The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
Look to y’r title, Day-star o’ the Harbour!1
. . . in all her parts
tota pulchra a
more lovely than our own Gwenhwyfar2
when to the men of this Island
she looked at her best3
at mid-night
three nights after the solstice-night, the sun in the Goat, in the second moon after Calangaeaf;4 with the carried lights that are ordinary to her before her and the many plygain-lights5 special to this night about her; the yntred6 sung, the synaxis done, at the beginning of The Offering proper,7 when they light the offertory-light that burns solitary on the epistle sideb; standing within the screen (for she was the wife
of the Bear of the island)
David Jones notes
2 Gwenhwyfar, gwen-hooy-varr, accent on middle syllable.
3 See The Lady of the Fountain ‘. . . more lovely than Gwenhwyfar the wife of Arthur, when she has appeared loveliest at the Offering, on the day of the Nativity or at the feast of Easter’. Guest’s translation.
4 Calangaeaf, cal-an-gae-av, ae as ah+eh said quickly as a monosyllable. Winter-calends, November 1.
5 Plygain, plug-ein, ei as in height, dawn. This name is given to a Christmas observance when people assembled in the parish churches, lights being carried and carols sung. The hour varied, but in the eighteenth century it appears to have been at dawn. The many lights characterized this observance and it is the lights which are remembered. A church in Flintshire was burnt in 1532 and according to a nineteenth-century writer the fire was caused by the Plygain lights, ‘in imitation of the High Mass, a custom particular to Wales’. As 1532 antedates the suppression of the Mass in Wales, this statement is very ambiguous, but it shows that the Plygain was regarded as a surrogate for something lost.
6 Yntred, Introit, un-tred, accent on first syllable. The synaxis (meeting) is that part of the Mass preceding the offertory prayer.
7 Strictly speaking the Mass essentially begins at the offertory prayer. In Welsh the Mass is called Yr Offeren, The Offering.
additional notes
DJ note 3: The Lady of the Fountain is a story in The Mabinogion. Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of it may be found here.
a tota pulchra: altogether beautiful.
b epistle side: in the liturgical traditions of Western Christianity, the Epistle side is the term used to designate the side of a church on which the Epistle is read during the Mass or Eucharist. It is the right-hand side of the altar as viewed by the congregation from the nave. The Gospel side is the other side of the church, where the Gospel is read. Facing the altar from the nave, it is the left-hand side. In the Tridentine Mass, which is the one that would have been used in the text, the lectern holding the Missal was moved from the Epistle side of the altar to the Gospel side after the reading of the Epistle.
comments
Here begins the long elaborate desription of candle-illuminated Gwenhwyfar, queen consort of King Arthur, at Christmas midnight Mass (the context being that Mary is more beautiful even than Gwenhwyfar).