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[Edmond Dantès]

On Culhwch and Olwen

A complete version of the tale was found in the Red Book of Hergest and a fragmented one in the White Book of Rhydderch. These books were an inspiration for Tolkien in creation of the Red Book of Westmarch. The Tale of Beren and Luthien was also heavily influenced by this tale.

The tale was popularised by Lady Charlotte Guest in her translation of the Mabinogion. Culhwch and Olwen is believed to be the earliest Arthurian romance, and is one of Wales' earliest existing prose texts.

The tale has a simple plot but an often complex cast of characters. It begins with Cylidd Wledig (King Kilydd), son of Celyddon, who marries Goleuddydd. She becomes pregnant, but loses her sanity before the birth.

Their son, Culhwch, is born in a pig-run, and is raised in secret by a swineherd until he comes of age.

Goleuddydd dies soon after Culhwch's birth. When looking for another wife, Cilydd kills King Doged, taking his widow, daughter and land as his own.

Cilydd's new queen is unhappy that he doesn't have a direct heir, but calls Culhwch to court when she learns of his existence. She suggests that Culhwch should marry her daughter, guaranteeing succession.

Culhwch refuses, offending the queen. Enraged, she puts a curse on him for foiling her plans: he will marry no-one but the beautiful Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Pencawr, king of giants.

Although yet to see her, Culhwch becomes infatuated with Olwen, but his father warns that he will never find her without the help of his famous cousin King Arthur. Culhwch sets off to Arthur's court in Celliwig, Cornwall - one of the first known instances of the court being given a specific location.

Arthur sends scouts to find Olwen. They search for a year but find no sign of her, so Culhwch's friend Cei (known in later literature as Sir Kay) suggests they go looking for Olwen themselves.

Arthur picks six of his finest men to join Culhwch on the search, including Cai, Bedwyr (Sir Bedivere) and Gwalchmei (Sir Gawain, Arthur's nephew).

The group reaches the house of a shepherd, whose wife - the sister of Culhwch's mother - tries to discourage Culhwch from searching for Olwen. She explains that all men who look for her are never seen again.

Unable to dissuade Culhwch, the shepherd's wife tells him that every Saturday Olwen comes to their house to wash her hair.

When Olwen arrives, white flowers spring up in her footprints wherever she walks - hence her name, meaning 'white track'. Culhwch is stunned by her beauty and falls instantly in love.

Although she is receptive to Culhwch, Olwen explains that Ysbaddaden is fated to die whenever his daughter marries, and will only give his consent if Culhwch completes a series of immensely difficult tasks.

Culhwch and his men follow Olwen back to the castle to see her father. The following day he gives Culhwch a huge list of tasks to do before he can marry Olwen, which include cutting Ysbaddaden's hair and shaving his beard.

The first task is to find Wrnach the giant, whose sword is needed to kill Twrch Trwyth, an Irish king who has been turned into a boar. When they find Wrnach, Cei persuades him that his sword needs sharpening. As the giant hands over the weapon, Cei beheads him.

Next they search for Mabon ap Modron, who is imprisoned in a watery Gloucester dungeon. Mabon is the only man able to handle Drudwyn the hound, who is needed to catch Twrch Trwyth. The men enlist the help of Arthur, whose army attacks Gloucester and frees Mabon.

They then hunt down and kill Ysgithyrwyn, the wildest boar in the land. The warriors take its tusk, the only thing sharp enough to complete their task. They then follow Twrch Trwyth to Ireland, but he escapes to Preseli in North Wales.

After a cross-country chase in which Arthur loses many men, the men trap Twrch Trwyth on the banks of the River Severn. They take the shears, comb and razor that lie between his ears, and Twrch is driven into the sea and drowned.

Finally, Arthur himself kills the Black Witch, taking her blood to soften the beard of Ysbaddaden. Culhwch heads back and cuts Ysbaddaden's hair and shaves his beard to the bone.

Ysbaddaden dies, allowing Culhwch and Olwen to get married.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

To return to Greek myth: Niobe

The daughter of the Phrygian king Tantalus, and Dione one of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas. The wife of Amphion, king of Thebes. She rejects Latona and boasts of her children; her seven sons are then killed by Apollo and Diana, the children of Latona, and her husband commits suicide. Even after this she is still unrepentant and thus her daughters are also killed, and she is turned to stone and set on top of a mountain in her native country of Lydia where she weeps eternally.

