The figures beneath each entry give reference numbers for the Bibliography
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According to the Welsh Myrddin (Merlin) poems, Merlin's lord at the battle of Arthuret. His retinue was described as one of the six faithful retinues of the island of Britain for it continued to fight for six weeks after his death. In one of the TRIADS it states he had birds which had a yoke of gold and two corpses for dinner and supper. They were killed by Gall, son of Dysgyfdawd. In the VITA Merlin was on the side which opposed Gwenddolau at Arthuret. See: THIRTEEN TREASURES.
# 156
The sister of Guinevere in Welsh tradition. She struck Guinevere and this led to the battle of Camlann. In Thomas Love Peacock's MISFORTUNES OF ELPHIN (1829), Gwenhwyvach is married to Mordred.
# 104 - 156
(gwen'hoo-ivar). Wife of King Arthur. See also: GUINEVERE.
# 562
(guint uss coit) Welsh place-name from the Arthurian saga.
# 156 - 346
Son of Matholwch and Branwen; assumes sovranty of Ireland. He was thrown in the fire by his uncle, Efnissien.
# 272 - 439 - 562
(See also Gwion Bach) The son of Gwreang who was left by Ceridwen to stir her cauldron. Drops from it landed on his finger which he sucked and at once understood everything that had happened or was to happen. He fled to avoid Ceridwen, both pursuer and pursued changing into different shapes. Gwion eventually changed himself into a grain of wheat and she changed herself into a hen and swallowed him. She became pregnant with him and bore him as Taliesin. All this may represent an initiatory process, as C. Matthews suggests. A certain similarity may be noted between Gwion and the Irish hero Finn (Fionn) mac Cool, who sucked his thumb when some of the essence of the Salmon of Knowledge was on it. The chewing of the thumb may recall a pagan practice of divination. R. Graves considers that Gwion was a historical person who discovered poetic mysteries and began to compose poetry, using the name of the legendary Taliesin. See: TALIESIN.
# 156 - 259 - 272 - 439 - 508
Son of Gwreang; put to stir magic cauldron by Cerridwen; similar action to Finn.
# 562
# 562
(gwrarch er hreebin) A form of Welsh banshee. Her name means 'Hag of the Warning'. She is nearer to the Cailleach Bheare/Bheur than the usual Sidhe-woman of Irish tradition. She always warns of a death and, like the Washer of the Ford, is often encountered at a crossroad or stream.
This rather obscure name is used in Cardiganshire for the Welsh Banshee, sometimes called y Cyhiareth. She would go invisibly beside the person she wished to warn, and if she came to cross-roads or to a stream she would burst out into a ghastly shriek, beating the ground or the water and crying out, 'My husband! My husband!' if she was accompanying a woman, or, 'My wife! if a woman's death was foretold. Or again, 'My little child! O my little child!' if it was a child who would die. Inarticulate screams meant the death of the hearer himself. She was described as very hideous, with tangled hair, long black teeth and long withered arms out of all proportion to the length of her body. Rhys, who gives this description of her in CELTIC FOLK-LORE, VOL.II, considers that she is generally regarded as an ancestral figure, but thinks it possible that she may be one of the mother goddesses, like Anu or the Cailleach Bheur.
# 100 - 454 - 554
(gwrageth anoon) Of all the folk fairy tales of Wales, that of the Lake Maidens who married mortals has had the widest distribution and the longest life.
There are many sinister fairies in Welsh tradition, but the Welsh water-fairies are not among them. They are beautiful and desirable, but they are not sirens or nixies. John Rhys devotes a chapter in CELTIC FOLK-LORE to 'Undine's Kymric Sisters'.
The best-known and the earliest of the stories about the Gwragen Annwn is the story of the lady of Llyn y Van Ffach, a small and beautiful lake near the Black Mountains. It happened in the 12th century that a widow with a farm at Blaensawde, near Mydffai, used to send her only son two miles up the valley to graze their cattle on the shores of Llyn y Van Ffach. One day, as he was eating his midday snack, he saw the most beautiful lady he had ever seen , sitting on the surface of the lake combing the curls of her long golden hair with the smooth water as her mirror. He was at once fathoms deep in love, and held out his hands with the bread in them, beseeching her to come to shore. She looked kindly at him, but said, 'Your bread is baked too hard' and plunged into the lake. He went back and told his mother what had happened. She sympathized with him and gave him some unbaked dough to take next day. That was too soft, so the next day his mother gave him lightly baked bread. That passed the test, for three figures rose from the lake: an old man of noble and stately bearing with a beautiful daughter on each side of him. The old man spoke to the farmer saying that he was willing to part with his daughter if the young man could point out to him the one on whom his love was set. The fairy ladies were as like as two peas, and the farmer would have given it up in despair if one of them had not slightly moved her foot so that he recognized the distinctive lacing of her sandal and made the right choice. The fairy father gave her a dowry of as many cattle as she count in a breath - and she counted quickly - but warned her future husband that he must treat her kindly, and if he gave her three causeless blows she and her dowry would be lost to him for ever. They married and were very happy, and had three beautiful boys, but she had strange, fairy-like ways; she fell sometimes into a kind of trance, she was apt to weep when other people rejoiced, as at weddings, and to laugh and sing when other people were mourning, as at a child-funeral, and these peculiarities were the cause of his giving her three causeless blows, mere love-taps but a breach of the geasa or taboo, so that she was forced to leave him, taking with her all her cattle and their descendants, even to the slaughtered calf hanging against the wall. She did not forget her three sons, however, for she visited them and taught them deep secrets of medicine so that they became the famous physicians of Mydffai, and the skill descended in their family until it died out in the 19th century. This tale Rhys reproduced from THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDFFAI be Rees of Tonn, but he also recorded variations of it from oral collections, adding fresh details in some versions, though some were rudimentary.
