Iarlles y Ffynnawn

Iarlles y Ffynnawn [ jarɬes ə 'fənnaun ] (“The Countess of the Well ”), also Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnhawn (“The legend of the Countess of the Well ”), is the title of one of the “three romances” ( Y Tair Rhamant ) of Welsh literature. The other two are Gereint fab Erbin ("Gereint, the son of the heiress") and Peredur fab Efrawg ("Peredur, the son of Efrawg").

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Owein fab Urien is a Knight of the Round Table of King Arthur . When the knight Cynon fab tells Clydno about a mystical spring, he rides out for adventure and meets a mysterious Black Knight, the keeper of this spring, whom he can defeat in a duel.

[...] he saw a knight who came along through the valley. But Owein attacked him and fought hard with him, and they both broke their lances. Now they drew their swords and fought. And then Owein dealt the knight a blow that penetrated through the helmet, the Hersenier, the Burgundian batwat, through the skin, flesh and bones, until it injured the brain.

Later he comes to his dead opponent's castle, falls in love with his widow, marries her and thus becomes the keeper of the spring himself. When Arthur and his knights meet him at the source in their search for Owein, Gwalchmei fab Gwyar persuades him to return. Owein fulfills this, but promises his wife to come back to her after a certain time. But because he misses this, distracted by the life at Arthur's court, she separates and only after many adventures and confusions does the two come to reconciliation.

And when he set out from there [the kingdom of the Countess of the Well] , he took the Countess with him to Arthur's court, and as long as she lived she was his wife.

The novel Yvain ou Le Chevalier au lion by Chrétien de Troyes in Old French, based on this Welsh legend, was translated into Middle High German by Hartmann von Aue under the title Iwein .

See also

• List of Celtic gods and legendary figures
• Myths and legends from Wales and Britain

literature

• 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 .
• Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. Part 1, Lit-Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7562-8 .
• Bernhard Maier : Lexicon of Celtic Religion and Culture (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 466). Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-46601-5 .

Web links

• Julia Breulmann: narrative structure and court culture . Waxmann Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8309-7116-0 , p. 100 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 1047 f.
2. ↑ Hersenier = hood woven from chains under the helmet; Batwat = lined hood under the Hersenier
3. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. Part 1, p. 78.
4. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. Part 1, p. 104.

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