|
CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 9:11:08 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 24, 2008 9:11:08 GMT -1
In general I get the impression that on this board we all like folklore for its own sake, but don't believe it when the latest scholarship, archaeology etc can show it to be simply wrong. I agree with you Megli - hopefully we all love our folklore. However, I guess I have arrived at the point in my life where I am deeply suspicious of the media and the establishment. I am happier putting my trust in Geoffrey than a thousand computers. I am aware that our current educational system with its set syllabus and standard courses ends up churning out a lot of people who think the same way. This means everyone focuses on accepted knowledge and other sources are lost. I am also deeply suspicious of the control of the educational grant system in Wales (big bucks) and the "Taffia" described in Grant Berkeley's book "the King Arthur Conspiracy" which describes the way that certain members of the University of Wales allegedly hounded Wilson and Blackett. For me there is this nagging need to understand who I am as a Cymro. Are we a separate nation or not - where do we fit? I don't think I was ever equipped to answer this from my schooling although on an emotional and spiritual level I know exactly what my nationality means to me. I'll take on all the references no matter what the establishment thinks of them and shake them out. Take Barinthus for example. If you dismiss Geoffrey's poem straight off then fine but there is always the possibility (in fact probability) it is not all from his imagination but that he was in possession of earlier legend or simply in possession of knowledge that was common back then but long since forgotten. He could have stolen from the voyages of Brendan but it is more likely he picked it up from Taliesin's Spoils of Annwyn where Taliesin describes how "thither after the battle of Camlan we took the wounded Arthur, guided by Barinthus to whom the waters and the stars of heaven were well known" As you can see I relate wholly to the likes of Iolo, Geoffrey and Theophilus Evans who are all my kind of Welshman and as they are not here to represent themselves, I think you will all have to accept me as the madman who will constantly challenge you with the lore. However, please note that it is done with love and a wink. Take care Paul (pos)
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 9:44:52 GMT -1
Post by Tegernacus on Feb 24, 2008 9:44:52 GMT -1
I think we are at cross purposes here because I have taken this section to be for the "lore of the land" - historical accuracy would be nice but folklore in itself has a value. Without the lore we have no possibility of uncovering the real history. Surely that is the fascination - what might have been? Seriously though, I thought the point of this is to find out what WAS. We dissect ancient tales, folklore, epics, poems, to discern the grains of truth in them, not to take them on face value. We enjoy a good tale of giants as much as anyone, maybe more. But to get to the truth of our past, you have to dig (both metaphorically and actually). Take a recent-ish example. Once there was a Scottish giant called Wallace, who smashed the English armies single-handedly. Erm... except he didn't, and he wasn't a giant. But there WAS a Wallace. This is the kind of "glimmer of truth" that faces us with most of these old tales. Don't forget, a lot of the Welsh legends weren't written down until 400 years after they supposed to happen. A lot of local folklore wasn't written down until the 18-19th century. That is one HUGE game of Chinese Whispers.
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 17:30:39 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 24, 2008 17:30:39 GMT -1
I'm totally with your last post Tegernacus.
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 19:35:41 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Feb 24, 2008 19:35:41 GMT -1
In general I get the impression that on this board we all like folklore for its own sake, but don't believe it when the latest scholarship, archaeology etc can show it to be simply wrong. I hope other people feel that this is the case. (For example, I once started a PhD thesis on the British History/Trojan origins, so I'm very interested in it, but I don't believe it's true.) I think we need to differentiate between the cultural sphere and the spiritual sphere, although they inevitably interact in our experience of them most of the time. Spiritually I want to tune in to the land, the spirit(s) of the land and the gods that I perceive and am able to develop a relationship with. In my experience of this it is something I can do alone or with like-minded people but at this level it doesn't seem like a cultural experience but a contact with something less ephemeral than culture, something more like a direct one-to-one relationship. That is how I experience it. But I recognise that it might be culturally conditioned. Folklore and stories containing fragments of lost mythologies have the right ethos about them to be resonant with my spiritual life and, for me, the Brythonic sources in particular are richest in these resonances. So what of the cultural sphere? Well historically I can - and do - try to connect with this material which, after all, is a longer line back to any ancestors that I might be able to connect with than any research into family trees is going to reveal. So insofar as this material contains hints of, say, of the Brythonic Goddess who has come down to us as Rhiannon it is especially resonant for me, and I want to know about the results of academic study of sound changes in the development of Welsh from Brythonic which tells me that she was then known as Rigantona. I also want to know what in the stories can be ascribed to customs of the eleventh or twelfth centuries and what remnants of older sources are in there. It doesn't undermine the spiritual resonance of these stories to be made aware of what is and isn't possible to draw from them and I can appreciate them as stories in their own right because I happen to be interested in early literature whether or not it has these spiritual resonances. As for material like, for example, the 'Oldest