The story of Rhita is told also by Malory, who calls that giant Ryons and Ryence; and there the incident seems to end with Ryons being led to Arthur’s court by knights who had overcome him. Ryons’ challenge, as given by Malory[7], runs thus:—
‘This meane whyle came a messager from kynge Ryons of Northwalys. And kynge he was of all Ireland and of many Iles. And this was his message gretynge wel kynge Arthur in this manere wyse sayenge . that kynge Ryons had discomfyte and ouercome xj kynges . and eueryche of hem did hym homage . and that was this . they gaf hym their berdys clene flayne of . as moche as ther was . wherfor the messager came for kyng Arthurs berd. For kyng Ryons had purfyled a mantel with kynges berdes . and there lacked one place of the mantel . wherfor he sente for his berd or els he wold entre in to his landes . and brenne and slee . & neuer leue tyl he haue the hede and the berd.’
Rhita is not said, it is true, to have been a Gwyđel, ‘Goidel’; but he is represented ruling over Ireland, and his name, which is not Welsh, recalls at first sight those of such men as Boya the Pict or Scot figuring in the life of St. David, and such as Ỻia Gvitel, ‘Ỻia the Goidel,’ mentioned in the Stanzas of the Graves in the Black Book of Carmarthen as buried in the seclusion of Ardudwy[8]. Malory’s Ryons is derived from the French Romances, where, as for example in the Merlin, according to the Huth MS., it occurs as Rion-s in the nominative, and Rion in régime. The latter, owing to the old French habit of eliding đ or th, derives regularly enough from such a form as the accusative Rithon-em[9], which is the one occurring in Geoffrey’s text; and we should probably be right in concluding therefrom that the correct old Welsh form of the name was Rithon. But the Goidelic form was at the same time probably Ritta, with a genitive Rittann, for an earlier Ritton. Lastly, that the local legend should perpetuate the Goidelic Ritta slightly modified, has its parallel in the case of Trwyd and Trwyth, and of Echel and Egel or Ecel, pp. 541–2 and 536–7.
The next story[10] points to a spot between y Dinas or Dinas Emrys and Ỻyn y Dinas as containing the grave of Owen y Mhacsen, that is to say, ‘Owen son of Maxen.’ Owen had been fighting with a giant—whose name local tradition takes for granted—with balls of steel; and there are depressions (panylau[11]) still to be seen in the ground where each of the combatants took his stand. Some, however, will have it that it was with bows and arrows they fought, and that the hollows are the places they dug to defend themselves. The result was that both died at the close of the conflict; and Owen, being asked where he wished to be buried, ordered an arrow to be shot into the air and his grave to be made where it fell. The story is similarly given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 81–2, where the combatants are called Owen Finđu ab Macsen Wledig, ‘Owen of the Dark Face, son of Prince Maxen,’ and Eurnach Hen, ‘E. the Ancient,’ one of the Gwyđyl or ‘Goidels’ of North Wales, and otherwise called Urnach Wyđel. He is there represented as father (1) of the Serrigi defeated by Catwaỻawn or Cadwaỻon Law-hir, ‘C. the Long-handed,’ at Cerrig y Gwyđyl, ‘the Stones of the Goidels,’ near Maỻdraeth[12], in Anglesey, where the great and final rout of the Goidels is represented as having taken place[13]; (2) of Daronwy, an infant spared and brought up in Anglesey to its detriment, as related in the other story, p. 504; and (3) of Solor, who commands one of the three cruising fleets of the Isle of Prydain[14]. The stronghold of Eurnach or Urnach is said to have been Dinas Ffaraon, which was afterwards called Din Emreis and Dinas Emrys. The whole story about the Goidels in North Wales, however, as given in the Iolo MSS., pp. 78–80, is a hopeless jumble, though it is probably based on old traditions. In fact, one detects Eurnach or Urnach as Wrnach or Gwrnach in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen[15] in the Red Book, where we are told that Kei or Cai, and others of Arthur’s men, got into the giant’s castle and cut off his head in order to secure his sword, which was one of the things required for the hunting of Twrch Trwyth. In an obscure passage, also in a poem in the Black Book, we read of Cai fighting in the hall of this giant, who is then called Awarnach[16]. Some such a feat appears to