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(third-fourth century) Patron of England. He was martyred at Lydda in Palestine by being shod in red-hot shoes, broken on a spiked wheel and immersed in quick-lime. The legend of his having slain a dragon was very popular: he rescued a king's daughter from becoming the dragon's tribute and so managed to convert her people. Richard I (the Lionheart) was said to have had a vision of him and was able to restore the saint's tomb at Lydda. Edward III inaugurated the Order of the Garter under his patronage, and in 1415, Saint George was proclaimed chief patron of England when English soldiers, under Henry V, won the battle of Agincourt. Many mumming plays portray him in their dramas personae as the hero-king who fights for England, overcoming the invading Saracen. His feast-day is 23 April.
# 454
Son of Goddess Ainé
# 562
The King of Dumnonia who married Enid and whose adventures are recounted in the Welsh romance of GEREINT AND ENID. In French romance the hero of this tale is Erec but, as Erec was not generally known amongst the Welsh, they substituted Gereint, one of their own heroes, for him. Gereint may be a historical figure, a cousin of Arthur, though J. Gantz denies his historicity. Although he is listed as Arthur's contemporary, he may have belonged to an older generation, as the DREAM OF RHONABWY says his son Cadwy was Arthur's contemporary. Gereint's father's name is given as Erbin but, in the LIFE OF ST CYBY, Erbin is called his son. CULHWCH supplies the names of two of his brothers, Ermid and Dywel. See also: ENID.
# 156 - 346
An ancestor of Arthur and father of Conan, he was mentioned in Gallet's pedigree.
# 156
(ghermawn - g as in get) Diuran and German, companions of Maeldun on his wonderful voyage.
# 562
Many important Germanic words traceable to Celtic origin.
# 562
Menace to classical civilisation of Germans, under names of Cimbri and Teutones; de Jubainville's explanation regarding Germans as a subject people; overthrow of Celtic supremacy by Germans; burial rites practised by Germans.
# 562
Celtic elements in place-names of Germany. In Arthurian times, this country was the domain of various tribes, but the romance CLARIS ET LARIS has it ruled by Emperor Henry, father of Laris.
# 156 - 562
A Roman leader who overthrew the rule of the historical Roman emperor, Constantine III, in Britain.
# 156
period, for it is a record of marvels, though Part One contains matter of some importance. From these too we obtain the story of the Portunes, the earliest record of diminutive fairies, and the Dracae of Brittany, about whom a Fairy Ointment story is told; also a version of the well-known story, 'The Hour has come but not the Man'. In the first part of the books he mentions the werewolves of England, and the Fairies, with the legend of the fairy horn, an example of thefts from the fairies.
# 100 - 246
This giant, who resided at Mont. St. Michel in Brittany, seized Helena, the niece of Hoel, the King of Brittany. Arthur, accompanied by Kay and Bedivere, set off after him. He found that Helene was already dead, but he slew the giant.
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# 701: Myths of every nation preserve the archetypal idea of a primordial race of giants, ruling the world before the present gods. England still has a portrait of one of the archaic giants, 180 feet tall, cut in the chalk of a Dorset hillside. He is the ithyphallic(!) Cerne Abbas giant, said to represent either the Saxon god Heill whose name meant 'virility' - or the Celtic Cernunnos, after whom the nearby town was named, and whose shrine was taken over by Christian monks for the local abbey. The enclosure for Maypole ceremonies was placed above this giant's head. Since the Maypole rituals anciently commemorated the god's sexual union with his Goddess, the position of both the giant and the Beltaine shrine in close association clearly points to preservation of the old religion. It was also widely believed that the Fairy Queen's name was Titania, which would have been a title of Mother Earth as the source of all Titans. Fairies, however, shrank in size over the centuries and went ever smaller and smaller than human.
