Part 25 (1/2)

At nightfall they sighted a land like Ireland; and soon came to a small island, where they ran their prow ash.o.r.e. It was the island where dwelt the man who had slain Ailill.

They went up to the dun that was on the island, and heard men talking within it as they sat at meat. One man said:

It would be ill for us if we saw Maeldun now.

That Maeldun has been drowned, said another.

Maybe it is he who shall waken you from sleep to-night, said a third.

If he should come now, said a fourth, what should we do?

Not hard to answer that, said the chief of them. Great welcome should he have if he were to come, for he hath been a long s.p.a.ce in great tribulation.

Then Maeldun smote with the wooden clapper against the door. Who is there? asked the doorkeeper.

Maeldun is here, said he.

They entered the house in peace, and great welcome was made for them, and they were arrayed in new garments. And then they told the story of all the marvels that G.o.d had shown them, according to the words of the sacred poet, who said, _Haec olim meminisse juvabit._(203)

Then Maeldun went to his own home and kindred, and Diuran the Rhymer took with him the piece of silver that he had hewn from the net of the pillar, and laid it on the high altar of Armagh in triumph and exultation at the miracles that G.o.d had wrought for them. And they told again the story of all that had befallen them, and all the marvels they had seen by sea and land, and the perils they had endured.

The story ends with the following words:

Now Aed the Fair [Aed Finn(204)], chief sage of Ireland, arranged this story as it standeth here; and he did so for a delight to the mind, and for the folks of Ireland after him.

CHAPTER VIII: MYTHS AND TALES OF THE CYMRY

*Bardic Philosophy*

The absence in early Celtic literature of any world-myth, or any philosophic account of the origin and const.i.tution of things, was noticed at the opening of our third chapter. In Gaelic literature there is, as far as I know, nothing which even pretends to represent early Celtic thought on this subject. It is otherwise in Wales. Here there has existed for a considerable time a body of teaching purporting to contain a portion, at any rate, of that ancient Druidic thought which, as Caesar tells us, was communicated only to the initiated, and never written down. This teaching is princ.i.p.ally to be found in two volumes ent.i.tled Barddas, a compilation made from materials in his possession by a Welsh bard and scholar named Llewellyn Sion, of Glamorgan, towards the end of the sixteenth century, and edited, with a translation, by J.A. Williams ap Ithel for the Welsh MS. Society. Modern Celtic scholars pour contempt on the pretensions of works like this to enshrine any really antique thought.

Thus Mr. Ivor B. John: All idea of a bardic esoteric doctrine involving pre-Christian mythic philosophy must be utterly discarded. And again: The nonsense talked upon the subject is largely due to the uncritical invention of pseudo-antiquaries of the sixteenth to seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.(205) Still the bardic Order was certainly at one time in possession of such a doctrine. That Order had a fairly continuous existence in Wales. And though no critical thinker would build with any confidence a theory of pre-Christian doctrine on a doc.u.ment of the sixteenth century, it does not seem wise to scout altogether the possibility that some fragments of antique lore may have lingered even so late as that in bardic tradition.

At any rate, Barddas is a work of considerable philosophic interest, and even if it represents nothing but a certain current of Cymric thought in the sixteenth century it is not unworthy of attention by the student of things Celtic. Purely Druidic it does not even profess to be, for Christian personages and episodes from Christian history figure largely in it. But we come occasionally upon a strain of thought which, whatever else it may be, is certainly not Christian, and speaks of an independent philosophic system.

In this system two primary existences are contemplated, G.o.d and Cythrawl, who stand respectively for the principle of energy tending towards life, and the principle of destruction tending towards nothingness. Cythrawl is realised in Annwn,(206) which may be rendered, the Abyss, or Chaos. In the beginning there was nothing but G.o.d and Annwn. Organised life began by the WordG.o.d p.r.o.nounced His ineffable Name and the Manred was formed. The Manred was the primal substance of the universe. It was conceived as a mult.i.tude of minute indivisible particlesatoms, in facteach being a microcosm, for G.o.d is complete in each of them, while at the same time each is a part of G.o.d, the Whole. The totality of being as it now exists is represented by three concentric circles. The innermost of them, where life sprang from Annwn, is called Abred, and is the stage of struggle and evolutionthe contest of life with Cythrawl. The next is the circle of Gwynfyd, or Purity, in which life is manifested as a pure, rejoicing force, having attained its triumph over evil. The last and outermost circle is called Ceugant, or Infinity. Here all predicates fail us, and this circle, represented graphically not by a bounding line, but by divergent rays, is inhabited by G.o.d alone. The following extract from Barddas, in which the alleged bardic teaching is conveyed in catechism form, will serve to show the order of ideas in which the writers mind moved:

[The Circles of Being]

The Circles of Being

Q. Whence didst thou proceed?

A. I came from the Great World, having my beginning in Annwn.

Q. Where art thou now? and how camest thou to what thou art?

A. I am in the Little World, whither I came having traversed the circle of Abred, and now I am a Man, at its termination and extreme limits.

Q. What wert thou before thou didst become a man, in the circle of Abred?