Review : The Celtic Myths (I)

At last I've completed the Thames & Hudson "Myths That Shape The Way We Think" trilogy. I started with the Greeks, moved on to the Norse, and finally I conclude here with my own home turf : the Celts.

Or do I ? A running theme, which author Mark Williams labours a little too heavily, is that it's exceptionally difficult to know what even constitutes a Celtic myth. While Bates insisted strongly and implicitly that the Dark Age world view could be reconstructed, here Williams is attempting to find the pre-Christian, even pre-Roman ideas, and that's very much more difficult.

To give some context, all three books of the series have distinct themes and this is no different. For the Greek myths, the main message I got was one of myths as useful metaphor : the lack of any fundamental doctrine gives them added versatility, but in the main, their wide-ranging original applicability was the cause, not a consequence, of their ever-changing uses. Buxton gave a pretty balanced look at the ancient stories and their various retellings throughout the ages.

For the Norse myths, Larrington acknowledges that the stories were written down after the pagan beliefs had largely already been replaced with Christianity – but not all that much later. She shifted the balance considerably more in favour of how how the myths had been re-used, especially how they've been inappropriated by the far right. There was rather less examination of the original stories themselves but that was in no way to the detriment of the book, since the analysis she presented was so interesting.

The Review Bit

Mark William's examination of the Celtic* myths rebalances things heavily towards finding the original stories. And I have to say, this is sometimes excessive. In some chapters there's very little look at modern retellings at all, indeed in one case openly declaring (quite correctly, I'm sure) that there's very little material here to appeal to modern audiences. This doesn't mean the stories aren't of interest, but that interest in a few cases is more in the way only of how the ancient peoples saw themselves, rather than in the stories for the sake of their own narrative appeal. Those are the exception rather than the rule, however.

* Here "Celtic" is used to mean the peoples of the British Isles before, let's say, around 600 AD or thereabouts, but generally much earlier. The debate about whether this is the correct terminology or not isn't relevant here so I'm going to simply ignore it.

Williams explains just why recovering the original Celtic myths is so frustratingly difficult. Greco-Roman myths were written down by active believers, while the Norse were written soon after. But the Celtic stories were written many centuries, perhaps even longer, after any vestige of sincere belief had ended, with precious little in the way of direct written transmission. They were often abjectly Christianised, and are so diverse that he says we should think of Celtic mythologies plural, and retold so many times that finding the original beliefs held by the Celtic peoples is... challenging. Indeed, he presents amusing comments from Irish writers who recorded their stories from a fierce patriotic duty to preserve their heritage unsullied, but with open professions of finding some aspects of them really quite distasteful.  

This difficulty of finding the original beliefs is undeniably a very important point. But I have to say that Williams repeats it rather too often, trying his darndest to find original material wherever possible, but at the great expense of analysing why any of it's appealing. It would be too strong a word to describe this as "annoying", but it does become distracting. And while both of the other books followed the same basic layout (in each chapter, first the early stories, then what people have made of them over the centuries), Williams is a bit more haphazard in structure. Sometimes he begins with brief mentions of modern adaptations but confusingly never returns to analyse them in more detail. 

At his worst, he's pedantic, nit-picking over stories in which likely authentic Celtic elements have been transplanted by medieval writers into other Celtic stories which didn't originally have those particular aspects to them. I mean, fine, I guess. It's good to know about this. But as he himself discusses, even writers of later ages wouldn't have seen this as in any way fraudulent or improper, and it's highly doubtful the Celtic peoples themselves would have had a problem with it either. Yes, it's important to mention it, but Williams focuses too much on this and not enough on the interest of the story itself. In some chapters (especially the one on the time-travelling poet Taliesin) the story barely gets a look-in.

That said, his writing style is always lucid and readable, and when he does analyse, he's on as high a form as the other authors of the series. Deficiencies, overall, are minor. Still, while I gave both the others 9/10, I have to knock this one down to a still more-than-respectable 8/10. If you have the other two books in the series, it would surely be a mistake not to go for this one as well – but it isn't quite the same. 

