Translating Culhwch and Olwen.

 

The Lunt Roman fort at Bagington. 

Translating Culhwch and Olwen.

First time

 

There’s a first time for everything.

But I don’t know 

when I first read 

or heard this story. Or why,

of all the things that it contains

the porter and his words

were what remained. 

 

I read the Jones and Jones translation.

My yellowed copy still provides 

the necessary gloss when 

ny bo namyn iawn iawn 

turns to alphabet spaghetti in my head. 

 

Perhaps, the creaking wooden gatehouse

of the reconstructed Lunt at Bagington. 

Imperial Rome’s repressive architecture 

to keep the beaten Britkins in their place.

The structure shaking in the wind,

I stood upon the shifting platform,

and could imagine Great Grey Mighty Grasp

looking down on stroppy Culhwch

with his horse and dogs. 

 

And the sound of Stival’s harp,

borrowed from the record library, 

(I liked the cover) 

weather and wild landscape. 

blowing through the speakers.

 

In a storm of cliches. 

I heard grey tide on the gravel beach

saw sunshine off the cliffs, heard wind and rain

smacking the slate in the green hills

and watched the grey rock changing colour as it dried.

I saw men in cloaks, with swords, 

standing on a cliff edge

looking at a longship rocking out beyond the surf. 

Renassiance De La Harp Celtique. 

But as I read, the cliches were replaced. 

Now the porter’s scene’s in shadow,

it’s raining, and the sound of harp and drum

comes softly from the distant, well-lit hall.

 

Publication: The Fabled Third.

 P

Photos are what happen when you need a break from the seriousness of proof reading the final proof copy.

The Fabled Third, the last instalment in the run of books that began with A Presentment of Englishry, will be published by Shearsman in the UK in January 2025. Details and samples on the publisher's website.

https://www.shearsman.com/store/Liam-Guilar-The-Fabled-Third-p673705296

Who was King Arthur's mother? Laȝamon’s version.3/3

Laȝamon’s version.

 

It’s a relief to move from texts written in Latin, a language I can’t read, to two texts written in languages I can; Anglo-Norman and Early Middle English. 

 

Laȝamon’s early middle English version is the most dramatic of the four. As was his practice, while closely following Wace, he expands incidents and adds speeches. He removes Wace’s criticisms of Uther, while consistently adding comments which emphasise Ygærne’s innocence. 

 

In places you can almost see how he had visualised what he read and then, in translating, added small but significant detail. However, he also possessed a limited vocabulary of praise and an apparent lack of interest in ‘motivation’. Some terms in French which would later enter English, seem to have had no equivalent in his version of English.  

 

Ygærne is introduced by her social role, as most of Laȝamon's characters are. Gorlois ‘sat with his gracious wife’, ‘the fair Ygærne the wife of Earl Gorlois, the fairest of all women’. Wace’s ‘Courteous and wise’ disappear, but Laȝamon seems to have had trouble translating ‘curteise’ (courteous) which may account for its absence here. (Later in the story he translates ‘Curteise’ as ‘of tuhtle swipe gode’ (Which Barron and W translate as ‘refined in bearing’ and more literally ‘of very good manners’)

 

Wace’s ambiguous ‘Ygærne behaved in such a way as neither to consent nor refuse’, leaves his translator confused: ‘He looked at her often, flashing glances from his eyes, often sent his cup-bearer to her table, smiled at her and eyed her often; and she looked kindly upon him-but whether she loved him I do not know!’  

 

Laȝamon makes her more than just the object of Uther’s lust. When Gorlois sends her to Tintagel he writes: ‘To Tintagel he sent his beloved, gentle wife, called Ygærne, the fairest of women, and shut her up securely in the castle, Ygærne was sorrowful and sad at heart that so many men for her sake should lose their lives there.‘

 

For Laȝamon, Uther’s problem is not the impregnability of Tintagel, but Ygraene’s character. To Wace’s Ulfin he adds: ‘If you think to win Ygærne  with such violence , then she will behave as no woman ever does, feeling in extreme fear the sweetness of love. But if you love Ygærne you should keep it secret, and quickly send her gold and silver and woo her with cunning and with fair promises. Even so it would be doubtful whether you could possess her, for Ygærne is a good and very faithful woman as her mother was and others of that family. 

 

In Wace and Geoffrey, Merlin is sent for. In Laȝamon he has to be found. He is staying with a hermit. Merlin tells the hermit: ‘Uther is filled with longing for the lovely Ygraene, greatly besotted with the wife of Gorlois. But it will never happen, as long as time shall last, that he shall win her save by my magic skill: for there is no truer woman in this mortal world.’

