be vanquished unless his name could be discovered; while there was a woman on the other side, called Achren, whose name was to be found out before her side could be vanquished. Gwydion son of Dôn guessed the man's name and sang the two following englyns." They are the verses alluded to, and they embody Gwydion's guess as to the man's name, which he discovered to be Brân; and as Brân, which means 'a crow,' is one of the appellations of the terrene god, he may be supposed to have been a principal in the conflict, that is to say, he was probably the king of Hades himself. So the woman called Achren is either to be altogether discarded, or else to be ranged, as appears more probable, on Brân's side; for Gwydion's first verse, in spite of the obscurity of its language, seems to give the woman's name as Olgen, which, if correct, proves that she was among his adversaries, and that the author of the note in the Myvyrian misunderstood the text, a thing by no means to be wondered at.[1] The struggle is called in the Triads[2] one of the Three Frivolous Battles, as it is said to have been fought on account of a bitch, a roe and a lapwing, at the expense of 71,000 lives. Dogs and deer are animals useful to man in different degrees and different ways,
- ↑ The anonymous note in tho Myvyrian is couched in language which is inaccurate, not to say illiterate; but it is doubtless to be regarded as the echo of an ancient myth, though it must be accepted with caution: thus the words relating to the woman called Achren cannot pass unchallenged. They appear to come as we have them from somebody who thought the symmetry of the quarrel required them; but nothing could be more mistaken; for it was a peculiarity of the terrene beings, from their king down to the tiniest of Welsh fairies, to conceal their names.
- ↑ i. 47 = iij. 50.
