Part 1 of 4
[Endnotes can be found at the end of each part]
Is Efnysien Rudraic?
The Second Branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen, daughter of Llyr, is a tantalizing canvas on which interpreters have painted many a colorful thesis. We will add our own here, as certain considerations point to a momentous Rudraic quality in the sower of strife, Efnysien.
Marcel Meulder in his article “Nisien and Efnisien: Odinic couple or dioscuric?” has shown a strong parallel of Efnysien, known as the sower of strife, and his brother Nisien, known as the bringer of peace and accord, to Scandinavian figures Bolwis and Bilwis of Saxo’s Gesta Danorum, two figures who are also described in very similar terms, as a bringer of strife and a bringer of peace. Meulder has then demonstrated that these are each Odinnic pairs in terms of their qualities and mythic parallels.1 The Mabinogi of Branwen, daughter of Llyr describes Nisien and his brother Efnysien thus: “one of these youths was a good youth and of gentle nature, and would make peace between his kindred, and cause his family to be friends when their wrath was at the highest; and this one was Nissyen; but the other would cause strife between his two brothers when they were most at peace” (Branwen, daughter of Llyr). Of Bolwis and Bilwis, similarly: “The temper of these two men was so different, that one used to reconcile folk who were at feud, while the other loved to sunder in hatred those who were bound by friendship, and by estranging folk to fan pestilent quarrels.” One of these brothers, like Efnysien, incites a war: “So Bolwis began by reviling the sons of Hamund to the sons of Sigar, in lying slanders, declaring that they never used to preserve the bonds of fellowship loyally, and that they must be restrained by war rather than by league. Thus the alliance of the young men was broken through; and while Hagbard was far away, the sons of Sigar, Alf and Alger, made an attack, and Helwin and Hamund were destroyed by the harbour which is called Hamund’s Bay” (Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Book 7). Meulder points next to brothers Deiphobus and Helenus of the Iliad, who seem to repeat the pattern of strife-bringing and peace-bringing brothers and may form another direct parallel to the Welsh and Scandinavian pairs. Meulder concludes that, as these are Odinnic heroes, these pairs are Varuna-Mitra-type dual sovereigns, considering Odinn’s well-known parallel to Varuna.2
This is a fascinating alignment of pairings, but the ultimate conclusion seems to us misguided. Odinn is more than only Varunian, and we have demonstrated a strong alignment of Lleu, rather than the very minor character Nisien, to the Mitraic god. The Four Branches of the Mabinogi are a linked cycle of myths where one god should not usually appear twice under different names, unless they are a deity type prone to multiplicity, like Rudra or the Gandharva. Mitra and his parallels are not prone to such multiplicity in any branches, but instead the Mitraic god has a well-defined role that we have closely tracked. Furthermore, Efnysien and Nisien are not even sovereigns, while the Mitra-Varuna-types are nearly always sovereigns, with limited exceptions if any (Tyr), sovereignty being one of the core facets of their role. The Varunian god may also appear elsewhere in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. According to Guillaume Oudaer, whose interpretation seems highly plausible to us, the water-associated figure named Teyrnon Twryf Lliant from Pwyll, prince of Dyfed, or the First Branch, whose name means “Lord of the Roaring Sea,” may be the Varuna/Lludd/Nuada of the Mabinogi.3 While there are thus figures already taking the Mitraic and Varunian roles in the Mabinogi, there is no other destructive Rudraic figure among the heroes of these Four Branches. This role is taken by Balor in the Irish myths, and Balor’s most obvious direct analogue appears as the giant Ysbadadden in Culwhch and Olwen, but this tale is part of a different cycle of tales not part of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, and as such Efnysien and Ysbaddaden having different names is no problem in our interpretation. Taliesin (born Gwion) makes an appearance in the particular war found in Branwen, alongside Efnysien, but Taliesin proper is more of a direct parallel of Irish Oisin, son of Fionn, at least in terms of the division of Rudraic roles we have previously analyzed. Efnysien and Taliesin fighting side by side then would be something like Fionn and Oisin or one of the other Fianna fighting together, and would not imply redundancy. Furthermore, as we see with the Irish Fianna, the Rudraic figures are many and appear in several different roles. The figure we will propose is the primordial Welsh Rudra (Efnysien) would not then have to share the identical name of the Welsh “Rudra of the world” (Gwyn/Gwion). Rudra is the god above all others who may appear under a multiplicity of shapes and names, as the case of Odinn, he of the many names, makes abundantly clear. As such, the Rudraic angle should be tested in the case of both Efnysien and his contrasting brother Nisien, as several points suggest its plausibility. Moreover, we have already suggested Deiphobus as a Rudraic hero in another connection, considering his death by Menelaus to end the war, his disfigured face upon death, and his name meaning “hostile panic,” from δᾱ́ῐ̈ος (dā́ïos, “hostile”) + φόβος (phóbos, “panic flight”), each element of which echoes Balor and other Rudraic figures. The name Efnyisien also contains the word efnys, meaning “hostile, wrathful,”4 thus establishing a close linguistic connection between he and Deiphobus. Note that one perhaps similar name of Odinn, which expresses an Efnysien-like characteristic, is Þrasarr, “quarreler.” In this interpretation, the quarrelsome and strife-bringing Efnysien would be the destructive half of the primordial form of the Rudraic deity, and the peace-bringing Nisien would be the auspicious and peaceful side of the Welsh Rudra, otherwise known as Siva by the Vedics, for indeed Rudra is a god well-known for having two sides precisely along the lines expressed by the two contrasting Welsh brothers: Rudra “has two natures or two ‘names’: the one, cruel and wild (rudra), the other kind (śiva) and tranquil (śānta)” (Kramrisch, 26). Indeed, Rudra is called siva at least as far back as the Rig Veda (RV 10.92.9).