 

By dramatizing Uther’s arrival at Tintagel, Laȝamon reinforces the success of the deception. ‘They came to the gate of the castle and called out in a  familiar manner: Undo the bar of this gate, the earl is come here, the lord Gorlois’. But instead of the gates being thrown open, soldiers come to the wall and speak with Gorlois ‘and recognised him clearly’. 

 

He gives Ygærne the only lines of direct speech in the four versions:

‘Welcome my lord, dearest one; and Jurdan and Brutael are welcome too. Did you escape from the king without harm?’

 

Neither Geoffrey nor Wace give much space to what actually happened in Tintagel. But Laȝamon describes the scene. It contains perhaps the quietest moment in The Brut:

 

Ygærne beh to bure; & lætte bed him makien.

wes þat kine-wurðe bed; al mid palle ouer-bræd. 

Þe king hit wel bihedde; & eode to his bedde.

and Ygærne læi adun; bi Uðere Pendragun. 

 

He insists that Ygaerne is unaware she’s in bed with Uther. 

 

‘Now Ygerne truly believed that it was Gorlois; in no way whatsoever did she recognise Uther the king. The king went unto her as a man should to a woman and his way with the woman most dear to him and he begot on her a marvellous man, the boldest king who ever was born; and he was called Arthur..(9513) 'Ygerne knew not who lay in her arms, for all the time she fully believed that it was the earl Gorlois.' 

 

After he returns to his army, all reference to Uther’s response to Gorlois’ death is removed. Uther sends messengers ‘to greet Ygærne, the noblest of women, and sent her as a sign something she had said in bed, commanding her to yield up the castle immediately-there was no other recourse for her lord was dead. Ygærne still believed the truth was that the dead earl had gone to join his troops and she firmly believed it was not true that king Uther had ever come to her. ‘ 

 

‘There and then Uther the king took Ygærne as queen: Ygærne was with child by King Uther before she was married, all through the magic of merlin.’ 

 

Laȝamon, who we know was a priest, adds one more detail to this story. IT's not in his sources. When Arthur is born:

 

Sone swa he com an eorðe; aluen hine iuengen.

heo bigolen þat child; mid galdere swiðe stronge.

heo ȝeuen him mihte; to beon bezst alre cnihten.

heo ȝeuen him an-oðer þing; þat he scolde beon riche king.

heo ȝiuen him þat þridde; þat he scolde longe libben.

heo ȝifen him þat kine-bern; custen swiðe gode.

þat he wes mete-custi; of alle quike monnen.

þis þe alue him ȝef; and al swa þat child iþæh.

 

I’ve quoted the original because Barron and Weinberg translate Aluen as fairies, but I’ve always read it as elves. The Middle English dictionary says it could be either. For a modern reader fairies might evoke the disneyfied version. Elves, especially the Old English, pre Tolkien variety, were more sinister and much less benign. The elves attend and give gifts: strength to be the best of knights; that he should be a mighty king, and they gave him long life. ‘So that he was the most liberal of living men’. 

 

 What's is a reminder that what's important to the tellers of this tale, is not Ygærne, or the twisted morality of the the story, but the fact that it leads to the birth of Arthur. 

Which should lead to Ygraene as a 12^th century lady. 

What 'they believed'. The Middle Ages and the American Election.

Looking at attitudes to magic and transformation in the Middle Ages, before the 13^th century in particular, the scholarly implication seems to be that these beliefs are discredited and therefore they can be studied as something very much in the past, cut off from us by the Enlightenment and the advances of modern scientific understanding. 

‘We’ don’t believe this stuff anymore. Those medieval figures who argued that transformation was impossible were obviously ‘well ahead of their time’.

 

The recent coverage of the American election should qualify that attitude and raise questions about who that ‘we’ excludes. What do 'we' believe?

 

(Ignore the ignorance behind the claims that we’d be better off as ‘medieval peasants’ or that there is a pure ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ethnicity.) 

 

So far, I’ve read reports in the mainstream papers that in America there are people who believe that hurricanes can be ‘weaponised’, to the point where meteorologists have received death threats. One prominent politician is reported to not only not believe in vaccines, but to believe he suffered memory loss because a worm eat part of his brain and died inside it. Another is reported to have claimed to have been attacked by a demon while he slept, and was left scratched and bleeding after the assault. 

The paper reported the last two as objective facts, without comment. 

 

This is the twenty first century. 

 

And yes, you can buy spell books on Amazon and their buyers seem to be upset if the spells don’t work. You can hire people to cast love spells for you to enchant the object of your desire. You can even pay for transformation spells.  

 

And this is the twenty first century. 

 

If there is a twenty fifth, will historians of these times, working through the archives, dismiss beliefs like these as fringe lunacy, or take it as mainstream belief? 

What will they say ‘they believed’? 

Who was King Arthur's Mother? 2/3 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace.

