Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Perseus

Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Perseus

Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Lleu of the Skilful Hand), the ‘Hero’ of The Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi or Math Vab Mathonwy is almost certainly cognate with one of the principal heroes of medieval Irish literature, namely the semi-divine Lugh Samildanach (The Many Skilled), also styled Lugh Lamfhada (of the Long Arm).ⁱ Besides the obvious linguistic relationship in the names of Lleu and Lugh and their similar respective epithets, many scholars, most notably W. J. Gruffydd, have pointed out that the basis for each of their stories is the ‘international popular tale’ known as The King and his Prophesied Death, the best known version of which is the Greek legend of Acrisius and Perseus. In turn, these two insular heroes, Lleu and Lugh, are regarded as being literary survivals with a common mythological heritage which can be traced to the pan-European god Lugus, or in the (often triplicate) plural form, Lugoves, a god known from dedications, statuary, place-names and tribal names from across what were once the Celtic speaking areas of mainland Europe. It is widely held that this Lugus is the god whom Caesar meant when he said in ‘The Conquest of Gaul’, ‘The god they (the Gauls) reverence most is Mercury. They have very many images of him, and regard him as inventor of all arts, the god who directs men upon their journeys, and their most powerful helper in trading and getting money’. This equivalence seems to have struck a chord with the Gauls so much so that even the name Lugus dropped out of usage and was replaced by that of Mercury. A similar transition occurred in sculptural representations of the god as earlier native tricelaphic images of a clothed figure holding a bag of money and a staff were replaced by classical images of Mercury, who also holds a bag of money and a staff, but now the figure is naked or semi-naked except for winged sandals and a winged hat .

     

                       Lugus                                                                           Lugus/Mercury ('or Perseus?')

There is a strong connection between these images of Lugus/Mercury and the classical images of Perseus in paintings, in both bronze and stone statuary and as found on planispheric constellation charts. Both figures appear naked or half naked except for winged sandals and a winged hat and this is no coincidence since according to some versions of the myth it was Mercury who loaned the winged sandals and cap to Perseus. That is, they are depicted wearing the same sandals and cap. Both figures carry a bag, Lugus/Mercury’s is full of money or gold and Perseus’ bag, his kybisis, contains the head of the gorgon Medusa. Mercury wields his twinned serpent staff while Perseus has his scimitar. There is no denying that it would be very easy to confuse the figures of Mercury/Lugus and Perseus.

Perseus

Whilst all this may seem circumstantial, I think that the evidence for Lugus' association with the constellation Perseus has been preserved elsewhere in a slightly encrypted form, I believe that it has been transferred on to the hagiographical material regarding the martyrdom of the great Roman Catholic saint Lawrence.

Throughout northern Europe and particularly in that area which was once known as Gaul, the Perseid meteor shower is called 'The Shining Tears of St. Lawrence'. St. Lawrence is one of the most revered of all Catholic saints, ranking only below saints Peter & Paul, his feast day is August 10th and this seems to be the historically accurate date for his death in 258 and though modern scholars generally agree that he was beheaded the tale that his opportunistic hagiographers would have us believe is quite different. The manner of his invented death, his traditional accoutrements, his status as the third member of the triune of the great saints along with Peter and Paul, his association with the Perseids and even the coincidence of the similarity of his name- Lawrence with Lugos, Llew Llaw and Lugh indicate that he was deliberately being compared with the pan-European demi-god. Moreover, these Christian mythographers seemed to have been aware that Lugus was known in Romano-Celtic Gaul to be represented in the night sky, and in images of the same, as the constellation Perseus. According to both the poet Prudentius and St. Ambrose of Milan writing in the 4th century, St. Lawrence was roasted alive on a gridiron over hot coals. His famous last words, they say, were "Turn me over, this side is done." He is often depicted carrying a bag of money or treasure which is empty for the rich but full for the poor, and great emphasis is placed on his (moral) victory over his tyrant persecutor the Emperor Valerian. It is also to be noted that St. Lawrence was accredited with rescuing what later became known as the Holy Chalice of Valencia, the chalice said to have been present at the Last Supper. It seems clear that these details emerged because of a deliberate attempt by the Catholic Church to replace the popular image of Lugus/Mercury with that of Lawrence. However, in doing so they also revealed a desire to identify Lawrence with the constellation Perseus.

