Mabinogi, explains that the punishment which he inflicted on her was to strike her with his wand into an owl, whence it is, we are told, that all other birds hate the owl and permit her to come out only at night. Popular superstition, it may be added on the other hand, gives expression to the feeling of Blodeueᵭ in her changed condition: she takes delight in spiting the fair sex of which she was once the fairest, by beginning early in the evening to proclaim from the churchyard yew to the villagers of Glamorgan the tripping in their midst of some unwary maid.[1] With the fate of Blodeueᵭ, doomed by the touch of Gwydion's wand to sleep her days away as an owl, may be compared the Norse account of Sigrdrifa, sometimes identified with Brynhild, punished by Woden for bringing about the death of a hero favourably regarded by him: Woden, we are told, touched the helmed maid with his wand of sleep and she forthwith fell into a slumber, the pale spells of which she had no power of her own to cast off.[2]
The Culture Hero acquiring certain Animals for Man.
The Mabinogi of Mâth gives another curious tale about Gwydion: the south-western portion of Wales,
- ↑ For this I am indebted to a prize essay on the Folk-lore of Glamorgan at the Aberdare Eisteᵭvod in 1885: Mr. Thomas Evans, the author, writes as follows: "When an owl was heard hooting early in the night from the yew-tree in our village churchyards, it was looked upon as a sure sign that some unmarried girl of the village had forsaken the path of chastity. There are even now in some places persons who maintain the trustworthiness of this sign (p. 166 of the MS., which, I believe, has not yet been published).
- ↑ Corpus Poet. Bor. i. 158.