The four texts are The Vulgate version of Geoffrey of Monmouth (GOM), the First Variant Version of GOM (hereafter FVV), Wace’s ‘Roman de Brut’ and Laȝamon's ‘Brut’. 

 Quotations are taken from these editions.

The Wife of Gorlois is respectively, Ygerna, Igerna, Ygerne, and Ygærne.   

 

In all four texts the story of Arthur’s conception follows the same sequence and contains the same elements that first appear in Geoffrey’s account. Only Laȝamon adds anything substantial to the account. However, each writer treats the material differently. Geoffrey relates the story. Wace is critical of Uther. Laȝamon removes the criticism of Uther and goes out of his way to emphasise Ygaerne’s innocence.

 

 

The Sequence:

 

At a feast to celebrate Uther’s recent victories, he sees the wife of Gorlois. Uther is besotted, and his behaviour outrages Gorlois who storms out. 

 

Gorlois puts his wife in the safety of Tintagel, which is impregnable, while he fortifies and occupies another castle. 

 

Overwhelmed by desire, Uther besieges Gorlois but can’t take the castle. Sick with love, he asks Ulfin for advice.

Ulfin points out that Tintagel is impregnable, and advises him to seek Merlin.

Merlin offers to transform Uther into Gorlois so he can enter the castle and bed Ygerna.

While Uther is absent his men attack Gorlois, kill him and capture his castle.

Uther hears the news and leaves Tintagel.

He then takes Tintagel and marries Ygerna. Arthur is born. Later, a daughter,  Anna is born. 

And there is no further mention of Ygerna. 

 

The differences between the Vulgate and the First Variant are slight. 

 

Neither mention Ygerna’s reaction to Uther’s behaviour at the feast. FVV notes the David and Bathsheba parallel, with ‘Satan as the go between’, perhaps alluding to the earlier meeting of Vortigern and Rowena, also at a feast, where the devil was indeed busy. 

 

Uther is upset by the news that Gorlois is dead but in GOM ’he mourned for the death of Gorlois; but he was happy all the same, that Ygerna was freed from her marital obligations’. In FVV‘ ‘…pretending to be saddened by the death of his duke, but rejoicing not a little about Igerna’s release from her marital bond.’

 

Uther takes Tintagel and marries Y/Igerna. GOM states: ‘From that day on they lived together as equals united by their great love for each other: and they had a son and a daughter’. The First Variant ‘After their nuptials were lawfully and splendidly celebrated, the King and Queen Igerna lived together side by side. And at the time for her delivery she gave birth to that famous Arthur. Afterwards she conceived and brought forth a daughter named Anna.’  

WACE

 

As I’ve said before, the conception of Arthur was a ‘morally ambiguous’ story for a cleric writing in the 12^thCentury. Possibly far more morally ambiguous then it would have been a century later. Uther is intent on committing adultery and/or rape: Ygerne’s actions could be described as adultery, though unintentional. Later writers, Malory most notably, would make sure Gorlois was dead before Arthur was conceived, but this isn’t in Geoffrey. 

However, in all four versions, only Wace shifts the narrative so it becomes openly critical of Uther. He also adds a little to Ygerna’s character. 

 

In his version of the story, even before he’s seen her, Uther ‘had loved and desired her for she was exceedingly celebrated’. 

I don't know at what point the Church decided the intent to sin was the same as committing the sin but Mathew 5;28 is quite explicit: 'But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' The implication in Wace is that he’s been waiting for his opportunity and he intends to make the most of it.

 

Y is introduced: ‘There was no fairer in all the land: she was courteous, beautiful and wise, and of very high rank.’ Courteous and Wise distinguish her from other dangerous beauties, like Rowena and Aestrild.  

 

While Uther is flirting with her the obvious question is ‘what was she doing?’ Geoffrey doesn’t describe her reaction. Wace adds: ‘Ygerna behaved in such a way as neither to consent nor refuse.’ Which may have been a sane policy in such a situation, but it doesn’t exonerate her either. 

 

Wace’s Ulfin becomes the voice of reason. For Geoffrey’s Ulfin, the impregnability of Tintagel is the only problem, but Wace leaves Tintagel out of Ulfin’s speech.  

 

‘These are astonishing words,‘ said Ulfin. ‘You have harassed the count with war, destroyed his lands and confined him to this castle. Do you think that that pleases his wife? You love the wife and make war on the husband! I don’t know what sort of help you need; I can’t advise you.’

 

When he learns of the death of Gorlois: Uther ‘was grieved that the count was slain, he said; that had not been his wish. He was full of regrets and compunction, and angry with his barons. He seemed distressed but there were few who believed him.’

 

‘The king, deeply in love with Ygerne, married her without delay. She had conceived a son that night and in due course bore him.’

And that’s the end of her role in the story.

In the Next Post, Laȝamon’s version.

