Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

304 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[353]intended to help the reader to a general view of the relationshipsand attributes of these personages. It must be borne in mind,however, that these tabular arrangements necessarily involve anappearance of precision and consistency which is not reflectedin the fluctuating character of the actual myths taken as a whole.Still, as a sketch-map of a very intricate and obscure region, theymay help the reader who enters it for the first time to find hisbearings in it, and that is the only purpose they propose to serve.Gwyn ap NuddThe deity named Gwyn ap Nudd is said, like Finn in Gaeliclegend, 221 to have impressed himself more deeply and lastinglyon the Welsh popular imagination than any of the other divinities.A mighty warrior and huntsman, he glories in the crash ofbreaking spears, and, like Odin, assembles the souls of deadheroes in his shadowy kingdom, for although he belongs to thekindred of the Light-gods, Hades is his special domain. Thecombat between him and Gwythur ap Greidawl (Victor, sonof Scorcher) for Creudylad, daughter of Lludd, which is to berenewed every May-day till time shall end, represents evidentlythe contest between winter and summer for the flowery andfertile earth. “Later,” writes Mr. Charles Squire, “he came to beconsidered as King of the Tylwyth Teg, the Welsh fairies, andhis name as such has hardly yet died out of his last haunt, theromantic vale of Neath.... He is the Wild Huntsman of Walesand the West of England, and it is his pack which is sometimesheard at chase in waste places by night.” 222 He figures as a godof war and death in a wonderful poem from the “Black Bookof Caermarthen,” where he is represented as discoursing witha prince named Gwyddneu Garanhir, who had come to ask hisprotection. I quote a few stanzas: the poem will be found in fullin Mr. Squire's excellent volume:221 Finn and Gwyn are respectively the Gaelic and Cymric forms of the samename, meaning fair or white.222 “Mythology of the British Islands,” p. 225.