pares the entrapping of Gwawl with an incident from Parcival's career: a knight asked Parcival to rescue him from a tomb, which done, the ungrateful knight imprisoned Parcival himself in the tomb. This incident is, however, to be compared rather with a trick of the Irish Naked Hangman (vide Ériu, vii. 201). The magic bag, however, is well known from other stories, e.g. that of The Three Gifts. One of those gifts is a magical bag, and the hero imprisoned therein is a devil or Death. The imprisoned devil gets a sound hammering (cf. gware broch).
Prof. A. C. L. Brown (Harvard Studies, viii. 49) thinks that the original idea of this tale is similar to that of Iwain, "the idea of representing the fée as guarded by a suitor or husband who must be overthrown before she can be approached might naturally be developed." I am a priori disinclined to presuppose such very wide formulas for cycles containing such divergent motives. This method ignores, further, the fact that our stories are mostly compilations of different tales, and finally it must not be forgotten that two stories with some similar or identical motives do not necessarily presuppose the same original story.
The formula how Gwawl deceived Pwyll reminds us of Étáin's story: Mider won a game against Eochaid and named Eochaid's wife as the stake, and Eochaid was to give him Étáin.
As for the tabooed hill (Gorsedd), vide Maclnnes, Folk and Hero Tales, p. 456 (note to p. 97).
(β) and (γ) It will be better to take the (γ) motive first. Pryderi is stolen by a mysterious hand. This motive is very frequent in Irish and Scotch Gaelic, and has two distinct variants:
(a) Either the child is saved by a werwolf (cf. Scottish Celtic Review, i. (Tuairsgeul mòr), note by A. Nutt, p. 140; Kittredge, Harvard University Studies in Phil. and Lit. viii. 227).