Wirt Sikes in BRITISH GOBLINS tells the same story in considerable detail, but without giving his source, as Rhys is careful to do. In all the stories the taboo is, in the end, violated and the fairy disappears, just as the wedded Seal Maidens regain their skins and return to their element.
# 100 - 554 - 596
# 562
# 156 - 346
(GUR-heer) An interpreter at Arthur's court. When Culhwch and Arthur's men were searching for Mabon, Gwrhyr, who was able to speak the animals' tongues, asked the Blackbird of Cilgwri for directions. He referred them to the Stag of Rhedynfrc who passed them on to the Eagle of Gwernabwy who took them to the Salmon of Llyn Llw.
# 156 - 346
See: BORS.
(goor-nach). Giant; the sword of Gwrnach the Giant is one of the tasks which must be won in Culhwch and Olwen.
# 562
A parent of Gawain. In the original Welsh tradition Gwyar may have been the father of Gwalchmai, but, when the Welsh came in contact with Continental tales that made Lot the father of Gawain, they may have decided Gwyar must have been his mother. Certainly, Gwyar is latterly so presented in Welsh sources. However, as 'Lot' is not really a personal name but a title or designation meaning 'Lothian-ruler', it is not impossible that he was actually called Gwyar. See: DIONETA.
# 156
The killer of Kay who was, in turn, killed by Arthur in Welsh tradition.
# 156 - 346
The board (gwyddbwyll), is one of the hallows, and appears in the list of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain. - An early Celtic board game, which Arthur played against Owain. It is the same as the Irish game FIDCHELL, meaning 'wood sense'. The board was seen as the world in miniature and the match between Arthur and Owain may have been a ritual.
# 438
Horses of Gwyddno Garanhir drink of a stream poisoned by the cauldron of Ceridwen after Gwion had drained it of its goodness; hence the stream 'Poison of the Horses of Gwyddno Garanhir'. - The father of Elphin, who finds Taliesin. He possessed a weir which yielded many salmon and a MWYS or basket which could feed 100 persons at a time. In his recent book, TALIESIN (1991), J. Matthews suggests that Gwyddno may have been, in origin, a Celtic god. Many legends surround the father of Elphin, possibly stemming from a central lost tradition, since they seem to turn on one theme. He was the possessor of a magical container which could feed as many as took food from it. (cf. THIRTEEN TREASURES OF BRITAIN). His name is associated with a submerged kingdom in Cardigan Bay.
# 104 - 272 - 439 - 454 - 562
(gwud-EEON)
# 454: Son of Don the Enchanter. He was steward to Math, his uncle, but abused his trust by causing war between Gwynedd and Dyfed on account of his brother, Gilfaethwy's lust for Goewin, the virgin footholder in whose lap Math rested his feet when he was not at war.
The war was sparked off by Gwydion travelling in disguise to the court of Pryderi who had the only domesticated pigs given to him by Arawn. Gwydion made Pryderi part with them for horses, greyhounds and their trappings - all of which were made out of mushrooms and which returned to their own shapes the next day. The pigs were driven home and Pryderi's men pursued. In the ensuing combat Gwydion killed Pryderi while Gilfaethwy raped Goewin. The brothers were allowed no hospitality or shelter until they gave themselves up to Math who then turned Gwydion into a stag, a sow, and a wolf, successively. Gwydion fathered offspring while in animal guise. At the end of three years, both brothers were released from their punishment. When Math required a new footholder, Gwydion suggested his sister, Arianrhod, who submitting to a test of virginity bore two children - Dylan and Llew, the latter Gwydion raised and fostered. He enabled his protégé to overcome his mother's gease: to be nameless, weaponless and wifeless by means of his magic, and was helped by Math to make a wife out of flowers for Llew, Blodeuwedd. When the Flower-Bride betrayed Llew to his death, Gwydion searched for Llew's fetch - an eagle - and coaxed Llew back to life again. He cursed Blodeuwedd into owl-shape forever.
