The Celtic Pushan: Gwydion, Cian, Oðinn, Pan, Merlin

The Celtic Pushan: Gwydion, Cian, Óðinn, Pan, Merlin

With Hermes and Ogma's parallel with the Gandharva much more clearly seen, and specifically with Hermes now distinguished from the Vedic Pushan who he has commonly been compared with, we are much better able to proceed to an analysis of the “Pushan” deity as he may appear in both Greek and Celtic myth. As much as Hermes has been compared to Pushan, so also has his son, Pan, been said to be the Pushanic god, and he on much firmer linguistic grounds. The name Pan is thus suggested to derive from a shared root with Pushan, the Proto-Indo-European *Péh2usōn, which is thought to have developed into the Greek form as *peh2- > Παων > Pan (Skutsch 1987, 190). Furthermore, as god of the wilds, and particularly mountain wilds, where Pushan goes to protect flocks and travelers, Pushan makes a strikingly good match to the well-known image of Pan the wild, goat-footed lord of flocks and nature. We won't go into an extensive comparison proving Pan's parallel with Pushan, as this has been done elsewhere. M.L. West summarizes: 

"Both are pastoral gods, with a special affinity with the goat. Pu ̄san has goats to pull his car (RV 1. 138. 4; 6. 55. 3–4, cf. 6; 58. 2; 9. 67. 10; 10. 26. 8), and goats were sacrificed to him on occasion; Pan has goat’s legs (Hymn. Hom. 19. 2, 37; Anon. mel. P. Oxy. 2624 fr. 1. 4 = SLG 387). Both have bushy beards (RV 10. 26. 7; Hymn. Hom. 19. 39, PMG 936. 11) and keen sight: Pu ̄san goes about surveying everything (RV 2. 40. 5; 3. 62. 9; 6. 58. 2); Pan roams the mountains and climbs the peaks to view the flocks.7 Pu ̄san follows and protects the cattle (RV 6. 54. 5–10, 58. 2, 53. 9; a producer of cattle, TS 2. 1. 1. 6; 2. 4. 4. 3). He is a guardian of roads who protects the wayfarer from wolves and brigands (RV 1. 42. 1–3, 7; 6. 49. 8, 53. 1, 54. 9). Pan’s province includes ‘the rocky tracks’ (Hymn. Hom. 19. 7), and in Hellenistic Egypt he was worshipped as... ‘of good journeying’ (OGIS 38, 70–2, al.)” (West, 282). 

Building on this established parallel we are able to begin to investigate the elusive Celtic Pushan.

There is one Celtic god who has not been specifically identified in our schema, who was explicitly identified via the Interpretatio Romana with Mercury (the Roman cognate of Hermes). Of course, there were numerous Celtic deities identified with Mercury by the Romans and Gauls in different contexts. This particular god, however, bore the name Mercury Uiducus, meaning Mercury “of the woods.” Presumably, Uiducus was the latinization of the name of the Gaulish deity who was here rechristened as a Mercury. Uiducus, this “Mercury” of the Woods, does not have any extant written mythology, but seems to have a clear linguistic cognate in one of the most important Welsh gods: Gwydion. Gwydion and Uiducus are linguistically very close, and are both considered to come from the root uidu-, meaning “woods,” or uid-/wyd- concerning knowledge (trees and knowledge already being connected concepts in Celtic cultures, as we see with the word druid, proto-Celtic *dru-wid-s, “oak-knower”). Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia says, “Gwydion himself would derive from *Uidugenos, which would be similar to Uiducos, which according to Chris Gwynn contains the early patryonimic -ako-, here -uco-, making Uiducus and Gwydion essentially the same name.” Thus Gwydion/Uiducus is the wise “Mercury” of the Woods. Would it be possible that the ancients then confused a “Pushan” deity for a “Gandharva” one in this case, just as scholars have habitually done in our time, naming this Celtic god a “Mercury” when he is really a “Pan”? Are external similarities between the two god archetypes so close that they will always be seen as near equivalents? Would “Mercury of the Woods” not be a fitting title for Pan himself?

