Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/184

152 Even in those poems to which we have alluded, in which the bright country suffered violence and an attempt was made to take it by force, and where we find it represented consequently as guarded by walls and serpents, and monsters of all sorts, which have to be overcome, the essential characteristics remain, though the idea has been modified. The cauldron with the rim of pearls which would not cook food for a coward—symbol of renewed life and truthfulness; the brindled ox with the broad head-band, or the precious beast with silver-head; the "perfect chair," known to Manawyddan and Pryderi, seated in which neither disease nor old age can touch the occupant; the fire encircled by streams of ocean; the fruitful fountain above it which gives drink sweeter than white wine: all these are, with only the smallest variation in details, the characteristics which we meet with in the Irish Land of Promise, into which Cormac goes. We find them, indeed, with certain modifications, in every story of the Irish world invisible. The names given in Welsh literature to Annwfn are also interesting: Caer Sidi, the Revolving Castle; Caer Vedwyd, the Castle of Revelry; Caer Golud, Castle of Riches; Caer Pedryvan, the Four-cornered Castle, four times revolving; Caer Rigor, the Kingly Castle. These titles, which are perhaps older than Annwfn or Uffern, both of which are found in the poem, do not convey to the mind a place of misery or darkness. Besides, it seems clear that the third and fourth lines of the "Spoiling of Annwfn" refer to Gwydion's journey thither to recover the swine of Pryderi in the story of Math, son of Mathonwy, and we have already examined the bright conception of Annwfn in the Mabinogion, The lines run thus:

Stout was the prison of Gweir (i.e. Gwydion) in Caer Sidi. Through the spite of Pwyll and Pryderi No one before him went into it. The heavy blue chain held the faithful youth,