So what interesting stuff does he have to say ? Here I'll start with the three stories Williams presents that I thought had the most obvious appear to modern sensibilities. In the next post I'll look at some of the broader underlying themes that emerge from the book.

1) "King" Arthur

The earliest versions of the Arthur stories are hardly ever told, usually only mentioned in passing as sources of material for suspect historians trying to find Arthur's historical roots. Here Williams is on fine form, concentrating on the story with minimal distractions as to the reality of Arthur himself. Even as to the stories, it's clear that the word "real", which looms large, dissolves in meaning : there may or may not have been an inspiration for the figure, but he obviously never fought giants or dragons, so there's no point getting hung up on how the story has changed or whether there was any "true" original literary figure. It's worth noting, though, that Arthur became popular early, being well-known by at least 800 AD.

The earliest Arthur wasn't a king, but the leader of a warband of magical figures. He was an early superhero, following the "six go into the world" motif much like modern Marvel movies. While he was in no way villainous, he wasn't a paragon of virtue either, at his worst point even needing his companions to reign in his lusty ways to avoid abducting a woman to have his way with her (well, okay, maybe that bit's full-on villainy). But by and large Arthur and his band are brave and generous, bent essentially on doing good throughout the land, though "other heroic virtues, such as loyalty to the lord and courage unto death, are in short supply".

Arthur was of course Welsh (or possibly Cornish, though at the time there wasn't much difference between the two) who fought against the invading Saxons. This, as one of the key aspects of the early tales, is the one that's been most perverted into Arthur often depicted as a very English king. The early authors would have been fine with many of the evolutions of the stories but this point would surely have been deeply offensive. While there was no idea whatever of Celtic unity (the story of Branwen features a devastating war between Wales and Ireland in which England plays no part) there most definitely was a virulent and vitriolic anti-Saxon element, the kind that would be banned as hate speech today. 

One memorable poem from the 10th century gleefully envisions so many English corpses that it will be standing room only for the dead from the Welsh border to the Isle of Thanet [on the Kent coast].

The modern versions have also heavily excised the role of magic (with the notable exception of the Sam Neil 1998 TV miniseries, which I personally thought was wonderful). In the early stories, Arthur and his band voyage to the otherworld. They fight witches, giants, and monstrous serpents. They meet dog-headed people living at the edge of the known world, i.e. near Edinburgh. Modern versions seem limited to strange women lying in lakes distributing swords, searching pointlessly for the Holy Grail, and are generally more obsessed with the adultery between Lancelot and Guinevere than any of the magical stuff. Which is a terrible shame, because adultery... who the fuck cares ? Give me the dog-headed people of Scotland any day ! Fantasy is as good a vessel for soap opera / political storylines as any other genre, but it can be so much more interesting than that.

The tales are narratively complex. Arthur and his gang undertake a series of challenges closely akin to, indeed even far surpassing, the Labours of Hercules, a whole series of tasks within tasks within tasks just to arrange a wedding. Some of these aren't given clear endings, most notably the challenge to kill a monstrous boar. They're also of high literary standing. The giant Ysbaddaden begins as a sinister murderer and a brute, but the dialogue is often comic, yet his fated ending tragic. His skin flayed from his face, he's given dignified last words that now is his allotted time to die. If character development is practically non-existent, then characters certainly have conflicted yet well-blended attributes.

Williams gives a good account of the later evolution of the Arthurian tales. The leader of a warband became an almost Alexandrian ruler of international conquest, with a vast and extensive court, his influence even reaching beyond the mortal world. Animals too respect Arthur's power. Later stories evolve piece by piece to the version we usually get today, though still with some notable differences. In order to kill his accidentally-incestuous son Mordred, who's prophesised to kill him :

... Arthur acts like the biblical King Herod, presiding over a second Massacre of the Innocents, but the the event is reported in an entirely matter-of-fact manner, with no disapproval expressed by the author [Mallory]. 

Similarly, in the modern versions Lancelot doesn't have any run-ins with a "necrophiliac enchantress" who plans to kill him, embalm the corpse, and "embrace and kiss when she desires."