This association with the tree-associated “uid-” or knowledge plays out in Gwydion's mythology. He is both a teacher, teaching Lleu all he knows, and a knower of magical means, helping create Lleu's bride Blodeuwedd out of flowers, transforming her into an owl, enchanting fungus to appear as horses and dogs in the trade with Pryderi, magically disguising he and Lleu when they go to Arianrhod, etc. Furthermore the association of Uiducus with the woods fits well with Pushan's association with the mountain wilds generally, and this aspect may also be reinforced by the episode in which Gwydion is successively transformed into three different beasts of the wild, and made to live in the wild, as punishment along with his brother: a stag, a sow, and a wolf. Thus also, while Pan himself is half-goat, Gwydion takes the forms of certain animals for a portion of his life. In the Vedic case, Pushan is associated with pastures, liminal spaces and mountainous heights, which his goat chariot allows him to traverse (compare to Pan's goat feet) and it is said of him “he shares with Soma the the guardianship of living creatures.” Specifically he watches over the herds and is especially prayed to for their protection and in the case that cattle are lost. He is the god who both protects cattle and crucially retrieves them when lost. 

Gwydion's Irish cognate Cian must be mentioned here as well. Indeed, this investigation must start from the unproven assumption that Irish Cian and Welsh Gwydion are the same god. This, at first, seems to rest on only a couple similarities; however, as the investigation continues, the full pattern will become much clearer. Irish Cian is father of Lugh as Welsh Gwydion is ambiguously father or foster father of Lleu. Just before Cian's death, he transforms himself into either a dog or a pig to try to escape the sons of Tuireann. Thus both he and Gwydion transform into animals, and these animals overlap, as the wolf and pig are two of those which Gwydion is transformed into as well. 

Pushan's central pastoral association connects with perhaps the most important piece of evidence marking Cian and Gwydion as the Celtic “Pushans.” Prayers were directed to Pushan when cows strayed and he is said in the Rig Veda to have found a lost “king” who had been hidden away. This king is believed to be the god Soma himself. Not only this, but the finding of Soma and the trait of the retrieving of cattle seem to be combined in this myth, for a mantra found in hymn 23 verse 13 of book 1 of the Rig Veda reads, “Bring him [Soma] … O Luminous Pushan, like a lost animal.” One commentator from Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture Trust (SAKSIVC) says of this mantra, “As mentioned in several hymns, Soma is hidden everywhere. The prayer for Pushan is to find the hidden Soma just as one finds a lost animal” (SAKSIVC). In the next verse, verse 14, we read, “Pushan found in the cave the most hidden Soma (placed by the demons)." The commentator explains that the Soma is hidden in difficult places by the demon Vrtra (SAKSIVC). Of this pair of mantras, Vedic translators Brereton and Jameson say, “most commentators identify this king as Soma,” while stating that context implies that it is likely Soma or Agni. They also call Pushan's ability to locate lost cows “proverbial” (Brereton and Jameson, 117). 

Now Cian, the Irish parallel of Gwydion (specifically as the father figures of Lugh/Lleu who transform into specific animals), has a myth precisely matching that just outlined. Cian is the shepherd god who loses the mystical cow and then goes to retrieve it. While this myth is gathered from several variant folktales, such traditions have deep roots, and these variants agree on most of the core elements of the story, implying an ancient tradition, which is particularly vindicated if verified by comparative analysis. In Lady Gregory’s version as found in Gods and Fighting Men we have: First, Cian is tasked with watching the wondrous cow Glas Gaibhnenn as its shepherd. The cow, however, is taken captive by Balar. Cian then must go to Balar's fortress to attempt to retrieve it. As we can see in various versions, at the fortress he seeks work as a gardener and finally sneaks into the chamber of daughter of Balar. He woos her and lies with her. Soon she helps him obtain the cow and also gives birth to his sons. Cian returns with the cow or the tale is left open ended.

