Britannic Myths

by Steven O'Brien

They would have used Latin for commerce and education, and their own language for love, home, and hearthside stories. That language was Brythonic, the ancestor of the Welsh language, once spoken from the tip of Cornwall to the mountains of Scotland (not that either place was named as such back then). Its sister tongue, Goidelic, or Old Irish was spoken across the sea, to the west.

mythographer

old people whose castaway minds wandered the borders between two dimensions.

Keen as ice water bites the blade that never fails.

through bogs and vaulted glens. His prey is any traveller foolish enough to let darkness overtake his steps. More explicitly it is the wicked and those with guilty secrets who have the most to fear. Everywhere the stories tell that the huntsman rides sinners down in lonely places.

Moonlight picks out their horned helmets and tarnished breastplates. The dead ride in Herne’s train. He is, after all, ‘Einherjar’ – the Leader of the Slain. The victim is bound for hell.

His black beard is woven with ivy.

He points with his red sword and suddenly kicks his spurs. The horse rears again, but this time it does not descend. Instead it lifts. Impossibly the horse gallops upwards, bearing the huntsman over the tiled roof of the pub. The hounds follow, chasing on the air above your head.

Who is he, this Wayland? The old Saxons knew him, as did their cousins the Germans. Wiolunt, the Rhineland Suebi called him. To the Vikings he was Volundr. The names carry something of a boar’s grunt. Something of the straining arm. Wayland, means ‘Battle-Brave’ in the old language. But who is he, this giant smith, cauled in sweat and soot?

See how the smith shifts his weight and limps around the anvil. Old king Nithad did that. His men caught Wayland sleeping. They took him to an island and there they hamstrung him – cut his left leg, through the sinew, to the bone. They lamed him forever. King Nithad set him to work, and since this is all Wayland knows, work he did.

Many have come to Wayland with their commissions, and some he has accepted. Beowulf, the great warrior had him make a close fitting mail shirt that proved secure and fast, even against the clutches of the demon Grendel. Charlemagne and Roland both carried keen, ringing swords that were tuned on Wayland’s anvil.

gable end.

I looked out and saw the bobbing heads of two or three seals. It was hard to tell exactly, for they dipped and surfaced at irregular intervals. They subjected me to a large-eyed and silent scrutiny. Watchful sea-dogs; seals always seem to have time just to linger and stare, safe in their chilly water.

‘Slainte,’

The island was all Gaelic speaking then and folk would sit at night telling the old stories. What happened to my great uncle Tom MacPhail was part of an old world that is almost gone now.

The sweet seller looked at Jacob with a twinkle in his eye. It is part of an old world he smiled. Very ancient. Almost gone. Maybe it will come back Jacob replied. Yes. Maybe the sweet seller said. As the children took their sweets and left the sweet seller replaced the jar. Maybe indeed.

Around his neck was a leather thong on which hung a black iron key. Tom took the key and opened the chest which lay under his bed. This chest held what little money he had. Carefully he folded the sealskin and placed it in the chest. Then he poured a dram to steady himself and sat back down with his eyes on the door.

When he stripped to wash he sometimes caught her looking at the black key he wore around his neck, but Tom knew that iron had a binding power over her kind. And so he also slept easy, never fearing that she would take the key at night.

‘All I can tell you is that the old people said one must never cause any grief to come to the Selkies. That’s why the fishermen would never harm a seal, even when they damaged the nets. In taking the shells you disturbed them. They used to say that even to lay eyes on a Selkie in human form was terrible bad luck.’

Across the sea six black clouds hove in from the horizon, making shadows on the rocks and reefs of the shores of Ireland. In shape the clouds were like great ships with thunderous keels and dark prows.

Fomorians swung their clubs, it was as if they were striking against the wind,

However, as Ith of the Milesians crested the dunes and stood on the tussock grass three Dé Danann kings rose to meet him. These were Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine. They threw their cloaks aside and fell on Ith. His blood drained into the sand. His dull sword was slung into the grass and lay there like a tongue of silent thunder. It was the first iron sword and the first mortal blood shed in Ireland.

The Milesians should take a half portion of the land and the Dé Dananns should take the other. Amergin made both parties agree with binding oaths. But, too late, the Dé Dananns discovered that Amergin had tricked them. The half portion of mortal men was to be all the land above ground. The portion of the Dé Dananns was to be the land below the turf and rocks.

The host of the shining tribe passed between the ranks of the Milesian spearmen to openings in the green hills. They proceeded through craved archways into the darkness of their new home beneath the earth. Strong men then rolled great stones across the entrances and walked away, brushing off their gritty hands on their breeches. This was to be the end of the conflict. Men now commanded all the fields and forests and valleys and lochs.

It is true that they departed into the hills, but it is also certain that they do not exist in dark, earthy chambers.

It is nowhere, no place, beyond time. It is true that this country can sometimes be reached through doors in the hills. Some men and women have been into the hidden kingdom.