Firstly, I suggest that the idea for this image of a naked man on a fiery grid who wants to be turned over, has been influenced with reference to images of Perseus on the celestial co-ordinate grid, perhaps the glowing coals stood for stars, remember this is a made up episode, so why did his chroniclers choose this particular method of martyrdom?. The image of a naked man on a grid , who is reversible, probably came about because his hagiographers had in there possession two conflicting star charts, one showing the constellation Perseus from God's eye-view the other being geocentric. That is, the constellations are reversible, like Lawrence... like Perseus. Furthermore, This 'grid' turns up, in slightly altered yet unmistakable, forms in the two versions of the death stance of Lleu Llaw Gyffes which have come down to us in Welsh literature, but more on this shortly.

Mercator’s Perseus from God’s point of view

St. Lawrence. “Turn me over, This side is done”.

Second, the bag of money traditionally held by St. Lawrence has this peculiarity; It is empty for the rich but full for the poor. Compare this to the bag of money Lugus is sometimes shown carrying, indicating his function as a god of financial transactions. More recognisably, recall the 'Crane bag' owned by Irish Lugh which is empty of treasure at low tide but full when the tide is in. Perseus also has a bag, the Kybisis, in which he carries the head of Medusa. In the constellation Perseus this is represented as the asterism Caput Medusae, The Head of Medusa, the left eye of which is the famous star Algol, The Demon star, which is actually an eclipsing binary. Every two to three days the smaller of the two stars in the system passes in front of the larger and the 'star' appears to fluctuate dramatically by a full magnitude of brightness. The connection between these concepts seems obvious to me, the fluctuating contents of these bags – Lugus’s bag of money, Mercury's bag of money, Lawrence’s bag of money and Lugh's bag of treasure are all ultimately allusions to the apparent oscillations of the 'star' Algol, the blinking Eye of the Gorgon contained in the bag of the constellation Perseus.

Third, the traditional date for the martyrdom of Lawrence on August 10^th happens to coincide, to within a few days, with the height of the Perseid meteor shower. The Perseid meteor shower is the most intense of all the meteor showers which bombard the upper atmosphere throughout the year. Beginning in mid July it reaches a peak in the hours before dawn on the 12^th of August, sending anything up to a 150 bright streaks across the night sky every hour. The Perseids are so called because the radiant, the point in the sky from which they appear to emerge, is centred on the constellation of Perseus. That the Perseids are called 'The Shinining Tears of St. Lawrence' implicitly connects the saint to the constellation, reminding us that in Ireland the Perseids are the Games of (shining) Lugh. Irish tradition refers to the Perseid Meteor Shower as the 'Games of Lugh' and it seems likely that this is predicated upon this very same reason, i.e. they radiate from the constellation which they thought of as Lugh of the Long Arm. The respective mythologies of Perseus and Lugh, as has been mentioned, are so similar that they are often grouped together as 'Perseus Type Tales' or 'The King and his Prophesied Death'. These narrative parallels between Lugh and Perseus combined with the fact that the Irish regarded the Perseid meteor shower as 'belonging' to Lugh - I.e. The Games of Lugh - and that they radiate from the head of the constellation Perseus ought to alert us to the possibility that the constellation Perseus was known, at least to the Irish, as the constellation of Lugh Lamfhada - Lugh of the Long Hand or Lugh Lonnbeimnech -'Fierce Striker'. It is also good evidence that Lawrence was being equated with both Lugus and the constellation Perseus.

Fourth, it is tempting to see in the emphasis placed on Lawrence’s prophesied (moral) defeat of the tyrant Valerian one of the central motifs belonging to all ‘Perseus type tales’ including the life of Lugh. This is ‘The Prophesied Death of the (tyrant) King’ scenario being played out in the context of the Roman Catholic Church’s stated aim of grafting the identities of its divine heroes, its Saints and Angels, onto the pre-existing pantheon of the pagans they were intent on converting to Christianity.