This tale is closely paralleled in many precise details by a myth belonging to the Norse god Óðinn. In this myth, Óðinn goes to retrieve the Mead of Poetry (paralleling the retrieval of the lost cow) at the fortress of Suttungr, infiltrates the fortress, romances the giant's daughter, and makes off successfully with the mead, the giant's daughter being the one who helps him obtain the mead. We have noted elsewhere (“The Case for Tyr = Mitra”) Thor Ewing's essay “Óðinn and Loki Among the Celts” in which he explains the features shared between the myths of Óðinn and Cian and Gwydion. Beyond those parallels just mentioned, Ewing mentions that wages that are promised are not paid by Baugi as wages that are promised are not paid by Balar, and while Cian follows a wandering cow, Gwydion in the Welsh prelude to the birth of Lleu follows a wandering sow. 

As we have seen that the mead is the Norse name for the soma, and if we accept this myth as a match of the Irish one, then it lends great support to both the general scholarly supposition that the king who Pushan finds, like a lost animal, is Soma, and that in the same way the cow Glas Gaibhnenn, lost by Cian and then sought after, is also Soma (the god who embodies the liquid). The Greek Soma god Dionysus is often found in bull form, and it would be understandable for the god to also manifest as a cow given the milk-producing power of that animal, milk being an easy analog for the sacred liquid. 

Additionally, in the Havamal, Óðinn uses an auger drill in this mission to drill his way into Suttungr's mountain fortress to steal the mead. True, in the version of the tale found in Snorri's prose Skaldskaparmal a second figure, Baugi, appears and does the drilling. However, scholars such as Lindow and Simek believe that this figure was most likely an invention of Snorri based on a misreading of the Havamal, and that Óðinn was alone in the drilling in the original form of the myth, as in Havamal. As the Havamal passage states, describing the auger named Rati:

“Rati had gnawed a narrow passage,

Chewed a channel through stone, 

A path around the roads of giants:

I was like to lose my head

Gunnlod sat me in the golden seat, 

Poured me precious mead" (Havamal, 103). 

But even in Snorri's version, the auger that Baugi uses to drill belongs to Óðinn, and Óðinn hands it to Baugi and instructs him to drill. Pushan in the Rig Veda is well-known to have his own “awl,” a similar implement with which he drills penetrating holes. He is the only Vedic god described as having such a drilling tool, and it is one of his primary tools or weapons in the Vedas. 

“5 Penetrate with an awl, O Sage, the hearts of avaricious churls,

And make them subject to our will.

6 Thrust with thine awl, O Pūṣan: seek that which the niggard's heart holds dear,

And make him subject to our will.

8 Thou, glowing Pūṣan, carriest an awl that urges men to prayer;

Therewith do thou tear up and rend to shreds the heart of every one” (RV LIII). 

By this series of connections we can strongly support the proposition that Cian and Óðinn’s myth is the Pushan myth just as it is mentioned in the Rig Veda, and that the lost cow and lost soma are simply being used interchangeably here in the two versions, while the auger Rati and the awl of Pushan are one and the same, an archaic clue left to us confirming from one direction what the Irish myth suggests from the other. Perhaps coincidentally, Rati may have the meaning of "traveler," while Pushan is himself a god of travelers, protecting and guiding them on dangerous journeys.

Interestingly, some versions of Cian's myth relate how the Irish fire god Manannan conveys him to and from the island of Balar to retrieve the cow, either by magical boat or by plain magic. Meanwhile, Óðinn transforming into eagle form upon retrieving the Mead of Poetry has been argued to be a myth belonging to the god Agni, or the Vedic fire god, as Agni in the form of the falcon Shyena retrieves the soma in one Vedic version of the myth  (Soma-Kvasir, The Eddic-Vedic Myth of the Meath of Poetry, Curwen Rolinson). "The Falcon rent [Soma] from the mountain" says the Rig Veda (RV 1.93.6). Thus, although Óðinn combines both the Pushanic and Agni aspects in himself and they are divided into separate gods in Irish myth, this may yet be another remnant of a shared archaic pattern, both Agni and Pushan involved in the retrieval of the sacred liquid, Agni specifically in charge of the conveyance to and from, fitting his character as the conveyor par excellence -- of the sacrifice (indeed of the offered soma) to the gods and of the gods blessings to the sacrificer, among other things. 

