Palug's Cat

[Blackbird]

I've also included the following in the Encyclopaedia - any thoughts from anyone else on Palug's Cat?

Palug's Cat

Palug's Cat is found in the Trioedd Ynys Prydein where it appears in Triad 26, Three Powerful Swineherds of the Island of Britain. Both versions of the triad (from Peniarth MS. 16, the earlier source, and the White Book of Rhydderch) are lengthy and relate the womb burden of the magical sow Henwen.

The Peniarth MS reads:

And from thence she went to the Black Stone in Llanfair in Arfon, and there she brought forth a kitten; and Coll son of Collfrewy threw that kitten into the Menai. And she was afterwards Palug's Cat.

The White Books tells us more of the tale:

And at Llanfair in Arfon under the Black Rock she brought forth a kitten, and the Powerful Swineherd (ie. Coll) threw it from the rock into the sea. And the sons of Palug fostered it in Mon, to their own harm: and that was Palug's Cat, and it was one of the Three Great Oppressions of Mon, nurtured therein. The second was Daronwy and the third was Edwin, king of Loegr.

Palug's Cat also appears in the poem Pa Gur, from the Black Book of Carmarthen which is tantalisingly incomplete. It breaks off at the point where Cai is fighting Cath Palug:

Cai the fair went to Mona,
To devastate Llewon.

His shield was ready
Against Cath Palug
When people welcomed him.

Who pierced the Cath Palug?
Nine score before dawn
Would fall for its food.
Nine score chieftains...

The rest of the text can be found online here: www.mythiccrossroads.com/PaGur.htm

[Blackbird]

Looking for more stuff as I go along here...

This page: www.arthuriana.co.uk/concepts/arthlit.htm (which discusses sources of Arthurian literature) opines that Palug's Cat (Cath Palug) was originally named Cath Paluc, ie. Clawing Cat.

Elsewhere in the same site - www.arthuriana.co.uk/concepts/death.htm - there is discussed a tradition that Cath Palug caused the death of Arthur. The article, which is fascinating, deserves to be read at length, but I'll attempt a summary:

- Palug's Cat may also appear in a Book of Taliesin prophesy as ‘the speckled cat’ of Angelsey

- There is a probable association between Palug's Cat and the monstrous sea-cats of Irish tradition, such as that found in the Life of St. Brendan.

- Cath Paluc appears in French Romances of the 12th- and 13th-centuries as Le Capalu. It is here that we find Arthur battling with the monster. The earliest written reference occurs in the late 12th-century Norman poem Romanz des Franceis by André.

- The form 'Capalu' indicates that the transmission of the tale to the continent occurred via a Welsh or Breton written source in which the initial 'p' of paluc was as yet unlenited.

- The location of the fight 'en la palu', ‘in the bog’, points to the French misinterpreting 'cath paluc' meaning, in their language, ‘the bog cat’, hence the localisation.

- A mid 12th-century non-written reference to Arthur’s defeat by cath paluc may be found on the Otranto Mosaic of 1163-65 in the Norman cathedral at Otranto in Italy, the tale presumably having been brought to Otranto by Breton soldiers

- It is important to note that in all the continental tales involving cath paluc the monster retains its insular character as a water-monster.

- it is interesting to note that a 15th-century English writer tells how Arthur fought some wild-cats using a glass shield, which is obviously a close analogue to Cai’s fight with lleuon, ‘lions, wild-cats’, of which cath paluc is probably one, and the use of a polished shield against cath paluc -- could this, another "provocative allusion", be a chance survival of the version of the tale underlying Pa gur? that featured Arthur?

Fascinating stuff

[Brochfael]

From Celtic Bards, Celtic Druids by RJ Stewart and Robin Williamson Blandford 1996 London Page 42:

Hen Wen
Hen Wen, Old White, the sow swam out of the sea in the morning of the world. She came ashore in South Wales and shook from her ear a grain of wheat, Gwenydd, so this part of Wales is called Gwent today and is finest for wheat. Hen Wen swam round to Dyfed and she shook from her ear there a groat of barley and a bee, so you will find honey and good beer in Dyfed to this day (but old ales make young widows in llangollen, so the saying is, and elsewhere, God knows). Hen Wen swam north and landed in Caernarfon. She climbed the mountain of Snowdon and shhok from her ear there a wolf cub and an eagle chick. Men have killed them and their ghosts have infected humans with war. May this curse be lifted. May the wolf and eagle take again their own freedom and their own power. Hen Wen swam out past Mon (Mon Mam Cymru, Anglesey, Mother of Wales). She shook from her ear there into the sea a kitten. It became the whirlpool, Palwg's Cat.
(English version Robin Williamson)

What does everyone make of this bit of lore?

[Blackbird]

That's like a summary of the info in Triad 26, I like the interpretation of Palug's Cat as the whirlpool, that's an interesting image.

My own personal view of this, which I've come to after long hours pondering this triad, is that this is a creation myth. Henwen is the creatrix of agriculture, allowing humanity to create order and culture. But she also brings forth creatures who threaten that order, creatures who will try to return the world to chaos.

Perhaps pigs should become another topic, as they are of overlooked importance in Brythonic myth...