Cad Goddeu? Taliesin?
Pin
Are there Welsh or Breton folktales related with the Cad Goddeu of
Taliesin?
regards,
Pin.
Mary
version of the battle between Gwydion and Pryderi over the pigs of Annwfn.
Pryderi and Taliesin are associated with each other as the survivors of Bran's
quest of Ireland. However, in some manuscripts (unreliable--owned by Iolo
Morganawg), there is a preface to the poem, which gives a different spin. If
you check out my website:
http://www.geocities.com/branwaedd/bards/taliesin/index.html
and click on the link to the Cad Goddeu, I include this introduction, which I
got from Lady Guest's translation of the Mabinogion. If you haven't seen the
short intro before, I suggest you check it out. Robert Graves writes rather
extensivly on it, I suppose you know.
Mary
-------
"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" -James
Joyce.
"Ever noticed the more they dole out freedom over there, the more they take it
away over here?" -Jello Biafra
http://www.geocities.com/branwaedd
James Lynch
Pin <fmer...@arrakis.es> wrote in message
news:3a27c568...@news.arrakis.es...
No, not as such. But the theme of a battle taking place between armies of
trees is mentioned by some Roman author (cant remember who exactly) and also
by Shakespeare in MacBeth. Since Shakespeare cannot have had access to the
Cad Goddeu, it is likely that some legends were still alive at that time.
gerald.copp
Pin wrote:
> Are there Welsh or Breton folktales related with the Cad Goddeu of
> Taliesin?
In his book 'Celtic Myth and Legend', Charles Squire refers to an early
Welsh poem, 'the Battle of Godeu, or "the Trees"', which he says is
'attributed to the famous bard Taliesin'. 'It is known also as the Battle of
Achren, or Ochren, a name for Hades ... '.
Squire refers to it as 'Cath Godeu'. Is this interchange between 'cad' =
battle and 'cath' = cat an explanation of the various 'cats' that early
heroes such as Cei were supposed to have fought?
John Donchig
> Pin <fmer...@arrakis.es> wrote in message
> news:3a27c568...@news.arrakis.es...
> > Hi,
> >
> > Are there Welsh or Breton folktales related with the Cad Goddeu of
> > Taliesin?
> >
> > regards,
> >
> > Pin.
>
> No, not as such. But the theme of a battle taking place between armies of
> trees is mentioned by some Roman author (cant remember who exactly)
Do you remember what period the author was from?
John
--
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become
a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Philip Anderson
>
>Squire refers to it as 'Cath Godeu'. Is this interchange between 'cad'
=
>battle and 'cath' = cat an explanation of the various 'cats' that early
>heroes such as Cei were supposed to have fought?
'Cat Godeu' is the Old Welsh title, which would be 'Cad Goddeu' in
Modern Welsh; 'cath' is the Irish cognate word for battle, which I
suspect Squire borrowed.
In the early Arthurian poem "Pa Gur?":
"Cai the fair went to Anglesey
to destroy lions [?wild cats].
His shield was polished
against Palug's Cat [Cath Palug]."
Other heroes are said to have fought 'lions' and I assume this included
wild cats such as Palug's. It seems unlikely to me that this 'cath'
came initially from confusion with 'cat'/'cad' and a whole story was
then attached to it; Cei is said to have had a 'polished shield' and a
later English story has Arthur defeating some wild cats by using a glass
shield which tricked them into fighting each other - an echo of Perseus
killing Medusa methinks.
For the original question, I can't think of any folklore relating to the
trees, or to Gwydion.
--
hwyl/cheers
Philip Anderson
Cymru/Wales
gerald.copp
I just imagined that maybe battles (= cad) in which early heroes had
distinguished themselves were later remembered as a fight between that
individual (i.e. the 'man of the match') and a cat (= cath) which was given
the name of the battle. Thanks for the information.
I am still in the Irish section of Squire and have only delved briefly in
the British bit, but he seems to consider everyone as a member of the Celtic
pantheon of gods. How is Squire's work viewed in the light of modern
scholarship?
Philip Anderson <pjand...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:gc8W5.5041$eT4.4...@nnrp3.clara.net...
Synt
but graves is unreliable on points of authority, on his own account, yes?
--
Synt, from here to there
#:-{D
Luke Goaman-Dodson
gerald.copp wrote in the log:
> I am still in the Irish section of Squire and have only delved briefly in
> the British bit, but he seems to consider everyone as a member of the Celtic
> pantheon of gods. How is Squire's work viewed in the light of modern
> scholarship?
I don't really remember him assuming everyone is a god - can you think of
any examples?
