The Anathemata
The Lady of the Pool (continued)
By Tylows and Bynows unvouched of the Curia,2 fizt Nut1 the Welsh fairy, by the holy pillar of a Lacy or a Lizzy3 or some such, by the rigmaroled wonders of a most phenomenal beast called the Troit4 or such like, by a’ elf- sheen woman contrived of sweet posies,5 by Arthur Duke of the Britains, his three Gaynores6 and his Pernelsa besides, by Gildas the Wiseb and by Wild Merlin, by the marvel thorn of Orcopc and by the four fay-fetched flowers that be said to blow where ever a’ Olwen7 walks in Wales
by the four Gospel true-tellers
and by the ’broidered tales
of Geoffrey, bishop of Asaph’sd
now deemed the most incontinent liar on record as the Semprington sistere did vouch me that could construe in
annals
David Jones notes
1 St Teilo and St Beuno, sixth-century Welsh saints. Their cultus is locally, not universally, observed.
2 Edern son of Nudd (pronounce approximately nith, th as in ‘thither’), brother of the King of the Celtic Otherworld, appears in Romance literature as a magician, Ider fitz Nut. In Old Welsh orthography Nudd would be spelt Nut and as Nut he is known in French and English romance and is here to be pronounced ‘nut’.
3 Cf. Elise (el-issy) or Eliseg, a seventh-century leader in Powysland, where his inscribed stone, called Eliseg’s Pillar, still stands near Llangollen, unless they’ve museum’d it.
4 Twrch Trwyth, Porcus Troit, the object of the great hunt in the best of all ‘task-setting’ tales, Culhwch and Olwen.
5 Blodeuedd, the woman made by enchantment out of oak-flower, meadowsweet and broom-flower in the tale of Math son of Mathonwy. Pronounce blodei-eth, ei as in height, eth as in nether, accent on middle syllable.
6 Perhaps owing to a Welsh fondness for triads there is a tradition that Arthur had three successive queens, each called Gwenhwyfar. In Geoffrey of Monmouth she is Guanhumara, a Roman patrician woman (how historically right his instinct was, after all!); in Caxton, Guenever; in Malory’s text, Gwenyver(e); but in Old English, Gaynore.
It is a pity we lost Gaynore, for it rings as authentically English as ‘salad-in’, ‘tully’ or ‘wipers’, which cannot be said for Guenevere, now the received English form.
7 In the Culhwch tale four white trefoils spring up in Olwen’s footsteps; ‘therefore’ says the narrative ‘she was called Olwen’ (ol, track, wen, white).
additional notes
b Gildas: a sixth-century Romano-British monk, best known for his scathing religious polemic De excidio et conquestu Britanniae (‘Of the destruction and conquest of Britain’), which recounts the history of the Britons before and during the coming of the Saxons. Its purpose was to recall the rulers of his day to repentance and the Christian faith.
c marvel thorn of Orcop: a scion of the Glastonbury thorn formerly at Orcop in Herefordshire, which sadly perished in a storm in 1980. (The Glastonbury Thorn is a form of Common Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna ‘Biflora’, found in and around Glastonbury, Somerset. Unlike ordinary hawthorn trees, it flowers twice a year –hence the name ‘biflora’–, the first time in winter and the second time in spring. The trees in the Glastonbury area have been propagated by grafting since ancient times.)
d Geoffrey of Monmouth: a Welsh cleric (c. 1100 - c. 1155) and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae (‘History of the Kings of Britain’), which was widely popular in its day and was credited, uncritically, well into the 16th century, being translated into various other languages from its original Latin. It is now, and has been for some time, considered historically unreliable. He was appointed Bishop of St Asaph’s in Wales, but never visited his see.
e Semprington sister: a nun of the order founded by St Gilbert of Sempringham in the twelfth century.
DJ note 3: it is still there. A photograph may be seen here.
DJ note 6: I cannot make sense of ‘salad-in’ or ‘tully’. ‘wipers’ (=Ypres) I know about.
see also
semantic structures
glossary
a pernel: a wanton young woman; a priest’s concubine; an effeminate man.
comments
The boatswain continues to invoke the names of those he swears by.