Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/80

 On the other hand, according to old poems, Pryderi is in close relation to the Underworld (e.g. Skene, ii. 155, 181), and this fact would again agree with Caesar's words: Galli se omnes a Dite patre prognatos praedicant. It seems to me that the Gauls derived their origin from the Otherworld (the person of the Otherworld's king differed probably in various districts), but we cannot conclude that the Celtic "Dispater" or any other divinity was a god in the Roman or classical sense.

Pryderi's original name was Gwri Wallt Euryn; now Mr. W. J. Gruffydd (R.C. xxxiii. pp. 452 ff.) has attempted to prove that Gwri is identical with Mabon vap Modron (but Gwri and Pryderi were—according to his theory—two different persons), and later (The Trajisactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, Session 1912–13, pp. 65 ff.) he would see in the first branch of Mabinogion a transformation of a Gaelic story identical with that of Mongán.

We will discuss the first theory first: Pryderi, according to Mr. Gruffydd, has sometimes taken the rôle of Gwri; now Mr. Gruffydd argues that Pryderi's imprisonment (in Mab. Manawyddan) is identical with that of Mabon. This imprisonment was, however, quite another matter, because Pryderi (or, as Mr. Gruffydd thinks, Gwri) was imprisoned in his later years and Mabon was stolen as an infant, and since that time nobody heard anything of him (cf. W.B. fol. 281 c, Mabon mab Modroji a ducpwyt yn teirnossic y wrth y vam, ny wys py tu y mae na pheth yw ae byw ae marw), and so we must suppose that he was imprisoned during some centuries; further, he was imprisoned in a horrible prison (he says, R.B. fol. 836: Oia wr, yssit le idaw y gwynaw y neb yssyd yma ac ny charcharwyt neb kyndosted yn llwrw carchar a mi na charchar Llud Llaw Ereint neu garchar Greit mab Eri). The themes of stealing the child