Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/257

Rh Mabinogi, explains that the punishment which he inflicted on her was to strike her with his wand into an owl, whence it is, we are told, that all other birds hate the owl and permit her to come out only at night. Popular superstition, it may be added on the other hand, gives expression to the feeling of Blodeueᵭ in her changed condition: she takes delight in spiting the fair sex of which she was once the fairest, by beginning early in the evening to proclaim from the churchyard yew to the villagers of Glamorgan the tripping in their midst of some unwary maid. With the fate of Blodeueᵭ, doomed by the touch of Gwydion's wand to sleep her days away as an owl, may be compared the Norse account of Sigrdrifa, sometimes identified with Brynhild, punished by Woden for bringing about the death of a hero favourably regarded by him: Woden, we are told, touched the helmed maid with his wand of sleep and she forthwith fell into a slumber, the pale spells of which she had no power of her own to cast off.

The Mabinogi of Mâth gives another curious tale about Gwydion: the south-western portion of Wales,