Furthermore, it is the Vedic craftsman god Tvastr who is the keeper of the soma, it being called "the mead of Tvastr" and he having fashioned its cup. Not only is the Irish smith Goibniu the giver of the feast at which the ale of immortality is served, "the Feast of Goibniu," but he is also the original owner of the cow Glas Gaibhnenn, which is debatably named for him, and is the one who asks Cian to tend it. Thus the milk of Goibniu's cow seems to transform somehow into Goibniu's immortalizing drink, the milk of the cow and the ale being two versions of essentially the same sacred liquid (Not impossible even that some mixture was used in earliest times: “The juice was frequently mixed with water, milk or sour milk and then poured back and forth into different barrels to cause fermentation to prepare an alcoholic drink” P.B. Chakrabarty says of the Iranic haoma). And just as this liquid is kept by the craftsman god in Vedic myth, so it is in Irish. (Other specific details identify Goibniu with Tvastr, such as the fact that Tvastr and Goibniu both make the great weapons of the highest gods, and Tvastr sharpens the weapons of the gods while Goibniu repairs and remakes them during the Second Battle of Moytura). Thus again we have the same set of gods in the Irish myth as in the Vedic: the Pushanic god, the Fire god, the Craftsman/Smith, and the god manifested by the sacred liquid. The daughter of Balar and consort of Cian, Ethniu, must then be investigated in future for her possible comparison to the Vedic Saraswati-Vac, who plays a comparable role.

A second key support to our comparison is found in the relationship between Gwydion and his sister Arianrhod. In the myth of Lleu's birth found in the Mabinogion, it is left unspoken who Lleu's father is. Yet Gwydion takes Lleu and raises him, and when Gwydion returns to Arianrhod later, she is angry to see him. Scholars have proposed that Gwydion is the father of Lleu, and that he is thus the incestuous lover of his sister, but that the tale is vague regarding the details of their taboo relationship. The suggestion has even been made that in an earlier version of the myth, Gwydion was explicitly Lleu's father and Arianrhod's lover (MacKillop, Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, 24). When we look at Vedic Pushan we see that he is known as the god who is the lover of his own sister. Indeed, this attribute sticks to him and is commonly referenced in his Rig Vedic hymns. In hymn 55 of book 6, for example, he is called both “he who loves his sister” and “his sister’s lover” (RV, 6.55). Thus Pushan, like Gwydion seems to be, is the god who is famous as the lover of his sister (though not the only god with this trait, of course), while on the other side his Irish parallel Cian is the retriever of the sacred (soma)-cow, as Pushan is. 

Pushan is also commonly known as “the nourisher” and “protector,” and it is after all Gwydion who raises and nourishes the sovereign god Lleu, depicted at length in this role of teacher and provider, also bringing Lleu back from symbolic death on the tree. While Gwydion is shown as a wise and very wily magician, Pushan is said to be a “seer,” “all-seeing,” “wise,” “wonder-working,” in the Rig Veda and was worshipped by magicians and conjurers (Danielou, 124). Pushan is also a psychopomp due to his association with the steep solar path of the fathers, on which he climbs and guides souls to the divine realm, which adds to his general mystic character. In this connection, Pushan is known as the one “born on the far paths,” while Cian's name is believed to mean “distant” or “enduring one.” It is Pushan's frequenting of the steep far path that necessitates the feet of the goat for his cart, which seem to become Pan’s own goat feet. 

Incidentally, Thor, son of Óðinn, has this Pushanic cart, that which is memorably pulled by goats. As Thor shows little else to connect him to Pushan, we can see that this cart was a gift from his father. Perhaps Óðinn deemed that the goat-driven cart was not dignified enough for the Allfather and would suit his son better. 

