Last Journey two of his dearest knights, Cai and Bedwyr, are with him. He is dying. He tells Bedwyr to cast his famous sword, Excalibur, far out into the lake. Bedwyr can’t bear to do it. He hides it, and lies to Arthur, twice. At last he obeys the king, and sees a hand reach up from the water to catch Excalibur. Arthur is borne in a boat over the lake to the island of Avalon. In British, or Welsh, “afal” means apple, and “Afallon” is the island of apples. But where is Avalon?
4. We are still searching for “Arthur’s Cave”. One tale places the cave in North Wales, where, so the story goes, it was discovered long ago by a shepherd searching for lost sheep in a ravine. He cuts and whittles a stick from a hazel tree in the ravine, and takes it to market where an old man (Merlin the wizard, in disguise) asks where he got it. They return to the mountain together and find the cave, and sleeping knights in shining armour, one knight more kingly than the rest. It is Arthur. They wake. Arthur says, “Sleep again! Our time is not yet come.” The boy never finds the cave again.
Cardigan Bay in Aberystwyth, Wales. Photograph: Getty Images
5. Daughters of the Sea is a sad story, and I am reminded of it when I hear the cry of a seagull. The story is set in Cardigan Bay, near the Irish Sea, often hit by powerful storms. It tells that Dylan the sea god, who lives under the waters of Cardigan Bay, envies an old man his three daughters. Dylan calls up a great storm, and sends a huge wave to steal the girls. Their father is heartbroken. Regretting his evil deed, Dylan turns the girls into seagulls, belonging both to the sea and the land. Since that day, when the old man walks on the beach and calls their names, three white gulls fly to him from the sea.
6. The Story of Gelert is set in a place in North Wales called Beddgelert, Gelert’s Grave. It is said to be the the grave of a brave hound commanded by his owner, Llewelyn, to guard his baby son, who lies asleep in his cradle. A wolf comes, but Gelert fights it to the death, overturning the cradle in the battle. Llewelyn returns to find the cradle upturned and blood on the floor. He kills Gelert with his sword, before seeing the dead wolf, and hears the baby cry under the cradle. Overcome with guilt and sorrow, he buries Gelert, and has a stone placed on the grave to remember him.
7. The King’s Secret is both funny and touchingly human. The king, named March ap Meirchion - it means Stallion son of Stallions - has a secret: he has the ears of a horse. He is ashamed of his horse ears. Only his barber knows, and he is sworn to secrecy. But the barber can’t keep a secret, so he goes to a bog and whispers it to the reeds. Passing pipers cut some reeds to make themselves new pipes. When they play for the king, instead of music, the pipes whisper “the King has the ears of a horse”. The secret is out. March takes off his crown to reveal his ears, and no one laughs, or minds at all.
8. Gwion and the Witch tells of the birth of Taliesin, one of the earliest British poets whose name we know. The witch is Ceridwen. Gwion, her servant, must keep the fire burning for a year and a day under the cauldron where the magic brew simmers. Ceridwen has made the potion to bestow on her son, Morfran, the gift of poetry. But as the cauldron boils nearly dry, the last magic drop jumps onto Gwion’s finger. He sucks his scalded finger, and it is he, not Morfran, who will become the great poet. In an exciting chase, he escapes the witch and all her evil spells, and becomes Taliesin.
Borth where hundreds of oaks that died more than 4,500 years ago rose from the sea, just like in the myth. Photograph: Andrew Chittock/Demotix/Corbis
9. Branwen is one of my favourite stories, traditionally set in Harlech, North Wales, but when my father told me the story, he set it on the beach below my grandmother’s farm. Branwen, married to the king of Ireland, was so unhappy that she taught a starling to say her name, and sent it across the sea to Wales. It landed on the shoulder of her brother, the giant Brân. He set out at once to rescue her, wading through the sea, towing a fleet of ships. He left a boulder from his pocket on the cliff, and a paddling-pool-sized footprint stamped on the beach. Or so my father said.
10 The Country Under the Sea is my favourite story since a real great storm rolled in from the Irish Sea last winter, removing a metre depth of sand from the beach at Borth on Cardigan Bay. There, revealed, was the proof we always knew was hidden under the beach: the blackened petrified remains of an ancient forest, and evidence of land inhabited six thousand years ago. It was the mythical country under the sea, Cantre’r Gwaelod. Real people lived here, and their story, passed down the generations, has turned to legend.
I loved those. And 5 were totally new to me x
ReplyDeleteThank you John x
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