Efnysien begins his action in the tale by mutilating the horses of the King of Ireland, Matholwch. As we have seen, the destructive killing of cows and their calves belongs to the Rudraic type. In our chapter on the Celtic Rudras, the Rudraic Fianna warrior Caoilte was seen to go on a rampage “killing the calves with the cows,” while Kris Kershaw was cited summing up Rudra as “cow-man-killer = fructifier” and describing the archaic mannerbundes as storming into farmsteads and slaughtering cattle. While Efnysien mutilates horses rather than cows, the theme of the frightening and seemingly inexplicable violence done to livestock links him to Rudra.
As the rudra incarnation of the Mahabharata, Ashwatthama, sacrifices himself in a fire on a magical altar at the climax of the war, Efnysien also sacrifices himself at the climax of his war. Ashwatthama does not die in his sacrifice, while Efnysien does. However, both sacrifices are aimed at similar ends. Ashwatthama sacrifices himself to gain battle prowess to defeat his enemies in the desperate moment near the end of the war, when nearly all of his side’s generals have been killed and things look grim. Efnysien sacrifices himself at a very similar late, desperate moment, to remove the thing that is causing his side to be defeated in the war: the cauldron of regeneration that is in the possession of his enemies.
Efnysien kills the young child of the opposing king, Matholwch, while Ashwatthama kills all the children of his opposing king, Yudhishthira, as well as the children of the other Pandavas. Efnysien performs his self-sacrifice right after killing this young child of Matholwch, Gwern, while Ashwatthama performs his self-sacrifice right before his assault on the camp of the Pandavas during which he kills their children. Thus far, each of these figures are attackers of livestock, self-sacrificers, and killers of children.
When brought into alignment with the Iliad pair, Deiphobus and Helenus, who themselves are portrayed as brothers in some sources which Meulder cites, more becomes apparent. As brothers, one is gentle (Helenus), while the other’s name means “hostile panic” (Diephobus). Helenus, a gentle and skilled prophetic seer (seership being a well-established Rudraic role 5), is responsible for the removal of the magical object that is keeping the Achaeans from winning the war. He is captured by the Achaeans and tells Odysseus that the only way Troy can fall is if the Palladium, the sacred wooden statue of Athena, is taken from the city. Thus Odysseus and Diomedes steal the Palladium and Troy, losing its divine protection, becomes conquerable. Though Helenus does not remove the Palladium himself, he reluctantly gives the direction which leads to its removal. While Ashwatthama has a gem in his forehead which grants him special powers in battle, and the ability to speak to ghosts (remember that Rudra’s power of prophecy is connected to seeing ghosts and that Odinn’s power of prophecy involves reviving dead seeresses), Helenus has had his ear (located also in his head) licked by snakes and the power of prophecy given to him by Apollo, who is the primary Greek Rudra and the Greek high god of prophecy next to Pan. Ashwatthama, with the same sort of reluctance we had seen in the parallel action of Helenus, removes the overwhelming gem of power from his own forehead after his slaughter of the Pandava camp, opening up the way for the final victory of his opponents, thus paralleling the removal of the Palladium under the direction of Helenus.6 Welsh Efnysien is also directly responsible for the destruction of the powerful object that is keeping his side losing the war. This is the Cauldron of Regeneration and he goes to its destruction with a lamentation which emphasizes the desperation of the state of himself and his allies at this moment: “Alas! woe is me, that I should have been the cause of bringing the men of the Island of the Mighty into so great a strait. Evil betide me if I find not a deliverance therefrom” (Branwen, daughter of Llyr). The war is hopeless for Efnysien and his compatriots until in one act he sacrifices himself and destroys this cauldron which keeps reviving the warriors of the opposing side. In Efnysien’s case, his side does not achieve true victory, but this act allows them a better chance. Matholwch and his army end up being obliterated, and a handful of Efnysien’s allies escape back to Britain as a result: “In consequence of [the destruction of the cauldron] the men of the Island of the Mighty obtained such success as they had; but they were not victorious, for only seven men of them all escaped” (Branwen, daughter of Llyr).