Gwydion, like Pan and Pushan, is associated with music and bardic skill. Pan is known for his rustic pipes and for being a lord of music, being called "melodious Pan" (Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 45.174), "adornment of golden choruses" who "pours forth the god-inspired song" (Greek Lyric V Anonymous Fragment 936), and Pushan is said to be "quickening poetic vision" (RV 6.58.1-2). Gwydion is also both a singer and poet: he sings the famous engelyn that coaxes Lleu down from the mystical tree when he has been wounded in the climactic moment of "Math fab Mathonwy," and he goes in the guise of a bard to get the Swine of Annwn from Pryderi, calling himself "the chief of song," and the narrator stating that "Gwydion was the best teller of tales in the world" (Mabinogion, Math fab Mathonwy).

Even Pan's lecherous pursuit of the extremely chaste nymph Echo has a resonance with the tale of Gwydion helping his brother to rape the ritually pure virgin Goewin. Echo is not raped, but Pan causes her to be torn to pieces instead by driving the shepherds mad. Both gods are thus associated with lechery and the violation of virgins. We have to wonder if the theme of the supposed rape of Rindr by Óðinn (Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum) could be a remnant of the Pushanic myth, Óðinn even causing Rindr to go mad with runes while dressed as a medicine woman as Pan incites panic and terror, and being said to "enchant" her (Kormakr Ogmundarson) as the Pushanic god is specifically a seer-magician. This myth is disputed and we will not speculate further on thin evidence. 

However, one final speculative parallel has to be hazarded here. We will say in passing, without a long argument, that while superficial analyses of Zeus almost always compare him to Vedic Dyaus or Indra, Father Sky and Thunderer, when we attempt to strip back the alteration and syncretism, though these aforementioned parallels still make some sense (Zeus' battle with Typhon seems a genuine Indraic myth, and many of Zeus' familial relations reflect those of Dyaus), Zeus actually comes to appear to have much in common with Vedic Mitra, and so with the Irish Mitra, Lugh. Zeus is not the withdrawn sky itself, as Dyaus is – that is rather Ouranos. And it has been proposed that Zeus' thunder attribute, or at least its centrality, may even have been a Near Eastern influence. At the same time, the Mitraic type actually possesses the lightning with great frequency, especially if we look at Iranic, Roman and Celtic cases (Mithra with his vazra, Dius Fidius with his fulmen and Lugh with his lightning weapon). Dumezil noted all of these things and himself (tentatively) pointed toward Zeus as his guess of where the Greek Mitraic god was to be found, while also stating that the Greek mythology is so overwhelmed by non-Indo-European, Aegean influence, that it is difficult to distinguish which “shreds” are genuinely Indo-European (Dumezil, Mitra Varuna, 119). Zeus also possesses the epithet pistios, a cognate of the Roman fidius, viz Dius Fidius, who Dumezil more confidently calls the Roman Mitra: pistios/fidius indicating the god of truth and fidelity. Thus Zeus' overthrowing of Cronus could in some ways match Lugh's slaying of Balor to bring about peace and order at last (see Kevin Maclean’s work on this last point as well). Both Zeus and Lugh are also late-coming gods when they accomplish these feats as well. The late occurrence of Zeus’ birth and war certainly fits more with the Mitraic archetype than with the Father Sky one, as it is hard to imagine Dyaus, Father Sky, being born after so many other gods, after even Pan. Indeed it is difficult to deny some overlap between Lugh and Zeus, though in certain aspects Zeus does also parallel Dagda, namely in their shared Father Sky roles. 

