Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/151

Rh Eve, and this May-Eve he saw a huge claw clutching the newborn colt. He severed It with his sword, and the intruder vanished; but at the door-way was a new-born infant, which Teyrnon nurtured. Like Cúchulainn and other heroes, it had a rapid growth and was called Gwri Golden-Hair. Noticing Gwri's likeness to Pwyll, Teyrnon carried the boy to him, and Rhiannon was reinstated, exclaiming that her anguish (pryderi) was past; whence Gwri was called Pryderi and succeeded Pwyll as King.

Folk-tale formulae abound in this section—that of the Abandoned Wife, found also in the Mabinogi of Branwen; and that of an animal born the same night as the hero; while the claw incident occurs in tales of Fionn. The importance of the story is in Pryderi's birth. The fact that Teyrnon's foal disappeared on the same night as Pryderi, who was found at Teyrnon's door, and the meanings of the names Teyrnon = Tigernonos ("Great King") or Tigernos ("Chief"), and Rhiannon = Rigantona ("Great Queen"), may point to a myth in which they were Pryderi's parents.$3$ Manawyddan, who becomes Rhiannon's husband and rescues both her and Pryderi from the vengeance of Gwawl, may have been his father in another myth, for a poem associates him with Pryderi in Caer Sidi, a part of Annwfn. In the story, however, Pwyll, an original lord of Elysium, is Pryderi's parent. Does this point to a number of goddesses, bearing the name Rigantona, consorts of different gods, and later fused into one as Rhiannon? In another Mabinogi, Pryderi is despoiled of swine sent him by Arawn, or of which, according to a Triad, he was swineherd, Pwyll having brought them from Annwfn and given them to Pryderi's foster-father. Pwyll and Pryderi are thus associated with Elysium and with animals brought thence. A Taliesin poem tells of the magic cauldron of Pen Annwfn, viz. Pwyll. Round it was a ridge of pearls; it would not boil a coward's food; voices issued from it; it was warmed by the breath of nine maidens; and it formed part of the