Tales of Merlin, Arthur, and the Magic Arts by Elis Gruffydd;

Author:Elis Gruffydd;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520390256
Publisher: University of California Press

UTHYR DEFEATS THE SAXONS, ARTHUR IS BORN

NLW MS 5276Dii

The story of the birth of Arthur is yet another birth tale motivated by lust and passion and enabled by magic. Like the story of the birth of Hercules (see part 1), it involves magic and shape-shifting and an eternal triangle: with Hercules, it is Jupiter, Amphitryon, and Alcmene; here, Uthyr, Gorlois, and Eigr. It is the rapacious lust of Uthyr that compels him to insult an important guest at his great feast held to celebrate his victories over the Saxons on the feast of Whitsuntide. When Uthyr can’t take his eyes and his desire off Eigr, her husband, Gwrlois or Gorlois, takes her and his entourage and departs without permission from the king. Uthyr then pursues him and, thanks to Merlin’s magic, sleeps with Eigr. She claims that the resulting pregnancy is due to her husband, but Uthyr calculates the timing and knows that the child is his. Merlin supplies the name Arthur for the child, who, again on Merlin’s advice, is raised in fosterage by a nobleman living at Llyn Tegid. Perhaps not coincidentally, the story of Gwion Bach, who is reborn as Taliesin, is set at the home of a nobleman who lived at Llyn Tegid and had a wife, Ceridwen, who was skilled in the arts of magic, enchantment, and divination (see part 3).

(320v) When Uthyr defeated the Saxons, most of the foreigners were killed. Octa and Offa were seized and sent to a strong prison in London. Uthyr proceeded to York, where he gave permission to his soldiers to return to their homes, leaving certain of his nobles and commoners (321r) to hold the land around York. Then he returned to Caer Ludd, where he wore his crown in honor the next Easter after that battle.

At that time, as Geoffrey has shown, the king proclaimed a triumph and games to be held on the next Whitsuntide. He invited all the chieftains of the land and their wives. And some of the authors have claimed that at the feast, the king provided a hundred thousand fatted oxen and as many various cattle and immeasurable quantities of different sorts of birds both wild and domestic. And some hold the opinion that this was the greatest of the three enormous feasts. By order of the king, the leaders of the realm came to the feast, as was fitting and proper. And when the day and time came, all the leaders and their wives came to the court. As the feast began, each of the nobles was placed to sit according to his lineage and his rank, and his wife beside him, as determined by the heralds. In time, the king took notice of the shape, aspect, composure, sensitivity, intelligence, beauty, and manner of Eigr, the wife of Gorlois, Earl of Cornwall. Love and desire for her kindled a flame of Venus’s desire in the heart of the king such that he could not take his eyes off her. In time, the earl saw that the king had given his heart wholly to the lady.

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