    

Thus, if we do take Zeus' confrontation with Cronus as similar to Lugh's with Balor, the Zeus case would be as if Balor was Lugh's father rather than grandfather, both Cronus and Balor being prophesied to be overthrown by their nearest male descendant. In the Greek case, the Pushanic god would seem to be absent from the high god's parentage. Yet Pan actually does play a very important role in relation to Zeus' birth, and perhaps this is yet another clue that supports our Celtic and Greek parallel, buried under many centuries of changes. For one thing, Pan is said to be the shepherd of the goat Amaltheia that nurses Zeus when he is taken and hidden after his birth, just as Gwydion is described as finding a woman who will nurse Lleu and giving him to her after his birth, before becoming his teacher once he is nursed (both Zeus and Lugh have to be hidden away upon their birth as well). In Nonnus' account, Zeus says, "goatfoot Pan...once was mountain-ranging shepherd of the goat Amaltheia, my nurse" (Dionysiaca, 27.290); while the Mabinogion says, "And [Gwydion] took up the boy in his arms, and carried him to a place where he knew there was a woman that could nurse him. And he agreed with the woman that she should take charge of the boy. And that year he was nursed" (Mabinogion, Math fab Mathonwy). In fact, some versions of the Greek myth state that Zeus’ nurse was actually a nymph and not a goat. But furthermore, Pan is known from the poetry of Pindar as the “companion” of Zeus' mother Rhea. Gwydion of course, as we have said, was brother of Lleu's mother and was also likely her lover. Meanwhile, as we have also noted previously, Cian is the son of the Irish Apollo, Dian Cecht, while Pindar also claims that Pan is the son of Apollo, potentially bringing the Irish and Greek traditions well into alignment on this point. 

Gwydion: Prototype of Merlin 

All of this points to a very interesting upshot in the legendary figure of Merlin, the Arthurian archetypal magician. Gwydion is the most obvious Welsh divine forerunner of the Welsh Merlin. Gwydion is a wily magician who raises, teaches, advises, helps and rescues Lleu, as Merlin advises and aids Arthur. Merlin even helps Uther conceive Arthur via his magical illusions, while Gwydion seems to have been more directly involved in the conception of Lleu. Gwydion, as we have said, is probably Lleu’s father but acts like a foster father since the details are left ambiguous (perhaps the incest subtext had become too taboo to state outright), while Merlin’s advisory role positions him like a second father to Arthur in the absence of Uther. Gregory Wright points to the fact that Gwydion resembles Merlin when he uses "trickery to allow his brother to lay with a woman" as Merlin does for Uther Pendragon with Igraine, "and in being able to change forms, albeit sometimes against his will." Lleu is the forerunner and divine model of Arthur in many specific ways as will be discussed in a forthcoming article, and Gwydion has the same kind of relationship to Lleu that Merlin has to Arthur. In all, Merlin/Arthur is a clear repetition of Gwydion/Lleu on the legendary plane.

        

Gwydion, as we have mentioned, has all kinds of magical abilities, and uses magic the most of any figure in the Mabinogion. Commentators have often compared him to Óðinn and he is the most obvious “Welsh Óðinn” to be found in the myths. Even his name (G)wydion (the g being a late addition to Welsh) has a resemblance to the name Wodan and some have attempted to connect the two names. While it is hard to directly tie them, it is possible there is some resonance there. Wyd-/Uid- comes from a root meaning “to see” (*weyd-) while Wodan comes from a seemingly separate but similar PIE root meaning “excited” and “seer” (*wéh₂t-i-s (“seer”) which was the root of the name for seers in certain linguistic branches: Latin “vates,” Irish “faith.” Thor Ewing adds that close contact between the Welsh and Germanic peoples could have reinforced the parallel, stating, "It is highly unlikely that the names Guidgen and Óðinn are etymologically related in a conventional sense, though it remains possible that their similarity is a result of continued cultural contact. Brythonic speakers appear to have commonly rendered Germanic 'w-' as 'g-'" (Ewing).

        

Now, as we have said, Pushan is called “wise,” “wonder-working,” and “a seer” in the Rig Veda and was prayed to by magicians and conjurers. These epithets may seem relatively common on their own, but the direct association with magicians and conjurers is not something you often read in Vedic commentaries. One hymn of the Veda addresses him saying, "you give aid to all magical powers" and describes him as "quickening poetic vision" (RV 6.58.1-2). Greek Pan was also seen as a major prophetic god, so closely tied to this art that he is said to have been the one who taught it to Apollo, who then became its Greek exemplar: "Apollon learnt the mantic art from Pan" (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.22).  