(The arguments over whether the ‘Vulgate’ version of GOM came before or after the ‘First Variant’, or whether it’s the work of one or two writers, aren’t relevant here nor is the debate about which version Wace used, or whether or not Laȝamon had read Geoffrey.)

Who was King Arthur's mother? 1/3

(And we're back to things Arthurian.)

 

Igerna.

 

No one knows where she came from.

They say she’s of the fairy folk, 

blown in on the wind,

washed up on the strand, 

though he can’t imagine her 

surprised and shipwrecked on the beach.

She would have glided over the wave tops

unruffled by the tempest, using 

her drowning companions as stepping stones. 

Rumour says Ireland, or the Western Isles,

but where family is defining,

she’s no one’s daughter. No one at court

remembers when she first arrived, 

nor how. She might have been a slave. 

But she had captivated Gorlois

and that prim, moral man, 

was soon creeping to her bed at night

while his wife was sleeping solitary in his.

                                                                        From ‘The Fabled Third’ (To be published in 2025).

 

It’s perhaps significant that while ‘who was Arthur’s father’ has been the subject of scholarly dispute (see previous posts on Uther), his mother seems to have created much less interest. In R.S.Loomis’s encyclopaedic ‘Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages’ (1959) she didn’t even rate an entry in the index. Blackwell’s huge ‘Companion to Arthurian Literature’ (2009) gives her three entries but none of them is more than a passing references to her role in the story. 

 

In Culhwch and Olwen, ‘the oldest Arthurian tale’, the story turns on Arthur’s relationship with Culhwch. By inference, Arthur’s unnamed mother would seem to be a daughter of Amlawd Wledic, and she has sisters and brothers.

 

Whether Geoffrey of Monmouth knew any of this is debatable. An online search  produces various sites that confidently declare that Ygerne or Igerna is from the Welsh Eigyr.  It would take a better linguist than me to disprove this, but I’m not convinced. In the ‘Vulgate version’ of Geoffrey of Monmouth (hereafter GOM) she is Igerna. In his exhaustive study of names in GOM J.S.P Tatlock had nothing to say about her name except that it had only been found as a male name, Iger or Igner in Brittany. 

In Laȝamon's Brut there is a passing reference to her mother and others in her family, but as it’s not in his immediate source, it could just be a conventional compliment. 

Realistically, she is not a character in the modern sense. She has a narrative function: to give birth to Arthur, and that’s all you need to know. But having said that, it’s worth tracking her from Geoffrey, via Wace, to Laȝamon. It is only in the latter that she speaks. 

(IN the next post: Geoffrey tells the story and Wace blackens Uther's good name.)

The Battle of Hastings October 1066

These words worked the long day Harold died,
when Norman French swept up the slope of Senlac Hill

and English grammar broke and bled into the dusk.

Harold’s rotted in his unmarked grave,

but the tattered remnants of his word hoard

have colonised the globe. Linguistic vertigo:

fall and find yourself, there in the shield wall,

beating battle-axe on war-board, chanting

“Out! Out! Out!” as the chain-mailed tide,

grey as the Channel, flows up the hill.

From 'Lady Godiva and Me.'

Translating Culhwch and Olwen; The Great Boar Hunt and David Jones

The hunting of the great boar, Twrch Trwyth, in Culhwch and Olwen is a magnificent piece of writing. 

Jones' The Hunt is not so much a translation as a response, and it too is magnificent.

I have finished the first draft of my translation. Olwen and Culhwch are sleeping together, Ysbadadden's shaved and mutilated head is on a stick, possibly visible from their bedroom window, and no one could tally the men who have died to bring about this ending. 

Arthur gathered the hosts, 
of the three Islands of Britain,
and the three adjacent islands, 
and of Brittany, Normandy, 
and the Summer country
 

And let it be proclaimed,

the hunting of the hog,

has been sung by David Jones

and neither Taliesin nor Aneirin

nor Dafydd ap Gwilym himself

The Early Bards, 

the Not So Early bards, 

the Poets of the Princes, 

the Poets of the Well to Do

the keepers of old lore, or

the skilled translators of his vanished tongue,

(loving this story in elegant prose translations)

nor modern experts in the intricate cynghanedd 

nor any poet of that other language,

could sing it better. 

 

My recording of The Hunt by David Jones is here:

http://www.liamguilar.com/the-poetry-voice/2019/4/2/david-jones-the-hunt

 

There’s a recording of David Jones reading The Hunt with a short introduction here:

https://bebrowed.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/david-jones-reads-the-hunt/

 

The tasks in Culhwch and Olwen. When is repetition excessive in a poem?

The Anoethau in Culhwch and Olwen[i]

 

This is the second problem sequence I’m working through.  (See previous post for the first.)