have been commemorated in the place-name Gwryd Cai, ‘Cai’s Feat of Arms,’ which occurs in Ỻewelyn’s grant of certain lands on the Beđgelert and Pen Gwryd side of Snowdon in 1198 to the monks of Aberconwy, or rather in an inspeximus of the same: see Dugdale’s Monasticon, v. 673a, where it stands printed gwryt, kei. Nor is it unreasonable to guess that Pen Gwryd is only a shortening of Pen Gwryd Cai, ‘Cai’s Feat Knoll or Terminus’; but compare p. 217 above. Before leaving Cai I may point out that tradition seems to ascribe to him as his residence the place called Caer Gai, ‘Cai’s Fort,’ between Bala and Ỻanuwchỻyn. If one may treat Cai as a historical man, one may perhaps suppose him, or some member of his family, commemorated by the vocable Burgocavi on an old stone found at Caer Gai, and said to read: Ic iacit Salvianus Burgocavi filius Cupitiani[17]—‘Here lies Salvianus Burgocavis, son of Cupitianus.’ The reader may also be referred back to such non-Brythonic and little known figures as Daronwy, Cathbalug, and Brynach, together perhaps with Mengwaed, the wolf-lord of Arỻechweđ, pp. 504–5. It is worth while calling attention likewise to Goidelic indications afforded by the topography of Eryri, to wit such cases as Bwlch Mwrchan or Mwlchan, ‘Mwrchan’s Pass,’ sometimes made into Bwlch Mwyalchen or even Bwlch y Fwyalchen, ‘the Ousel’s Gap,’ near Ỻyn Gwynain; the remarkable remains called Muriau’r Dre, ‘the Town Walls’—otherwise known as Tre’r Gwyđelod[18], ‘the Goidels’ town’—on the land of Gwastad Annas at the top of Nanhwynain; and Bwlch y Gwyđel, still higher towards Pen Gwryd, may have meant the ‘Goidel’s Pass.’
Probably a study of the topography on the spot would result in the identification of more names similarly significant; but I will call attention to only one of them, namely Beđgelert or, as it is locally pronounced, Bethgelart, though the older spellings of the name appear to be Beth Kellarth and Beth Kelert. Those who are acquainted with the story, as told there, of the man who rashly killed his hound might think that Beđgelert, ‘Gelert or Kelert’s Grave,’ refers to the hound; but there is a complete lack of evidence to show this widely known story to have been associated with the neighbourhood by antiquity[19]; and the compiler of the notes and pedigrees known as Boneđ y Saint was probably right in treating Kelert as the name of an ancient saint: see the Myvyr. Arch., ii. 36. In any case, Kelert or Gelert with its rt cannot be a genuine Welsh name: the older spellings seem to indicate two pronunciations—a Goidelic one, Kelert, and a Welsh one, Kelarth or Keỻarth, which has not survived. The documents, however, in which the name occurs require to be carefully examined for the readings which they supply.
Lastly, from the Goidels of Arfon must not be too violently severed those of Mona, among whom we have found, pp. 504–5, the mysterious Cathbalug, whose name, still half unexplained, reminds one of such Irish ones as Cathbuadach, ‘battle-victorious or conquering in war’; and to the same stratum belongs Daronwy, p. 504, which survives as the name of a farm in the parish of Ỻanfachreth. The Record of Carnarvon, p. 59, speaks both of a Molendinum de Darronwy et Cornewe, ‘Mill of Daronwy[20] and Cornwy,’ and of Villæ de Dorronwy et Kuwghdornok, ‘Vills of Daronwy and of the Cnwch Dernog,’ which has been mentioned as now pronounced Clwch Dernog, p. 457: it is situated in the adjoining parish of Ỻanđeusant. The name is given in the same Record as Dernok, and is doubtless to be identified with the Ternóc not very uncommon in Irish hagiology. With these names the Record further associates a holding called Wele Conus, and Conus survives in Weun Gonnws, the name of a field on the farm of Bron Heulog, adjoining Clwch Dernog. That is not all, for Connws turns out to be the Welsh pronunciation of the Goidelic name Cunagussus, of which we have the Latinized genitive on the Bodfeđan menhir, some distance north-east of the railway station of Ty Croes. It reads: CVNOGVSI HIC IACIT, ‘Here lies (the body) of Cunagussus,’ and involves a name which has regularly become in Irish Conghus, while the native Welsh equivalent would be Cynwst[21]. These names, and one[22] or two more which might be added to them, suggest a very Goidelic population as occupying, in the fifth or sixth century, the part of the island west of a line from Amlwch to Maỻdraeth.
