We have already tried to explain the “Coming of Arthur” historically. Mythologically, he came, as, according to Celtic ideas, all things came originally, from the underworld. His father is called Uther Pendragon.[[421]] But Uther Pendragon is (for the word “dragon” is not part of the name, but a title signifying “war-leader”) Uther Ben, that is, Brân, under his name of the “Wonderful Head”,[[422]] so that, in spite of the legend which describes Arthur as having disinterred Brân’s head on Tower Hill, where it watched against invasion, because he thought it beneath his dignity to keep Britain in any other way than by valour,[[423]] we must recognize the King of Hades as his father. This being so, it would only be natural that he should take a wife from the same eternal country, and we need not be surprised to find in Gwynhwyvar’s father, Ogyrvran, a personage corresponding in all respects to the Celtic conception of the ruler of the underworld. He was of gigantic size;[[424]] he was the owner of a cauldron out of which three Muses had been born;[[425]] and he was the patron of the bards,[[426]] who deemed him to have been the originator of their art. More than this, his very name, analysed into its original ocur vran, means the evil bran, or raven, the bird of death.[[427]]
But Welsh tradition credits Arthur with three wives, each of them called Gwynhwyvar. This peculiar arrangement is probably due to the Celtic love of triads; and one may compare them with the three Etains who pass through the mythico-heroic story of Eochaid Airem, Etain, and Mider. Of these three Gwynhwyvars,[[428]] besides the Gwynhwyvar, daughter of Ogyrvran, one was the daughter of Gwyrd Gwent, of whom we know nothing but the name, and the other of Gwyrthur ap Greidawl, the same “Victor son of Scorcher” with whom Gwyn son of Nudd, fought, in earlier myth, perpetual battle for the possession of Creudylad, daughter of the sky-god Lludd. This same eternal strife between the powers of light and darkness for the possession of a symbolical damsel is waged again in the Arthurian cycle; but it is no longer for Creudylad that Gwyn contends, but for Gwynhwyvar, and no longer with Gwyrthur, but with Arthur. It would seem to have been a Cornish form of the myth; for the dark god is called “Melwas”, and not “Gwynwas”, or “Gwyn”, his name in Welsh.[[429]] Melwas lay in ambush for a whole year, and finally succeeded in carrying off Gwynhwyvar to his palace in Avilion. But Arthur pursued, and besieged that stronghold, just as Eochaid Airem had, in the Gaelic version of the universal story, mined and sapped at Mider’s sídh of Bri Leith.[[430]] Mythology, as well as history, repeats itself; and Melwas was obliged to restore Gwynhwyvar to her rightful lord.
It is not Melwas, however, that in the best-known versions of the story contends with Arthur for the love of Gwynhwyvar. The most widespread early tradition makes Arthur’s rival his nephew Medrawt. Here Professor Rhys traces a striking parallel between the British legend of Arthur, Gwynhwyvar, and Medrawt, and the Gaelic story of Airem, Etain, and Mider.[[431]] The two myths are practically counterparts; for the names of all the three pairs agree in their essential meaning. “Airem”, like “Arthur”, signifies the “Ploughman”, the divine institutor of agriculture; “Etain”, the “Shining One”, is a fit parallel to “Gwynhwyvar”, the “White Apparition”; while “Mider” and “Medrawt” both come from the same root, a word meaning “to hit”, either literally, or else metaphorically, with the mind, in the sense of coming to a decision. To attempt to explain this myth is to raise the vexed question of the meaning of mythology. Is it day and dark that strive for dawn, or summer and winter for the lovely spring, or does it shadow forth the rescue of the grain that makes man’s life from the devouring underworld by the farmer’s wit? When this can be finally resolved, a multitude of Celtic myths will be explained. Everywhere arise the same combatants for the stolen bride; one has the attributes of light, the other is a champion of darkness.
