The Arthurian Legend
We find the names of its chief characters, and can trace the nucleus of their stories, in Welsh songs and tales older than the earliest outburst of Arthurian romance in Europe, Arthur himself has, as we have tried to show in a previous chapter, several of the attributes and adventures of Gwydion son of Dôn, while the figures most closely connected with his story bear striking resemblance to the characters which surround Gwydion in the fourth 'branch' of the Mabinogi,[1] a result probably due to the same type of myth having been current in different localities and associated in different districts with different names. Arianrod, who is said to have been the wife of a little-known and perhaps superseded and halfforgotten Sky-god called Nwyvre ('Space'), seems to be represented in Arthur's story by Gwyar, the consort of the Heaven-god Llûdd, and from comparison with later romance we may fairly assume that Gwyar was also Arthur's sister. In Gwalchmai and Medrawt, the good and evil brothers born of their union, we shall probably be right in recognising similar characters to Arianrod's sons, the gods of light and darkness, Lleu (Llew) and Dylan. This body of myth has passed down
- ↑ See Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, chap. i. ' Arthur, Historical and Mythical.'
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