The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
that practise transaccidentationa from Sabrina Sea
to Dindaethwy1
in Mona Insula
tell their aves
unreversed.
For these should know, who better?
(whose mates
the gossips do say
are of the bathosphereb)
that the poor mewling babe has other theophanies:c
not then chafed of soiled swaddlings
but with his war-soiled harness tightened on his back.d
David Jones notes
1 Dindaethwy, dln-daeth-ooy, accent on ‘ae’ pronounced ah-j-eh, said rapidly as a monosyllable. That is to say from the Bristol Channel to Anglesey, all Wales. Llanddona in the cantred of Dindaethwy, North-East Anglesey, had a tradition of witches come from Ireland.
additional notes
DJ note 1: Sabrina Sea=Bristol Channel, Mona Insula=Anglesey.
a transaccidentation: literally, a theological metaphysical doctrine concerning the actual nature of the change that occurs to the bread and the wine when consecrated during the Eucharist; differing from transubstantiation only in metaphysical detail which need not concern us here. However, because the immediate context is one of a Black Mass being celebrated by the witches, the word is to be taken as referring to whatever changes take place in or to the sacrifice, whether by sorcery or by other nefarious means.
d The idea the the divine Christ came to earth clothed not in a war-garment (as other warriors would be) but in his human nature alone was common in medieval times. See for example Langland, Piers Plowman (18.23): ‘In his helm and in his haubergeon, humana natura.’ (A haubergeon is a shirt of chain-mail.) (Reference thanks to Hague.)
see also
semantic structures
glossary
b bathosphere: the depths of the ocean.
c theophany: the appearance of a deity to a human or other being (Greek).
comments
Perhaps even the black witches recognise the divine nature of the newborn infant by saying their prayers (ave maria, pater noster) forwards on this Holy Night and not, as was their usual custom (or so it was thought), backwards.