2) Merlin

Like Arthur, the earliest stories of Merlin force a substantial revaluation of the character. Instead of Arthur's loyal wizard, he begins as a king himself, with no connection to Arthur at all. Driven mad by post-traumatic stress disorder from battle (though Geoffrey of Monmouth doesn't phrase it quite like that), he becomes prophetic, learns astrology, and becomes a wildman living in the forest.

Or actually, not quite. Because GoM, says Williams, had two goes at the Merlin character. Initially he transplanted genuine Welsh themes and used them to explain the prophetic abilities of another character originally called Ambrosius. Unlike Bates, Williams recounts the famous story of Vortigen and the dragons but quite properly has the red (Welsh) one win; in this version, Merlin is a prophetic child born of a virgin. Later he goes on to "utter a series of deliberately confusing political prophecies that end with a vision of cosmic catastrophe, with the signs of the zodiac thrown into disorder and the universe turned upside down." Living during the Anarchy, says Williams, this chaotic nature of Merlin's life as told by GoM would have found easy resonance with his contemporary audience.

His second attempt was quite different. Here Merlin is no child of a virgin and not initially magical, but a perfectly ordinary king complete with wife and sister. Grief from the slaughter of battle brings about a nervous breakdown. He begins acting all mysterious, laughing for no apparent reason because he can see the fate of those around him and the irony in their fortunes. Moving into the forest, he conducts astrological observations atop a tower, becomes jealous when his estranged wife remarries so he "changes her wedding ring into a stag. Wrenching the antlers off the poor creature, he throws them at the groom and kills him." Yes, well, one can see why that version remains so popular. In a visit from the Prince of Poets Taliesin they have long chats about "cosmography, the islands of the world, and, oddly, fish."

At the deeply unsatisfying ending, Merlin's madness is miraculous healed by a sacred well. Merlin, his sister and Taliesin all go off and live in the forest where they vow never to enter the world again, and Merlin renounces his prophetic gift. This "let's not bother resolving anything, let's just have them go and live in the woods" occurs also in the story of Branwen, and it's lame – like the author had no real idea about how to end the tale at all. The "wildman" as a mad prophet idea, the middle section of the story, is narratively appealing (in one version he gets a pet piglet to keep him company) but as an ending it doesn't work at all. "Screw the lot of ya, I'm off to the woods !" It's hard to make this work – but not impossible, as we'll see in a minute.

Still GoM's version is at least a lot happier than in other versions, which use another Welsh plot device of a complicated threefold death. Some of these have Merlin prophesying such a death of others but in in some it's his own death he foresees : falling off a cliff he impales himself on a stake that keeps only his bed below the water, so drowning him. The prophecies, as all good ones should be, are stated ambiguously so that their meaning is only apparent to the reader at the end; initially they appear incoherent, but when fulfilled it becomes obvious what was meant.

Like Arthur, the early stories of Merlin have much to appeal to a modern audience. The Sam Neil miniseries, in which Merlin is a mixture of both of GoM's versions, even found a way to make his recusal from society appealing. Here this only happens after Merlin has defeated his enemies and seen a good king installed on the throne. For this Merlin, living in the forest is a happily-ever-after retirement, a reward rather than retreat from unresolved issues. Yet it's also deeply bittersweet. Rather than renouncing prophecy, Merlin uses the last of his magic to restore the lost youth of himself and his long-separated wife who he's just been reunited with : but this is not just the ending of the career of one lone wizard, but the end of magic itself. Merlin is personally satisfied, but all the same, the old ways are finally and forever lost.

Honestly I could wax lyrical about this highly underrated series and it's a shame it isn't mentioned in the book. By contrast (at least as Williams' tells it) the original story has Merlin simply making an arbitrary decision to live in the woods for no clear reason.

Still, says Williams :

Physical disability, madness, marginality, being cursed, and closeness to animals and the natural world are the keynote features. For anyone left feeling deranged by the noise and pace of modernity and longing to flee into nature, the wildman is easy to identify with. There are also powerful ecological overtones : the wildman's prophetic insight into coming destruction looks like madness to settled civilisation. Perhaps drawing on the Celtic sources to reframe the story as a tale of violence, trauma and flight into the wilderness would give us a powerful new Merlin for our times.

