Gwyn Read online

  (Taliesin, ‘The Spoiling of Annwn’.)

  “In a poem of Taliesin’s we find Manawyddan and Pryderi joint rulers of Annwn, and warders of that magic cauldron of inspiration which the gods of light attempted to steal or capture, and which became famous afterwards as the “Holy Grail”.”

  (Charles Squire, ‘Celtic Myth & Legend’)

  Still today, people have an aversion to accepting that the origin of the Grail mythos lies within the early Welsh stories. Different romancers have warped it, and wrapped it up into all sorts of forms that are more appealing to different types of audiences - from the Cup of the Last Supper to the Dish that held John the Baptist’s decapitated head. From an ancient and mystical stone to the popular modern day conspiracy theory of Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s bloodline! All of these topics are worth investigating, but the original ‘vessel’ that Arthur quested for, was for my mind the ‘Cauldron of Inspiration’, concealed within the metaphysical realm of the Celtic ‘Otherworld’. Ynys Witrin was one of (if not ‘the main’) entrance to that realm.

  As we have seen, Arthur can be both a man and a demi-god. He interacts with deities and other realms and yet also, he leads warriors into battle in the real world. Probably, the truth is that whoever assumed the role of the ‘dux bellorum’ or ‘Leader of Battles’ was a figurehead who took on the title of the ‘Great Bear’, the ‘Artor’.

  As an Egyptian Pharaoh was both a man and a god, I believe that so too was the ‘Leader of Battles’ a representative of the divine Arthur. Arthur is often associated with the constellation of Ursa Major, ‘the Great Bear’ in star lore and it is in this divine mythic form that Arthur (‘Ursa Major’) could fix Gwyn (‘Orion’) and Gwythyr (‘Scorpius’) into their perpetual annual battle/ dance.

  When the Welsh insisted that Arthur was not dead, and would one day return; their claims, in this light, do not seem so absurd: “Not wise the thought - a grave for Arthur”.

  Anyone of the right character or background could have taken up the mantle of ‘Arthur’ and tried to rally the Welsh into an uprising, against England. This happened on several occasions - and is possibly why the English monarchy had to show that Arthur was dead (by the “finding” of his grave in Avalon) and by creating the role of the Prince of Wales - to offer an alternative and to confuse loyalties further.

  The Arthurian Romances are ‘intellectual property’ stolen from the Welsh. The ‘High History of the Holy Graal’ gives all its measurements of knights riding on horseback as ‘welsh leagues’. ‘Le Conte du Graal’ describes Perceval as a ‘welsh man’ yet was written by a French man, Chretien de Troyes. A German, Wolfram von Eschenbach, is the most popular author amongst occultists and conspiracy theorists because he (and he alone) connects the Grail with the Knights Templar. We drift further and further away from the Welsh origins, in which Arthur’s treasure raid into Annwn was symbolic of either interaction with the Other-world, or a star lore tradition to explain the shapes in the night sky. The people whose culture these stories came from - the last residue of the native British tribal people, were shunned to the mountains.

  “At this juncture, an unbiased observer might again remark on the irony of the situation. The Celts brought Christianity to the pagan Saxons, brought education and literacy, taught even their kings, organised their historical records, and helped to establish their law system, only to be subsequently repaid by centuries of aggressive warfare, conquest and the near-annihilation of their languages and culture. English culture has been left sadly imbued with an anti-Celtic prejudice that has attempted to convey the impression that the Celts were primitive, savage, culturally worthless and racially inferior. This becomes the very foundation of the dishearteningly popular ‘Irish Joke’ while the Welsh are painted as people not to be trusted - to ‘welch’ on someone is to cheat or betray them. ‘Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,’ ran the nineteenth-century childhood rhyme. Jean-Paul Sartre commented: ‘How can an elite of usurpers, aware of their mediocrity, establish their privileges? By one means only: debasing the colonized to exalt themselves, denying the title of humanity to the natives, and defining them simply as absences of qualities - animals not humans. This does not prove hard to do, for the system deprives them of everything.”

  (Peter Berresford Ellis, ‘Celt & Saxon’.)

  I have often corrected people by informing them that Arthur was not an ‘English King’, he was a ‘British King’ and I’m met with raised eyebrows of confusion. ‘Surely they’re the same thing aren’t they?’ “No! - They are not.”