There are a few further points worth making which appear to hint at a deliberate campaign by the early Church which aimed to replace Lugus with Lawrence. Saint Lawrence is the third member of the trinity of principal Catholic saints Peter, Paul and Lawrence which seems to me to correspond with the (also alliterating) Gaulish triune of principal divinities Teutatis, Taranis and Esus described by Lucan. Many scholars agree that Esus and Lugus are one and the same. Finally, Lawrence’s reputation as the saviour of the original Holy Chalice of the Last Supper - the wine bearing cup symbolised in the rite of the Holy Eucharist - is highly reminiscent of the Chalice associated with Lugus/Mercury and Rosmerta in the continental iconography and with Lugh and the Maiden of Sovereignty in the later Irish literature.

There are then good reasons to at least suppose that Lleu's Irish and Continental counterparts, Lugh and Lugus, were historically associated with both the mythical figure of Perseus and the constellation figure of Perseus or The Hero. Are there any indications in Math which might show that this astronomical association persisted into the Welsh tradition?ⁱⁱ I hope to show that the set pieces in the part of the tale involving Llew Llaw Gyffes; his mysterious conception, his birth, his second gestation at the foot of Gwydion’s bed and subsequent second birth, his suckling at the breast of ‘the lady in the town’, his naming, his arming, his death stance, his transformation into an eagle, his position in the topmost branches of the oak (world) tree, his return to human form and finally his revenge upon Gronw Pebyr may all be interpreted as references to the traditional figure of the Ptolemaic constellation Perseus, or the The Hero, and the positions this constellation takes in the yearly round. There are also, I will argue, clear references to other northern hemisphere constellations particularly those known as the ‘Royal Family’, these being Cassiepeia, Cepheus and Andromeda but also to Cygnus, Bootes, Corona Borealis, Lyra and Auriga or rather its asterisms - Capella (The She-Goat) and The Kids. There are, I suggest, further references to Hercules, Sagitta and Aquila, others too. Also encoded within this part of the text I find references to several southern hemisphere constellations, these include Cetus, Corvus and Argo Navis. The Milky Way and the equinoctial colure ,at the First Point of Aries, have also been cleverly woven into the tale.

The evidence points to an intimate knowledge on the part of the author of charts or planispheres depicting the constellations of both celestial hemispheres, of the kind which frequently accompanied manuscript copies of the various translations of the astronomical poem Phenomena by Aratus of Soli, such as that by Germanicus in the oldest scientific manuscript in the National Library of Wales (NLW MS 735C). In this manuscript the Phenomena is accompanied by other astronomy based texts including Macrobius’ commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, these comprise the first 27 folios of the manuscript, designated part ’A’, which according to P. McGurk was produced early in the 11^th century in the Limoges area of France. In McGurks view this part of the MS arrived in Britain later in the 11th century where part ’B’, Hyginius’s Astronomica accompanied by illustrations of the constellations and consisting of 21 folios, was appended, ’Perhaps produced to complete A in a Welsh centre‘. This is precisely the period of time when, most experts agree, The Four Branches was written down - in a Welsh centre. I am not suggesting that this particular manuscript was involved in the production of the Mabinogi, but it as an ‘illustrated witness from Wales‘ of the kind of astronomical material available to the author of the Mabinogi tales. There is however, another manuscript which may very well have had a part to play in the writing of the Mabinogi, it is known as the 'Macrobius Manuscript' MS Cotton Faustina C 1.ⁱⁱⁱ Alison Pedden has identified this MS. as a product of Llanbadarn Fawr and the family of Sulien and his sons Rhygyfarch and Ieaun, considered by many to be the most likely authors of the Mabinogi, (but more on this in a seperate post on likely authorship). Certain passages within Math reveal familiarity with other classical texts which have to do with the origins of the constellations. These works are, The Library of Greek Mythology by pseudo Apollodorus and the Catasterismi by pseudo Eratosthenes, and the Poeticon Astronomicon of Hyginus which often circulated in various forms alongside the Phenomena. 

The Conception and Birth Of Llew Llaw Gyffes

Conception

The respective conceptions and births of Lugh and Perseus are just two of the many parallels which have allowed scholars to identify these figures with the Hero of the international popular tale The King and his Prophesied Death. In both the Irish and Greek versions it is prophesied that a certain king will be killed by his grandson, and so the king imprisons his daughter in a tower, to guard against any risk of pregnancy, thus avoiding the fulfilment of the prophecy. In the Greek version Zeus easily overcomes this obstacle by transforming himself into a shower of gold raining through the ceiling of Danae's cell and so entering her womb.There are several versions of the conception of Lugh in the Irish tradition, the main gist being that the father, usually one Cian, gains access to the princess in the tower with the magical help of a Druid. The result is the same in both tales -the daughter becomes pregnant and the first part of the prophecy -that the daughter will have a son - has come true.

In Math the role of the daughter is played, in the first instance, by Goewin the king's virgin footholder, whose chastity is ensured by the imposition of Math's feet upon her 'womb', (see The Astronomy of Math (part)1). The role of the (potential) father is played by Gilvaethwy, the king's nephew, who has become ill with lust for Goewin. This situation is overcome when Gwydion, Gilvaethwy's brother disguised as a Pencerdd or chief poet, engineers a war between Gwynedd and and the twenty-one cantrefs of the South thus obliging Math to leave his stronghold of Caer Dathyl so he may attend to the war. Gwydion then aids Gilfaethwy to gain access to the unprotected Goewin. The result is, of course, that Goewin becomes pregnant. 

Only no son ensues.

The conception (and birth) of Lleu in Math vab Mathonwy is problematical and its relationship to the Perseus type tale seems more than a little obscure, notwithstanding W.J. Gruffydd's painstaking analysis. The first set of problems are these:

1. There is no prophecy stating that the king will die by the hand of his grandson.
2. There is no grandfather. There is no daughter. There is no son.
3. Instead, the king's (unrelated) virginal footholder Goewin is raped by the king's nephew.
4. The pregnant Goewin then becomes the wife of the king and is given power over his realm.
5. No mention is ever made of the resultant offspring and Goewin drops out of the story, seemingly eternally pregnant.

We pick up the tale immediately following Gwydion's stunning announcement that 'A sty has been  made for them (the swine) in the other cantref below':

And that night Gwydyon son of Don and Gilfaethwy his brother returned to Caer Dathyl, and Gilfaethwy and Goewin daughter of Pebin were put to sleep together in Math the son of Mahonwy's bed; and the maidens were roughly forced out, and she was lain with against her will that night.

There then follows the series of battles between north and south Wales which culminates in the defeat of Pryderi (by strength and by magic) at the hands of Gwydion. Thus Math returns victorious to Caer Dathyl.

Math went to his chamber and bade a place be prepared for him to recline, so that he might put his feet in the fold of the maiden's lap. 'Lord,' said Goewin ' seek now a maiden to be under thy feet. I am woman.' 'How is that?' 'An assault was made upon me, lord, committed upon my person, and that openly. Nor did I bear it in quiet; There was none in this court did not know of it. They who came were thy nephews, lord, thy sister's sons, Gwydion son of Don and Gilfaethwy son of Don. And they wrought rape upon me and upon thee dishonour. And I was lain with, and that in thy chamber and thy bed.' 'Aye,' said he 'What I can, I will do: redress for thee first, and then I too will seek redress. As for thee,' he said, 'I will take thee to wife, and the authority over my realm will I give into thy hands.'

There is no further mention of the 'brave' and 'most beautiful' Goewin.

This dead end represents the most serious departure from the expected run of events as they usually occur in The King and his Prophesied Death. But what if our expectations are wrong? What if the author of Math had some other agenda in mind? In 'The Astronomy of Math vab Mathonwy (part 1)' I proposed that the virginal (i.e. small) Goewin was to be identified with the northernmost constellation Ursa Minor (the Small Bear). Could it be that, in the elevation by Math of the now pregnant (i.e. big) Goewin to rulership over the realm, the author is indicating her transformation or transference into the constellation Ursa Major (the Big Bear)? If this seems like an odd idea, it will be instructive to examine the origin legends of the two Bear constellations to see what, if any, light might be thrown on the 'cul de sac' figure, as Gruffydd calls her, of Goewin.

The author of Math would have known several different versions from classical sources which tell of the origin of the Bears. Aratus, Hyginus, Ps. Erastothenes, Ovid and Ps. Apollodorus (writers, whose works were familiar to, say, Rhygyfarch and Iaeun the sons of Sulien; if not the authors of the the Four Branches, then direct contemporaries.) all record a variety of traditions concerning the Bears. ⁱ And, to digress only slightly, Aratus' version in the Phaenomena is interesting because it demonstrates an ancient author bringing two different traditions together to make a new 'myth':

...Two bears surround this pole

...if the tale is true,

Zeus the Almighty stellified these two

Because, near Ida, in his infancy,

They found him lying on Dicte's dittany

And picked him up and housed him in their den.

One year they nursed him while the elder men

Of Crete distracted Cronos from his son.

As Aaron Poochigian, translator of the Phaenomena, has noticed Aratus has here combined two seperate tales: “(1) That of Callisto, an Arcadian maiden, and follower of Artemis,” a virgin who was raped by Zeus, then turned into a bear and eventually into the constellation Ursa Major; and (2) that of the Goat Amalthea, “who is said to have nursed the infant Zeus.” As regards this Amaltheia, Theony Condos noted that “According to Hyginus, while Cronos was searching for Zeus, Amalthea placed the infant in a cradle which she hung from the branch of a tree, so that Zeus was not to be found either in the sky or on land or in the sea.” Zeus placed the figure of a goat among the stars, so that she would be remembered, this goat is marked by the bright star Capella 'The She-Goat' in Auriga, which figure is always drawn on consellation charts in full and being carried, awkwardly, by the Charioteer (Auriga). I will have more to say about this goat when I come to discuss the 'death stance' of Lleu Llaw Gyffes.

The most widely told tales of the Bears are those which relate to Callisto (The name Kallisto comes from the Greek Καλλίστη, which means "most beautiful". Compare with Goewin... She was the “most beautiful” woman known) to Ursa Major and Phoenice to Ursa Minor, in this tradition 'the story of Ursa Major is transferred to Ursa Minor and the latter is identified with a maiden who suffers the same fate as Callisto'. In other words both Bears represent the same figure of Callisto, 'the most beautiful' virgin who was raped, transformed into a bear and finally raised to the very top of the sky. As we have seen Goewin's story does not sit at all well within the scheme of The King and his Prophecied Death despite superficial resemblances, instead we have a tale which is singularly alike with that of Callisto/Phoenice; it tells of a 'brave' and 'most beautiful' woman whose station in life requires her to be a virgin, but she is raped and can no longer function in her previous role (beneath the king's feet). Subseqeuntly the king elevates her to a position of great authority over his realm.

Ursa Major - Callisto - The Most Beautiful

Next 'The Birth of Llew'. (P.S. More notes, references etc. to follow)  

Notes:

i Other characters in the Mabinogi who have counterparts in Irish literature are: Don - Danu, Gofannon - Goban, Llyr - Lyr, Manawyddan - Mannanan mac Lyr

iiSchaubach's charts are very useful here in that they contain none of the modern constellations. This chart was compiled around 1780 but it is faithful to traditions described by Eratosthenes and Ptolemy. Also very useful is the Philips Planisphere for 51.5 degrees North, this allows you to track the movements of the constellations over time as they appear to an observer in Wales.

iii See Science and Phlosophy in Wales at the Time of the Norman Conquest; A Macrobius Manuscript from Llanbadarn. Alison Peden. (Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 2 (Winter 1981)). Ed. Patrick Simms Williams.