Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/264

248 To return to the battle of Goᵭen; it is one frequently mentioned in Welsh poetry, especially in the Book of Taliessin. The poet pretends to have been present at all the great events which have taken place from the beginning of the world, and he says in Poem xiv. that he was with Llew and Gwydion in the battle in question; but in another poem, usually known by the title of the Harryings of Hades, the poet speaks of himself accompanying Arthur on board his ship Prydwen to a variety of places—more correctly speaking, perhaps, to one and the same mythical region spoken of under a variety of names. Here we have the exploits of Gwydion and Arthur overlapping: thus one of the expeditions was to Caer Wydyr, or Glass Fortress, and to a Caer Ochren, or Castle of Ochren, in which we have a name to be identified probably with the Achren already mentioned (p. 245): in fact, the allusion seems to be to the same battle in which Gwydion is said to have guessed Brân's name. The poem opens with the usual tribute to Christianity, which not unfrequently begins and ends the Welsh poems most replete with heathen lore, and then it plunges into what proves to be a reference to Gwydion and Arthur. The first stanza is to the following effect:

'The Lord, I adore him, princely sovereign, Whose sway is over earth's strand extended. Stout was the prison of Gweir in Caer Sidi, Through the messenger of Pwyll and Pryderi: Before him no one entered thereinto. The heavy dark chain held the faithful youth, And while Hell was spoiled, he grievously sang, And thenceforth till doom he remains a bard.