Lastly, the chronological indications of the crushing of the power of the Goidels, and the incipient merging of that people with the Brythons into a single nation of Kymry or ‘Compatriots,’ are worthy of a passing remark. We seem to find the process echoed in the Triads when they mention as a favourite at Arthur’s Court the lord of Arỻechweđ, named Menwaeđ, who has been guessed, p. 507 above, to have been a Goidel. Then Serrigi and Daronwy are signalized as contemporaries of Cadwaỻon Law-hir, who inflicted on the former, according to the later legend, the great defeat of Cerrig y Gwyđyl[23]. The name, however, of the leader of the Goidels arrayed against Cadwaỻon may be regarded as unknown, and Serrigi as a later name, probably of Norse origin, introduced from an account of a tenth century struggle with invaders from the Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin[24]. In this conqueror we have probably all that can be historical of the Caswaỻon of the Mabinogion of Branwen and Manawyđan, that is, the Caswaỻon who ousts the Goidelic family of Ỻyr from power in this country, and makes Pryderi of Dyfed pay homage to him as supreme king of the island. His name has there undergone assimilation to that of Cassivellaunos, and he is furthermore represented as son of Beli, king of Prydain in the days of its independence, before the advent of the legions of Rome. But as a historical man we are to regard Caswaỻon probably as Cadwaỻon Law-hir, grandson of Cuneđa and father of Maelgwn of Gwyneđ. Now Cuneđa and his sons, according to Nennius (§ 62), expelled the Goidels with terrible slaughter; and one may say, with the Triads, which practically contradict Nennius’ statement as to the Goidels being expelled, that Cuneđa’s grandson continued the struggle with them. In any case there were Goidels still there, for the Book of Taliessin seems to give evidence[25] of a persistent hostility, on the part of the Goidelic bards of Gwyneđ, to Maelgwn and the more Brythonic institutions which he may be regarded as representing. This brings the Goidelic element down to the sixth century[26]. Maelgwn’s death took place, according to the oldest manuscript of the Annales Cambriæ, in the year 547, or ten years after the Battle of Camlan—in which, as it says, Arthur and Medrod fell. Now some of this is history and some is not: where is the line to be drawn? In any case, the attempt to answer that question could not be justly met with contempt or treated as trivial.
The other cause, to which I suggested that contempt for folklore was probably to be traced, together with the difficulties springing therefrom to beset the folklorist’s paths, is one’s ignorance of the meaning of many of the superstitions of our ancestors. I do not wish this to be regarded as a charge of wilful ignorance; for one has frankly to confess that many old superstitions and superstitious practices are exceedingly hard to understand. So much so, that those who have most carefully studied them cannot always agree with one another in their interpretation. At first sight, some of the superstitions seem so silly and absurd, that one cannot wonder that those who have not gone deeply into the study of the human mind should think them trivial, foolish, or absurd. It is, however, not improbable that they are the results of early attempts to think out the mysteries of nature; and our difficulty is that the thinking was so infantile, comparatively speaking, that one finds it hard to put one’s self back into the mental condition of early man. But it should be clearly understood that our difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of such superstitions is no proof whatsoever that they had no meaning.