3) Blodeuwedd 

Many Celtic stories feature strong female protagonists, although as Williams points out, the original audiences would likely have drawn very different messages. Sometimes in this I think he goes too far. He says it's easy for us to feel drawn to Queen Medb, but I found nothing much in her but wanton villainy. A strong figure ? Sure. Someone to emulate ? HAHAHAH no. She's a contemptible piece of work, willing to wreak death on a genocidal scale for the sake of stealing... a bull.

By contrast, Blodeuwedd is a less powerful but more relatable figure. Unlike other Celtic women, she's more of a victim than an active agent of her own destiny, but sometimes tragedy needs simply to be tragic. It depends how you read it. I have absolutely no idea if the original audience would have interpreted it in anything like the same way that I do, but that doesn't invalidate anything.

Blodeuwedd is a woman created from flowers as a way to circumvent destiny. Lleu is cursed to have no wife "of the stock who are upon the Earth", so he enlists the help of his magical uncles. Together they summon from flowers "the fairest and best-endowed maiden that anyone had ever seen". But trying to overcome magic with magic is "that most unwise of things", as Williams says : if magic simply worked,  the result would be "narrative inertia". So alas, poor Lleu doesn't get to enjoy his huge-titted* fake wife for long, because she's got a mind of her own and soon falls in love – in fact, "the clearest instance of pure romantic love in the Four Branches" – with a hunter. Made of flowers under dubious circumstances she may be, but now the pair conspire to kill Lleu. They fail, and in response his uncle turns Blodeuwedd into... an owl.

* Or possibly she had an arse bigger than Kim Kardashian's. Who know what Lleu was into, or what else "best-endowed" means ? Maybe she just had lovely hair, but sod it, I prefer my more base interpretations.

Let's pull back a bit. Blodeuwedd's creation doesn't play much part in the original story, says Williams, and indeed may have been simply added in by later writers : Taliesin was originally made of flowers, but there isn't any reason to think Blodeuwedd was. But this I think adds something to the story. A modern play has her dancing with wild ecstasy in the rain, highlighting her non-human nature and deep incompatibility with her would-be husband. As well as underlining the character conflict, I think this gives the story a Frankenstein-like quality to it, a commentary almost on free will. Even with the best will in the world, the most carefully-chosen of conditions, our own creations sometimes turn on us. Blodeuwedd's genesis is the act of the extreme hubris of playing God. Even total control does not guarantee predictability. Omnipotence is not omniscience. 

Why the owl ? There are many other aspects to the tale (which I've skipped over) that Williams describes as "sheer weirdness". And sometimes this is valuable for its own sake, that there needs to be "a narrative in which the logic connecting events is deliberately dreamlike, never explained". But the owl metaphor is not one of them. The owl, like other predatory birds, is occasionally attacked by its prey when defending their young. This is an origin story, of a girl who "did a great wrong and was turned into an owl as punishment"; "you will never dare to show your face by daylight, and that from fear of all the birds."

I would hope that most modern readers share my view of Blodeuwedd not as the villain but as a woman wronged (albeit conspiracy to murder is probably taking things a bit far). Though other Celtic tales feature control of women in a much more positive light, and have far more active female protagonists (both for good and ill), this strange tale of myth and manipulation isn't one of them. To me the appeal is ironic, a lesson in the futility sheer wrong-headedness of treating half the human species as property. Blodeuwedd may be cursed, but nobody else achieves any of their objectives either.

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On reviewing my notes there were in fact several other stories I really enjoyed reading. In particular the story of Branwen, with its archetypically brilliant but inexplicably gigantic king, the cauldron of resurrection, Bran's still-living decapitated head, and many other confusingly wonderful bouts of magic meant I was very tempted to cover that one instead of Blodeuwedd, but I resisted. So if you're considering buying the book yourself but the negative aspects I highlighted earlier are holding you back... don't. They're a minor irritant only, nothing more. 

Next time I'll look at more general themes pervading the book : how so many early cultures came up with strikingly similar stories, the complex narrative techniques used by the Celtic storytellers, and their often bizarre and fascinating use of magic.