The Anathemata
Keel, Ram, Stauros (continued)
Wot sort o’ Jute-land lingo’s that
or is it Goidela for
Mortuum Mare?
or did old Gaius Pliny
get his Pytheas wrong
or had the travelled diarist
gravelled his philology
in Cronos-meer?1
Has he been on the spree
with Nodens
in Lydney woods2
Was ever he ashore with
the shining mamau of Usk?3
Don’t say he’s a mate of Manawydan’s:4
Keltoib on land are twisters enough!
He’s some rare chinasc
beyond the Pillars.
He looks a bit of a clencher-buildd
himself.
David Jones notes
1 Pliny, following a writer whose authority was the travel-diarist Pytheas, says that Morimarusam was the name used by the Cimbri of Jutland for that part of the North Sea in which our island is situated. The Cimbri were a Teutonic people whereas the word Morimarusam appears to be Celtic and equates with Welsh and Irish for Dead Sea and Pliny says that it did mean mortuum mare and that it extended to the Sea of Cronos, the name used by the Classical writers for the unexplored northern waters. This note is based on some remarks of the late Sir John Rhys, much of whose philology is, I understand, now regarded as ill-founded.
2 Nodens, Nudd, in Irish Nuada, in English tradition Lud, a war-god but associated with the sea, with ports and estuaries. His great shrine was at Lydney on the Severn.
3 mamau, au as ei in height, accent on first syllable, mothers.
In some parts of Wales the fairies are called ‘the mothers’ and this is thought to derive from the cult of the Deae Matres. See note 7 to page 162 above.
4 Manawydan, man-now-wid-an, accent on third syllable. The Irish form is Manannan, the Celtic sea-deity. He is a magician in the medieval tales.
additional notes
DJ note 1: Pytheas claimed, as Pliny knew, to have circumnavigated Britain around 325 BCE and explored its northern waters up as far as the Arctic ice (Cronos-meer). He was not widely believed in antiquity, but it is now thought that there is no reason to doubt his claim.
a Simplifying somewhat, the Goidelic Celts were those of Scotland and Ireland, contrasted with the Brythonic Celts of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.
b Keltoi: the Greek spelling for Celts (first recorded in the 5th century BCE historian Herodotus).
c chinas: rhyming slang chinas = china plates = mates.
d clencher-built = clinker built; see note to page 166.
comments
A change of voice to the cockney, but it is still the Greek captain that is being described.