# 100: Almost the only trait that giants have in common is their enormous size and strength. Some of them, such as Bran the Blessed, have obviously once been gods. Bran was so large that no house could contain him, so large indeed that he looked like an approaching mountain as he waded the channel between Wales and Ireland. His strength was tremendous, but he was essentially benevolent and his decapitated head brought a blessing wherever it was carried, and protected Britain from invaders so long as it was safely lodged in London. The two great hill figures that still remain in England, the Cerne Abbas Giant and the Long Man of Wilmington, represent god-like figures of the same kind. The Cerne Abbas giant is plainly a fertility god as well as a protective figure. Some kind and protective giants continue down to comparatively modern times. An example is the Giant of Grabbist, whose character and exploits are described by Ruth Tongue in COUNTY FOLKLORE VOL. VIII. He was one of the stone-throwing giants, of which many are reported, good and bad, and spent a good deal of his time in contests with the Devil. He was full, too, of active benevolence, and once lifted a fishing-boat that was in difficulties and set it down safely in harbour. There is a touch of comedy, even farce, in the tales about the Giant of Grabbist, and it is noticeable that as time went on the giants became gradually more foolish. The kind old Cornish giant of Carn Galva, whose sad story is told by Botrell in TRADITIONS AND HEARTHSIDE STORIES OF WEST CORNWALL, VOL. I, is an example: The giant of Carn Galva was more playful than warlike. Though the old works of the giant now stand desolate, we may still see, or get up and rock ourselves upon, the logan-stone which this dear old giant placed on the most westerly carn of the range, that he might log himself to sleep when he saw the sun dip into the waves and the seabirds fly to their homes in the cleaves. Near the giant's rocking-seat, one may still see a pile of cubical rocks, which are almost as regular and shapely now as when the giant used to amuse himself in building them up, and kicking them down again, for exercise or play, when alone and when he had nothing else to do. The people of the northern hills have always had a loving regard for the memory of this giant, because he appears to have passed all his life at the carn in single blessedness, merely to protect his beloved people of Morvah and Zennor from the depredations of the less honest Titans who then dwelt on Lelant hills. Carn Galva giant never killed but one of the Morvah people in his life, and that happened all through loving play. The giant was very fond of a fine young fellow, of Choon, who used to take a turn over the carn, every now and then, just to see how the old giant was getting on, to cheer him up a bit, play a game of bob, or anything else to help him pass his lonely time away. One afternoon the giant was so well pleased with the good play they had together that, when the young fellow of Choon threw down his quoit to go away home, the giant, in a good-natured way, tapped his playfellow on the head with the tips of his fingers. At the same time he said, 'Be sure to come again tomorrow, my son, and we will have a capital game of bob.' Before the word 'bob' was well out of the giant's mouth, the young man dropped at his feet; - the giant's fingers had gone right through his playmate's skull. When, at last, the giant became sensible of the damage he had done to the brain-pan of the young man, he did his best to put inside workings of his mate's head to rights and plugged up his finger-holes, but all to no purpose; for the young man was stone dead, long before the giant ceased doctoring his head. When the poor giant found it was all over with his playmate, he took the body in his arms, and sitting down on the large square rock at the foot of the carn, he rocked himself to and fro; pressing the lifeless body to his bosom, he wailed and moaned over him, bellowing and crying louder than the booming billows braking on the rocks in Permoina. 'Oh, my son, my son, why didn't they make the shell of thy noddle stronger? A es as plum (soft) as a pie-crust, doughbaked, and made too thin by the half! How shall I ever pass the time without thee to play bob and mop-and-heede (hide-and-seek)?' The giant of Carn Galva never rejoiced any more, but, in seven years or so, he pined away and died of a broken heart. It seems as if these giants were half-playfully invented to account for scattered boulders or other natural features, or for prehistoric monuments. In contrast to these gentle, foolish giants, we have the cruel, bloodthirsty giants or Ogres, such as those which Jack the Giant-Killer conquered. Some of these were Monsters with several heads, most of them not overburdened with sense, all man-eaters. The Highland giants were much more astute, some of them Magicians, like that in 'The Battle of the Birds', the Highland version of Nicht Nought Nothing. The grim giant of 'A King of Albainn' in WAIFS AND STRAYS OF CELTIC TRADITION, VOL. II, collected by D. MacInnes, may be a magician as well as a giant, for a magical hare enticed his victims into the cave where the giant and his twelve sons were waiting for them and the giant gave them the choice of deadly games: 'the venomous apple' or 'the hot gridiron'. In the end they had to play both. There is another giant in the story, who has carried off the old king's daughter, an activity to which giants are very prone. Both giants are conquered by a supernatural helper called 'The Big Lad'. This may either be an incomplete version of 'a grateful dead' type of story, or more probably the ghost of the young king's father, for whom he has been mourning inordinately. Another dangerous and evil giant, 'The Bare-Stripping Hangman', also occurs in WAIFS AND STRAYS OF CELTIC TRADITION, VOL. III. This giant is a magician, for he has a Separable Soul which has to be destroyed before he can be killed. There is a series of giants to be destroyed, one-headed, two-headed and three-headed. In the same volume is a story of a guileless giant who does not know how formidable his strength is, a human giant after the type of Tom Hickathrift, whose story Joseph Jacobs tells in MORE ENGLISH FAIRY STORIES. He was suckled by his mother for twenty years and so gained supernatural strength. His frightened master sets him a succession of tests in order to destroy him, but he succeeds in them all, and in the end settles down happily with his old mother in the house he has won for himself. It will be seen that there is a great variety of giants in British tradition.
