Cei fab Cynyr

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Sir Kay at the tournament (illustration by Howard Pyle )

Cei fab Cynyr [ kei vaːb 'kənir ], also Keie or Kay , is a legendary figure in Welsh and British Celtic mythology .

Arthur's legend

In some traditional Welsh tales of Arthurian legend , Cei is the most prominent among King Arthur's companions . His nicknames are gwyn ("the beautiful") and hir ("the tall one"). He is Arthur's foster brother, who was given to his parents by Uther Pendragon , Arthur's biological father. Cei's mother therefore breastfeeds Arthur, while Cei herself is breastfed by a wet nurse.

He fights alongside the king and together with his inseparable partner Bedwyr fab Bedrawg and also with Gwrhyr Gwalstawd Ieithoedd in the saga Mal y kavas Kulhwch Olwen ("How Kulhwch Olwen has won") to fulfill the tasks that the giant Ysbaddaden Arthur's protégé Kulhwch has provided. He has a whole series of wonderful properties, which are ascribed to him here: he can stay under water for nine days and nights or do without sleep, no doctor can heal the wounds he hits with his sword, he can grow as big as a tree , radiates tremendous heat, only the heart and hands remain cold, he makes objects that he holds in his hands invisible and is immune to any heat or cold. These qualities are called cyneddf ("gift") in Welsh . According to his statement, he inherited all of this from his father Cynyr (Kynyr with the beautiful beard), as reported in Kulhwch ac Olwen.

Cei's later reluctance to face Arthur is justified in this legend, because Arthur's englyn (certain form of poetry) offends him, although from today's perspective this is a rather harmless three-line line.

"A coupling line made kei,
From the beard of Dillus vab Ereu:
If he is still alive, it wouldn't be for Kei! "

Kei's deserved reprimand at the beginning of the story when he refused to let Kulhwch into the hall throws the knight in a crooked light. In the later Arthurian novels he is more and more described as a pug and outsider, even if he maintains his position at court. This can be understood as referring to a scene from Arthur's youth, told in the fragment From Arthur's Birth and How He Became King , where Arthur's foster father Kynyr points out to him that he owed his foster brother Kei.

“So I ask of you,” said Kynyr, “that you make Kei, my son, seneschal over your whole empire, and that he not lose this position, whatever his speech and whatever act he does, because, if he is of a lower mind, the fault is not with him, but with you, for you were suckled with the milk from his mother's breasts, but he with the milk of a foreign, lowly woman - for your sake. "

In Pa ŵr yw'r porthor? (“Who is the gatekeeper?”) King Arthur tells the gatekeeper Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr that Cei drink from the horn for four men and kill in battle for a hundred. In Peredur fab Efrawg ("Peredur, the son of Efrawg") he mocks the title hero, but later has to experience that he becomes a respected knight of the round table.

"By my loyalty," said Kei, "you are badly equipped with horses and weapons."

In Breuddwyd Rhonabwy ("Rhonabwy's Dream") he is court master in Arthur's camp.

He also plays an important role in the Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth .

reception

→ Main article: Arthurian epic

With Chrétien de Troyes , however, he takes a back seat in favor of other figures from the Arthurian court. Here Keie is a knight of the round table and the king's stewardess . In the Lancelot novels , for example, the knight, always characterized as cheeky and insulting, is often the trigger for the plot. Only after his intercession to use Queen Guinevere as a pledge does Arthur do this. When Keie then loses to Meleagant , Gawain and Lancelot must pursue the wicked in order to save the Queen's honor.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Sir Kay  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 97 f.
  2. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. Part 2, p. 45.
  3. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. Part 2, p. 78.
  4. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. Part 2, story: About Arthur's birth and how he became king. P. 154.
  5. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. Part 1, p. 114.