As Meulder notes, citing Gl. Goetinck, it thus can be said that all of the seemingly psychopathic actions taken by Efnysien are in fact aimed at the greater good of his people:
[Efnisien] tries first of all to prevent the marriage itself, ie the removal of the early representative of the female divinity and the source of power, then when the alliance proves to be unsatisfactory and there is a chance of restoring the old order, he tries to destroy Gwern, the fruit of alliance, so that Branwen may be brought home to begin anew with no ties to the unsuccessful venture […] [Efnysien] is presented as a man overcome by repentance at the sight of the slaughter he has caused, but his real motivation may be despair at the destruction caused by Brân’s arrangements to alter the order of succession. Efnisien gives his life in a desperate attempt to salvage something from the wreck caused, not by himself, but by someone else. (Goetinck, G., “Dioscuric and other themes in Branwen,” Ollodagos, vol. 6, p. 219-254, 1994)
His mutilation of the horses, a result of his objection to the marriage of Branwen and Matholwch in the first place, is an attempt to avert the whole situation, and, as it turns out, he is perhaps right to mistrust Matholwch who in the end abuses Branwen and brings on the war. His killing of Matholwch and Branwen’s son is another attempt to sever what he sees as the ill-fated connection between these nations, not to mention the fact that, at the moment Efnysien kills the child, Matholwch is attempting to covertly kill Bran and him, and so the alliance that the boy represents is already poisoned. This sort of “policing” role of Efnysien, taking brutal action to attempt to avert disaster, falls in line with the rest of what he is seen to do, as when he sniffs out the plot to assassinate himself and his brother and kills all of the men who are lain in wait in the sacks of grain in the house provided by Matholwch. As such, though not outright called a prophet, Efnysien has a power very similar to a prophetic figure, over and over again foreseeing the destruction that will come and attempting to head it off. How indeed does he foresee the war and destruction the marriage would bring and how indeed does he instantly find out the plot against him and his brother? Meanwhile, Helenus of Troy is called the best of all augurs, and it is specifically he who prophesies that if Paris takes Helen the Greeks will pursue and kill them all. Thus Helenus explicitly objects to the marriage of Paris and Helen, an objection resulting from his prophetic power, and does so for the reason that it will bring war and destruction. Efnysien essentially does the same thing, objecting to the marriage of Branwen and Matholwch. The prophetic element is not made explicit in his case, and the idea that he has sniffed out a specific danger in the match is also only an inference on our part from his other actions, which are consistently aimed at averting bad outcomes that others do not foresee.
The scene of the plot against Efnysien and Bran in the house given by Matholwch can also be set against the cosmological role of Rudra which we briefly touched on in our “Math fab Mathonwy” chapter. Rudra, as Stella Kramrisch describes the scene in her book The Presence of Siva, is a policing wanderer of the pre-cosmic wilderness. When Rudra (united in some sense with Fire God Agni,7 as Fire God Manawydan is also one of Efnysien’s allies in the war) sees Dyaus obscenely copulating with his “daughter,” he shoots his arrow at him, causing the seed of Dyaus/Heaven/Sky to spill onto Earth, creating the site of sacrifice there from the lake of fiery sperm and spawning the fire youths, also known as the fire priests or Angirases, who become the ancestors of humanity. Macdonell explains: “The story is several times referred to in the Brahmanas (AB. 3, 33; SB. 1, 7, 4, 1; PB. 8, 2, 10). The basis of this myth seem to be two passages of the RV. (1, 71, 5; 10, 61, 5-7) in which the incest of a father (who seems to be Dyaus) with his daughter (here apparently the Earth) is referred to and an archer is mentioned” (Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 119).
As this creation myth is told in explicit detail in two hymns of the Rig Veda:
He whose (penis,) which performs the virile work, stretched out, discharging (the semen)—(that one,) the manly one, then pulled away (his penis, which had been) ‘attending on’ (her).
Again he tears out from the maiden, his daughter, what had been ‘brought to bear’ on her—he the unassailable.
When what was to be done was at its middle, at the encounter when the father was making love to the young girl—
as they were going apart, the two left behind a little semen sprinkled down on the back and in the womb of the well-performed (sacrifice).
When the father [Dyaus] ‘sprang on’ his own daughter, he, uniting (with her), poured down his semen upon the earth.
The gods, very concerned, begat the sacred formulation [the magical raudra brahman poem], and they fashioned out (of it?) the Lord of the Dwelling Place [Vāstoṣpati], protector of commandments.
Like a bull in a contest he threw off foam. Heedless, she went away, hither and yon.
Twisting away, she hastened like the Gift-Cow on foot. [The father:] ‘Now those caresses of mine have not grasped (her)’ (RV 10.61.5-8).
When he [Agni or Rudra-Agni] made the sap [=semen] for great Father Heaven [Dyaus], noting the caresses he stealthily crept up (on him).
The archer [Rudra-Agni] boldly loosed a missile at him (when) the god placed his ‘spark’ in his own daughter. (RV 1.71.5)
When the (missile’s) sharp point reached the lord of men (for him) to release it, Heaven [Dyaus], at the moment of contact, (released) the blazing semen poured out.
Agni engendered the faultless young troop of good intention [=Aṅgirases, who are the fire youths/ancestors of humans] and sweetened it. (RV 1.71.8)
In other seemingly later elaborations on the theme, as Kramrisch lays it out, Rudra is not invited to the sacrifice of Daksha, and so, lurking on the outskirts, he shoots his arrow at the sacrifice itself, which causes it to become filled with strangely destructive power, and when Pushan bites into it he breaks his teeth. In this myth, the fact that Rudra has not been invited to the scene of sacrifice, that he is a lurking, policing outsider, is made clear. This is characteristic of him. Efnysien, in the Welsh case, is specifically said to be angered to begin with because he has not been consulted in the marriage – he has been excluded from the marriage plan at the assembly where the arrangements are made. This can then be seen to mirror the exclusion that Rudra experiences, excluded from the sacrifice, which “outsider” quality, in the Rig Vedic myth, is also connected to a sexual conjunction, thus a kind of marriage, to which he also actively objects. Both Efnysien and Rudra similarly object to a sexual union, and do so with a direct reaction of violence aimed toward the involved male.