 

In Culhwch ac Olwen, the Giant Ysbaddaden gives Culhwch forty impossible tasks which are referred to by the editors and within the text as Anoethau[ii]

 

After Ysbaddaden stipulates the first task, Culhwch replies:

 

Hawd yw gennyf gaffel hynny, yd tybyckych na bo hawd. 

It is easy for me to get that, though you may think it is not easy.

 

Ysbaddaden responds:

 

Kyt Kkffych hynny, yssit ny cheffych.

Though you may get that, there is something you will not get. 

( translations here are Sioned Davies'. )

 

Each subsequent task is wrapped by these lines. So both phrases are repeated approximately forty times, which is repetition driven to excess. Would it be too much to ask of a modern reader? 

If anyone knows of a poem that repeats the same 2 lines forty times or more, I’d like to read it. 

I was tempted to cut the list of tasks down to only those which are actually performed in the story, roughly ten of them.

 

However. 

 

Perhaps anachronistically, we can see the dialogue that develops in dramatic terms. It is a clash between two characters who have irreconcilable objectives. As a result of this exchange, one of them must die.  

 

Culhwch knows he will never marry anyone except Olwen. He’s been told several times that most men who come on the quest to marry her have been killed. 

 

During their brief meeting, Olwen gave him some advice. Ask for my hand in marriage. Whatever he asks in return, promise you’ll get it. But if he has cause to doubt you, me you won’t get and you’ll be lucky to escape with your life. 

 

Both Culhwch and Ysbaddaden know the latter will die when his daughter gets married. He is understandably inhospitable to any suitor. For unstated reasons, he seems compelled to enter into a contract with the suitor and offer him the opportunity to complete an impossible task. If the suitor flinches or fails, the giant can kill him.

 

So there is obvious conflict. It’s a ‘high stakes’ confrontation. 

 

The dialogue begins with Ysbaddaden stating an obvious impossibility. He wants a field cleared, ploughed, sown and the resultant crop reaped all in one day. Instead of protesting, Culhwch, says: It is easy for me to get that, though you may think it is not easy. 

 

Perhaps wondering if the boy has understood, the giant then explains why it is impossible: you need this man to prepare the field, he won’t do it of his own free will, and you can’t make him. Culhwch repeats his phrase. You also need this man to fix the plough and he won’t come and you can’t make him. And Culhwch, like a naked man in a hailstorm, refusing to flinch, repeats: It is easy for me….

 

And so on. Things needed for the wedding feast; things needed to prepare and shave his beard; dogs, people, horses and things needed to hunt the Twrch Trwyth.

 

Ysbadadden keeps going, waiting for the boy to crack, and Culhwch stands his ground and repeats the same response. He’s hiding behind it because, of course, he can’t  achieve any of these things. He's just a pretty rich boy with bad manners and shiney tools.

 

As the boy refuses to crack, Ysbaddaden must see his own death coming towards him like a slow train on a very straight track over a very flat landscape 

 

He plays his final card. It’s obvious the boy can’t do any of these things on his own. 

You need Arthur and his men to hunt the great boar. And he won’t come, because he’s my man. (The phrase  is ‘he’s in my hand’). 

 

But Culhwch still refuses to flinch, still repeats his mantra. The giant, running out of ideas,  reaches for absurdity, a desperate explosion of nonsense. He’s been pounding away, and now he must realise that he’s been punching the side of a mountain. 

 

Though you get all that, there’s something you won’t get. 

The Twrch Trwyth will never be hunted unless you obtain 

Defective, Perfected and Completed, 

sons of Broken Sword, grandsons of Perfect Sword

Three shining whites their shields

Three stabbing piercers their spears

Three keen carvers their swords

Their three dogs: Silver, Salmon and Smoky

Their three horses: Sharp, Speedy and Steed

Their three wives: Late Bearer, Ill Bearer and Full bearer

Their three crones: Alas, Scream and Shriek

Their three serving girls: Bad, Worse and Worst of all.

These three men will sound their horns, 

And all the others will cry out,

so no one will care if the sky falls in. 

I can get that easily enough, although you seem to think I can’t.

 (My translation. As are what follows.)

Ysbaddaden makes one final attempt, saying what they both know:

 

Sleeplessness without rest you will get in seeking these things, 

and you won’t get them, and you won’t get my daughter.  

 

But Culhwch, who has already shown he’s not the most tactful or polite of young men, now sticks the boot in:

 

Horses and hounds I will get. 

And Arthur, 

my Lord and Kinsman, 

will get everything for me. 

And I will have your daughter, 

and you shall lose your life.

 

 

I’m becoming very pro-giant. 

I think the dialogue has a structural coherence and a dramatic context, but whether that underlying drama is strong enough to carry a modern reader through the repetition  remains to be seen. 

