Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/60

 King of Other World is represented as Death the Hunter. Pwyll's relation to the Other World.

C. The Rest of the First Branch. Motives: Pwyll and Gwawl is an independent Mährchen.—Rhiannon.—Parallels to this story.—Kidnapping of Pryderi belongs to the Mysterious Hand motives.—Plight of Rhiannon and the Abandoned Wife story (and Female Taboo Breaker).—Traces of Supernatural Birth (two categories of such Birth stories).—Irish Birth stories.—How the fusion of all these motives came to pass?—Abandoned Wife motive was introduced to account either for some aspect of Rhiannon's character or it was to explain Pryderi's name, which was explained as derived from pryder. Etymology of the name. Pryderi's relation to Annwfn and to the Gaulish tradition about the origin of the Gaulish nation.

D. Gwri Wallt Euryn and Mabon vap Modron. Gwri is probably not identical with Mabon, because the history of Gwri (Pryderi) and that of Mabon are not identical.—If everything told about Pryderi relates to Gwri, how came Pryderi into the Mabinogion at all?—The similarities of different tales are to be explained in the way that in Wales there existed similar tales about different persons.

E. The Origins of the Mabinogi Tales. Mr. W. J. Gruffydd's theory. We have no proofs that the first branch of the Mabinogion is of the same origin as the Irish saga of Mongán. The history of Llew Llawgyffes is not identical with the Irish Aided Conrói. —Possibility of foreign influences.—There are striking similarities between the Welsh story and the Egyptian tale.—The Irish story of Étáin and a Jataka story.

(a) The first motive, the mutual exchange of external appearance, forms a leading motive in the northern version of the Nibelungen-cycle (Norse Niflung). First, it