Nor have we far to go in search of correspondences, for they are nearly all preserved in Malory’s romance. The mystic vessel was kept by King Pelles, who is Pwyll, in a castle called “Carbonek”, a name which resolves itself, in the hands of the philologist, into Caer bannawg, the “square” or “four-cornered castle”—in other words, the Caer Pedryvan of Taliesin’s poem.[[508]] Of the character of the place as a “Castle of Riches” and a “Castle of Revelry”, where “bright wine was the drink of the host”, we have more than a hint in the account, twice given,[[509]] of how, upon the appearance of the Grail—borne, it should be noticed, by a maiden or angel—the hall was filled with good odours, and every knight found on the table all the kinds of meat and drink he could imagine as most desirable. It could not be seen by sinners,[[510]] a Christian refinement of the savage idea of a pot that would not cook a coward’s food; but the sight of it alone would cure of wounds and sickness those who approached it faithfully and humbly,[[511]] and in its presence neither old age nor sickness could oppress them.[[512]] And, though in Malory we find no reference either to the spot having been surrounded by water, or to the castle as a “revolving” one, we have only to turn from the Morte Darthur to the romance entitled the Seint Greal to discover both. Gwalchmei, going to the castle of King Peleur (Pryderi), finds it encircled by a great water, while Peredur, approaching the same place, sees it turning with greater speed than the swiftest wind. Moreover, archers on the walls shoot so vigorously that no armour can resist their shafts, which explains how it happened that, of those that went with Arthur, “except seven, none returned from Caer Sidi”.[[513]]
It is noticeable that Arthur himself never attempts the quest of the Grail, though it was he who had achieved its pagan original. We find in Malory four competitors for the mantle of Arthur—Sir Pelleas,[[514]] Sir Bors, Sir Percivale, and Sir Galahad.[[515]] The first of these may be put out of court at once, Sir Pelleas, who, being himself Pelles, or Pwyll, the keeper of it, could have had no reason for such exertions. At the second we may look doubtfully; for Sir Bors is no other than Emrys, or Myrddin,[[516]] and, casting back to the earlier British mythology, we do not find the sky-god personally active in securing boons by force or craft from the underworld. The other two have better claims—Sir Percivale and Sir Galahad. “Sir Percivale” is the Norman-French name for Peredur,[[517]] the hero of a story in the Red Book of Hergest[[518]] which gives the oldest form of a Grail quest we have. It is anterior to the Norman romances, and forms almost a connecting-link between tales of mythology and of chivalry. Peredur, or Sir Percivale, therefore, is the oldest, most primitive, of Grail seekers. On the other hand, Sir Galahad is the latest and youngest. But there is reason to believe that Galahad, in Welsh “Gwalchaved”, the “Falcon of Summer”, is the same solar hero as Gawain, in Welsh “Gwalchmei”, the “Falcon of May”.[[519]] Both are made, in the story of “Kulhwch and Olwen”, sons of the same mother, Gwyar. Sir Gawain himself is, in one Arthurian romance, the achiever of the Grail.[[520]] It is needless to attempt to choose between these two. Both have the attributes of sun-gods. Gwalchmei, the successor of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, and Peredur Paladrhir, that is to say, the “Spearman with the Long Shaft”,[[521]] may be allowed to claim equal honours. What is important is that the quest of the Grail, once the chief treasure of Hades, is still accomplished by one who takes in later legend the place of Lieu Llaw Gyffes and Lugh Lamhfada in the earlier British and Gaelic myths as a long-armed solar deity victorious in his strife against the Powers of Darkness.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GODS
If there be love of fame in celestial minds, those gods might count themselves fortunate who shared in the transformation of Arthur. Their divinity had fallen from them, but in their new rôles, as heroes of romance, they entered upon vivid reincarnations. The names of Arthur’s Knights might almost be described as “household words”, while the gods who had no portion in the Table Round are known only to those who busy themselves with antiquarian lore. It is true that a few folk-tales still survive in the remoter parts of Wales, in which the names of such ancient British deities as Gwydion, Gwyn, Arianrod, and Dylan appear, but it is in such a chaos of jumbled and distorted legend that one finds it hard to pick out even the slenderest thread of story. They have none of the definite coherence of the contemporary Gaelic folk-tales quoted in a previous chapter as still preserving the myths about Goibniu, Lugh, Cian, Manannán, Ethniu, and Balor. Indeed, they have reached such a stage of disintegration that they can hardly now survive another generation.[[522]]
There have been, however, other paths by which the fame of a god might descend to a posterity which would no longer credit his divinity. The rolls of early British history were open to welcome any number of mythical personages, provided that their legends were attractive. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s famous Historia Britonum is, under its grave pretence of exact history, as mythological as the Morte Darthur, or even the Mabinogion. The annals of early British saintship were not less accommodating. A god whose tradition was too potent to be ignored or extinguished was canonized, as a matter of course, by clerics who held as an axiom that “the toleration of the cromlech facilitated the reception of the Gospel.[[523]]” Only the most irreconcilable escaped them—such a one as Gwyn son of Nudd, who, found almost useless by Geoffrey and intractable by the monkish writers, remains the last survivor of the old gods—dwindled to the proportions of a fairy, but unsubdued.
