The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
Or, was he a liar?
Did he and his back-room team contrive this gleaming spoil from fungus by Virgil’s arts in Merlin’s Maridunum?4 Or, did he barter ’em, ready-made-up, in Bristol? He might have done either, the old conjurer!
David Jones notes
4 Cf. The Mabinogion, where Manawydan practises the craft of cobbler and where Gwydion uses fungi as his medium which by transaccidentation he causes to have the appearance of richly harnessed horses. In Wales, as elsewhere, Virgil was associated with magic and so with alchemy, but in Wales today chemistry is still ‘the art of Virgil’ (fferylliaeth) and any chemist, Boots’ Cash, is ‘an agent of Virgil’ (fferyIlydd).
Maridunum was the Roman name for Carmarthen, which is an anglicism for Caer-Fyrddin, which means Merlin’s fort.
additional notes
DJ note 4: transaccidentation: here, a fancy word for transformation (its medieval philosophical meaning is that they are still really fungi, but merely have the appearance of horses).
see also
See page 136 in the Lady of the Pool section for the narwhal-tusk passed off as unicorn horn.
comments
Here ends the Manawydan digression with the suggestion that Manawydan’s narwhal-tusk is an artificial fake or some other false artefact.