Guest endnote on Pwyll, to her First branch text, citation detail at the end.
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PWYLL.
NEARLY the whole of the Mabinogi of Pwyll Pendevig Dyved, has already been printed with a translation in the Cambrian Register, and the story has also appeared in Jones’s Welsh Bards.
Who Pwyll (whose name literally signifies Prudence) really was, appears to be a matter of uncertainty, but in some of the pedigrees of Gwynvardd Dyved, Prince of Dyved, he is said to be the son of Argoel, or Aircol Law Hir, 1 son of Pyr y Dwyrain. Mr. Davies, in the “Rites and Mythology of the Druids,” states that he was the son of Meirig, son of Aircol, son of Pyr, which is rather confirmed by some other MS. pedigrees.
In Taliesin’s Preiddeu Annwn, he is mentioned, with big son Pryderi, in such a manner as to lead to the inference that he flourished not later than the age of Arthur. The opening lines of that remarkable composition are given in the Myvyrian Archaiology, I. p. 45. It must be allowed that their exact interpretation is by [p. 361] no means easy to discover, but the following version is from the pen of a distinguished Welsh scholar. The allusions, it should be observed, are very old and very obscure.
“Adorable potentate, sovereign ruler!
Who hast extended thy dominion over the boundaries of the world!
Arranged was the prison of Gwair in Caer Sidi
By the ministration of Pwyll and Pryderi.
None before him ever entered it.
The heavy blue chain the faithful one keeps.–
And on account of the herds of Annwn I am afflicted;
And till doom shall my bardic prayer continue.
Three times the loading of Prydwen we went there,
Besides seven none returned from Caer Sidi.”
In subsequent parts of the poem Arthur is spoken of as having himself taken a share in the various expeditions which it records. The ship Prydwen is well known as one of his treasures. See p. 261. Gwair’s captivity, which one of the Triads places in the Castle of Oeth and Annoeth, has been already adverted to, p. 192.
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Citation – Guest, 1877: 360-61. Note to p. 339(a)
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