The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
This he averred he achieved on his ocean-trip to the Thing-Ness in Gynt-Iand,1 his hiraeth2 upon him, some fifteen days out from his dinas in Cemeis in Demetia3
(where he latins his oghams).a
Plotting his course by the North Drift route that streams him warm to Hordaland
to Noroway o’er his faem
over the gurly brim in his mere-hengest
(he’s stepped the Yggdrasilb for mast!)
To the Horder’s moot in Norvegia
over the darkening mere-flood
on a Gwener-Frigdaeg noon.4
(To add a bit more
to his old mabinogion?5
Will he Latin that too
to get some Passion into his Infancy?
David Jones notes
1 Thing-Ness, from thing (assembly) and ness (promontory). It has been suggested that there is a connection between this compound and the Welsh word for city, dinas, din-ass, accent on first syllable. Gynt, ‘g’ hard, from gentes, the Scandinavian peoples.
2 hiraeth, heer-aeth, ae as ah+eh, the Welsh word for yearning or longing, is also found in place-names as in the Hiraethog hills in Denbighshire, and there is the theory that connects the word with a site-name envisaged in a Welsh-Scandinavian complex. In his book Mabinogi Cymru (1930) Mr Timothy Lewis gives a map showing a suggested cosmology of the world of the old tales and on it ‘Hireth’ is identified with Hordaland, now the district of South Bergenhus in Norway.
3 Demetia or Dyfed is South-West Wales.
Cemeis, kem-ice, accent on first syllable.
This ancient division of northern Pembrokeshire is said to be the home of much that went to the formation of the oldest legendary deposits.
4 Cf. the ballade, Sir Patrick Spens,
‘To Noroway o’er the faem’ and ‘And gurly grew the sea’.
Cf. brim and mere-flod, for sea in O.E. and mere-hengest, sea-horse (mare) for ship. Friday or Frig’s Day is Dydd Gwener in Welsh; Gwener from Veneris.
5 Mabinogion, mab-in-og-yon, accent on third syllable. The singular is mabinogi (mab-in-og-ee) the repertoire of a mabinog (accent on second syllable) a tyro bard; and meaning also a tale of infancy as in the tale called Mabinogi Iesu Crist. The root is mab, son, as in Maponus (Mabon) a Celtic god sometimes equated with Apollo.
additional notes
DJ note 3: Demetia is the Roman name for southern Wales; so Latin script is being introduced, replacing native (ogham) script—and not just script, of course, but language and culture as well.
a ogham: an ancient British and Irish alphabet, consisting of twenty characters formed by parallel strokes on either side of or across a continuous line.
b Yggdrasil: the tree of Scandinavial legend that holds the world together (here being likened to the Christian Cross in its similarity already noted to the mast of a ship).
comments
So will Manawydan learn first the tale of the Nativity in Latin and then move on to the Passion?