Goewin

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Goewin is in the Celtic mythology of Wales the "foot holder" of King Math of Gwynedd .

mythology

In the "Fourth Branch of Mabinogi" ( Math fab Mathonwy , "Math, the son of Mathonwys") Math has the maiden Goewin as his beautiful foot holder, because the king can only exist

[...] when he put his foot on the crevice that gapes between the thighs of a virgin.

Goewin is Pebin's daughter from Dôl Bebin in Arfon and is portrayed as the most beautiful girl of that time. Since Math's nephew Gilfaethwy has fallen in love with Goewin, his brother Gwydyon promises to help him and provokes a war against Pryderi , so that Math has to leave his foot holder. However, instead of Gilfaethwy, Gwydyon rapes Goewin (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 office as a foothold, as 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 and from the symbolic function of the foot holder she becomes the real queen. Math punishes his nephews by turning them into stag and doe, boar and sow, wolf and she-wolf for a period of three years. He takes their cubs from them and transforms them into human children: Bleiddwn, Hyddwn and Hychdwn.

Goewin no longer has any function in the further action of the “Fourth Branch”.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 829.
  2. ↑ Bernhard Maier: The legend book of the Welsh Celts. The four branches of the Mabinogi . P. 76 f.
  3. ^ 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. 268 f.