 

 

---

[i] (When I started working through the Tasks I read this  essay, which seems to suggest a similar approach. Dehghani, Fiona. “The Anoetheu Dialogue in Culhwch Ac Olwen.” Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, vol. 26/27, 2006, pp. 291–305. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40732062.)

[ii] GPC offers: wonderful thing, wonder, jewel, treasure; something difficult to obtain or achieve, feat, exploit; wondrous, wonderful, strange, unusual, ?difficult. 

The Court List in Culhwch ac Olwen. What is relevance?

Translating the Court List.

 

(Quotations from the story are from Will Parker’s Translation: http://www.culhwch.info/index.html)

 

 

When I began translating Culhwch and Olwen into verse, I knew that my three biggest challenges would be the Court List, the List of Tasks, and the Great Boar Hunt. My problem is to find a way to overcome the challenges they will present to my ‘Model Reader’ who doesn’t read Medieval or Modern Welsh. 

 

My initial idea was to shorten the Tasks to only those which occur in the story, cut the Court List altogether and keep the hunt to a minimum.

I’m changing my mind about all three.

 

The Court List: 

 

Reasons to cut it.

 

The temptation to cut the list is strong. It’s essentially a list of names, with attributes attached to some of them. It runs for four pages or two hundred lines in the Bromwich and Evans edition I’m using. The editors count ‘about 260’ names. It begins like this:

 

he invoked his boon [in the name of] Cai and Bedwyr and Greidol Gallddofyd and Gwythyr son of Greidol and Graid son of Eri and Cynddylig Gyfarwydd and Tathal Twyll Golau and Maelwys son of Baeddan and Cnychwr son of Nes and Cubert son of Daere and Ffercos map Poch and Lluber Beuthach and Corfill Berfach.

 

If you can’t read Welsh, the obvious problem is pronunciation. 260+/- names that look as though someone spilt alphabet spaghetti on the page. But not only might the pronunciation of Sucgyn mab Sucnedut trip you up, unless you know it means Suck son of Sucker, the humour of the list is lost. 

 

Bromwich and Evans, discussing the list, suggest. ’But if the whole series of names between lines 175-373 is excised, the tale runs on with greater clarity and smoothness: line 174 being followed immediately by line 374.’ They are right,  of course:

 

"[The boon] I name is for you to get me Olwen, daughter of Yspaddaden Bencawr, and I invoke it [in the name of] your warriors."

[Delete 200 lines of text]

‘Arthur said "O Chieftain, I have never heard about the maiden of whom you speak, nor her parents. I will send out messengers to search for her gladly." 

Reasons to Include the List:

 Plot isn’t everything. Deciding on what is relevant to a story is not a straight forward process regardless of what your editor claims. Relevant to your reading or mine or to a possible reading neither of us have made? James Joyce and Umberto Eco would have loved it. So what might it add to the story?

 

The court list demonstrates the extent of Arthur’s power. It contain men from France, Ireland, Brittany and the Uplands of Hell, as well as bishops, kings and the sons of kings. It contains historical figures, euhemerised characters from earlier myth,  and figures from other story cycles. 

 

Arthur’s court might be impressive, but we know it falls and the list forcibly reminds us of this by referring to the battle of Camlan. We meet one of the nine men who planned the battle,  and the three men who escaped and Arthur isn’t one of them. Even the mention of Gwyhenever and her sister alludes to the fact that, according to the Triad, Camlan was the result of her sister hitting the queen. There is also the man who will kill Kei, who Arthur will kill in revenge.

 

The absurd qualities of some of the heroes are exaggerated exaggerations: the kind I‘d heard growing up: he could eat you out of house and home; he drinks so much his legs must be hollow; he can talk the hind legs off a donkey. So they don’t feel as alien as they might and I enjoy them. But the fact that so many of these names have special skills or qualities, even when the skills and qualities are absurd, emphasises the fact that Culhwch has nothing going for him other than his fine horse, his shiny weapons, and his bad manners. He is out of his depth even before Ysbaddaden stipulates 40 Impossible Tasks. 

 

The list also reinforces the fact that neither Culhwch nor reader, nor the original audience, are in familiar territory anymore. Once Culhwch has been greeted by the porter we’ve entered a very strange version of the world. There will be giants and witches and talking animals, as well as people who God transformed into animals for their sins. By the time you get to the end of the court list, the relative sanity of the opening of the story with its folk tale style familiarity is easily forgotten. The list acts as a portal that normalises the rest of the story. Once we've passed through it, nothing that follows seems strange. 

 

You can also feel the story teller working the audience. As he launches into the list, the audience would tense. How long will this go on for? But they will never know what comes next, if it’s serious or ludicrous, and the variation carries them through the surging rhythms of the list. It’s an essential part of the performance that is this story. 