All of Lydia murmurs: the tale goes through the towns of Phrygia, and fills the whole world with talk. Niobe had known Arachne. As a girl, before her marriage, she had lived in Maeonia, near Mount Sipylus. Nevertheless she was not warned by her countrywoman’s fate, to give the gods precedence, and use more modest words. Many things swelled her pride, but neither her husband Amphion’s marvellous art in music, nor both of their high lineages, nor the might of their great kingdom of Thebes, pleased her, though they did please her, as much as her children did. And Niobe would have been spoken of as the most fortunate of mothers, if she had not seemed so to herself.

Now Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, prescient of the future, stirred by divine impulse, went through the middle of the streets, declaiming. ‘Women of Thebes, Ismenides, go, as a crowd, and wreathe your hair with laurel, and bring incense with holy prayer to Latona, and Latona’s children, Diana and Apollo. Latona commands it through my mouth.’ They obey: all the Theban women, as commanded, dress their temples with sweet-bay, and bring incense and words of prayer to the sacred flames.

Look, Niobe comes, followed by a crowded thong, visible, in her Phrygian robes woven with gold, and as beautiful as anger will let her be. Turning her lovely head with the hair falling loose over both her shoulders, she pauses, and looks around with pride in her eyes, from her full height, saying ‘ What madness, to prefer the gods you are told about to the ones you see? Why is Latona worshipped at the altars, while as yet my godhead is without its incense? Tantalus is my father, who is the only man to eat the food of the gods. My mother is one of the seven sisters, the Pleiades. Great Atlas, who carries the axis of the heavens on his shoulders, is one of my grandfathers. Jupiter is the other, and I glory in having him as my father-in-law as well. The peoples of Phrygia fear me. Cadmus’s royal house is under my rule: and the walls, built to my husband’s lyre, and Thebes’s people, will be ruled by his power and mine. Whichever part of the palace I turn my eyes on, I look at immense wealth. Augment it with my beauty, worthy of a goddess, and add to this my seven daughters, as many sons, and soon my sons- and my daughters-in-law! Now, ask what the reason is for my pride, and then dare to prefer Latona to me, that Titaness, daughter of Coeus, whoever he is. Latona, whom the wide earth once refused even a little piece of ground to give birth on.

Land, sea, and sky were no refuge for your goddess. She was exiled from the world, until Delos, pitying the wanderer, gave her a precarious place, saying “Friend, you wander the earth, I the sea.” There she gave birth to twins, only a seventh of my offspring. I am fortunate (indeed, who can deny it?) and I will stay fortunate (and who can doubt that too?). My riches make me safe. I am greater than any whom Fortune can harm, and though she could take much away, she would leave me much more. Surely my comforts banish fear. Imagine that some of this host of children could be taken from me, I would still not, bereaved, be reduced to the two of Latona’s family. In that state, how far is she from childlessness? Go home – enough of holy things – and take those laurel wreaths from your hair!’ They relinquish them, and leave the rite unfinished, except what is their right, reverencing the goddess in a secret murmur.

The goddess was deeply angered, and on the summit of Mount Cynthus she spoke to her twin children. ‘See, it will be doubted whether I, your mother, proud to have borne you, and giving way to no goddess, except Juno, am a goddess, and worship will be prevented at my altars through all the ages, unless you help me, my children. Nor is this my only grief. This daughter of Tantalus has added insult to injury, and has dared to put her children above you, and has called me childless, may that recoil on her own head, and has shown she has her father’s tongue for wickedness.’ Latona would have added her entreaties to what she had related, but Phoebus cried ‘Enough! Long complaint delays her punishment!’ Phoebe said the same, and falling swiftly through the air, concealed by clouds, they reached the house of Cadmus.

There was a broad, open plain near the walls, flattened by the constant passage of horses, where many wheels and hard hooves had levelled the turf beneath them. There, a number of Amphion’s seven sons mounted on their strong horses, and sitting firmly on their backs, bright with Tyrian purple, guided them using reins heavy with gold. While Ismenus, one of these, who had been the first of his mother’s burdens, was wheeling his horse’s path around in an unerring circle, and hauling at the foaming bit, he cried out ‘Oh, I am wounded!’ and revealed an arrow fixed in his chest, and loosing the reins from his dying hands, slipped gradually, sideways, over his mount’s right shoulder.