Animals' sequence in Culhwch ac Olwen I can appreciate it for what it is as a delightful episode in the tale, as a 'type' in the international folklore register of such types etc. as well as finding it full of resonant images of the history of the land, of the spirits of the animals and their history and a 'typological' as well as a spiritual representation of the closer link between humans and animals that was once more common than it now is. With 'King' Arthur these things get intertwined in a way that causes unnecessary confusions. Some have seen him as an actual warrior chieftain uniting the Brythonic tribes. If that's what he was I want to know about him in the same way that I want to know about any other historical figure, and I want the information to be as accurate as possible. If he is a mythological figure around whom other stories, like Culhwch ac Olwen have clustered then stories about when and where he was buried might be of interest in terms of what they tell us about what people believed , but again I want to know what people actually believed at the time and if someone comes up with an explanation that is different from those we have inherited I might find that interesting in terms of what people want to believe, or are prepared to believe, now, though more often than not I will come up with a perception about the lengths to which some people will go to sell a book. But so it has always been. Did Geoffrey of Monmouth set out to write an objective 'History' or was the meaning of ' historia' as 'story' more pertinent to his enterprise? I happen to believe that Iolo Morganwg had a better claim to attempting to achieve historical veracity in spite of his forgeries than we can ascribe to Geoffrey. Iolo often believed that what he was 'supplying' filled genuine gaps in the knowledge that has come down to us. But I want scholars to tell me what he discovered and what he invented so I can judge for myself what he is offering as a total picture. As for Theophilus Evans, his Drych y Prif Oesoeddis a fascinating piece of literary history as it tells us what people believed and were prepared to believe in the eighteenth century but it is very much a view from the pulpit of that time, and the pulpit of a reactionary Anglican minister who, for all his love of Wales, was imbued with the establishment spirit and condemned Methodists, Quakers and others as either heretics or closet Papists. We wouldn't have stood a chance! Then there is Troy! That fount of founding fathers. Rome has Aeneas so we have to have Brutus. Again the phenomenon of needing to have this source tells us a lot about Troy and its story as a inspirational source of the times in medieval Europe. It tells us of the high regard in which Vergil (rather than Homer) was held at the time. But as for it's contribution to my spiritual life I have to say it rates pretty low. I'm far more interested in finding the site of Gorsedd Arberth. Why? Because what the story tells me happened there resonates with my feelings for the land, about Rhiannon, and the whole landscape of Annwn that lies behind these stories. So the photo I took of Gorsedd Arberth is a daily presence on my desktop. No it may not be 'historical' and if another site, such as the one near Cardigan, seemed a better bet, that picture would be there instead. Such signs are truly significant. But the actual place is resonant too. So even if it were proved not to be Gorsedd Arberth, something went on there. Of that I can be sure from my own direct experience. But I don't need to ask anyone to believe anything for that to remain valid.
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 24, 2008 20:37:31 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Feb 24, 2008 20:37:31 GMT -1
This reply might seem as though I'm missing the point here! But I think I'm trying to say something similar to what Greg just said.
When it comes to story, legend and history like most people here I value all three. If you were to walk with me on the land I love the narrative I might offer you may be of one kind or the other, but all three are of great value to me.
With History something happened - the sons of Owain Gwynedd either did or didn't refortify the iron age fortified site of Caer Olau. I want to know the Truth of that, what actually happened. It would affect my relationship with that place.
With Legend, I want to know more of the legends of Ifan Goch - the tales told on his high seat in times past. Affecting how I relate to that place and the people who related to that place before me.
But Stories too have value. Stories I made up about that land as a child. Stories that tell me about my relationship with that place, how I feel about that place, how it affects me- what I intuitively feel. They are not true- The tree where a scythe was left resting against it that's now grown deep into the middle of it, the man that left it there wasn't called away to war when he got home that night, not knowing he wasn't to return to that tree to gather more bracken from below it the following day - but never came back from the front.
If I tell you that as a fact, it isn't true. But if I take you to that tree and tell you that story, I don't think it is just a conceit of mine to say it isn't valueless to you for me to have told you the story. It describes a "mood" I feel in that place, an emotional response the place may elicit (in at least one person). It tells you something about me, but that is less important than what it tells you about how a person may relate to that place. It gives you a leg up if you choose to build relationship with that place yourself, already knowing something of how that place and at least one other person have reacted to each other emotionally. (not the stories specific narrative but the "feeling" of a place - the emotion it invokes)
Many stories and pseudo-histories, whilst not being true, I think are still of value for this reason. I think the question is not just knowing which tales you may hear are stories, legend or history, but how to use all three, and knowing when or if it matters for a given tale which category it should fall in.
I think it is mostly the case that tales associated with a place are worth hearing even when you don't know if the events actually happened or not.
