where, was to recover a white roe-buck and a puppy which belonged to Annwuyn, but had been caught by Amathaon, son of Don, Bran, King of Annwuyn, and Amathaon fought together in a battle in which 71,000 lives were lost—a large expense of life for the rescue of "a bitch, a roe, and a lapwing," as the author of the Triad called "The Three Frivolous Battles,"[1] of which this is (rather cynically) put down as one, seems to think.
When, however, we consider that these things were the treasured possessions of the other world, we understand their value. The struggles gone through are thus described by Taliessin:
"I pierced the beast of the great gem,
Which had a hundred heads
And a formidable battalion
Under the root of its tongue,
Another battalion
In the back of its head,
A gaping black toad
With a hundred claws,
A crested snake of many colours,
A hundred souls by reason of sin
Are tormented in its flesh. . . ."
—Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, i. p. 277; Rhys, Hib. Lec. p. 258.
So in the Mabinogi of Mâth, son of Mathonwy, Gwydion, enchanter of the flowers and shrubs in the Battle of Goðeu, and brother of its leader Amathaon, penetrates into the country of Pryderi, son of Pwyll, and carries off, by means of a similar sort of enchantment to that of the trees in the Kat Goðeu, the swine which had been sent to Pryderi from Annwuyn by Arawn its king. It would seem as though the pig had then been only recently introduced into Wales, so careful is the
- ↑ Myryrian Arch. i. 167; Triads, i. 47; iii. 50; cf. Rhys, Hib. Lec. pp. 244-5.