Dé Dananns Tír na nÓg, or ‘Land of the Ever Young.’

The Da Dananns have split into two factions. The peace lovers and the war bringers.

gloaming

They are great riddlers and hagglers.

Do not eat their food or take their drink. They have many forms of enchantment, but chiefly they have the power to glamour the unwary and gullible.

My skin is whiter than the last patch of snow in a mountain pass. My hair is blacker than the dreamless sleep behind your eyes. My lips are berry liquor – bright blood of the dying year. Men have called me Phantom, Battle-Strife, Nightmare. I am the Great Queen, stepping in from beyond, taunting you in the reeds, in the crags, in the unstitched nothing between the stars. One fix of my emerald stare will send you mad. Drums will be in your ears and the wail of war pipes. I am Morrigan.

them. Beneath my dark cloak my skin is like washed chalk in a cool stream. I fold around them and ride the tide of their lust. I am always on top, for, after all, I am a queen. They may slide their hands up to my breasts. They may halt me and hold my hips still in the instant of their quenching. Yet they will see nothing except the green of my eyes, when I rise before dawn.

He leans back in the chariot with his arms outspread, two javelins in one hand. In the other his shield’s edge is keen as a knife blade sharpened on the morning light.

At a gallop the horses draw the chariot in a clattering blur past the assembled warriors. Cú Chulainn is roaring. This is the sound which is like thunder. His lips are drawn back. It is a wild cry. In his eyes elation and fury boil together, so that it is clear that he cannot tell who is a friend or who is an enemy. He jumps from the chariot and throws his weapons into the mud, and stands before the king’s picked troop. He is terrible.

‘What is this sheaf of green barley stalks? What is this mewl of unweaned kittens? What is this row of crumbs.’ As when on rare days when the wind is too hot and strong, his voice has a bronze clang that hurts the ears of his enemies.

At the end of each day he gathers up the heads of his enemies and wades back to his side of the ford. He hangs the heads from his chariot, from trees, on upturned spears.

‘The daughter of an ageless king,’

I am a crow above them. I scream crow curses across the valley. For an instant I put my shadow between Cú Chulainn and the sun. He looks up and Ferdiad takes his chance. He plunges a dagger into Cú Chulainn’s side up to the hilt. Cú Chulainn buckles and falls into the ford. Dark Ferdiad’s face flickers with the surge of victory.

Darcey casts a summoning spell to create a crow. George stabs Cu Cuithillin.

Gáe Bulg - the ‘dread spear.’ Notched and cruel, splayed with barbs and venomous too,

Cu Chulainn attempts the same to kill George but Holly arrives on Darkcharger to block the blow and spear Cu Chullain. Morrigan flies into a fury.

Láeg throws a stone but it goes through me as if I am made of smoke.

Cú Chulainn has no notion as to why this army has drawn up on the Great Plain. No idea that it has murdered and pillaged and burnt its way to the place of the Standing Stone simply to draw him out. Queen Medb has sown her plans well.

Lugaid braces himself in the sprung turf and shouts to anyone listening ‘Three spears for three kings!’ Cú Chulainn storms down on him. Lugaid squints his eye and hurls the first. It catches Láeg in the breast. He is flung to the earth. Cú Chulainn seizes the reins and halts the chariot. He takes Láeg in his arms. He tries to pull the barbs but they have gone deep. Láeg coughs his darkest heart’s blood and dies. ‘One for the king of charioteers,’ grins Lugaid.

3 spears for the hound.

standing stone. I am circling above and suddenly I grow dizzy with the spectacle. Here is the consummation coming, coming, coming. He rises and lurches towards the rough sarsen. It gleams white in the late afternoon. Oh Cú Chulainn, you cannot see the hidden runes graven on its blunt faces. Ancient beyond mortal memory,

He flinched, but then straightaway he seemed to change his demeanour. ‘Well hello Martin O’Brien,’ he said in a little voice that sounded something like a door hinge creaking. ‘Hello yourself,’ I replied. ‘You find me in a sorry situation altogether Martin,’ he said. ‘Oh is that so?’ ‘Yes, terrible,’ he said. ‘I was just on my way to see my people and this happened.’ The little man pointed to his foot.

An arrow used by Finn mac Cumhaill, I shouldn’t wonder, that was in Ireland before the English came. The Daoine maithe cannot abide iron. They cannot bear the Holy Water, but I have none.

It was back in the time in Britain when there were many rulers. One of them was Math son of Mathonwy who held numerous cantrefs in the old lands of Gwynedd. He was a fierce king and a powerful sorcerer. He had a wand so ancient that the wood was nameless to the race of men.

Gilfaethwy and Gwydion.

Dylan son of Ton, which holds all the ebb and flow of salt water in it, for it means nothing more or less than ‘sea wave’.

Arianrhod,

tynged