Blodeuwedd

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blodeuwedd or also Blodeuedd ([ blo'deiweð ], blodeu , blodeuyn , Welsh "blossom") is a female legendary figure of the Celtic mythology of Wales from the story Math fab Mathonwy ("Math, the son of Mathonwys"), the fourth branch of the Mabinogion .

mythology

Blodeuwedd was created by Gwydyon and Math , the king of Gwynedd , from oak , gorse and meadowsweet . Their name, "born of flowers" or "flower face", is derived from these materials.

And then they took the blossoms of the oak, the blossoms of the gorse and the blossoms of the meadowsweet, and from these they created the most beautiful and graceful girl that a man has ever seen. And they baptized them with the baptism ceremony they had then and called it Blodeuedd.

Blodeuwedd's creation was for a single purpose, her marriage to Gwydyon's nephew, Llew Llaw Gyffes . According to the geis (“taboo”, “prohibition”) that his mother Arianrhod had imposed on him out of anger, he was not allowed to marry a human woman. The pretty Blodeuwedd thus became the wife of Llew, since she did not violate this Geis . One day Blodeuwedd's husband went to see Math. While Llew was away, a hunting party roamed the area around Blodeuwedd's house. She offered her hospitality to one of the young hunters, Goronwy Pybyr , and the two fell in love and planned the death of Llew. However, the husband's elimination was complicated, as he could only die under certain conditions. Goronwy therefore had to spend a whole year carving a mythical spear .

When this was done, Blodeuwedd asked her husband again and again how he could be murdered. The naive Llew demonstrated it to his wife. He took a bath and tied a goat next to it to help him get out of the tub. When Llew got up and stood with one foot on the edge of the bathtub and the other on the goat, he could be killed. Goronwy came out and hurled his poisoned spear at him. However, it only hit his side, and so Llew was able to flee to the Nantlle Valley in the form of an eagle . Llew's uncle Gwydyon found Llew and turned him back into a human. After about a year of recovery, Llew killed his rival Goronwy with the same spear, and Blodeuwedd was cast into an owl by Gwydyon as punishment for her infidelity. So she could only roam lonely at night and her face should never see the light of day again.

Name change

The initial name of the flower girl in the saga was Blodeuedd , which suggests the plural blodeu from blodeuyn ( Cymric for "blossom"). A second possibility arises from the Cymrian blawd ("flower"), which corresponds to the Irish bláth and is derived from the Celtic developed word * blāto- . After the curse Gwydion casts on her, she is called Blodeu w edd . This is the Cymric name for owl. Literally translated it means "flower face", which in the owl is related to the face feathers arranged in a circle around the eyes.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to medieval Welsh law, having a name was essential for all legal transactions; However, since the narrator could not accommodate Christian baptism in a pre-Christian saga, he used this phrase a few times in the Mabinogion. Bernhard Maier: Book of legends of the Welsh Celts . P. 127, note 31.1f, 146, note 88.5.
  2. ^ Bernhard Maier: Book of legends of the Welsh Celts . P. 88.
  3. ^ Bernhard Maier: Book of legends of the Welsh Celts . P. 87 ff.
  4. ^ Ingeborg Clarus: Celtic myths. Man and his otherworld. P. 272 ​​f.
  5. ^ Bernhard Maier: Lexicon of the Celtic religion and culture . P. 45 f.
  6. ↑ Bernhard Maier: Small lexicon of names and words of Celtic origin. P. 36.
  7. ^ Bernhard Maier: Book of legends of the Welsh Celts . P. 146, note 88.5; 94.17; 94.34.