        

Meanwhile, the earliest stories and poems of Merlin, depict him as more emphatically a prophet than even a magician (see Paul Zumthor, "Merlin: Prophet and Magician"). In such stories and poems he is called “Merlin Wyllt,” that is, Merlin the Wild, and “Merlin Sylvestris,” or Merlin of the Woods. These accounts paint him as a man who “goes wild” and goes off to live in the woods. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version, he has a sort of mental break when his allies are killed in battle and becomes a wild man. "He became a Man of the Woods, as if dedicated to the woods. So for a whole summer he stayed hidden in the woods, discovered by none, forgetful of himself and of his own, lurking like a wild thing" reads Monmouth's Vita Merlini. In the woods he learns how to speak to wild pigs and sings to apple trees and acquires the power of prophecy (remember that Pushan is specifically a “seer” and Pan a mantic expert). That is, he gains magical powers relating to communicating with plants and animals and seeing into the very web of nature after becoming a wild man. He returns to society as the specifically prophetic magician Merlin who delivers his prophecies to the king, a “seer” of the wilds just like Pushan, a wizard of the woods just like Uiducus/Gwydion, a mantic lord of nature like Pan.

Throughout the early Merlin literature he is associated with pigs or boars, stags and wolves, which are precisely the three animals Gwydion is transformed into when he is punished by Math. As Jean Markale summarizes in his essay "Master and Mediator of the Natural World": "In the Vita Merlini, he appears mounted on a stag, suggesting that he is a stag, and he is accompanied by a wolf, suggesting that he is a wolf" (also commenting that Óðinn similarly is seen to transform into "a wild beast, a fish or a dragon, and travels in the blink of an eye to far-away lands” in Ynglinga Saga VII). He further notes that in Chretien de Troye's Chevalier au Lion, and in the Welsh text Owein, a figure called The Wild Man appears, who takes the recurring role of Lord of the Beasts and who Markale claims is one of the "manifestations of Merlin." Indeed, Markale points out that in the Vulgate, we are told that the Wild Man is Merlin himself, and he too leads wild animals and first appears as a hind. In Chretien's poem the Wild Man states of these wild beasts: "But no one except me can go among them without being killed. I am lord of my beasts." In the version found in Owein, as Markale explains: 

"Kynon, the person in question, asks the Wild Man “what power he had over those animals.” The Wild Man takes his stick and strikes a hind. “The hind bellows, and immediately animals as numerous as the stars in the sky come in response to his voice, to the extent that I had trouble keeping my footing amid them in the clearing. Also there were snakes, vipers, all sorts of animals. He glanced over them and ordered them to go graze. They lowered their heads and treated him with the same respect as humans show their lord.”11 The Welsh tale is more explicit in its roughness: the Wild Man, by his voice, and by the hind’s voice, exercises total control over all the animals of the forest." (Merlin, 407)

Markale also compares Merlin's magic to that of Gwydion, stating that "as Gwyddyon changed mushrooms into golden shields, Merlin transforms bushes and pebbles into a marvelous castle" (Markale). And while Cian makes apple trees cover Balar's island grove, Merlin speaks and prophesies to apple trees in the wild in the stanzas known as "Yr Afallennau." Cian calls himself "the best gardener in the world" in the variant of the tale titled "Balor of the Evil Eye and Lui Lavada his Grandson," a possible remnant of a Pan-like power over the cultivation of nature. Pan is addressed as "O all-producing power, much famed, divine, the world's great ruler, rich increase is thine" and "All-fertile Paian," "in fruits rejoicing" (Orphic Hymn 11 to Pan).