Thus if we interpret the marriage of Branwen and Matholwch and the later scene of the attempted assassination of Bran and Efnysien, followed by the killing of Gwern, all as symbolic events related to the scene of primordial sacrifice, then they can be made to align, with startling closeness and ease, with the Vedic myth of Rudra and the primordial sacrifice, and the full meaning of Branwen, daughter of Llyr gradually becomes clear. While Rudra either shoots his arrow at Dyaus, causing his fiery seed to spill while in the act of union, creating the site of sacrifice and fire youths, or shoots his arrow at the sacrifice itself, Efnysien instead takes the child who has been born to Matholwch and Branwen and throws him into the fire. Thus the fiery seed of Dyaus, which becomes the fire youths and site of sacrificial fire = the child of Matholwch, who is instead thrown into the fire. Seed = Child. Each one is the vital emission, the would-be offspring, cut short, of the Father. The fiery seed falls and becomes sacrificial fire = The child is thrown into fire. As Kramrisch says of the seed of the Father, Dyaus-Prajapati: “Prajāpati is the target of Rudra. When his seed falls on earth, it is surrounded by Agni [Fire]” (Kramrisch, 27), and forms a lake of seed and fire which is then the sacrificial site. Gwern too, the seed of his father, is “surrounded” by fire as a result of Efnysien’s action.
Other than the fact that any fire in myth might symbolically be sacrificial, we should also be tipped off to the possibility that the fire into which Gwern is thrown is a sacrificial one by a couple of other details. It has been said at this point in the tale that a house had never contained Bran, the king of Britain and brother of Efnysien and Branwen, and so this is what Matholwch has sought to do, to give Bran a house that will contain him. We have seen in the case of Neit that “stonehouse” can mean the site of sacred fire and sacrifice. Thus the “house” that is made to contain the giant Bran should be suspected of being a similar type of building, a sacred space of ritual. The house is specially rigged to be the place where Bran is killed, which may imply that he is meant to be the sacrifice. Meanwhile, we have mentioned previously that in the Rig Veda, Yama, the apparent parallel of Bran, is said to be sacrificed at Brihaspati’s sacrifice. In other instances, Yama or his parallels are cut apart or beheaded (Donn, Jamshid, etc.), and a different god, Daksha, is also beheaded at the sacrifice from which Rudra is excluded, while Bran too is beheaded in the battle just after the scene at the “house.” The fire into which the boy Gwern is thrown appears in this house that was intended to contain and kill Bran, reinforcing the possibility that this specially made containing-house with the fire, is a sacrificial space. In sum: as Dyaus rapes his daughter and shoots his fiery seed onto Earth and is shot with the arrow of the excluded, strife-bringing, policing figure Rudra-Agni, which creates the site of the fire sacrifice (or the sacrifice itself is similarly shot by Rudra), Matholwch abuses Branwen, has a child with her, and then the child is quickly thrown by the excluded, strife-bringing, policing figure Efnysien into a fire in a specially made house.
If this were a fair comparison, we might find a parallel of both the Vedic and Welsh accounts in the Greek theogonies. Rig Vedic Dyaus (Sky) rapes a daughter who scholars have interpreted as Earth (Macdonell) or Dawn (Brereton and Jamison), though it is truly unclear who this daughter-victim is in the Rig Veda, and then Rudra shoots Dyaus in the act, severing their conjunction and causing the seed to spill onto the earth in a creative act. In the Greek case (particularly Hesiod’s Theogony), we know that Ouranos (Sky) is the consort of Gaia, Earth, and they form a hieros gamos, a primordial union of Sky and Earth. However, Gaia grows upset because Ouranos is trapping her children, the Titans and others, in Tartarus, deep in her bosom, which causes her pain. Thus she summons Cronus and he severs his father’s genitals and deposes him as Ouranos is approaching Gaia to forcefully mate with her once more: “And Heaven [Ouranos] came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her. Then the son [Cronus] from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father’s members” (Hesiod, Theogony, 176-180). This causes an outpouring of creative seed which spawns Aphrodite, who may be related to the core essence of the fire itself, as she is the spouse of the Fire God Hephaestus. The wife of the Vedic Fire God Agni is Svaha, who has been interpreted in the Brahmavaivarta Purana, as the shakti or power within the fire sacrifice that cannot be burned by Agni, and one of her sons is the embodiment of beauty as is Aphrodite herself.8 The fiery seed of Dyaus spawns the fire youths and creates the site of the sacrificial fire. We thus would see in Branwen the primordial Earth Goddess and her conjunction which spawns the boy, the seed of the Father, destined for the fire, would be that hieros gamos, that divine union, between Sky and Earth. If so, this would make Matholwch Father Sky.
In an earlier investigation, we have noted provisionally some myths related to Father Sky that may have resonances with myths of Bran. However, these seem either to be coincidental or to have resulted from a displacement of myths onto closely connected sovereign figures, two opposing but linked kings of Celtic myth. Consider that Irish Father Sky Dagda sometimes is called Dagda Donn, Donn being the parallel of Bran/Yama. Additionally, as the first “mortal” king of the world, Bran aka Yama is a repetition of Father Sky within the first “mortal” king, and thus a certain amount of slippage of motifs between Father Sky and the King that is as if a repetition of his image could be expected. One etymology of Math is in fact “good,”9 which would relate Matholwch directly to the Dagda, whose name means “the Good God.” While Math fab Mathonwy, the separate sunrise god, is not a parallel of the Dagda, Matholwch, supported by his mythical role, would be the Welsh Dagda/Father Sky instead, and his name would be a key piece of evidence of this. For another thing, while Bran begins with the magical cauldron, it is Matholwch who is then given the magical cauldron and is its final owner before it is destroyed, and thus both Dagda and Matholwch are the last known owners of their respective cauldrons.
