Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/178

146 description of these animals, and so valuable do they appear.

The swane are refused by Pryderi, and are only obtained by a ruse; to secure them a battle is fought, in which Pryderi's men are slaughtered in such numbers that he has to give hostages, he himself being subsequently slain by Gwydion. In every case these difficult and perilous expeditions into Annwuyn are far from being, as Rhys and De Jubainville seem to suggest, descents by spirits into a land of the dead; they are raids made into the bright country for the definite object of carrying off treasures,—a cauldron, a bitch, swine, etc.,—held in great repute by the inhabitants of Annwuyn. The difference is very marked, and corresponds rather to the attempt of Hercules to win the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides through his conflict with the serpent guarding the tree than with that hero's descent into Hades. Unfortunately for us, these Welsh poems, old as they undoubtedly are in parts, and ancient as are many of the allusions they contain, are imbued with sentiments derived from Christian teaching. Addresses to Christ, religious expressions, prayers and thanksgivings, form part of almost every poem, even of those that are most ancient. Even in the Spoils of Annwn, which is one of the most archaic, as it is one of the most impressive, of all the ancient Welsh or Cumbrian poems, the, last stanza is entirely occupied with the misdoings and ignorance of the monks, who, though they are said to "congregate like wolves," yet have not acquired that