Preiddeu Annwfn

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Preiddeu Annwfn [ 'preiðei' annuvn ] ("The booty from Annwfn", "The robbery of Annwfn") is the title of a 60 line long poem that is contained in the Llyfr Taliesin ("The Book of Taliesins") from the 14th century . According to linguistic comparisons, however, it was probably created between 850 and 1050.

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King Arthur and his entourage sail with Arthur's ship Prydwen to Annwfn , a mythical land that is also interpreted as the Other World . The aim of the trip is to capture a magical, gem-studded cauldron that is kept in a glass fortress. This kettle is heated by the breath of nine virgins and only the bravest warriors are allowed to prepare their meals in it.

My song of praise, which the breath of nine virgins warmed, was spoken from the cauldron. The cauldron of the prince of the other world, what is its characteristic? On the edge of dark blue and precious stone, he does not cook food for figs, it is not intended for him.

In addition to the attempt to capture the cauldron, the hope of being able to free the Gweir imprisoned there drives King Arthur on this campaign in the Otherworld. The expedition is obviously a failure, because in the chorus, which closes each stanza, the poet complains that only seven men returned home.

We drove there in three shiploads from Prydwen, and apart from seven no one came back from Caer Siddi [the Elfenburg = other world].

This line of verse closes each stanza of the poem, only the name of the castle is varied: Caer vedwit = castle of drunkenness; Caer Golud = castle of the middle / entrails; and other.

In a subplot ( Ebostol Pwyll a Phryderi , "The Story of Pwyll and Pryderi") Pwyll and Pryderi , the main characters of the Mabinogion , are named.

According to Pwyll and Pryderi's report, Gweir's dungeon in Caer Siddi was splendid.

An attempt by Sims-Williams to locate Annwfn with the Isle of Wight or with Lundy Island (about 30 km off the coast of Devonshire ) is rejected by other Celtologists .

The magic cauldron is a recurring motif in Celtic legends, from the magic cauldron of Dagda to Efnisien's life-saving vessel, Dyrnwch's cauldron, which recognizes good and evil, to the Holy Grail .

The ship Prydwen is also mentioned in the story Mal y kavas Kulhwch Olwen ("How Kulhwch Olwen won"), where it brings Arthur, Kulhwch and the other companions from Wales to Ireland and back again. Here, too, it is about the robbery of a cauldron, one of the tasks that the giant Ysbaddaden set as a condition for the wedding of his daughter Olwen . In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae , however, Arthur's shield is called Prydwen .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Nachantike Keltenrezeption. P. 120.
  2. ↑ Bernhard Maier: The religion of the Celts: gods, myths, worldview. P. 96.
  3. ↑ a b Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the Emperor Arthur. Part 2, p. 107.
  4. ↑ Bernhard Maier: The legend book of the Welsh Celts. P. 128, note 33,27.
  5. ↑ Patrick Sims-Williams: Some Celtic Otherworld Terms. In: Celtic Language 1990, pp. 68 f.
  6. ↑ 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. 556 f.