  For over four hundred years, throughout Saxon England, Arthur was never portrayed as a hero or an icon. It was only after the Norman Conquest (whose nobility had links with Brittany) that Arthur was made into a hero (he had, after all, fought the Saxons, just as the Normans had done!). This is when Arthur became a popular character of medieval romance.

  The romances, in a Christian world, became a vehicle for the retelling of old stories and saving old traditions. ‘Arthur’s Court’ (probably the central star area around Ursa Major, the ‘Great Bear’ constellation) and the adventures of his knights and other characters were veiled memories of old deities and heroes. The dark Irish goddess Morrighan became ‘Morgan le Fay’. The British ‘not-world’ of Annwn became the romantic ‘Avalon’, and there are more than a few similarities between Gwyn and ‘Sir Gawain’.

  The story of ‘Gawain and the Green Knight’ tells of Gawain accepting a winter festival challenge from a weird ‘green’ otherworld knight who challenges Gawain to a head chopping off game! Gawain cuts off the Green Knight’s head. The Green Knight, not bothered, picks up his own decapitated head and says to Gawain and the rest of Arthur’s Court, that ‘one year and a day later’ Gawain must allow his head to be chopped off too! The similarities to Gwyn’s story are obvious - a winter themed hero, an annual battle, witnessed by Arthur and his Court. It is a wonderful blend of garbled star-lore and the folklore of regeneration and transformation that go with the seasons changing?

  Almost a year later, Sir Gawain sets off to find the Green Knight. Gawain sets off on his journey on All Hallows Eve, (that is Samhain, the opposite of Beltaine) when the constellation of Gwyn (Orion) has returned to the night sky. Sir Gawain gets to his destination and has romantic encounters and kisses-a-plenty with the Green Knight’s beautiful, alluring and enticing lady. It is the story of Gwyn and Gwythr and the beautiful Creurdylad, retold!

  Curiously too, William of Malmesbury tells (in his ‘Gesta Regum Anglorum’) of Sir Gawain’s grave having been uncovered in Pembrokeshire, during the reign of William the Conqueror and says that the Arthurian hero had been driven from his kingdom by Hengest’s brother. Pembrokeshire is the far south west of Wales - head to the Vale of Neath, Swansea, and just keep going till you run out of land. Here was buried Gawain (Gwyn) whose kingdom was taken by the Saxons!

  It is difficult to know how to conclude things. I still feel that there is more to unfold - who knows? Everyone who writes a book has an agenda, and I’m no exception to that rule. My agenda is to try to inspire and encourage deeper research into ‘the matter of Britain’; to try and understand the past as viewed by the natives who lived here thousands of years ago.

  Archaeology is a wonderful thing but it has its limitations. It can show us bones and how people were buried or died, and the items they manufactured and the food they ate - but it cannot tell us what they thought about. Why was Stonehenge or Avebury built? Why was the Tor sculpted to make the Midwinter sun roll up its side? It is only by studying the garbled stories and looking at things differently, that we can get closer to their souls and minds.

  Most of the Archaeology in Glastonbury has only concentrated upon the Christian sites and is unjustly biased in this. The Glastonbury Lake Villages were found by an enthusiastic amateur who dared to think about the landscape in a unique way; we need more people like him. Vast parts of the sacred isle of Ynys Witrin have not been dug or investigated - only about 5 percent of the island (that
which has Christian intrigue) has been probed.

  Knowledge of the Midwinter sun rolling up the Tor, is new and was only found by someone being imaginative enough to think in a non-conservative way. It tells us more about this sacred island than old bones ever could.

  Here I have offered up some jigsaw pieces that I have found; and I have tried to explain why some other jigsaw pieces (no matter how glorious they appear) just do not fit into the ‘true picture’ of ‘Ynys Witrin’, Glastonbury. My agenda is to encourage others to keep questing for the bits of the puzzle, still waiting to be found, which will explain the past and our brilliantly clever, eccentric ancestors, to us.

  “Across the silent stream

  Where the slumber-shadows go,

  From the dim blue Hills of Dream

  I have heard the west wind blow.

  Who hath seen that fragrant land,

  Who hath seen the unscanned west?

  Only the listless hand

  and the unpulsing breast.

  But when the west wind blows

  I see moon-lances gleam

  Where the Host of Faerie flows

  Athwart the Hills of Dream.