As for Branwen, while the pain caused to Greek Gaia by the trapping of the Titans deep in her bosom causes her to seek Cronus to depose Ouranos, the thing that causes Branwen to send for Bran and Efnysien to attack Matholwch is another kind of abuse that brings her pain. Hesiod says that when the Titans are trapped within Gaia it causes her pain: “vast Gaia groaned within, being straitened” (Hesiod, Theogony, 147). Branwen’s ears are boxed each day while living with Matholwch and she is made to work in the kitchens by Matholwch’s men. The forced kitchen work may then be a simple symbol of Earth’s food-producing role, while the box on the ears would either parallel the pain experienced by Gaia having the Titans trapped in her bosom or otherwise is a euphemism for the violence and pain of the primordial rape, which is expressed more explicitly in the Vedic and Greek versions but is left unsaid in the Welsh case. We can see that the boxing of Branwen’s ears is indeed a motif already in the process of euphemism, as other traces of change in the motif are clear in the records. For instance, in Welsh Triad 53, only one “unhappy blow” is said to be given to Branwen, rather than three blows or daily blows as in other versions, and this single blow is said to be given by Matholwch himself. This single “blow” is then likely to be a euphemism for the primordial rape, which became further euphemized in the tale Branwen, daughter of Llyr.10 Branwen is buried in the earth, in a four-sided grave, which could symbolize her unification with the land as well as pointing to the four cardinal directions, the four sides of her earthy domain. Miranda Green notes a physical connection between Branwen and the land in the mountain Cadair Fronwen, “Bronwen’s Seat” (Green, Celtic Goddesses, 55-57). Lastly, there is strong cause given by scholars to believe that Branwen’s original name may have been instead Bronwen, which means “white/shining/holy breast.”11 White “breast” (bron) rather than White “raven” (bran) makes a great difference, for the surface of the earth is often referred to as a breast or as having breasts in various figurative contexts. In particular, hills and mountains are commonly analogized to the breasts of the earth, while Bronwen/Fronwen is directly associated with a mountain as we have noted. Cybele-Agdistis, who we will discuss shortly, is also a mountain goddess and Earth Mother. Furthermore, though “white/fair” or “sacred” could be a general descriptor of the breast of the beloved Earth, it could also specifically refer to the “White Isle” of Britain, sacred to its people and also known as Alban, from PIE *albʰo- “white.” As we know that the Irish Mother Earth, Eriu, shares her name with the Island of Ireland, it is possible that Bronwen, the White Breasted, is in like manner a figurative title referring to the “White” Island of Britain.
If this marriage of Branwen and Matholwch is indeed the primordial conjunction of Earth and Sky to which we refer, then the incest found in Vedic and Greek branches has clearly been displaced in this case, and Matholwch is not depicted as a close relative of Branwen in the existing tale. Even in the Rig Veda the scene seems to cause the poets some discomfort, for they speak of it in sometimes explicit and sometimes highly coded language, leaving such a vague final impression that scholars are still baffled by many of the details of the scene, including the identity of the daughter. In the Greek case, the parent-child incest theme is actually kept intact; however, the roles are reversed compared to the Vedic parallel, and Gaia is there the mother of Ouranos rather than his daughter. Such a close inversion bolsters the idea that the parallel is accurate and highlights the fact that which being is the parent and which is the child is not of utmost importance as this is a primordial unity being described, the parent and child are two aspects of one primordial conjunction, either one of which may be called the child of the other.
While there is a division among commentators regarding whether the unnamed daughter of the Vedic hymns is the Dawn Goddess or the Earth Goddess, the idea that Branwen could be the Dawn Goddess seems very unlikely here as well. This family of Welsh gods are called the House of Llyr, the Sea, and they are Llyr’s children. The opposite great house found in the Mabinogi is the house of Don. We have seen that the House of Don appears in the final branch of the Mabinogi and involves all solar deities who are involved in the sunrise itself, the daytime, and the “day” half of the yearly cycle. Thus the House of Llyr, in contrast, seems to refer to earthly and perhaps chthonic, primordial or underworld deities in some sense, the sea being a portal to the underworld as well as existing on a level with the earth itself. The chthonic connection matches the presence in this house of Efnysien, potentially a Rudraic figure, Rudra being one of the lords of the sacred dead. It matches also the identification of Bran, son of Llyr, as Yama, the Lord of the Dead, whose severed head is taken back to a southwestern island off the coast of Wales matching the southwestern island belonging to another severed head god, Donn, the Irish Yama. Manawydan, another sibling of this house, is Fire God Agni, a psychopomp in his own right. This is a house of very primordial gods, arising from the cosmic sea, Llyr, their father. This myth of Branwen, Bran, Efnysien, Manawydan and Matholwch should also be occurring in the “Night” portion of the greater cycle, as it is the second branch of the Mabinogi and thus leads up to the final branch which tells the myth of the sunrise/beginning of Summer or the “Day” of the cycle. If this Welsh myth is the cosmic conjunction of Sky (Matholwch) and Earth (Branwen), which is disrupted by the Rudraic god (Efnysien), and which dramatizes a primordial sacrifice in the fall of the Father’s seed (Gwern) into the first sacrificial fire, along with the death and beheading of the great giant and first “mortal” king of the world Bran (Yama), then it must occur somehow in the “beginning,” which is the cosmic darkness before the sun is made to rise and day is made to break.