This part of resistance is perhaps the most dignified; for deities can be sadly changed by the caprices of their euhemerizers. Dôn, whom we knew as the mother of the heaven gods, seems strangely described as a king of Lochlin and Dublin, who led the Irish into north Wales in A.D. 267.[[524]] More recognizable is his son Gwydion, who introduced the knowledge of letters into the country of his adoption. The dynasty of “King” Dôn, according to a manuscript in the collection of Mr. Edward Williams—better known under his bardic name of Iolo Morganwg—held north Wales for a hundred and twenty-nine years, when the North British king, Cunedda, invaded the country, defeated the Irish in a great battle, and drove them across sea to the Isle of Man. This battle is historical, and, putting Dôn and Gwydion out of the question, probably represented the last stand of the Gael, in the extreme west of Britain, against the second and stronger wave of Celtic invasion. In the same collection of Iolo Manuscripts is found a curious, and even comic, euhemeristic version of the strange myth of the Bone Prison of Oeth and Anoeth which Manawyddan son of Llyr, built in Gower. The new reading makes that ghastly abode a real building, constructed out of the bones of the “Caesarians” (Romans) killed in battle with the Cymri. It consisted of numerous chambers, some of large bones and some of small, some above ground and some under. Prisoners of war were placed in the more comfortable cells, the underground dungeons being kept for traitors to their country. Several times the “Caesarians” demolished the prison, but, each time, the Cymri rebuilt it stronger than before. At last, however, the bones decayed, and, being spread upon the ground, made an excellent manure! “From that time forth” the people of the neighbourhood “had astonishing crops of wheat and barley and of every other grain for many years”.[[525]]
It is not, however, in these, so to speak, unauthorized narratives that we can best refind our British deities, but in the compact, coherent, and at times almost convincing Historia Britonum of Geoffrey of Monmouth, published in the first half of the twelfth century, and for hundreds of years gravely quoted as the leading authority on the early history of our islands. The modern critical spirit has, of course, relegated it to the region of fable. We can no longer accept the pleasant tradition of the descent of the Britons from the survivors of Troy, led westward in search of a new home by Brutus, the great-grandson of the pious Æneas. Nor indeed does any portion of the “History”, from Æneas to Athelstan, quite persuade the latter-day reader. Its kings succeed one another in plausible sequence, but they themselves are too obviously the heroes of popular legend.
A large part of Geoffrey’s chronicle—two books[[526]] out of twelve—is, of course, devoted to Arthur. In it he tells the story of that paladin’s conquests, not only in his own country, against the Saxons, the Irish, the Scots, and the Picts, but over all western Europe. We see the British champion, after annexing Ireland, Iceland, Gothland, and the Orkneys, following up these minor victories by subduing Norway, Dacia (by which Denmark seems to have been meant), Aquitaine, and Gaul. After such triumphs there was clearly nothing left for him but the overthrow of the Roman empire; and this he had practically achieved when the rebellion of Mordred brought him home to his death, or rather (for even Geoffrey does not quite lose hold of the belief in the undying Arthur) to be carried to the island of Avallon to be healed of his wounds, the crown of Britain falling to “his kinsman Constantine, the son of Cador, Duke of Cornwall, in the five hundred and forty-second year of our Lord’s incarnation”.[[527]] Upon the more personal incidents connected with Arthur, Geoffrey openly professes to keep silence, possibly regarding them as not falling within the province of his history, but we are told shortly how Mordred took advantage of Arthur’s absence on the Continent to seize the throne, marry Guanhamara (Guinevere), and ally himself with the Saxons, only to be defeated at that fatal battle called by Geoffrey “Cambula”, in which Mordred, Arthur, and Walgan—the “Sir Gawain” of Malory and the Gwalchmei of the earlier legends—all met their dooms.
We find the gods of the older generation standing in the same position with regard to Arthur in Geoffrey’s “History” as they do in the later Welsh triads and tales. Though rulers, they are yet his vassals. In “three brothers of royal blood”, called Lot, Urian, and Augusel, who are represented as having been chiefs in the north, we may discern Lludd, Urien, and Arawn. To these three Arthur restored “the rights of their ancestors”, handing over the semi-sovereignty of Scotland to Augusel, giving Urian the government of Murief (Moray), and re-establishing Lot “in the consulship of Loudonesia (Lothian), and the other provinces belonging to him”.[[528]] Two other rulers subject to him are Gunvasius, King of the Orkneys, and Malvasius, King of Iceland,[[529]] in whom we recognize Gwyn, under Latinized forms of his Welsh name Gwynwas and his Cornish name Melwas. But it is characteristic of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s loose hold upon his materials that, not content with having connected several of these gods with Arthur’s period, he further endows them with reigns of their own. “Urien” was Arthur’s vassal, but “Urianus” was himself King of Britain centuries before Arthur was born.[[530]] Lud (that is, Lludd) succeeded his father Beli.[[531]] We hear nothing of his silver hand, but we learn that he was “famous for the building of cities, and for rebuilding the walls of Trinovantum[[532]], which he also surrounded with innumerable towers ... and though he had many other cities, yet he loved this above them all, and resided in it the greater part of the year; for which reason it was afterwards called Kaerlud, and by the corruption of the word, Caerlondon; and again by change of languages, in process of time, London; as also by foreigners who arrived here, and reduced this country under their subjection, it was called Londres. At last, when he was dead, his body was buried by the gate which to this time is called in the British tongue after his name Parthlud, and in the Saxon, Ludesgata.” He was succeeded by his brother, Cassibellawn (Cassivelaunus), during whose reign Julius Caesar first invaded Britain.