Cian himself has a brother named Cu, meaning hound or wolf, and as Kevin Maclean has suggested, his brother Cethen's name may also relate to a type of beast. Pan is known as "breeder of hounds" (Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 16.185) and "beast-tending Pan" (Castorion of Soli, Fragment 310). As Maclean also points out, the brothers of Cian die of fright, and he suggests that this may be part of a larger pattern of deities dying of that with which they themselves are associated. We have to wonder if this could make Cian's brothers lords of "panic" as Pan is, connected to their wild natures, but the traces here are far too thin to say for certain. Pan accosts travelers with a "sudden awe or terror" (Euripides, Rhes. 36), and also uses this power to cause terror in the battles against the Titans (Eratosthenes, Catast. 27) and again against the Persians (Herodotus, vi. 105). "Causeless terrors" are attributed to Pan (Pausanius, Description of Greece 10.23.7). It is certainly interesting, then, that Cian's brothers die of fright in battle and that Merlin himself is stricken by a kind of "panic" when his allies are defeated in battle. 

It is true that the figure of Merlin seems to have been assembled from various, not necessarily harmonious sources, pertaining to both legendary and real figures, and thus he may contain in him elements from more than one original type. Stories of various unconnected prophets and sorcerers may have stuck to his name over time. However, the question we are asking must be asked in earnest: what was the organizing principle around which these various sources were assembled, what was the germ of and the guiding divine principle within the figure of Merlin? Was there not one main deeply-set track, with a greater gravity than the others, already existing in the folk-consciousness and literary tradition of the people of Britain, one mythic slot into which these elements were gathered by their learned compilers, as if magnetized into a unity? And despite his spontaneous and composite development is it not clear who the most significant divine contributor to, the ruling principle of, the character of Merlin is? 

Essentially what seems to have happened is that the Greeks turned the Pushanic god, in the form of Pan, into the goat footed god of nature, while the Celts instead turned him into a specifically prophetic wizard who can communicate with and magically manipulate nature and can turn into animals as well, but the Wild Man element remained, if it is still less known to today's audience. Paul Zumthor, in his "Merlin: Prophet and Magician" better explains the unity of these ideas:

"This knowledge  of  which  Merlin  is  a  master ... is  an  ideal  of which  the  late  Middle  Ages  dreamed,  a  perfect  union  and  an  image  of  the  Absolute  in the  knowledge  and  mastery  of  nature ... Merlin is thus the model of the perfect alchemist and astrologer, a model which Comparetti calls "il mago" (the magician)" (Merlin, 143)

We have here followed a winding trail of clues as Cian followed the lost cow; at last we must draw a line that links: Pan, Uiducus, Gwydion, Cian, (aspect of) Óðinn, Merlin, Pushan.  

*******

Works Cited:

Beekes, R. S. P., Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 1149.

Castorion of Soli, Fragment

Collitz, Hermann, Wodan, Hermes und Pushan, 1924

Curtin, Jeremiah, Hero-Tales of Ireland, "Balor of the Evil Eye and Lui Lavada his Grandson"

de Troye's, Chretien, Chevalier au Lion

Danielou, Alain, The Myths and Gods of India

Dumezil, Georges, Mitra-Varuna

Eratosthenes, Catasterismi

Euripides, Rhesus

Ewing, Thor, "Óðinn and Loki Among the Celts"

Goodrich, Peter, Merlin: A Casebook

- Markale, Jean, "Master and Mediator of the Natural World"

- Zumthor, Paul, "Merlin: Prophet and Magician"

Grammaticus, Saxo, Gesta Danorum

Gregory, Lady Augusta, Gods and Fighting Men

Herodotus, Histories

Jones’ Celtic Encyclopedia https://www.maryjones.us/jce/jce_index.html

Maclean, Kevin, https://www.youtube.com/c/FortressofLugh/about

MacKillop, James, Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology

Monmouth, Geoffrey of, Vita Merlini

Nonnus, Dionysiaca

Ogmundarson, Kormakr 

Orphic Hymn 11 to Pan

Owein

Pausanius, Description of Greece

Pindar, The Odes

The Poetic Edda

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 

Rolinson, Curwen, "Soma-Kvasir, The Eddic-Vedic Myth of the Meath of Poetry”

Skutsch 1987, 190

Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture Trust

Sturluson, Snorri, The Prose Edda

West, M. L, Indo-European Poetry and Myth, 2007

"Yr Afallennau"