As such, it seems that this Welsh myth would have its Irish analog in the war of the Milesians or Sons of Mil against the Tuatha de Danann, as found in the Irish pseudo-historical account of the Lebor Gabala Erenn. Yes, the Milesian arrival to Ireland, as it appears in the Irish Lebor Gabala Erenn, happens after the other great myths of the gods, after the Second Battle of Maige Tuired, while the myth of Branwen appears in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi of the Welsh tradition, thus happening before any final battle of the gods, before the conclusion of the cycle that is reached in the Fourth Branch. However, if we plot these events on a calendrical map, which is cyclical, we see that the conclusion of the Irish Battle of Maige Tuired is known to occur on Samhain, the last day of the year, leading into Winter. Thus whatever happens right after this battle is occurring at the beginning of the cycle again, in the Winter of the year and during the “Night” of the cycle. What happens “after” the Battle of Maige Tuired is actually happening sometime “in the beginning” of the great cycle. Let us also re-emphasize that the Irish case is a pseudo-history, the intention of whose authors was to lead from the great ancestor gods directly into human history, creating a direct link that would weave the great myths into the human lineages. Hence we have Sons of Mil, Eber Donn (Bran, Yama) and Eber Finn (Efnysien, Rudra), arriving from the East to Ireland to fight the inhabitants, as Welsh Bran (Donn, Yama) also arrives with Efnysien (Eber Finn, Rudra) from the East to Ireland to fight the inhabitants in his tale, in each case resulting most notably in the death of Eber Donn or Bran, the Yama analogues in each branch. In both cases another great poet also accompanies these heroes, Amergin in the case of the Sons of Mil, and Taliesin in the Welsh case, and some of their most famous poems are eerily similar: see Amergin’s Song of Amergin12 and Taliesin’s The Battle of the Trees.13 It seems possible that either Taliesin is in this text taking on a role otherwise taken by what some scholars believe to be the “Manu”-type figure Amergin, or that Amergin is not a “Manu”-type after all, but is instead yet another Rudraic manifestation. Indeed it is also possible that these two divinity types are verging on conflation in the Celtic tradition, and the line of continuity between Amergin and the Rudraic Taliesin should be clear from the poetic excerpts we have quoted, which themselves are reminiscent of the Satarudriya litany to Rudra of the Yajurveda and Mahabharata. The outcomes of the war of Branwen and that of the Sons of Mil are perhaps slightly different, as the Sons of Mil win a more thorough victory than do the Welsh attackers in the tale of Branwen. However, the Irish inhabitants are fully destroyed in both cases, the main heroes of the attacking side live and rule into the future, and the significance of the death of the analogue of Yama (Bran and Eber Donn) in the primordial scene, which in both cases seems to be occurring in the cosmic night before the sun of the cycle again rises, may have a significance which cannot be displaced in its role at the “beginning” of the cycle.
Finally, we have once more in the arrival of the Sons of Mil a marriage of the Earth Mother Goddess. We know from our previous investigations of her son, the Sun God Bres, that the Irish Earth Mother is Eriu, an embodiment also of the land of Ireland itself. In the Lebor Gabala Erenn, just before the Sons of Mil arrive, Eriu’s marriage to the grandson of the Dagda is noted: “The three sons of Cermad son of The Dagda were Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, Mac Griene: Sethor and Tethor and Cethor were their names. Fotla and Banba and Eriu were their three wives” (Lebor Gabala Erenn, 62). Immediately after this, we learn that the Sons of Mil arrive and that the grandsons of the Dagda fall by them: “Twenty-nine years had the grandsons of The Dagda in the kingship of Ireland, to wit Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, and Mac Greiene: they divided Ireland into three parts. To them came the Gaedil to Ireland, so that they fell by the hands of three sons of Mil” (LGE, 63). Thus this marriage of Mac Greine, grandson of Father Sky, the Dagda, to Eriu, Mother Earth, appears in the new cycle, in the pseudo-historical layer. As such, in terms of the mythical narrative, the Dagda has already died of his wound from the Second Battle of Maige Tuired and has ended his reign. Therefore, now that we are in a new cycle of the year, his grandson Mac Greine (or all three of them) must be taken as a reincarnation of the Dagda himself, at least in his marriage to Eriu. The idea of a son or grandson being the incarnation of the father or grandfather, especially in a legendary or pseudo-historical text, should be very familiar to us by now and is a well-attested convention in ancient Indo-European literatures. The “death” of the Dagda at the end of the yearly cycle has necessitated his grandson to fill his role in the start of the next cycle, due to the odd order the compilers of this particular tradition have placed the myths in, tacking the creation myth onto the “end” of their book in order to lead into the next phase of human history as if starting anew.
The three grandsons of the Dagda (Mac Cuill, Mac Greine, Mac Cecht), who marry the goddesses of the three names of Ireland (Fodla, Eriu, Banba), may simply be three hypostases of the one Father Sky, considering that their three brides are hypostases of the one Mother Earth/Goddess of Ireland. It can be speculated that Mac Cuill, Mac Greine, and Mac Cecht are names indicating the seasonal phases over which the Dagda (Father Sky) otherwise rules: Mac Cuill (Son of the Hazel) relating to the Winter, considering that Elcmar-Nuada, sovereign of the night sky and thus of the winter half of the cycle, carries a hazel wand, Mac Greine (Son of the Sun) relating to the spring and summer for obvious reasons and being the husband of Eriu herself at the moment of their conjunction which dramatically begins the Spring phase of the year, and Mac Cecht (Son of the Plough/Power) relating to Autumn and the time of ploughing and harvesting.
In the war that develops, we see that prophecies have alerted Eriu and her people to the coming strife, reminiscent of the foresight of both Helenus of Troy and Efnysien of Britain. Eriu addresses the Sons of Mil when they arrive to her island: “Warriors, said she, welcome to you. Long have soothsayers had [knowledge of] your coming. Yours shall be this island for ever” (LGE, 79). A war then breaks out, and in this war the warriors of The Sons of Mil’s side are made see the opposing army as mere sods by the magic of the invaders: “The Book of Druim Snechta says that it was in Sliab Mis that Ériu had colloquy with them, and that she formed great hosts to oppose them, so that they were fighting with them. But their druids and poets sang spells to them, and they saw that these were only sods of the mountain peat-mosses” (LGE, 79). Bran likewise appears like a great mountain to the Irish when he approaches from the sea to battle them.
The Irish account is brief and highly fragmentary, and much is different in the Irish and Welsh versions of this myth, but enough key elements are closely aligned that we can be confident these are recounting the same primordial scene, more or less jumbled, compressed, or historicized in form. This is once again the marriage of Mother Earth to (in this case a reincarnation of) Father Sky, and the war which brings the Rudraic and Yama-type deities to break apart this marriage and to begin the unfolding of history, which is the beginning of Time from the pre-existent state, the cosmic Winter of the cycle. Subsequent to the victory of the Sons of Mil over the grandsons of the Dagda, the upstart Eber Finn (Rudra) comes into conflict with his brother Erimon and Erimon kills Eber Finn. This then clearly matches the death of Efnysien, as well as the deposing of Cronus by Zeus, for Erimon, as a likely linguistic and functional match of Vedic Aryaman, is a stand-in for the Mitraic god-type, per the previously discussed unity of Aryaman and Mitra. Thus this case of the Mitraic Erimon overcoming the Rudraic Eber Finn matches most closely to the Greek case of the Mitraic Zeus overcoming the Rudraic Cronus.
Moreover, in the climactic scene of the Tain Bo Cuailgne we may have another, even more compressed and encoded or jumbled form of the Irish creation myth that we will very briefly touch upon. In a climactic moment of this text, a battle between two bulls, who had been enchanted cowherds, the Donn Cuailgne and Fionnbeannach, is related. We see already in the names of these two bulls that these may be incarnations of Donn and Fionn, two primordial gods who are present at the other form of the Irish creation myth. Of course, Eber Donn and Eber Finn do not fight one another in the story of the Sons of Mil, and their parallels Bran and Efnysien do not fight one another in the Welsh case either, and so some compression and jumbling of elements must be imagined if we wish to read this battle of bulls as a coded form of the creation myth. In the end of the battle of the bulls, the Donn Cuailgne defeats Fionnbeannach and spreads his entrails across various significant locations of Ireland. He then dies himself, having been mortally wounded. Eber Donn and Eber Finn do indeed both die in the tale of the Sons of Mil, Donn first at sea and Eber Finn when he challenges his brother Erimon for the supremacy of Ireland. In the Welsh case, Efnysien bursts his own heart, while Fionnbeannach is eviscerated and has his entrails spread about the land. But this spreading of the entrails is more reminiscent, perhaps, of the dismemberment of a figure such as Ymir, and we must note that no clear Father Sky appears in this battle of the two bulls. Thus we might imagine that Fionnbeannach, by a great mystical simplification of the myth, is meant to represent both Father Sky and Rudra/Fionn in one, as if he is the primordial Father and the Pure Mind-Fire of Rudra-Agni imagined as one being. Matholwch and Mac Greine, the Welsh and Irish “Father Skys,” are after all both killed by the armies of Donn/Bran, and this may be what we are seeing when the Donn Cuailnge kills Fionnbeannach, although Eber Donn himself dies before his armies gain this victory in the Sons of Mil account. Donn, as the bull Donn Cuailnge, here successfully kills his opponent as the army of Eber Donn successfully kills his, and the subsequent deaths of Father Sky and the Rudraic god are perhaps combined into one as the death of Fionnbeannach, whose entrails are spread about the land, reminiscent of the evisceration of Ymir and/or the burst heart of Efnysien. Subsequently, the Donn Cuailnge too dies, as Eber Donn and Bran also do.
***
Endnotes:
1. See also Alaric Hall who connects Efnisien to Odinn from a different angle: “Efnisien’s third appearance emphasizes his similarity to Odinn-heroes. Entering the hall which the Irish have built, he ‘wnaeth … edrych golygon orwyllt antrugarawc ar hyt y ty’ (‘he looked about throughout the house with very wild, ruthless glances’)” (Alaric Hall, “Gwŷr y Gogledd? Some Icelandic Analogues of Branwen Ferch Lŷr,” 42).