I think it was quite a good study, by and large, even if Squire was a little
bit of a racist ('savages' and the like). His unquestioning acceptance of
anything the Classical writers said is a bit irritating, but it appears to
have been the norm of the Celtic writers of that day.
--
Belzub the ChaosWurm - cynical Celtic British home-educated eco-veggie nerdy
anti-capitalist pseudo-wizard.
--------------PRETENTIOUS QUOTE BIT--------------
|"I'm not paranoid - everyone *is* out to get me!"|
|"You say 'Evil' like it's a bad thing" |
-------------------------------------------------
gerald.copp
Luke Goaman-Dodson <bel...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:B65462FA.109FA%bel...@btinternet.com...
> While oi was sailing ahn a poirate ship on 3/12/00 12:37 am, Cap'n
> gerald.copp wrote in the log:
>
in
> > the British bit, but he seems to consider everyone as a member of the
Celtic
> > pantheon of gods. How is Squire's work viewed in the light of modern
> > scholarship?
>
> any examples?
>
> I think it was quite a good study, by and large, even if Squire was a
little
> bit of a racist ('savages' and the like). His unquestioning acceptance of
> anything the Classical writers said is a bit irritating, but it appears to
> have been the norm of the Celtic writers of that day.
I obviously need to read further, but he compares Arthur's companions to
'the Red Branch Heroes of Ulster and the Fenians' and says 'those gods
might count themselves fortunate ... in their new roles, as heroes of
romance; he says 'It is against Hades, and not against Rome, that he
[Arthur] achieves his highest triumphs. This is the true History of King
Arthur', dismissing Arthur as a god, rather than an historical figure; he
also dicusses an historical and mystical Taliesin. I just assume that later
scholarship has been more willing to accept the historacy of Arthur and, by
association, some of his companions.
Luke Goaman-Dodson
gerald.copp wrote in the log:
> I obviously need to read further, but he compares Arthur's companions to
> 'the Red Branch Heroes of Ulster and the Fenians' and says 'those gods
> might count themselves fortunate ... in their new roles, as heroes of
> romance; he says 'It is against Hades, and not against Rome, that he
> [Arthur] achieves his highest triumphs. This is the true History of King
> Arthur', dismissing Arthur as a god, rather than an historical figure; he
> also dicusses an historical and mystical Taliesin. I just assume that later
> scholarship has been more willing to accept the historacy of Arthur and, by
> association, some of his companions.
I think it was in vogue at that time for Celtic scholars to assume that
Arthur was a god, and nothing more - Lewis Spence takes the theory and
drifts onto the verge of hancockishness (Magic Arts in Celtic Britain). He
ascribes a heavy Egyptian influence to nearly anything that was
traditionally thought of as purely Celtic (if I may use that term), and
thoroughly believes that Arthur was purely mythical, and that Ambrosius
Aurelianus was leader of this cult.
Nowadays we have the benefit of numerous archaeological discoveries acting
as evidence that Arthur was entirely historical (in particularly the little
tablet, found near Tintagel, which had the name of Arthur inscribed on it -
that's all I know, if anyone knows of any websites which give more
information about it then I would be grateful).
--
Luke Goaman-Dodson
Philip Anderson
>I obviously need to read further, but he compares Arthur's companions
to
>'the Red Branch Heroes of Ulster and the Fenians' and says 'those gods
>might count themselves fortunate ... in their new roles, as heroes of
>romance; he says 'It is against Hades, and not against Rome, that he
>[Arthur] achieves his highest triumphs. This is the true History of
King
>Arthur', dismissing Arthur as a god, rather than an historical figure;
he
>also dicusses an historical and mystical Taliesin. I just assume that
later
>scholarship has been more willing to accept the historacy of Arthur
and, by
>association, some of his companions.
Arthur and his court do have some things in common with Finn and the
Fianna, less with the Red Branch (Deirdre v. Guinevere perhaps); but
though I'd class them as superhuman heroes, that doesn't IMHO make them
gods, not in the sense of immortals of a divine race who received some
degree of veneration.
Some figures of Welsh myth, like Mabon and Rhiannon, certainly
originated as divinities, but others like Macsen Wledig were real.
Taliesin was a real poet, mentioned by Nennius, and I think Arthur may
have been (though not necessarily very important). But the Arthur of
the Welsh was generally in conflict with the Otherworld, as Annwn (Hell,
Hades) in _Priddeu Annwn_ (the Spoils of Annwn) and I'd say at
Ysbaddaden's; Geoffrey of Monmouth put him against Rome.