Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (Volume 1 of 2)

by Sir John Rhys

CHAPTER XII

Race in Folklore and Myth 639

	Glottology and comparativemythology							640
	The question of the feminine inWelsh syntax							642
	The Irish goddess Danu and theWelsh Dôn							644
	Tynghed or destiny in the Kulhwchstory							646
	Traces of a Welsh confarreatio inthe same context							649
	Þokk in the Balder storycompared with tynghed							650
	Questions of mythology all theharder owing to race mixture							652
	Whether the picture ofCúchulainn in a rage be Aryan or not							653
	Cúchulainn exempt from theUltonian couvade							654
	Cúchulainn racially a Celtin a society reckoning descent by birth							656
	Cúchulainn as a rebirth ofLug paralleled in Lapland							657
	Doubtful origin of certain legendsabout Lug							658
	The historical element in fairystories and lake legends							659
	The notion of the fairies being allwomen							661
	An illustration from CentralAustralia							662
	Fairy counting by fives evidence ofa non-Celtic race							663
	The Basque numerals as anillustration							665
	Prof. Sayce on Irishmen andBerbers							665
	Dark-complexioned people and fairychangelings							666
	The blond fairies of the Pennantdistrict exceptional							668
	A summary of fairy life fromprevious chapters							668
	Sir John Wynne’s instance ofmen taken for fairies							670
	Some of the Brythonic names forfairies							671
	Dwarfs attached to the fortunes oftheir masters							672
	The question of fairycannibalism							673
	The fairy Corannians and thehistorical Coritani							674
	St. Guthlac at Croyland in theFens							676
	The Irish sid, side, and the WelshCaer Sidi							677
	The mound dwellings of Pechts andIrish fairies							679
	Prof. J. Morris Jones explainingthe non-Aryan syntax of neo-Celtic by means of Egyptian and Berber							681
	The Picts probably the race thatintroduced it							682
	The first pre-Celtic peoplehere							683
	Probably of the same race as theneolithic dwarfs of the Continent							683
	The other pre-Celtic race, thePicts and the people of the Mabinogion							684
	A word or two by way ofepilogue							686

Additions and Corrections 689

Index 695

We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of this visible world we find them to have been as rational, and shrewd to detect an historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisible world was supposed to be opened, and the lawless agency of bad spirits assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of fitness, or proportion—of that which distinguishes the likely from the palpable absurd—could they have to guide them in the rejection or admission of any particular testimony? That maidens pined away, wasting inwardly as their waxen images consumed before a fire—that corn was lodged, and cattle lamed—that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry the oaks of the forest—or that spits and kettles only danced a fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic’s kitchen when no wind was stirring—were all equally probable where no law of agency was understood …. There is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be criticised.

Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia.

A GEOGRAPHICAL LIST OF AUTHORITIES AND SOURCES OF THE MORE IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WELSH FOLKLORE