2. “HE Davidson, recalls that Bilwisus and Bolwisus have been interpreted as two different aspects of Odin; this
god is, according to the Ynglinga Saga (chap. 7), helpful with his friends and terrifying with his enemies, and, adds HE Davidson, Saxo Grammaticus would have given the two brother advisers two names that Odin bears in the
Grímnismál, namely Báleygr (fiery eye) and Bileygr (rogue eye). But R. Simek, followed by J. Renaud, proposes by this second name own a completely different interpretation, since it translates it as ‘who is provided with a weak sight’, allusion made to the lost eye of Odin. 9 In this case, we could not only interpret the names of the brother advisers, one Bilwisus as meaning ‘wise tending to weakness’, the other Bolwisus as a ‘wise man brought to ardor’, but still bringing them closer to the Trojans Helenos and Deiphobe; because if the two adviser brothers of the king of Denmark represent the type of Odin in his ambivalence, then, as Odin is the Germanic counterpart of Mitra – Varuna, Bilwisus and Bolwisus would be the fraternal couple of royal advisers, as are Helenos and Deiphobe in some Greek literature” (Meulder, 4-5).
“Bolwisus has never been compared to a nickname of Odin, namely Bolverkr ‘troublemaker’” (Meulder, 4).
3. “Teyrnon Twryf Lliant,” Guillaume Oudaer, Ollodagos 24, p. 5-42. 2010.
4. efnys: “hostile, wrathful; enemy, foe, enemies, adversaries.” Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, A Dictionary of the Welsh Language. https://welsh-dictionary.ac.uk/gpc/gpc.html?efnys. Accessed November, 2021. See also: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095743687. Accessed November 2021.
5. “Rudra, the thousandeyed god, puts into the right hand of the seer an herb that makes him see everything—the three heavens, the three earths, and all existences down to the sorcerers and the ghouls (AV.4.20.1-9)” (Kramrisch, 94).
6. Credit to Zagreides for bringing this connection to my attention.
7. “Agni, the sacrificial fire, had in view mankind and its life in this world. Agni-Rudra, on the other hand, was outraged. He aimed his arrow of fire at the Father, not because it is his daughter with whom he has intercourse but because it is the substance itself of the Uncreate that he is spending into procreation. Rudra acted as guardian and avenger of the Uncreate and metaphysical wholeness; Agni is the guardian of ṛta, of cosmic order in creation and of human life lived in accordance with it. Though one in nature, Agni and Rudra face in opposite directions: Agni’s concern is the life of man, and Rudra’s concern is man’s freedom from the contingencies of life, his reintegration into the absolute as it was and is from before creation” (Kramrisch, 46-47).
“Agni acts in Rudra and Rudra exceeds him in intensity. He is Agni’s incandescence. As such, Rudra is ‘king of the
sacrifice’ (RV.4.3.1), ‘priest of both worlds’ (TS.1.3.14.1), and ‘fulfiller of the sacrifice’ (RV.1.114.4). Rudra, for
not playing Agni’s sacerdotal role, is overcompensated and raised above Agni, the high priest” (Kramrisch, 50).
8. Roshen Dalal, Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide, “Svaha, goddess”.
9. Gael Hily states that Math “can come from *mati- ‘good, favorable’, resulting from a stem *mā-, which designates the idea of what is favorable, first in a mystical and religious sense. Karl-Horst Schmidt suggested that *matu could have been treated as an adjective in the sense of ‘good, fortunate, auspicious, favorable’” (Gael Hily, Le Dieu Celtique Lugus, 154).
10. “The blow given to Branwen is called in the Mabinogi one of the ‘Three Unhappy Blows’ (WM 61, RM 43) and in the triads (TYP no.53) the blow which Matholwch Wyddel struck upon Branwen is called one of the ‘Three Harmful Blows’ of Ynys Prydain. Note the discrepancy here in that only one blow is inferred, and according to Triad 53 it was struck by Matholwch” (Peter Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary, 61)
11. “The Welsh poets nearly always refer to Branwen as Bronwen, e.g. Dafydd ap Gwilym, and it is actually spelt this way once in the White Book text of ‘Branwen ferch Llyr’ (WM 42). The name Branwen is probably to be explained as an adaptation of Bronwen, ‘white breast’, in which the vowel has been influenced by the name of her brother, Brân. Thus her name is preserved near the river Alaw in Ynys Bronwen, the site of a cromlech known traditionally as Bedd Bronwen. There is also a Tŵr Bronwen at Harlech. (TYP p.287)” (Peter Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary, 61). See also: “There has been some debate over this last name, some holding that it is a corruption of bronwen ‘fair or white breast,’ others holding that it is simply a feminine form of Bran plus the feminine adjective gwen ‘white, holy.’” (Patrick K. Ford, The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales, 55-56).
12. “I am the sea blast
I am the tidal wave
I am the thunderous surf
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am the cliff hawk
I am the sunlit dewdrop
I am the fairest of flowers
I am the rampaging boar
I am the swift-swimming salmon
I am the placid lake
I am the summit of art
I am the vale echoing voices
I am the battle-hardened spearhead
I am the God who inflames desire
Who knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen
Who announces the ages of the moon
Who knows where the sunset settles” (Song of Amergin, tr. Michael Burch).
13. “I have been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
I have been the light of lanterns,
A year and a half.
I have been a continuing bridge,
Over three score Abers.
I have been a course, I have been an eagle.
I have been a coracle in the seas:
I have been compliant in the banquet.
I have been a drop in a shower;
I have been a sword in the grasp of the hand
I have been a shield in battle.
I have been a string in a harp,
Disguised for nine years.
in water, in foam.
I have been sponge in the fire,
I have been wood in the covert” (The Battle of the Trees, tr. W.F. Skene).
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