Next Sipylus, hearing the sound of a quiver in the empty air, let out the reins, just as a shipmaster sensing a storm runs for it when he sees the cloud, and claps on all sail, so that not even the slightest breeze is lost. Still giving full rein, he was overtaken, by the arrow none can avoid, and the shaft stuck quivering in his neck, and the naked tip protruded from his throat. Leaning forward, as he was, he rolled down over the mane and the galloping hooves, and stained the ground with warm blood.

Unlucky Phaedimus, and Tantalus, who carried his grandfather’s name, at the end of the usual task imposed on them, had joined the exercise of the young men, and were gleaming with oil in the wrestling match. And now they were fully engaged, in a tight hold, chest to chest, when an arrow, loosed from the taut bow, pierced them both, as they were. They groaned as one, and fell as one, their limbs contorted with pain. As they lay there, they cast a last dying look, as one, and, as one, gave up the ghost. Alphenor saw them die, and striking at his breast in anguish, he ran to them to lift their cold bodies in his embrace. In this filial service he also fell, for Delian Apollo tore at his innermost parts with deadly steel. As the shaft was removed, a section of his lung was drawn with it, caught on the barbs, and with his life’s blood his spirit rushed out into the air.

But it was not a simple wound that longhaired Damasicthon suffered. He was hit where the shin begins, and where the sinews of the knee leave a soft place between. While he was trying to pull out the fatal shaft with his hand, another arrow was driven into his throat as far as the feathers. The rush of blood expelled it, and gushing out, spurted high in the air, in a long jet. The last son, Ilioneus, stretched out his arms in vain entreaty. ‘O you company of all the gods, spare me!’ he cried, unaware that he need not ask them all. The archer god Apollo was moved, though already the dart could not be recalled: yet only a slight wound killed the boy, the arrow not striking deeply in his heart.

The rumour of trouble, the people’s sorrow, and the tears of her own family, confirming sudden disaster to the mother, left her astounded that the gods could have done it, and angered that they had such power, and dared to use it. Now, she learned that the father, Amphion, driving the iron blade through his heart, had, in dying, ended pain and life together. Alas, how different this Niobe from that Niobe, the one, who a moment ago chased the people from Latona’s altar, and made her way through the city with head held high, enviable to her friends, and now more to be pitied by her enemies. She threw herself on the cold bodies, and without regard for due ceremony, gave all her sons a last kiss. Turning from them she lifted her bruised arms to the sky, and cried out ‘Feed your heart, cruel one, Latona, on my pain, feed your heart, and be done! Be done, savage spirit! I am buried seven times. Exult and triumph over your enemy! But where is the victory? Even in my misery I have more than you in your happiness. After so many deaths, I still outdo you!’

She spoke, and the twang of a taut bowstring sounded, terrifying all of them, except Niobe. Pain gave her courage. The sisters, with black garments, and loosened hair, were standing by their brothers’ bodies. One, grasping at an arrow piercing her side, falling, fainted in death beside her brother’s face. A second, attempting to comfort her grieving mother, fell silent, and was bent in agony with a hidden wound. She pressed her lips together, but life had already fled. One fell trying in vain to run, and her sister fell across her. One tried to hide, while another trembled in full view. Now six had been dealt death, suffering their various wounds: the last remained. The mother, with all her robes and with her body, protected her, and cried out ‘Leave me just one, the youngest! I only ask for one, the youngest of all!’ While she prayed, she, for whom she prayed, was dead. Childless, she sat among the bodies of her sons, her daughters, and her husband, frozen in grief.

The breeze stirs not a hair, the colour of her cheeks is bloodless, and her eyes are fixed motionless in her sad face: nothing in that likeness is alive. Inwardly her tongue is frozen to the solid roof of her mouth, and her veins cease their power to throb. Her neck cannot bend, nor her arms recall their movement, nor her feet lead her anywhere. Inside, her body is stone. Yet she weeps, and, enclosed in a powerful whirlwind, she is snatched away to her own country: there, set on a mountain top, she wears away, and even now tears flow from the marble.

 

[Ushiwaka]

I started reading the Poetic Edda (Bellow's translation) today. Its absolutely amazing. Cannot put it down!

 

[Edmond Dantès]

I started reading the Poetic Edda (Bellow's translation) today. Its absolutely amazing. Cannot put it down!

You're in for a treat. The next port of call after the Poetic Edda is Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda.