The
Supernova of 1006 in Culhwch and Olwen.
Abstract
One
of the last times a British person might have looked towards the
constellation anciently known as Therion,
The Beast, (now as
Lupus The Wolf)
was on the Eve of May 1st
1006. This was the occasion for the most violent event ever witnessed
by humankind - the Super Nova of 1006. On this date at around
mid-night an observer at a
latitude of about 52°
N in, say, the Plinlimon range of mid-Wales, would have witnessed at
the horizon, far to the south, on the border between The Beast and
The Horseman (Centaurus),
a star suddenly explode with such ferocity that it reached an
estimated magnitude of -9. This was the brightest apparant magnitude
stellar event in history and it was recorded all over the northern
civilised belt from China to Belgium. I think that this event
was also recorded in the early medieval Welsh tale known as 'Culhwch
and Olwen'. The evidence which suggests this begins with one of the
seemingly impossible tasks, which Yspaddaden Chief Giant requires of
the hero Culhwch in order that he may win the hand of this giant's
daughter Olwen. Yspaddaden demands of Culhwch: ‘A leash from the
beard of Dillus the Horseman'...
John N. Davies
The
Supernova of 1006 in Culhwch and Olwen.
Part I: The Fire of
Dillus the Horseman
Fig.i
Φόλος the
bearded Horseman singeing the Wild Beast over a Fire.
Introduction
The
medieval Welsh tale known as Culhwch
ac Olwen or
Culhwch and Olwen is regarded as the earliest Arthurian tale in any
literature. Its precise date of composition is not known but certain
internal references appear to point to a date after 1083, whilst the
apparent lack of Galfridian influence argues for a date earlier than
1136.
Neither is the author known, though it is likely he was a monk of one
of the clasau
or
monastic settlements in West Wales.
The earliest redactions of the tale are to be found in the two great
medieval Welsh manuscripts The
White Book of Rhydderch (c.
1350), where it is incomplete, and in The
Red Book of Hergest (1382
– c.1410), which contains the full version. The main structure
of the story is built around the international popular tale known as
The Giants Daughter, in
which the hero of the tale falls in love with, and wishes to marry, a
giants daughter. In order to win her hand however, he must accomplish
a series of nigh on impossible tasks set by the giant. The hero, with
the aid of (usually six) helpers with special powers, duly achieves
these tasks and returns to the giant's stronghold where he slays the
giant and marries the daughter. Such are the barest bones of Culhwch
and Olwen.
This
essay came about because I noticed what appeared to be textual
references to certain well-known late classical 'astronomical tales'
(which purport to describe the origins of the constellations) in the
episodes in Culhwch involving the boar which Dillus the Horseman
’singes’
over his fire, and in the hunts for Yskythrwyn Chief Boar and the
Twrch Trwyth. These 'astronomical' tales are to be found in that
corpus of late classical literature which formed the basis for the
discipline of Astronomy in the Quadrivium, the higher part of the
medieval curriculum known as the Seven Liberal Arts.
Mixed in with these literary references I noticed detailed
'word-pictures', which could be taken as descriptions of the
traditional imagery associated with the Ptolemaic constellation
figures, and these same literary vignettes seemed to contain
pictorial details which do not occur in the late classical tales,
suggesting familiarity, on the part of the author, with planispheric
celestial charts.
The Ptolemaic
constellations then, have stories attached to them which are known as
'astronomical tales' or 'astral tales', and they describe the motions
and the spatial relationships of the constellations.
The method of an 'astronomical tale' is to fix in the mind an image
or a series of images which describe memorable configurations of
fictional or mythical characters, beasts and artefacts in scenarios
which mimic aspects of the constellations. A good example, which has
particular relevance to what follows, is the simultaneous rising and
setting of Scorpius and Orion which finds expression in just such a
'myth'. The version below is from the Phaenomena
by
Aratus
of Soli
(fl.early C3rd BC)
The winding River
[the constellation Eridanus] will straightaway sink in fair flowing
ocean at the coming of Scorpion, whose rising puts to flight even the
mighty Orion. Thy pardon, Artemis, we crave! There is a tale told by
men of old, who said that stout Orion laid hands upon her robe, what
time in Chios he was smiting with his strong club all manner of
beasts, as a service of the hunt to that King Oenopion. But she
forthwith rent in twain the surrounding hills of the island and
roused up against him another kind of beast – even the Scorpion,
who proving mightier wounded him, mighty though he was, and slew him,
for that he had vexed Artemis. Wherefore, too, men say that at the
rising of the Scorpion in the East Orion flees at the Western verge.
The point to
remember here is that this short tale is rooted in the astronomy, the
story has been invented in order to invoke in the minds eye the
movement of these constellations; as Scorpius rises Orion sets.
Another well known example concerns the more folksy designations of
Bootes and the great asterism of Ursa Major as The Ploughman and the
Plough respectively, this ancient idea refers to their relative
positions and their motion around the Pole Star, where Bootes as The
Ploughman pushes The Plough around the sky every twenty-four hours.
There is an obvious reference to this ancient notion in 'Culhwch and
Olwen' in the very first of the anoetheu, or
the list of 'things hard to find', which the giant Yspaddaden
requires of Culhwch the hero, he demands that 'yonder vast hill' be
'ploughed and sown in one day'
and that the man who should till and prepare the land be Amaethon son
of Don, where the name Amaethon means 'Divine Ploughman'.
But
it is in the latter part of Culhwch
where there seems to be a remarkable concentration of these
astronomical references; I regard that most, if not all, of
the episodes which go to make up the final six 'achievements',
(including the 'interpolated' abduction of Kreiddylat) of the tasks
set by Yspaddaden PenCawr, to be closely related to these classical
astronomical tales which describe the Ptolemaic constellations. This
is not to deny the native traditional material or the international
popular tales which Culhwch and Olwen is, in large part, undoubtedly
founded upon.
On the contrary traditional tales of this type were often bundled
with astronomical material, take the two analogous Greek tales 'Jason
and the Argonauts' and 'The Labours of Hercules', both contain much
astronomical lore.
The evidence presented below suggests that the author has woven his
knowledge of classical
starlore into this native and popular international material with
deliberate and knowing intent.
The Beast and the
Horseman
The
constellation Lupus has only been known as such since
possibly as late as the 14th century, previously this constellation
was known simply, but vaguely, as Therion - The Wild Beast.
However, some historians of Astronomy have suggested that this was at
one time meant to be the Erymanthian Boar, the 'anoeth', as
it were, of the Fourth Labour of Hercules. Donald H. Menzel
noted that, ‘Lupus (the Wolf) has undergone many transformations in
history. In my opinion, the original figure represented the
Erymanthian boar, which Hercules hunted in company with the
Centaurs'.
More recently Emily Winterburn has said: ‘Lupus was more a general
beast, possibly one killed for the nearby constellation Centaurus,
possibly the original Erymanthian boar captured by Hercules in his
fourth labour.'
One
of the last times a British person might have looked towards this
constellation and recognised in its stars the figure then known as
Therion, was during
the three months following the Eve of May 1st
1006. This was the occasion for the most violent event ever witnessed
by humankind. Modern Astronomers refer to this major cosmic
disturbance as SN 1006 - Super Nova 1006.
At around mid-night on this date an
observer at a latitude of about 52°
N in, say, the Plinlimon range of mid-Wales, would have seen at the
horizon, far to the south on the border between Therion and
Centaurus, a star suddenly explode with such ferocity that it reached
an estimated magnitude of -9. This was the brightest apparent
magnitude stellar event in history and it was recorded all over the
northern civilised belt from China to Belgium. By all accounts its
light lingered for at least another eighteen months before it
eventually disappeared and its exact position was not rediscovered
until the late 20th
century when the spectacular shell was revealed by radio telescope.
I
think that this event was also recorded in the early medieval Welsh
tale 'Culhwch and Olwen'. The evidence which suggests this begins
with one of the seemingly impossible tasks which Yspaddaden Pen Cawr
requires of Culhwch in order that he may win the hand of his daughter
Olwen. Yspaddaden demands of Culhwch: ‘A leash from the beard of
Dillus the Horseman (Dissull Varchawc)'.
To which Culhwch replies: ''It is easy for me to get that, though
thou think it is not easy.'
As
JK Bollard notes, at this point in the tale :'Both manuscripts read
Dissull Varchawc D.
the Horseman...
Later he is consistently called
Varuawc (= Farfog,
from barfog
'bearded'), which seems more suitable than Varchawc'.
On this point, all translators and commentators on Culhwch
have made this same assumption but this is not actually the case, he
is called ‘Horseman’ twice and ’Bearded’ twice in the Red
Book, and ’Horseman’ once in the White Book, (where this task is
missing).
There is an obvious play on words here and I hope to show that both
epithets ‘Bearded’ and ‘Horseman’ are perfectly suitable
descriptions of Dillus. The task itself is actually achieved by
Bedwyr and Cei, Arthur's chief henchmen, and the incident is
described as follows:
As Cei and Bedwyr
were sitting on top of Pumlumon on Carn Gwylathyr, in the highest
wind in the world, they looked about them and they could see a great
smoke towards the south, far off from them, and not blowing across
with the wind. And then Cei said, 'By the hand of my friend, see
yonder the fire of a warrior.' They hastened towards the smoke and
approached thither, watching from afar as Dillus the Bearded (dillus
uarcuavc - d. horseman) was singeing a wild boar.
Now, he was the mightiest warrior that ever fled from Arthur. Then
Bedwyr said to Cei, 'Dost know him?' 'I know him,' said Cei; 'that is
Dillus the Bearded (dillus uarruavc - d. bearded).
There is no leash in the world may hold Drudwyn the whelp of Greid
son of Eri, save a leash from the beard of him thou seest yonder. And
that too will be of no use unless it be plucked alive with wooden
tweezers from his beard; for it will be brittle, dead.' 'What is our
counsel concerning that?' asked Bedwyr. 'Let us suffer him,' said
Cei, 'to eat his fill of meat and after that he will fall asleep.'
Whilst he was about this, they busied themselves making tweezers.
When Cei knew for certain that he was asleep he dug a pit under his
feet, the biggest in the world, and he struck him a blow mighty past
telling, and pressed him down in the pit until they had entirely
twitched out his beard with the tweezers; and after that they slew
him outright.
As I have mentioned, historians
of astronomy have suggested that the ancient Greeks thought that
Therion represented the Erymanthian Boar, but this
interpretation does have difficulties - Hercules had already
(accidentally) killed the two centaurs usually associated with the
constellation Centaurus before he actually went to hunt and
eventually capture the Erymanthian Boar.
A more compelling hypothesis is that the constellation Therion
represents the ’roasted meat’ which the centaur Pholus
(Φόλος)
must have 'singed' over his fire, as he entertained Hercules prior
to the hunt for the Boar:
Travelling through Pholoe,
Heracles stayed as a guest with the Centaur Pholos, the son of
Seilenos and an ash-tree nymph. This Centaur offered Heracles meat
that was roasted, but he himself ate his raw.
It seems reasonable to suppose
that this 'roast meat' was meant to be a serving of wild boar, and
with regard to this Richard Hinckley Allen commented:
Centaurus is from the Κένταυρος
that Aratos used, probably from earlier times, for it was a universal
title with the Greeks; but he also called it the Horseman
Beast, the customary term for a centaur in the Epic and Aeolic
dialects. This, too, was the special designation of the classical
Pholos, son of Silenus and Melia, and the hospitable one of the
family, who died in consequence of exercising this virtue toward
Hercules. Apollodorus tells us that the latter's gratitude caused
this centaur's transformation to the sky … with the fitting
designation ‘Well-disposed‘.
Clearly then, there
existed an astronomical tale relating to these constellations, which
depicted Centaurus as Pholus (Φόλος)
the Horseman roasting or singeing a wild boar (Therion)
over the smoking fire of Ara (The Altar). It
is this moment from the 'Fourth Labour of Hercules' which 'caused
this centaur's transformation to the sky' and
all of these details, except the flavour of the meat, are recorded in
'The Library' of Apollodorus. Interestingly, the earliest surviving
depictions of the constellation Centaurus show him fully bearded as
for instance on the Farnese Globe, later though, for example in the
Leyden Manuscript, he
is pictured ‘with a shaven face, but with a heavy mustache (!),’
(sic. Allen). Now these descriptions and depictions tally nearly
perfectly with the image which Cei and Bedwyr saw from Plinlimmon
Top:
The bearded figure
of Dillus the Horseman singeing a wild boar over a fire, far to the
south.
The bearded figure
of Φόλος the
Horseman singeing a wild boar over a fire, far to the south.
This duplication of
such an unlikely set of circumstances, and the striking visual
similarity of the names Dillus
and Φόλος
with
the 'Horseman' epithet, strongly suggests
borrowing from one tradition to the other, and it is a reasonable
assumption that it was the Welsh author who was borrowing from the
Greek tradition. I suggest that the author of Culhwch may have
seen this name written in Greek (possibly in a copy of the 'Library'
itself) and that, in transcribing the name Φόλος
into
Latin letters, he has mistaken, (perhaps deliberately,
perhaps not) Φ
for D, ό
for i, and λ
for ll.
Now Dillus the
Horseman was a ‘mighty warrior’ and if Cei and Bedwyr were to
pluck his beard they needed to trap him in a pit, ostensibly this was
to avoid having to fight him, but also because they otherwise would
not have been able to reach his beard on account of his enormous
size. But I think that the narrator is communicating something on a
far grander scale. So Cei and Bedwyr waited for him to eat his fill
of the boar meat and then:
When Cei knew for certain that he
was asleep he dug a pit under his feet, the biggest in the world, and
he struck him a blow mighty past telling, and pressed him down in the
pit
JK Bollard has suggested that the
'deep hollow by a farm called Erwbarfe ('Beards-Acre') in the Rheidol
gorge near Devil's Bridge, just south of the Plumlumon Range, might
be a suitable site for the pit in which Dillus was trapped'.
Surely though, this contradicts the point which our narrator is at
pains to express, Dillus the Horseman is not at a nearby location but
very far away. This idea of great distance is articulated
several times; Cei and Bedwyr were 'in the highest
wind in the world' and 'they could see a great smoke towards the
south, far off from them, and not blowing across with the
wind'. '...see yonder the fire of a warrior,' says Cei. They
have to travel south, but are still 'watching from afar' when
Cei eventually recognises that it is Dillus the Bearded who is
'singeing a wild boar', over the fire.
Having now been
pressed into the 'biggest pit in the
world', (surely, no mere local gorge) we can imagine that all
that was showing of Dillus the Horseman above the earth was his head
and his beard and if we are to equate this image with Pholus the
Horseman (Centaurus) then a precessional epoch must be sought when,
as seen from Plinlimon, just the head and neck of Pholus the Horseman
were above the southern horizon. Two thousand years ago Centarus'
entire upper torso was clear of the horizon and this would have made
for a very dangerous situation for Cei and Bedwyr. So we need to
press him down further into the biggest pit in the world. We can do
this by winding the precessional clock forward, if we take it to 500
AD Dillus's arms are still free and Cei and Bedwyr are still
vulnerable, and it requires another 500 years of precessional pit
digging and pressing down before Pholus the Horseman is sufficiently
buried up to his neck for his beard to be safely
'twitched'.
We are now in the early 11th century, and fast approaching
a period which most authorities assign to the committal of Culhwch
and Olwen to writing, but just as importantly it brings us into the
temporal vicinity of the SN 1006 event.
Supernova 1006
There are several
records of SN 1006 in northern European annals, the two most
northerly, being the Belgian Annales Leodiensis, and the
Annales Laubienis compiled at Liege, (50°37' N, 5° 34'E) and
Lobbes, (50° 21'N, 4° 15'E) respectively. Both sites are less than
2° south of Plinlimon. The entry for 1006 in both manuscripts reads:
‘1006. There was a
very great famine and a comet appeared for a long time'.
The word ‘comet’
being the nearest available term for the rare supernova
spectacle.
Stephenson, Clark and Crawford, consider that these Belgian records
may be derived from St. Gallen in Switzerland, however it will be
seen below that the St. Gallen record is of a different order when it
comes to descriptive power and for this reason it's obvious that the
Belgian annalists could not have been influenced by the St Gallen
Annales entry for 1006. Their conclusion that ‘…there
seems no reason to believe that it was seen as far north as Belgium‘
is by no means proven.
Indeed when the coordinates of these Belgian towns are fed into
astronomy software such as 'Stellarium' with the sky set to about
midnight on May day Eve 1006, this clearly shows that the celestial
site of the supernova was a little over 2° above
the local southern horizon.
Considering the characteristic flatness of the Belgian landscape, the
almost total lack of light pollution, the extreme brightness and the
long period of visibility of the supernova, it would actually be very
surprising if it was not seen as far north as Belgium.
Another sighting,
this time in Metz (49°05’N, 6°10’E) in northern France, is also
worth mentioning, it was recorded by Albertus of Metz, (d.1024) in
the Alpertus de Diversitate Temporum, Lib. 1, (On the
Diversity of Time). The language is remarkably similar to the
description of Dillus’s Fire and it is hard to believe that they
are not describing the same event: ‘Three years after the king
(Henry II) was raised to the throne of the kingdom, a
comet with a horrible appearance was seen in the southern part of the
sky, emitting flames this way and that.’Compared
with: 'they could see a great smoke
towards the south, far off from them…And then Cei said, “...see
yonder the fire of a warrior”.
Fig. ii The (still
expanding) remnant of SN1006
The most notable northern
European record of SN1006 was written by a monk, probably one
Hepidannus, it occurs in a section of the chronicle Annales
Sangallenses Maiores from the Benedictine abbey of St. Gallen in
Switzerland.
The latitude of St. Gallen is 47°.25'N and it has been calculated
that the supernova would have appeared low in the sky, rising to at
most 5° above the southern horizon and would have been visible for
about 4-5 hours during the small hours of late Spring and early
Summer:
“A new star of unusual size
appeared, glittering in aspect, dazzling the eyes, causing alarm. In
a wonderful manner this was sometimes contracted, sometimes diffused,
and moreover sometimes extinguished. It was seen likewise for three
months in the inmost limits of the south, beyond all the
constellations which are seen in the sky.”
Accordingly, an
observer, in the early hours of the First of May 1006 ‘sitting atop
Plumlumon’ at 52.25°N would suddenly have noticed ‘far away
toward the South’, ’undisturbed by the wind’ what would have
appeared to be a great fire at the horizon between the constellations
Therion and Centaurus, who is buried up to his neck in the Earth.
Judgement Day
It could be
argued that there is no need to invoke SN 1006 because we have, in
any case, already noticed a ‘fire’
in the form of the constellation Ara - the altar, it is this fire
which cooks or 'singes' the (boar) meat of Pholus the Horseman, and
this might be enough to explain the episode in Culhwch and Olwen of
the acquisition of Dillus‘ beard, except
for what happened ‘A little while before
that’. After receiving the leash, made of the braided beard
of the Horseman, from the hand of Cei, Arthur asks, "Which of
the marvels is it best for us now to seek?" to which the reply
is, "It is best for us to seek Drudwyn, the cub of Greid the son
of Eri."
But instead of the expected quest for Drudwyn we are treated to the
following digression:
A little while before that,
Creiddylad daughter of Lludd Llawereint, went off with Gwythyr the
son of Greidawl. But before he could sleep with her, Gwyn ap Nudd
came and took her by force... Arthur heard about that
and came to the North. He summoned Gwyn son of Nudd to him, released
his nobles from his prison, and made peace between Gwyn son of Nudd
and Gwythyr son of Greidawl. This
is the peace that was concluded: to leave the maiden unmolested by
either party in her father's house, and a battle between Gwyn and
Gwythyr every May first, forever, until Judgement Day, from that day
forth. The one that
conquered
on Judgement Day would get the maiden.
A natural reaction to the mention
of the First of May in this context would be to categorise it with
the numerous other mentions of May 1st elsewhere in medieval Welsh
literature.
The tale type itself is very old and has often been interpreted as a
seasonal myth allegorizing the eternal struggle between Winter and
Summer, but here it seems incongruous and is generally regarded as an
interpolation. However, there may have been perfectly good reasons
for its inclusion precisely at this point in the tale. First, all
over the Old World the sudden appearance of the supernova of the
First of May 1006 must have stoked already widespread millennial
fears of the apocalypse and of a coming Day of Judgement. It appeared
low in the southern sky, in the sign of Scorpio with the malefic
planet Mars in attendance. In European monastic records it was
invariably associated with famine, plague and war and even the Arab
scholar Ibn Ridwan interpreted it as a portent of ill fortune, and he
later noted that “calamity and destruction” in fact followed in
that year.
Both the date May 1st and the association with Judgement
Day are present in this embedded tale of the abduction of Kreiddylat.
Second, the two characters
Kreiddylat and her father Lludd Llaw Ereint (of the Silver Hand) have
some interesting associations: the virginal Creiddylad or Kreiddylat
has, for obvious reasons, often been equated with Persephone or Kore
(The Maiden) as Apollodorus calls her. Kore is
represented in the night sky as the Zodiacal constellation of Virgo,
remembering that Arthur’s judgement was to leave the
maiden
(i.e.
the virgin) unmolested
by either party
in her
father's house.
Lludd is a reflex of the
Romano-British god of healing Nodens (Irish Nuada).
There is good evidence which suggests that this divine healer Nodens was
seen, via the interpretatio romana, as a British Aesclepius,
the Greco-Roman god of healing.
Aesclepius is represented in the night sky as the
constellation Ophiuchus – The Serpent Bearer, sometimes called the
‘Thirteenth House
of the Zodiac‘. Virgo and Ophiuchus are neighbouring constellations
which lie along the Ecliptic immediately north of Centaurus, Therion
and Scorpius, effectively framing the site of SN1006. I think that
the author of Culhwch
incorporated this tale in order to draw attention to the potentially
apocalyptic cosmic event which occurred in the vicinity of these
constellations during the popular feast of the Blessed Virgin.on the
First of May 1006.
Conclusion
There is a similarity between
what I am suggesting here and the supernova of 1054 (The Crab Nebula)
and the manner in which it was recorded in the Irish Annals of
Tigernach and the Chronicon Scottorum. I reproduce here professor
Mark Williams’ adaptation of Breen and McCarthy‘s translation of
the 1054 entry:
A round tower of fire was seen at
Ros Ela on the Sunday of the feast of St. George, for the
space of five hours of the day,
and innumerable black birds passing into and out of it, and one great
bird in the midst thereof, and when the little birds would enter the
round tower they would come under her plumage. They came forth and
lifted up the hound that lay amid the settlement up on high into the
air, and they cast him down again, and he straightway died. And three
mantles and two shirts they lifted up on high and down again they
flung them. Now the wood whereon the birds perched fell beneath them,
and the oak whereon the great bird sat was a-tremble with its roots
in the earth.
Mark Williams’ observations
concerning SN 1054 and the way in which 11th century Irish
monks recorded the event are illuminating:
… McCarthy and
Breen make excellent sense of this enigmatic mixture by relating it
to the medieval Antichrist legend. They identify the event that gave
rise to this entry as the sudden appearance of a supernova in 1054,
which continues to be visible to this day as the Crab Nebula. Thus we
find here an unusual celestial phenomenon not only being viewed
through an apocalyptic lens, but also being actively embellished with
details drawn from pious legend. Secondly, this embellishment is
obscured or distanced by the substitution of more homely, native
elements for the key figures of the Antichrist legend. The medieval
‘Life of Antichrist’ has been transposed into a native key. For
example, according to the legend, Antichrist will emerge from a
bottomless shaft within a smoking pit…
In Wales, in the
side by side tales of Dillus the Horseman and the Abduction of
Creiddylad we find this same tradition, fully developed and evidently
referring to another rare supernova event almost fifty years earlier
than that recorded in the Irish example. Apocalyptic celestial signs,
a bottomless shaft, a smoking pit, a horseman, Judgement Day...
Moreover, this mixture has, in the Welsh text, been further enriched
by allusions to the legends of the Ptolemaic constellations as found
in Apollodorus, Hyginus, Eratosthenes, and Aratos, and to the
planispheric charts which so often accompanied the medieval
manuscript copies of these texts.
Fig. iii The Super
Nova of May the First 1006, as seen from Plinlimon. Φόλος
the Horseman (here shaven), buried up to his neck in the Earth, and
'singeing' the Beast over his fire, far to the south. Framed by
Ophiuchus (Aesclepius - the healer) and Virgo (Kore - the Maiden).
Part II: The Twrch
Trwyth Constellations
The
Comb, the Scissors and the Razor
Fig iiii. The Claws,
the Sting and the Legs resting between the two ears of The Beast.
I have argued that
the author of Culhwch considered that the giant boar which
Dillus 'singes' over his fire is to be identified with the
constellation Therion, I now want to demonstrate that this
celestial boar, the constellation Therion, which
contains the site of
SN1006, is also supposed to be, in the scheme of the
author of 'Culhwch and Olwen',
the mythical giant boar Twrch Trwyth.
Arthur tells us that
the 'meaning' of Twrch Trwyth was that 'He was a king, and
for his wickedness God transformed him into a swine'.'
It is hard not to be reminded of the story of Lycaon the king of
Arcadia who, for his sins, Jupiter transformed into a wolf, hence
modern Lupus.
This tale and its connection with the constellation Therion/Lupus may
be much older than is generally supposed, maybe as old as the late
Roman period.
Thus the tale of the transformation of Lycaon into the Wolf
constellation could have entered the 'Celtic Insular' learned
tradition from an early period. Might it have influenced this Welsh
tale?
Whatever the answer,
I think that the author of Culhwch was referring to the
constellation Scorpius, which lies immedeately above Therion,
when he described the Razor, the Scissors and the Comb which lay
between the two ears of the Twrch Trwyth. I think that these
'precious objects' correspond thus: the Sting = the Razor, the Claws
= the Scissors and the Comb = the Legs. These last, the Legs of
Scorpius, lay between the two ears of Therion, which I have
just identified as the giant boar being 'singed' by Dillus the
Horseman or otherwise Centaurus.
Scorpius, was always
considered as a single constellation, but the various parts - claws,
head, body, tail and sting etc. - have from very early times been
accorded special recognition, the Claws in particular recieved much
attention, but it was 'the Romans
(who) finally distinguished the Claws as a separate constellation to
which they gave the name Libra ("balance")' which they
depicted as two pans, in place of the claws, dissected by the
ecliptic.
So it is easy to see how the Claws can become scissors, it's such a
natural analogy, likewise the Scorpion's many legs between the two
ears of the Beast may instantly be understood as a comb, and the
sting in the tail of the Scorpion as a visual metaphor for the razor
is matched in the shape of the tusk of Yskythrwyn Penbaedd, the razor
originally demanded by Yspyddaden Pencawr for his 'shave'. In other
words these are clever and humourous visual puns, naturally arrived
at; but it is a thin disguise, designed to reveal, ultimately, the
author's barely concealed agenda.
Menw son of the
Three Shouts and Gwrhyr Interpreter of Languages
Fig v. The Little
Bird above the lair of the Beast with Claws, the Sting and the Legs between his two Ears.
Following the hunt
for the Chief Boar Yskythrwyn,
Arthur sends his servant Menw vab Teirgwaedd to the lair of
Twrch Trwyth in Esgair Oervel to see if the comb, scissors and razor
are between the ears of the beast; but as far as the narrative is
concerned the episode is utterly without point, as the author himself
acknowledges, for it is already known that this is the case. The
question must be: For what reason does the author include this
redundant episode?
Both Hyginus and
(pseudo) Eratosthenes recorded the same tale for the origin of
Corvus. In both texts the constellations Corvus, Crater and Hydra are
placed under a single heading (they are often described as a
super-constellation). Here is the version from the Catasterismi:
This constellation
is well-known from a famous episode. Each
god has a bird as an attribute, and the crow is the attribute of
Apollo. Once, when the gods were preparing a sacrifice, the
crow was sent to bring a libation from a certain spring
which was considered most sacred before wine was invented. Seeing a
fig tree with unripe fruit near the spring, the crow waited until the
figs were ripe. After a number of days, the crow ate the ripe figs,
then realized his misdeed, snatching up the water-snake from the
spring, the crow brought it back, along with the water-cup, alleging
that the water-snake had daily been consuming the water from the
spring. Apollo, however, knowing the truth, imposed on the
crow the punishment of thirsting among men for a long period of
time... In order to provide a clear warning about sinning
against the gods, Apollo placed among the stars the image of the
Water-Snake [Hydra], the Water-Cup [Crater] and the Crow [Corvus],
and depicted the latter as if prevented from drinking or
approaching the Water-Cup. (Hyginus
has: 'The Crow appears to be shaking Hydra's tail with his
beak, in order to gain access to
the Water-cup').
Compare this to the
episode in Culhwch and Olwen which describes the visit of Menw ap
Tiergwaedd to the lair of the Twrch Trwyth :
And
after Yskithyrwyn Penbaedd was killed, Arthur and his host departed
to Gelli Wic in Cornwall. And thence he sent Menw the son of
Teirgwaedd to see if the precious things were between the two ears of
Twrch Trwyth, since it were useless to encounter him if they were not
there. Albeit it was certain
where he was, for he had laid waste the third part of Ireland. And
Menw went to seek for him, and he met with him in Ireland, in Esgeir
Oervel. And Menw took the form of a bird;
and he descended upon the top of his lair,
and strove to snatch away one of the precious things from
him, but he carried
away nothing but one of his bristles.
And the boar rose up angrily and shook himself so that some of his
venom fell upon Menw, and he was never well from that day
forward.
Fig vi. Corvus and
Hydra. '...but all he got was one of his bristles'
The
same motifs are present in both tales: Apollo/Arthur sends the
crow/his servant on an errand.
Though it wasn't part of his original task, the crow/little bird
snatches up the sinuous body of the water-snake/the boar's bristle.
The little crow was punished – his throat was made sore/he was
never well from that day forward. Note too that the motif of
transformation as a punishment for sinning against the gods or God is
also present in both tales. It looks to me as if the Welsh author is
testing, and jesting with, his readers; he is comparing the huge
serpent Hydra, in Corvus the Crow's beak, to one of the bristles of
the enormous boar Twrch Trwyth which Menw, in bird form, holds in his
beak. This is a visual pun, comically exaggerating the boar's great
size, (Hydra is the most extended of all the constellations) measured
against this 'little' bird constellation of only seven stars.
Earlier in the tale, in the
'catalogue of the court', an apparantly non-sensical characacter
called Medyr vab Methredydd (Aim son of Aimer) is invoked by Culhwch
where it is noted of him (in the voice of the author) that 'from
Gelli Wic he could, in the twinkling of an eye, shoot the wren
through the two legs upon Esgeir Oervel in Ireland'. Is there a
suggestion here that the author is hinting that the bird form which
Menw adopted on his visit to Esgeir Oervel was that of the wren, the
tiniest of birds?
In fact the English word 'wren' comes from vran or
bran, Welsh for crow or raven
and the wren is known in Welsh as cutti vran
meaning 'little crow',
which corresponds with the name Menw vab Teirgwaedd - Little son of
Three Cries (Caw! Caw! Caw!) fairly precisely. It may also be
intended as another joke.
The
answer to the question, 'For what reason does the author include this
redundent episode?', posed at the begining of this section therefore
is, that our author wanted to describe an image which could be fixed
in the mind. Having already drawn for us images of a
great fire (SN1006) on the horizon far to the south, where Dillus the
Horseman (Centaurus) is singeing a wild boar (Therion),
and above this the
Maiden (Virgo) in her father the healer's house (Ophiuchus) he
now wishes to extend this ensemble and not without humour, to
include: A
giant boar (Therion) with a razor, scissors and comb (Scorpius)
between his two ears and above him a tiny bird (Corvus) with an
enormous bristle (Hydra) in its beak.
Fig vii. 'if you can
speak, I'm asking one of you to come and talk to Arthur'.
A little further on
a 'doublet' of this episode occurs. Arthur sent Gwrhyr Gwalstawd
Ieithoedd (Interpreter of Languages) to try and talk to Twrch Trwyth.
Gwrhyr, like Menw son of Three Shouts, had the ability to turn
himself into a bird. So now the author wants us to imagine a talking
bird, in other words a Corvid, above the lair of the beast with the
razor, scissors and comb between its ears. But there are several
other hints, which strongly suggest that we are here dealing with
'star lore':
Gwrhyr
went in the shape of a bird, and settled above the lair of the boar
and his seven little pigs. And Gwrhyr Gwalstawd Ieithoedd asked him,
'For the sake of him who shaped you in this image, if you can speak,
I'm asking one of you to come and talk to Arthur'. Grugyn Gwrych
Eraint (silver-bristles) answered; All his bristles were like wings
of silver, and one could see the path he took through the woods and
over fields by the way his bristles glittered.
Hygwydd, the
Cauldron, the Smoke and the Ship
Fig viii. Hydra
carrying the Cauldron, (smoke rising beneath it) on his back to the
ship Argo.
Our author now
wishes to further extend this complex series of images to include
several more constellations. He does so, by slightly altering our
focus westward, with the episode which follows immediately on from
Menw's adventure in Esgair Oervel, and in which Arthur begins his
campaign to acquire the cauldron of Diwrnach the Irishman. So, having
asked for the cauldron and been denied it twice, Bedwyr decides to
take matters into his own hands:
Bedwyr stood up,
took hold of the cauldron, and placed it on the back of Hygwydd,
Arthur's servant. The latter was a brother by the same mother to
Cacamwri, servant of Arthur. This was his regular job: to carry
Arthur's Cauldron, and to build a fire under it...
Arthur and his men
took the cauldron - full of Irish treasures - and entered the ship
before their very eyes. They disembarked at the house of Llwydeu son
of Cel Coed at Porth Cerddin in Dyfed. And "Cauldrons
Measure"is there.
Now,
the boar's bristle, Hydra,
becomes Hygwydd,
the cauldron stands for Crater, the ship Prydwen is meant for the
ship Argo and the fire kindled beneath the Cauldron is the 'smoke',
actually another visual pun on the spray from the Clashing Rocks,
into which the Argo sails. Compare also Hyginus' tale for the origin
of Crater, which is in the same section as the origin tales for
Corvus and Hydra: When the king ... 'discovered what had
happened...he ordered that Mastusius
be thrown into the sea, along with the wine-jar. For that reason the
sea into which he was thrown was called Mastusian in his memory,
and the port is to this day called Crater [“wine-jar”]. The
ancient astronomers configured it among the stars...'
Dunking
Twrch Trwyth in Severn.
The events which
occur in the Severn Estuary are described in fine detail:
And first they laid
hold of his feet, and soused him in Severn till it was flooding over
him. On the one side Mabon son of Modron spurred his horse and took
the razor from him, and on the other Cyledyr the Wild, on another
horse, plunged into the Severn with him and took from him the
shears.
These events
correspond with breathtaking precision to the following tableau of
constellations: The holding of Therion by the leg and his dunking in
the Celestial River, (Via Lactea). Attacking on the one side is the
Horseman Sagittarius who is nearest to the sting (the razor). On the
other side, the attacker is another 'wild' Horseman, (Centaurus)
plunging into the Celestial River, and nearest the Claws (the
shears). The quantity and complexity of pictorial correspondences
here would be remarkable if it was down to sheer coincidence alone,
but for me it is obvious that this episode is a word picture
describing the classical celestial imagery similar to that in fig
viiii.
Fig viiii. The two
'Wild Horsemen' either side of The Woodland Beast with the claws,
legs and sting between his ears, who is being held by the leg and
'dunked' in the Celestial River
Conclusion
I think that the
author of Culhwch ac Olwen was in possession of a first-hand
account of the first appearance, at about midnight on the Calends of
May, 1006 of the brightest of all Supernovas. He sought further
information regarding the position of this heavenly portent of the
'End of Days' in manuscripts on astronomy, and was subsequently
influenced by several staple texts in both Greek and Latin, known or
suspected to have been in circulation in Wales amongst learned
ecclesiasts during the period which most experts assign to the
composition of Culhwch ac Olwen. What I have in mind are: the
Catastersmi or The
Constellations by pseudo Eratosthenes, the Poeticon
Astronomicon or Astronomia and
the Fabulae by Hyginus, the Phaenomena by Aratus
of Soli, The Dream of Scipio by Cicero and The Commentary
on it by Macrobius, and, just possibly, the Bibliotheke (The
Library of Greek Myth) by (pseudo) Apollodorus.
He must also have had access to Ptolemaic constellation charts for
the Northern and Southern celestial hemispheres, such as the Aratea
which traditionally
accompanied these texts and
which were circulating north western Europe from the earliest
medieval times. None of this material would have been out of
place in the libraries and the
scriptoria of 11th century Welsh monastic
settlements or clasau, such as Llancarfan and Llanbadarn
Fawr,
where Astronomy was taught as part of the Quadrivium, and where
manuscripts on Astronomy were not just kept but also copied and
produced. In short, if it was
the aim of the author of 'Culhwch and Olwen' to encode information on
the celestial site of SN1006 into his tale, then he would have found
the relevant material to hand and was, in any case, already familiar
with it.
Plumlumon, at
52°25’N - the most northerly limit for
the visibility of SN1006 - was one of the few places in Britain
where the supernova might have been clearly seen, as it provided an
elevated, uninterupted, dark sky view of the southern horizon.
The description of Dillus the Horseman’s campfire ‘far away to
the south’ is, I suggest, based on an eye witness account of the
upper limb of the apparent ‘disc’ of the supernova, (‘two and a
half to three times that of Venus’ and 250 times more bright than
the brightest star Sirius) dissected by the southern horizon. It is
possible that the original observer was a monk based at the nearby
monastic settlement of Llanbadarn Fawr, (just 12 miles distant) where
observing the stars to determine the dates of feast days and the
times of prayer must have been habitual.
The author of
Culhwch ac Olwen, whatever else was on his agenda, was
purposefully ’encoding’ an observed astronomical phenomena into
his narrative. The image he gives of Dillus the Horseman singeing a
wild boar over a fire is transparently an image of Pholus the
Horseman singeing a wild boar over a fire, otherwise known as the
constellations Centaurus, Therion and Ara. He accurately gives the
celestial position of these constellations as being in the south. He
uses pit digging and pressing down as a metaphor for the precessional
motion of these constellations and he draws our attention to an epoch
when the Horseman (Centaurus) was buried up to his neck in the Earth,
precisely the position of these constellations at the time of the
supernova of 1006.
The episode of the acquisition of
Dillus’ beard which is used to make the (braided horse-hair) leash
to hold Drudwyn the whelp of
Greid (Scorcher) son of Eri
is obviously linked to the episode immediately following where,
instead of the promised quest for Drudwyn, the author has placed a
story which ends with a fight every May the First until Judgement
Day. He thus provides the precise date of the first appearance of
SN1006 and then tellingly associates this date with an apocalyptic
reference, echoing the almost universal millennial reaction to the
sudden intrusion of this new blazing star into the sky
The inclusion in this tale also of the British figures Creiddylad and
Lludd Llaw Ereint, whose Greek counterparts Kore and Asclepius just
happen to be represented as the constellations Virgo and Ophiuchus
reinforces this assessment.
In Part II I have presented a
selection of incidents, (space does not allow a full rehearsal) from
the 'Achievements' which corroborate and provide weight to the above
conclusions. But there are more examples, for instance:
The Twrch Trwyth diving into the sea from the southernmost point of
the British Isles and his mysterious disappearance into the southern
horizon is really the gradual disappearance of Therion into the
southern horizon due to precessional motion. And, Arthur (Phoebus
Apollo - the Sun) at the entrance to Uffern
(the
Infernal Regions of Dis), throwing Carnwennen – 'little white
knife' (the Ecliptic or possibly Mars) and splitting the witch into
two tubs (Libra).
There is also a sizeable list of the names of major characters which
correspond closely with the constellations near to SN1006: Dillus
the Horseman –Φόλος
the Horseman . Drudwyn or Fierce/Bright hound of Scorcher son of Eri
– Scorcher hound of Orion. Kreiddylat – Kore/Virgo. Yskythrwyn
– ΎςΚαλυδωίος
(The Caledonian boar - Therion?).
Little son of Three Shouts – the little Crow (Corvus). Hygwydd –
Hydra. Osla Big-Knife – Orion (Osiris) and his Sword, not to be
exhaustive.
The
evidence suggests that the Welsh Author's motive was to encode into
his narrative both the celestial and the temporal position of the
potentially apocalyptic event of the sudden appearance of the
brightest star ever seen,
on the southern Welsh horizon on May 1st
1006 and it is worth quoting here the views of Mark Williams once
more regarding the occurence of unusual celestial portents in early
medieval Irish saga, but which I think applies equally well to this
early Welsh prose tale:
...the embedding of
expected celestial portents or events within a narrative seems on
occassion to have prompted the annalists to set their own actual
observations within a narrative framework, turning records of comets,
eclipses and unusual meteorological phenomena into fantastical
miniature stories. But the annalists seem to have gone a stage
further, and begun to recast these apocalyptic miniature stories in
Irish terms, with echoes of native mythology...this tendency to
disguise celestial portents which are actually apocalyptic under a
native cloak is more widespread than has been acknowledged, and that
the imagery of apocalyptic celestial portents can also be found in
native saga.
In Wales, as in
Ireland, the recording of unusual celestial events was a feature of
annalistic entries over a prolonged period and the following was
recorded in the Brut y Tywysogion:
A.D. 1030.—A
wonderful light was seen in the sky during the night, which rendered
it as light as day. That year Joseph, bishop of Teilaw, ordered that
no work or occupation should take place on the Sundays and holidays,
and obliged the priests to learn to read the Holy Scripture without
payment or gift, and to abandon controversies.
Perhaps
surprisingly, there are no entries for 1006 or 1054, even though
SN1054 was indisputably visible from Welsh latitudes. However, this
particular entry is curious, and one could speculate that it may
represent a later attempt to make obscure the entries for 1006 and
1054.
There was, of course, a well known eclipse on August 1st
1030, (partial in Wales) but I can find no other records for a
supernova or a comet from this year, or anywhere near it The
movement of the North geomagnetic pole had caused the auroral oval to
be far from Britain during the early eleventh century, making it
highly unlikely that this is a record of the Aurora Borealis. It
may not be coincidental that the year 1030 is precisely mid-way
between 1006 and 1054.
Finally,
I think that the record of SN1006 in Culhwch
and Olwen probably started life in an annalistic
context soon after the event, in its simplest form it may have read:
A great smoke far towards the south, like a giants
campfire, between the Horseman and the Beast was seen from Plimlumon
Top. This would reflect the widespread
practice of astronomical observation in British, Irish and European
monastic communities in expectation of the cosmic portents of
Doomsday.
But like the supernova of 1054 and the comet of 1066 it did not
presage the 'End of Days', and the obscuration of the Ros Ela entry
for 1054 in the Irish records is, Breen and McCarthy suggest, a
somewhat later reaction to the (embarrassing) failure of these apocalyptic
predictions in 'Revelations' and in later apocryphal works, to
materialize. In
Culhwch
and Olwen
someone undertook to preserve the record of SN1006 outside of an
annalistic context, where, just as in the Ros Ela example,
the apocalyptic material and the astronomy are covertly or
cryptically presented, 'under
a native cloak', but here, in at least seventeen
sequential episodes and parading as fantastical prose.
Notes