  And a strange song I have heard

  By shadowy stream,

  And the singing of a snow-white bird

  On the Hills of Dream.”

  (‘The Hills of Dream’, by Fiona Macleod.)

  Chronology of Sources

  6th Cent: Procopius, writes of sacred Islands in the west of Britain.

  1135: ‘The Antiquities of Glastonbury’ records ‘Ynys Witrin’ (‘The Glass Isle’) as being the earlier (British) name of Glastonbury; Saint Patrick and his brethren exorcising the spirits from the Tor.

  1145: ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ by Geoffrey of Monmouth; is the first ever mention of the word ‘Avalon’ (he describes it as the place where Ex-calibur was forged and to where, Arthur is taken when he is slain (‘afal’ seems to mean ‘apples’, but then Geoffrey played with names turning the Welsh ‘Myrddin’, into Arthurian ‘Merlin’. for all purposes, Avalon is a variant of Annwn.))

  1193: (Giraldis Cambrensis) “The place which is now Glaston was in ancient times called the Isle of Avalon . . . and Morgan, a noble matron and ruler and lady of these parts, and kin by blood to King Arthur, carried him away to the island . . . that she may heal his wounds.”

  1250: ‘Black Book of Carmarthern’, Dialogue Poem of Gwyn (Describes Gwyn as the ‘Escort of the dead’ and talks of his love Creudyladd; and of his red-nosed, ground grazing dog; and his lamentation over ‘the lost land’.)

  1275: ‘The Spoils of Annwn’ (Prieddeu Annwfn) credited to the 6th century poet Taliesin.

  1350: ‘White Book of Rhydderch’ (Mabinogion)

  1390: ‘Red Book of Hergest’ (Mabinogion) From the Branch ‘Culhwich & Olwen’, That Arthur will need Gwyn, to hunt the giant Boar. Tells the story of Gwyn’s annual battle for the hand of Creurdilad. Tells the story of Gwyn and Gwythyr advising Arthur

  1807: - Iolo Morganwg’s Welsh Triads (compilation of medieval Welsh texts) that Gwyn was one of the three best Astrologers of the isle of Britain.

  1927: Katharine Maltwoods ‘Glastonbury’s Temple of the Stars’; discovery of the glastonbury Zodiac.

  2005: Nicholas Mann’s discovery of Midwinter Sunrise on Glastonbury Tor.

  Bibliography

  ASHE, Geoffrey. ‘Avalonian Quest’; Methuen, 1982.

  ASHE, Geoffrey. ‘Mythology of the British Isles’; Methuen, 1996.

  BEARE, Beryl. ‘Wales, myths and legends’; Parragon Books, 1999.

  BROADHURST, Paul . ‘Tintagel and the Arthurian Mythos’; Pendragon Press, 1992

  BROADHURST, Paul & MILLER, Hamish. ‘The Sun and the Serpent’; Pendragon Press, 1989

  CAINE, Mary. ‘The Glastonbury Zodiac; Key to the Mysteries of Britain’; Grael Communications, 1978.

  CARLEY, James P. ‘Glastonbury Abbey’; Gothic Image publications, 1996.

  COLLINS, Andrew. ‘The Cygnus Mystery’; Watkins, 2006.

  EDWARDS, Marian and Lewis Spence. ‘A dictionary of non classical mythology’; Everyman’s Library, 1929.

  ELLIS, Peter Berresford. ‘Celt and Saxon; the struggle for Britain A.D. 410-937’; Constable, 1994.

  EVANS, Sebastian. (translation of) ‘The High History of the Holy Grail’; James Clarke & Co, early 1920’s (no date given)

  FARMER, David Hugh. ‘The Oxford Dictionary of Saints’; Oxford University Press, 1987.

  GUEST, Lady Charlotte. ‘The Mabinogion’; Harper Collins, 20_Page_113_Image_0001.jpg"stx1">JONES, Kathy. ‘The Goddess in Glastonbury’; 1990.

  LEWIS, Lionel S. ‘St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury’; James Clarke & Co, 1964.

  MACLEOD, Fiona. ‘Poems & Dramas’; William Heinemann, 1925.

  MACLEOD, Fiona. ‘The Winged Destiny’; William Heinemann, 1920.