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# 156
Saint Gildas was a British writer of the original Arthurian period. His work, DE EXCIDIO ET CONQUESTU BRITANNIAE, does not mention Arthur by name, though it does mention the Battle of Badon. According to story, he was the son of Caw and, when he was in Ireland, he learned that Arthur, his friend, has killed his brother Hueil, but this did not cause discord between himself and Arthur. T. D. O'Sullivan opines that Gildas wrote DE EXCIDIO as quite a young man.
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(ghil-VATH-ee) Son of Don. He desired his uncle Math's footholder, Goewin. His brother, Gwydion, helped him obtain her by raising war between Gwynedd and Dyfed. For his punishment, Gilfaethwy was changed, successively, into a hind, a boar, and a wolf-bitch and bore young to Gwydion who had been similarly enchanted.
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See: HOEL.
Story of Gilla Dacar (The Hard Gilly): The Chase of the Gilla Dacar is another Fian tale in which Dermot of the Love Spot plays a leading part. The Fianna, the story goes, were hunting one day on the hills and through the woods of Munster, and as Finn and his captains stood on a hillside listening to the baying of the hounds, and the notes of the Fian hunting-horn from the dark wood below, they saw coming towards them a huge, ugly, misshapen churl dragging along by a halter a great raw-boned mare. He announced himself as wishful to take service with Finn. The name he was called by, he said, was the Gilla Dacar, because he was the hardest servant ever a lord had to get service or obedience from. In spite of this unpromising beginning, Finn, whose principle it was never to refuse any suitor, took him into service; and the Fianna now began to make their uncouth comrade the butt of all sorts of rough jokes, which ended in thirteen of them, including Conan the Bald, all mounting up on Gilla Dacar's steed. On this the newcomer complained that he was being mocked, and he shambled away in great discontent till he was over the ridge of the hill, when he tucked up his skirts and ran westwards, faster than any March wind, toward the sea-shore in Co. Kerry. Thereupon at once the steed, which had stood still with drooping ears while the thirteen riders in vain belaboured it to make it move, suddenly threw up its head and started off in a furious gallop after its master. The Fianna ran alongside, as well as they could for laughter, while Conan, in terror and rage, reviled them for not rescuing him and his comrades. At last the thing became serious. The Gilla Dacar plunged into the sea, and the mare followed him with her thirteen riders, and one more who managed to cling to her tail just as she left the shore; and all of them soon disappeared towards the fabled region of the West. Dermot at the Well Finn and the remaining Fianna now took counsel together as to what should be done, and finally decided to fit out a ship and go in search of their comrades. After many days of voyaging they reached an island guarded by precipitous cliffs. Dermot O'Dyna, as the most agile of the party, was sent to climb them and to discover, if he could, some means of helping up the rest of the party. When he arrived at the top he found himself in a delightful land, full of the song of birds and the humming of bees and the murmur of streams, but with no sign of habitation. Going into a dark forest, he soon came to a well, by which hung a curiously wrought drinking-horn. As he filled it to drink, a low, threatening murmur came from the well, but his thirst was too keen to let him heed it and he drank his fill. In no long time there came through the wood an armed warrior, who violently upbraided him for drinking from his well. The Knight of the Well and Dermot then fought all the afternoon without either of them prevailing over the other, when, as evening drew on, the knight suddenly leaped into the well and disappeared. Next day the same thing happened; on the third, however, Dermot, as the knight was about to take his leap, flung his arms around him, and both went down together. The Rescue of Fairyland Dermot, after a moment of darkness and trance, now found himself in Fairyland. A man of noble appearance roused him and led him away to the