 

The ‘silly names’ in the list also remind of us of two things. Firstly, there was a time when names did mean something. In this context, making up names has a currency. Secondly, real people had names that to us sound strange. To just take a random example from a book on Medieval Hunting (by John Cummings):  Jehan Corneprise’ (John blow the death), Jehan Ievre (John Hallo-the-hare) and Huelguillot le Mastiner (Guillot the mastiff man.) (the translations are Cumming's).

 

A similar list of names in Apollonius of Tyre’s poem on the Argonauts is a dull catalogue. The list in Culhwch is varied, entertaining and if not laugh out loud funny often amusingly demented

 

Given it does so much according to my reading of the text, it seems worth the risk that is might alienate my non Welsh speaking Model Reader. The Court List stays. Whether in slightly abbreviated form or in full remains to be seen. 

 

Is this how Genre works? The tale of the oldest animals in Culhwch and Olwen.

 (Ongoing notes from an attempt to translate Culhwch ac Olwen from medieval Welsh to modern English and from prose to verse. See previous post for an example. )

In 'Culhwch and Olwen' there's the 'Tale of the Oldest Animals' which I've just finished drafting. You have to accept animals can talk and people will understand them. But....the story itself...

Arthur and his men need to find Mabon mab Modron. To do this, they have been told that first they have to find his cousin, Eiddoel mab Eri. They find Eiddoel easily enough, he's being kept prisoner in a place called Gliui by someone with the same name.

Gliui is identified by the editors as Gloucester. Fair enough. Later, after a trek from one 'Oldest animal' to an 'Even older animal' our heroes discover Mabon is being held prisoner in Kaer Loyw, which the editors also identify as Gloucester. 

So they free Eiddoel from the same place they free Mabon, though they go round the Wrekin to achieve this. 

Does genre work by setting up a tacit bargain with the reader: Some questions are inappropriate? If for general example, you're reading the Grimm's version of Snow White you should not stop and ask what the prince is going to do with the dead girl in the glass coffin when he gets it home. Nor should you try and imagine his arrival at the palace and his parents' reaction. It will kill the story.

Inappropriate, unanswerable questions here?

How can they both be prisoners in the same place? Who is keeping Mabon prisoner? Presumably it’s not Gliui because he's offered Arthur his help and support? Was he lying? Is Arthur at fault for not asking if Gliui knows where Mabon is? Why do they assume that 'No one knows where Mabon is' means 'Don't ask anyone except an animal'? Why does no-one on the river hear Mabon lamenting?  Why have they been told they needed Eiddoel to find Mabon when he is sent on the search but contributes nothing to it? 

Why is the episode so satisfying and enjoyable until you start asking these questions? And this is true of so much of Culhwch ac Olwen. 

Are we back with a specific version of Culler's 'Literary Competence'. The idea that you have to learn to read a literary text as a literary text on its own terms? And with this story, that means not trying to read with a modern set of assumptions based on a learnt 'Literary competence' for dealing with modern short stories or novels? 

Translating 'Culhwch and Olwen'. Giants, ants and perplexing verbs.

 These poems were first published in The Brazen Head

https://brazen-head.org/2024/08/19/three-translations-from-culhwch-ac-owen/

(I.m Michael Alexander)

 

 

Translating Culhwch ac Olwen.

 

In popular films the sexy treasure hunter/archaeologist

(they conflate the two, much to my trowel wielding friends’ dismay)

who’s fluent in every lost forgotten ancient language,

confronting the inscription on the recently uncovered wall,

or gazing at the long lost rediscovered legendary text,

looks, then translates, without a pause, the symbols 

into fluent, idiomatic, contemporary American.

 

The reality goes more like this:

 

Kilyd son of Kledon Wledic

Wanted a wife as noble as himself.

Here is the woman he wanted.

Goleudyt daughter of Anlawd Wledic.

 

So far so good. 

 

After they stayed together What? Gwest Ah, see note.

They spent the night together. Is that too direct?

The verb’s related to the one for copulation. 

They came together. After they were married

….bland. After they slept together,

no, the story teller could have used kysgu gan.

The cruder options? No. Not here. What follows? 

 

The country went to pray they ?might have? offspring

And they got a child/boy through the prayers of the country.

And from the hour she captured, caught? 

The next word’s definitely ‘pregnant’. Another note. 

‘Became pregnant’ though literally ‘caught pregnancy’.

As though it were an illness, perhaps better than ‘fell pregnant’

which evokes abrupt decline, or woman, falling?

Then she went wild/feral. Another note.

‘She went mad’. Mad or wild is somewhere you go to

in this case beyond the civilised boundaries.

She’s gone mad and won’t come near a building.

Wouldn’t enter a building? 

 

And from the time that she was pregnant, 

She went wild and wouldn’t enter any building.

And when her time came, she came to her good sense.