The chief initial difficulty, however, meeting any one who would collect folklore in Wales arises from the fact that various influences have conspired to laugh it out of court, so to say, so that those who are acquainted with superstitions and ancient fads become ashamed to own it: they have the fear of ridicule weighing on their minds, and that is a weight not easily removed. I can recall several instances: among others I may mention a lady who up to middle age believed implicitly in the existence of fairies, and was most anxious that her children should not wander away from home at any time when there happened to be a mist, lest the fairies should carry them away to their home beneath a neighbouring lake. In her later years, however, it was quite useless for a stranger to question her on these things: fairy lore had been so laughed out of countenance in the meantime, that at last she would not own, even to the members of her own family, that she remembered anything about the fairies. Another instance in point is supplied by the story of Casteỻmarch, and by my failure for a whole fortnight to elicit from the old blacksmith of Aber Soch the legend of March ab Meirchion with horse’s ears. Of course I can readily understand the old man’s shyness in repeating the story of March. Science, however, knows no such shyness, as it is her business to pry into everything and to discover, if possible, the why and wherefore of all things. In this context let me for a moment revert to the story of March, silly as it looks:—March was lord of Casteỻmarch in Ỻeyn, and he had horse’s ears; so lest the secret should be known, every one who shaved him was killed forthwith; and in the spot where the bodies were buried there grew reeds, which a bard cut in order to provide himself with a pipe. The pipe when made would give no music but words meaning March has horse’s ears! There are other forms of the story, but all substantially the same as that preserved for us by Ỻwyd (pp. 233–4), except that one of them resembles more closely the Irish version about to be summarized. It occurs in a manuscript in the Peniarth collection, and runs thus:—March had horse’s ears, a fact known to nobody but his barber, who durst not make it known for fear of losing his head. But the barber fell ill, so that he had to call in a physician, who said that the patient was being killed by a secret; and he ordered him to tell it to the ground. The barber having done so became well again, and fine reeds grew on the spot. One day, as the time of a great feast was drawing nigh, certain of the pipers of Maelgwn Gwyneđ coming that way saw the reeds, some of which they cut and used for their pipes. By-and-by they had to perform before King March, when they could elicit from their pipes no strain but ‘Horse’s ears for March ab Meirchion’ (klvstiav march i varch ab Meirchion). Hence arose the saying—‘That is gone on horns and pipes’ (vaeth hynny ar gyrn a ffibav), which was as much as to say that the secret is become more than public[27].
The story, it is almost needless to say, can be traced also in Cornwall and in Brittany[28]; and not only among the Brythonic peoples of those countries, but among the Goidels of Ireland likewise. The Irish story runs thus[29]:—Once on a time there was a king over Ireland whose name was Labraid Lorc, and this is the manner of man he was—he had two horse’s ears on him. And every one who shaved the king used to be slain forthwith. Now the time of shaving him drew nigh one day, when the son of a widow in the neighbourhood was enjoined to do it. The widow went and besought the king that her son should not be slain, and he promised her that he would be spared if he would only keep his secret. So it came to pass; but the secret so disagreed with the widow’s son that he fell ill, and nobody could divine the cause until a druid came by. He at once discovered that the youth was ill of an uncommunicated secret, and ordered him to go to the meeting of four roads. ‘Let him,’ said he, ‘turn sunwise, and the first tree he meets on the right side let him tell the secret to it, and he will be well.’ This you might think was quite safe, as it was a tree and not his mother, his sister, or his sweetheart; but you would be quite mistaken in thinking so. The tree to which the secret was told was a willow; and a famous Irish harper of that day, finding he wanted a new harp, came and cut the makings of a harp from that very tree; but when the harp was got ready and the harper proceeded to play on it, not a note could he elicit but ‘Labraid Lorc has horse’s ears!’ As to the barber’s complaint, that was by no means unnatural: it has often been noticed how a secret disagrees with some natures, and how uneasy and restless it makes them until they can out with it. The same thing also, in an aggravated form, occurs now and then to a public man who has prepared a speech in the dark recesses of his heart, but has to leave the meeting where he intended to have it out, without finding his opportunity. Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel have a technical term for that sort of sufferer: they say of him that he is malade d’un discours rentré, or ill of a speech which has gone into the patient’s constitution, like the measles or the small-pox when it fails to come out. But to come back to the domain of folklore, I need only mention the love-lorn knights in Malory’s Morte Darthur, who details their griefs in doleful strains to solitary fountains in the forests: it seems to have relieved them greatly, and it sometimes reached other ears than those of the wells. Now with regard to him of the equine ears, some one might thoughtlessly suggest, that, if it ever became a question of improving this kind of story, one should make the ears into those of an ass. As a matter of fact there was a Greek story of this kind, and in that story the man with the abnormal head was called Midas, and his ears were said to be those of an ass. The reader will find him figuring in most collections of Greek stories; so I need not pursue the matter further, except to remark that the exact kind of brute ears was possibly a question which different nations decided differently. At any rate Stokes mentions a Serbian version in which the ears were those of a goat.