castle of a great king, where he was hospitably entertained. It was explained to him that the services of a champion like himself were needed to do combat against a rival monarch of Faery. It is the same motive which we find in the adventures of CuChulain with Fand, and which so frequently turns up in Celtic fairy lore. Finn and his companions, finding that Dermot did not return to them, found their way up the cliffs, and, having traversed the forest, entered a great cavern which ultimately led them out to the same land as that in which Dermot had arrived. There too, they are informed, are the fourteen Fianna who had been carried off on the mare of the Hard Gilly. He, of course, was the king who needed their services, and who had taken this method of decoying some thirty of the flower of Irish fighting men to his side. Finn and his men go into the battle with the best of goodwill and scatter the enemy like chaff; Oscar slays the son of the rival king (who is called the King of "Greece"). Finn wins the love of his daughter, Tasha of the White Arms, and the story closes with a delightful mixture of gaiety and mystery. 'What reward wilt thou have for thy good services?' asks the fairy king of Finn. 'Thou wert once in service with me,' replies Finn, 'and I mind not that I gave thee any recompense. Let one service stand against the other.' 'Never shall I agree to that,' cries Conan the Bald. 'Shall I have nought for being carried off on thy wild mare and haled oversea?' 'What wilt thou have?' asks the fairy king. 'None of thy gold or goods,' replies Conan, 'but mine honour hath suffered, and let mine honour be appeased. Set thirteen of thy fairest womenfolk on the wild mare, O King, and thine own wife clinging to her tail, and let them be transported to Erin in like manner as we were dragged here, and I shall deem the indignity we have suffered fitly atoned fore.' On this the king smiled and, turning to Finn, said: 'O Finn, behold thy men.' Finn turned to look at them, but when he looked round again the scene had changed - the fairy king and his host and all the world of Faery had disappeared, and he found himself with his companions and the fair-armed Tasha standing on the beach of the little bay in Kerry whence the Hard Gilly and the mare had taken the water and carried off his men. And then all started with cheerful hearts for the great standing camp of the Fianna on the Hill of Allen to celebrate the wedding feast of Finn and Tasha.
# 562
A King of Ireland who aided Paschent when he invaded Britain.
# 156
(ghil-VATH-ee) Son of Dôn (Don), nephew of Math; his love for Goewin, and its sequel. See: GILFAETHWY.
# 562
He was an otherworld champion whose horse was unridable. Only Conan was able to mount it, with the intention of riding it to death. It carried him to Tir Tairngire where Fionn had to come and rescue him. See: GILLA DACAR.
# 267 - 454 - 504
# 562:Testimony to the fairness of the Irish Celts. See: BLEHERIS.
# 100: (1146?-1220?) Giraldus de Barri, called Cambrensis, belonged to one of the ancient families of Wales and was remarkable from childhood for his love of learning. It is therefore not surprising that he became one of the compilers of the Medieval Chronicles. Because of his high connections in Wales he was handicapped in his career in the Welsh Church by the Norman policy of appointing only Normans to the episcopacy, but he was made Chaplain to Henry II and sent to accompany Henry's son on his expedition to Ireland. He wrote TYPOGRAPHICA HIBERNICA on returning from his tour. He picked up some interesting pieces of folk tradition in Ireland, notably a sympathetic account of a pair of werewolves and a tradition of a disappearing island which was made visible by firing a fairy arrow at it, but the most interesting piece of fairy-lore is to be found in the ITINERARY THROUGH WALES the story of ELIDOR, our earliest account of fairies' social life.
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In a Cornish poem, a magic snake's egg for which Merlin was searching.
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A Manx form of the each-uisge. The Glaistyn had the ability to appear in human form which, though handsome, was betrayed by the horse-like ears. See: KELPIE.
# 100 - 454
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