Wednesday, March 29, 2006
The Welsh Triads and Giant Vermin
In an earlier blog, I mentioned that the original Welsh Arthur was a lot closer to the King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail than other more stately versions of him.
The manuscript Culhwch ac Olwen isn't the only old Welsh piece that is rather Monty Python-esque. In the Triads, the "Three Fortunate Concealments of Britain" are listed. Two involve the grave sites (one of a noted warrior, the other that of Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere of later European tradition)) and the third being the burial site of two warring dragons who killed each other.
One scholar did a bit of orthography research into these two warring dragons, and discovered that the original Welsh manuscript uses the word "pryf". "Pryf" in Medieval Welsh means "vermin." Nennius, one of the first to translate the Welsh into Latin, translated "vermin" into the Latin "vermes," which in the 1100s, Arthurian writer Geoffrey of Monmouth took
to mean "worm," as in the German word for "dragon."
This led to Monmouth's version including an account of two warring dragons, instead of two warring "vermin." So this orthography scholar decided that basically it might be two really big badgers that fought and were buried...
This reminds me of the closing line of the failed Trojan Rabbit scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
posted 5:39 PM
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
More Fun With Medieval Welsh
Despite grand tales of retrieving the Holy Grail, which come later on in Arthurian literature, the original Welsh Arthur had a different quest.
In Culhwch ac Olwen,
Arthur and his men pursue a giant boar in order to retrieve the golden comb and shears from between its ears. Ah, what nobler quest could one ask for? Not only must they battle the boar, Twrch Trwyth, but they must fight its deadly piglets, as well.
Arthur sends his men to Ireland to see if the boar is there, and if it has the treasures between its ears. The text reads: "That the boar was there was certain; it had already destroyed a third of Ireland."
L