  MALMESBURY, William of (trans by Frank Lomax) ‘The Antiquities of Glastonbury’; JMF Books, 1992. MALTWOOD, Katharine. ‘Glastonbury’s Temple of the Stars’; James Clarke & Co, 1982.

  MALTWOOD, Katharine. ‘The Enchantments of Britain’; James Clarke & Co, 1982.

  MANN, Nicholas R. ‘Energy Secrets of Glastonbury Tor’; Cygnus Books, 2004.

  MANN, Nicholas R. ‘Glastonbury Tor’; Triskele, 1993.

  MERRY, Eleanor C. ‘The Flaming Door’; Rider & Co, 1936.

  MICHELL, John. ‘The View Over Atlantis’; Abacus, 1973.

  MICHELL, John. ‘New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury’; Gothic Image publications, 1990.

  MINNITT, Stephen & John Coles. ‘The Lake Villages of Somerset’, Glas-tonbury Antiquarian Society, 1996.

  RAHTZ, Philip & Lorna Watts. ‘Glastonbury Myth and Archaeology’, Tempus, 2003.

  ROLLESTON, T. W. ‘Celtic, myths and legends’, Bracken Books, 1993.

  SPENCE, Lewis. ‘The Fairy Tradition in Britain’; Rider and Co, 1948.

  SQUIRE, Charles. ‘Celtic Myth and Legend’; Gresham Publishing Co, circa 1905.

  STEELE, Philip. ‘Encyclopedia of British History’; Mike Kelly Publishing, 2001.

  WHITEHEAD, John. ‘Guardian of the Grail’; Barnes & Noble, 1993.

  WILLIAMS, Gwyn A. ‘When Was Wales?’; Penguin Books, 1991.

  Index:

  Anglo Saxon, 5, 7, 8, 71–2, 83

  Annwn, 17, 18, 20, 36, 41, 48, 87, 88, 94, 96, 101

  Arianrod, 11, 13, 26

  Avalon, 2, 3, 18,21, 38, 39, 63–65, 69, 87, 89, 96, 97, 101

  Avebury, 5, 7, 51, 99

  Beli, 10, 74

  Beltane, 5, 30, 32, 33, 44, 51, 62

  Black book of Carmarthen, 9, 26, 29, 63, 64, 74, 101

  Bran, 7, 12, 29

  Bryn yr Ellyllon, 18

  Burrow Bridge Mump, 33, 44, 46

  Cadbury Castle, 23, 66, 74

  Caer Sidi, 18, 20

  Caer Wydyr, 20

  Celts/Celtic, 7, 12, 15, 17, 21, 24, 30, 32, 34, 36, 47, 61, 63–6, 68, 71–4, 79,

  81, 82, 85, 87, 88, 94, 96

  Chalice Well, 33, 85

  Children of Don, 9, 11, 12, 26, 36

  Children of Woolpit, 19, 48, 88

  Church of St Key, 6

  Clwyd (north Wales), 18

  Constantine, The Great, 61

  Corona Borealis, 26

  Cretan Maze, 51

  Creurdilad, 28, 31, 32, 101

  Cwm Annwn, 20, 47, 48, 88

  Danu (mother goddess), 10

  Dobunni, 24

  Dormarth, 28, 29, 33, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49

  Druid(s), 21, 56, 88, 92

  Durotriges, 24, 54, 66

  Equinox, 18

  Excalibur, 18, 101

  Geoffrey of Monmouth, 11, 18, 54, 101

  Gildas, The Wise, 69–70, 93

  Girt Dog of Langport, 44, 45, 46, 48, 51, 73

  Glastonbury Abbey, 2, 3, 5, 6, 14, 38, 60, 73, 83, 85, 89, 93, 102

  Glastonbury Tor, 4, 5, 7, 8, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 30, 32, 34, 41, 44, 51, 60, 74, 78, 81–90, 93, 102
>
  Glastonbury Zodiac, 23, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 49, 51, 54, 56, 57, 73, 101

  Grail Romance, 4, 8

  Guenivere, 3

  Gwydion, 11, 13

  Gwyn ap Nudd, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 21, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 40, 41, 46–9, 59, 60, 62–64, 73–5, 79, 81, 83–8, 90, 95, 97–99, 101

  Hades, 17, 18, 36, 47, 48

  Henry de Blois, 2, 3

  Henry King I, 2

  Henry King, II, 3