Gilfaethwy

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Gilfaethwy [ gil'vaiθui ] is in Celtic mythology the brother of Gwydyon , the great wizard from Wales and of Arianrhod . He is - this is said of his siblings, and therefore also applies to him - the son of Beli Mawr and the goddess Dôn , the Welsh equivalent of Danu , the ancestor of the Irish Tuatha de Danaan . However, the god of the dead Donn is also named as the father . His uncle is Math , King of Gwynedd .

mythology

In the fourth branch of the Mabinogi ( Math fab Mathonwy , "Math, the son of Mathonwys") Gylfaethwy is in love with his uncle's foot holder, the beautiful maiden Goewin . To help him, Gwydyon lures his uncle away from her with a provoked war against Pryderi . However, instead of Gilfaethwy, he rapes the girl (in another version, Gilfaethwy is the perpetrator).

And they put Goewin, Pebin's daughter, with Gilfaethwy in the bed of Maths, Mathonwy's son, that they should sleep together. And the maids were shamefully forced out of the room and raped that night.

She can therefore no longer exercise her position as a foothold, since this is only possible for a virgin. When Math returns to his kingdom, he learns of Goewin's fate and offers her to marry her after he has turned his nephews into stag and doe, boar and sow, wolf and she-wolf for three years as a punishment. He takes their boys from them, who he turns into human children:

The three sons of the faithless Gilfaethwy,
three brave heroes:
Bleiddwn [wolf pup ], Hyddwn [deer calf], Hychdwn Hir [ fresh boar].

He then turns his nephews back into people, on condition that they find a new virgin in whose lap he can put his feet. The two propose their sister Arianrhod, but it turns out that she is already pregnant.

In the further episode of the "Fourth Branch" Gilfaethwy is no longer relevant.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 , p. 523, note 3.
  2. ↑ a b Ingeborg Clarus: Celtic myths. Man and his otherworld. Walter Verlag 1991, ppb edition Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf, 2000, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-491-69109-5 , p. 266 f.
  3. ↑ Bernhard Maier: The legend book of the Welsh Celts. The four branches of the Mabinogi . P. 76 f.
  4. ↑ Bernhard Maier: The legend book of the Welsh Celts. P. 81.
  5. ↑ Bernhard Maier: The legend book of the Welsh Celts. The four branches of the Mabinogi . P. 72 ff.