Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/174

142 Fourthly, that it was a gloomy world of shades ruled by Dark Divinities is absolutely contradicted by the descriptions we have of it; by its names, as the Land of the Living, of Youth, of Honey, of Promise, the Wonderland, the Silver Cloud Land, and many others, all indicating that in the popular thought it was counted a land of bliss; by the fact that in Christian times this Land of Promise is everywhere identified with the Christian Paradise, and not with Hell; and by the fact that except in rare passages, such as that relating to Tethra, it is usually represented as presided over by the Gaelic and Welsh Gods of Light, and not of Darkness. It is evident that the chief reason of the choice of Tethra and Manannan as its rulers was due to their position as gods of the ocean, beyond which Magh Mell was supposed to lie.

I think more attention might well be paid than has been paid to the motive underlying the legends connected with Annwuyn (pron. "ànnwvn" with a closed a, mod. form, ànnwfn or annwn). They seem to fall into two fairly distinguishable groups, viz.: a group in which the motive is a raid into the other world or Annwuyn, by violence, for the purpose of carrying off from it some of its treasures or possessions, and a group in which some chosen mortal is elected by the inhabitants of the hidden country, generally by its queen, to come and remain for a time in the place of bliss in which she dwells.

The first group of tales, which seem to bear a rude and primitive complexion, and which take the aspect of a raid such as was being constantly made between neighbouring chiefs or farmers in the upper world for the purpose of carrying off treasure, are more common in Welsh than in Irish myth, though they are found in both; the peaceful motive of the second group is hardly more than suggested in Welsh story, but in Ireland it forms the theme of one of the largest departments of the romance literature.