You go mad but come to your senses. The payoff’s here,  

the sudden twist estranging your own language.

You go out of your mind as though it were a car, 

and you could leave it in the car park to return to 

when finished being mad and needed it again. Anyway, 

what’s next? Pigs!? What? We’re up to line 7, only 

one thousand two hundred and thirty eight to go.

 

 

 

May I marry your daughter?

 

(The giant Ysbaddaden Pencawr knows he will die when Olwen, his beautiful daughter, marries. Understandably, he doesn’t welcome her suitors. But Culhwch has been told that if he doesn’t marry Olwen, he will never marry anyone. He and his six companions set out to ask the giant for her hand in marriage.What isn’t stated but becomes obvious is that the giant can’t be killed until his daughter is married. )

 

 

They killed the nine gatekeepers, 

and not a man cried out.

They killed their nine huge mastiffs;

not one so much as squealed.

And so they came into the hall.

 

‘Ysbaddaden Pencawr! Greetings

in the name of God and man!’

 

‘You, where are you going?’

 

‘We seek your daughter, Olwen,

for Culhwch son of Kilyd.’

 

‘Where are those rascal servants?

Where are those ruffians of mine?

Raise up the forks under my eyelids

so I can see my future son in law.’

 

This they did. ‘Come back tomorrow 

I’ll have an answer for you then.’

 

He had three stone spears beside him,

each tipped with poison.

As they turned to go he seized one 

and flung it after them.

Bedwyr caught it and hurled it back,

piercing the giant through his knee cap.

 

‘Cursed savage son in law! 

It will be worse for me when I go downhill.

Like the sting of a gadfly, 

the poisoned iron has hurt me.

Cursed be the smith who made it 

and the anvil on which it was forged.‘                  

 

They stayed that night at Custennin’s house.

And on the second day, they set out to the hall, 

in majesty, with fine combs in their hair.

 

‘Ysbaddaden Pencawr, 

give us your daughter.

In return for her dowry and marriage fee 

to you and her two kinswomen.

And if we don’t get her from you;

you’ll get your death from us.’

 

‘Her four great-grandmothers 

and her four great-grandfathers 

are still alive. I must consult them.’ 

 

‘You do that. We’ll go eat.’

 

He took the second spear 

and hurled it after them.

Menw mab Teirgwaedd 

caught it and threw it back. 

It pierced the centre of his chest 

and sprung out the small of his back.

 

‘Cursed savage son in law.

The pain of this hard iron

is like the sting of a horse-leech. 

Cursed be the forge wherein it was heated.

Now, when I go uphill, 

there will be a tightness in my chest,

stomach aches and frequent nausea.’  

 

They went to their food.

 

On the third day they came to the court.

‘Ysbaddaden Pencawr, 

stop throwing spears at us.

Do not wish hurt and harm 

and death upon yourself.’

 

‘My eyelids have fallen over my eyeballs-

Where are my servants, raise up the forks

so I may look on my future son in law.’

 

They arose, and as they rose,

he took the third spear

and hurled it at them. This time, 

Culhwch caught it and threw it back,

and as he wished, it pierced the eyeball 

went through and out the back of his neck.

 

‘Cursed savage son in law.

As long as I live the sight in one eye 

will be worse than the other.

Whenever I walk in the wind it will water.

I’ll have headaches and giddiness 

at the start of each moon.

Cursed be the forge that heated it. 

Worse than the bite of a mad dog 

is the sting of its poisoned iron.’

 

Next day they came to the court.

‘Don’t attack us anymore.

You’ll bring hurt and harm 

and martyrdom to yourself.

Give us your daughter.’

 

‘Which one of you was told to seek her?’

‘Me, Culhwch, son of Kilyd.’

‘Come here so I can see you.’ 

A chair was placed under him, 

so they could be face to face.

 

‘Is it you who seeks my daughter?’

‘I do.’ ‘Give me your word 

that you’ll be just?’ ‘I give it.’

‘When you give me what I name, 

then you will have my daughter.’ 

‘Name what you want.’

 

-------------- 

 

(Ysbaddaden gives Culhwch forty impossible tasks. This next poem tells how one of them is achieved. Gwythyr is one of Culhwch’s companions.)

 

The Lame Ant

 

As Gwythyr mab Greidawl 

was crossing a mountain, 

he heard lamentations:

a most bitter wailing.

 

Dreadful this noise.

He rushed towards it

drawing his sword, 

cutting the anthill 

off at the ground

saving the ants from

the blistering flames.

 

‘God’s blessing and ours upon you,’

they said to him.

‘And that which no man can recover

we will recover for thee.’

 

These were the ants 

who collected the flax,

all the nine hestors

Ysbaddaden demanded.

 

But one seed was missing.

Until just before sunset.

it was finally brought in

by the last, limping ant.