# 562: Place in Cymric mythology taken later by the god Artaius. Nephew of Math; The magical creation of Taliesin was the work of Gwydion, according to one tradition. Gwydion appears as a shapeshifter in the MABINOGION and may be, in origin, a Celtic deity.
# 100: The wizard and Bard of North Wales, who was the son of the Welsh goddess, Don, the equivalent of the Irish Dana. Don had three children: Gwydion the Wizard, Gofannon the Smith, and a daughter Arianhrod, the mother of Llew. In the MABINOGI OF MATH AB MATHONWY, Math and Gwydion make a bride for Llew - Blodeuwedd, the flower-like -who fell in love with another man and betrayed Llew to his death.
In the MABINOGION, Gwydion performed many works of magic against the men of southern Wales.
# 100 - 240 - 272 - 439 - 454 - 562
In CULHWCH, a son of Arthur killed by the boar Twrch Trwyth.
# 156 - 346
A hero of the Celtic epic THE GODDODDIN. He joined the battle of Catreath (Catterick) and there fell to the lamentation of all.
# 454 - 610
One of Arthur's three mistresses, according to TRIAD 57. She was the daughter of Gendawd.
# 104 - 156
# 562: (gwin ap neethe) A Cymric deity likened to Finn (Gaelic) and to Odin (Norse);
# 156: Originally a Celtic god, the son of Nodens; in later belief, a warrior. He and his followers fought the followers of Gwythr, son of Greidawl, for the maiden Creiddyled. To stop the general bloodshed, Arthur made an agreement for the pair of them to fight each other at May Kalends (or May Day) until Doomsday. The winner then would obtain the hand of Creiddyled. Arthur made Gwyn ruler of the demons of Annwn to stop them destroying humanity. Another story makes Gwyn suffer defeat by Saint Collen on Glastonbury Tor. He seems originally to have been the ruler of an Otherworld realm, of which Glastonbury Tor may have been a portal.
# 454: He leads the Wild Hunt. In Welsh legend he is the Lord of the Dead. He abducted Creiddylad, over whom he fought with Gwythyr ap Greidawl. According to the medieval legend of Saint Collen, Gwynn inhabited an otherworld kingdom whose gateway was Glastonbury Tor.
# 100: The reputed king of the underworld since the earliest of the Arthurian Romances, KILHWCH AND OLWEN, appeared in the MABINOGION. there he is listed in the Court of King Arthur, but was said also to be confined to the underworld, where it was his duty to control the imprisoned devils and prevent them from destroying mankind. He had clearly been a Celtic Pluto. As time went on he dwindled to a fairy and became king of the Plant Annwn, the subterranean fairies. Evans Wentz, in his FAIRY-FAITH IN CELTIC COUNTRIES, mentions him in his examination of King Arthur and his followers as early Celtic gods dwindled into fairies, and a more sober assessment of him is given by John Rhys in CELTIC FOLKLORE.
# 24 - 100 - 156 - 272 - 346 - 439 - 454 - 562
(gwin-ETH) Math, lord of Gwynedd (Wales). A medieval kingdom in North Wales, called in Latin Vendotia. The earlier kings are legendary, but about the Arthurian time are thought to have been Einion (until AD 443), Cadwallon I (AD 443-517) and the famous Maelgwyn (AD 517-47). Cadwallon is mentioned by Geoffrey as Arthur's contemporary.
# 156 - 562
Purity. The second of three concentric circles representing the totality of being in the Cymric cosmogony, in which life is manifested as a pure, rejoicing force triumphant over evil. See: GOD AND CYTHRAWL.
# 562
(GWIN-hwee-var) Arthur's wife.
King of Gwynllyg, he abducted Saint Gwladys whose father, Brychan, gave chase. Arthur, however, helped Gwynnlym to escape. Gwynnlym was the father of Saint Cadoc in Welsh tradition.
# 156
(See also: Gwyn ap Nudd) Victor, Son of Scorcher. Combat every May-day between Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwythur ap Greidawl. He was the intended husband of Creiddylad, but she was abducted by Gwynn ap Nudd whom he fought in perpetuity. Both men aided Culhwch and Arthur in achieving thirty-nine impossible tasks set by the giant in CULHWCH AND OLWEN.
# 272 - 439 - 454 - 562
In a modern work, Sir Walter Scott's BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN (1813), daughter of Arthur by the half-fairy Gwendolen. Because of her cruelty, Merlin had her fall into an enchanted sleep from which she was awakened by Sir Roland de Vaux.
# 156
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