Even in Sir Thomas Malory’s version of the Arthurian story, taken by him from French romances far removed from the original tradition, we find the myth subsisting. Medrawt’s original place as the lover of Arthur’s queen had been taken in the romances by Sir Launcelot, who, if he was not some now undiscoverable Celtic god,[[432]] must have been an invention of the Norman adapters. But the story which makes Medrawt Arthur’s rival has been preserved in the account of how Sir Mordred would have wedded Guinevere by force, as part of the rebellion which he made against his king and uncle.[[433]] This strife was Celtic myth long before it became part of the pseudo-history of early Britain. The triads[[434]] tell us how Arthur and Medrawt raided each other’s courts during the owner’s absence. Medrawt went to Kelli Wic, in Cornwall, ate and drank everything he could find there, and insulted Queen Gwynhwyvar, in revenge for which Arthur went to Medrawt’s court and killed man and beast. Their struggle only ended with the Battle of Camlan; and that mythical combat, which chroniclers have striven to make historical, is full of legendary detail. Tradition tells how Arthur and his antagonist shared their forces three times during the fight, which caused it to be known as one of the “Three Frivolous Battles of Britain”, the idea of doing so being one of “Britain’s Three Criminal Resolutions”. Four alone survived the fray: one, because he was so ugly that all shrank from him, believing him to be a devil; another, whom no one touched because he was so beautiful that they took him for an angel; a third, whose great strength no one could resist; and Arthur himself, who, after revenging the death of Gwalchmei upon Medrawt, went to the island of Avilion to heal him of his grievous wounds.
And thence—from the Elysium of the Celts—popular belief has always been that he will some day return. But just as the gods of the Gaels are said to dwell sometimes in the “Land of the Living”, beyond the western wave, and sometimes in the palace of a hollow hill, so Arthur is sometimes thought to be in Avilion, and sometimes to be sitting with his champions in a charmed sleep in some secret place, waiting for the trumpet to be blown that shall call him forth to reconquer Britain. The legend is found in the Eildon Hills; in the Snowdon district; at Cadbury, in Somerset, the best authenticated Camelot; in the Vale of Neath, in South Wales; as well as in other places. He slumbers, but he has not died. The ancient Welsh poem called “The Verses of the Graves of the Warriors”[[435]] enumerates the last resting-places of most of the British gods and demi-gods. “The grave of Gwydion is in the marsh of Dinlleu”, the grave of Lieu Llaw Gyffes is “under the protection of the sea with which he was familiar”, and “where the wave makes a sullen sound is the grave of Dylan”; we know the graves of Pryderi, of Gwalchmei, of March, of Mabon, even of the great Beli, but
“Not wise the thought—a grave for Arthur”.[[436]]
CHAPTER XXII
THE TREASURES OF BRITAIN
It is in keeping with the mythological character of Arthur that the early Welsh tales recorded of him are of a different nature from those which swell the pseudo-histories of Nennius[[437]] and of Geoffrey of Monmouth. We hear nothing of that subjugation of the countries of Western Europe which fills so large a part in the two books of the Historia Britonum which Geoffrey has devoted to him.[[438]] Conqueror he is, but his conquests are not in any land known to geographers. It is against Hades, and not against Rome, that he achieves his highest triumphs. This is the true history of King Arthur, and we may read more fragments and snatches of it in two prose-tales preserved in the Red Book of Hergest. Both these tales date, in the actual form in which they have come down to us, from the twelfth century. But, in each of them, the writer seems to be stretching out his hands to gather in the dying traditions of a very remote past.
When a Welsh man-at-arms named Rhonabwy lay down, one night, to sleep upon a yellow calf-skin, the only furniture in a noisome hut, in which he had taken shelter, that was comparatively free from vermin, he had the vision which is related in the tale called “The Dream of Rhonabwy”.[[439]] He thought that he was travelling with his companions towards the Severn, when they heard a rushing noise behind them, and, looking back, saw a gigantic rider upon a monstrous horse. So terrible was the horseman’s appearance that they all started to run from him. But their running was of no avail, for every time the horse drew in its breath, it sucked them back to its very chest, only, however, to fling them forward as it breathed out again. In despair they fell down and besought their pursuer’s mercy. He granted it, asked their names, and told them, in return, his own. He was known as Iddawc the Agitator of Britain; for it was he who, in his love of war, had purposely precipitated the Battle of Camlan. Arthur had sent him to reason with Medrawt; but though Arthur had charged him with the fairest sayings he could think of, Iddawc translated them into the harshest he could devise. But he had done seven years’ penance, and had been forgiven, and was now riding to Arthur’s camp. Thither he insisted upon taking Rhonabwy and his companions.