That said there is of course a politically incorrect fourth category - that of ars*. Or I suppose fantasy. I define the difference between that and what I described as story as being that it doesn't truly reflect the emotional response a place elicited - but is just some contrived story to fit a fantasy or even worse an agenda of the stories author.
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 25, 2008 22:01:52 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 25, 2008 22:01:52 GMT -1
I love this thread. As far as poor old Geoffrey goes, I prefer to believe he was telling the truth when he said he was copying from an earlier British manuscript (probably the Brut y Bryttaniait otherwise known as the Tysilio Chronicle) so I take the tales of Troy as deriving fromour earliest Welsh history rather than merely being Geoffrey's history. Check out the Tysilio Chronicle at... www.annomundi.com/history/chronicle_of_the_early_britons.htmBill Cooper may come at it from a fundamental Christian viewpoint but that doesn't stop him being a damn fine historian in my book. Of course if the long lost original was written by Tysilio then it would be 6th century source, Tysilo being a Prince turned monk rather than just a Geoffrey thing. However there is plenty of circumstantial stuff.... There is the Brutus stone in London currently partially hidden behind an iron grille in the wall of the offices for the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation. 'So long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish' - proverb There is the legend that Brutus is supposed to have been buried at the other sacred hill site, Bryn Gwyn now known as Tower Hill . There are the statues of Gog and Magog at the Guildhall which I have written about in the thread about Giants and the fact that there is still a "Giant's Leap" near Totnes. In Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars" he talks about the Trinobante tribe who were living in the London area and for me Trinobante could easily be Tri-novante or New Troy. There are also the recollections of hundreds of "Walls of Troy" mazes cut into the soil up and down the country, supposedly to remember our Trojan connections, Troy being a city of twists and turns in the shape of a maze and the game the "Walls of Troy". I also recollect that "Tro" means a twist or turn in Cymraeg so whenever I tell my wife to "trowch ar y dde" in the car I can't help but think of Troy. Nennius also recalls Britain being named after Brutus albeit a Roman consul rather than a Trojan. Then to quote Prehistoric London - E O Gordon 1914. "It is at Totnes on the Dart, the oldest seaport in South Devon, that we find the surest proof of the personality of Brutus in a custom handed down from time immemorial, and last observed May 6,1910, when the Mayor read the proclamation of King George standing upon a granite boulder embedded in the pavement of the principal street (Fore Street) leading up the steep ascent from the river to the Westgate of the town. Over this venerable relic hangs a sign inscribed "This is Brutus' Stone," the tradition being that on this stone the Trojan prince set foot when he landed in Britain some few years after the fall of Troy, 1185 BC" "The descent of the British kings from Brutus was never disputed for fifteen hundred years. The "island of Brutus" was the common name of the island in old times. The word tan is the old British or Japhetic term for land; Brutannia (pronounced Brittania, the British "u" being sounded as "e") is Brut's land" All interesting facts but not hard evidence. So no I can't say for definite that Brutus came to Britain from Troy but equally I can't rule it out because when there is so much in the land and in our traditions that supports it, I tend to have it down as a good possibility rather than a "Oh that's just Geoffrey talking out of his hat".
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 8:47:25 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 26, 2008 8:47:25 GMT -1
As far as poor old Geoffrey goes, I prefer to believe he was telling the truth when he said he was copying from an earlier British manuscript (probably the Brut y Bryttaniait otherwise known as the Tysilio Chronicle) so I take the tales of Troy as deriving fromour earliest Welsh history rather than merely being Geoffrey's history. Check out the Tysilio Chronicle at...
www.annomundi.com/history/chronicle_of_the_early_britons.htmNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! (Forgive me screaming.) Brut Tysilio and the other forms of the Bruts are WELSH TRANSLATIONS of Geoffrey's text, of which at least three were made and were in circulation by 1200. They are not the original 'old book in the British language' which he claimed to have seen. This is an amusing misunderstanding which was rife in the 18th and early 19th century but which has been put to bed for two centuries! Let's not revive it here, by all the gods. The scholarly consensus at the moment is that we should take Geoffrey with a huge pinch of salt when he talks about this old book, although he clearly did have access to some native material, possibly through oral informants. In Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars" he talks about the Trinobante tribe who were living in the London area and for me Trinobante could easily be Tri-novante or New TroyNo it couldn't, linguistically. And Geoffrey, of course, knew his Caesar, so was quite capable of coming up with a false etymology. The Brutus legend is of course older than Geoffrey. It occurs in the Historia Brittonum (c. 829-30), where he is called Brito. The story in fact derives from a text originally associated with Byzantium or ostrogothic Italy, called 'The 'Frankish' Table of Nations'. It's a legend that ultmiately originates in the murkiness of the eastern empire c. 520, NOT with native British lore: quite the reverse! Lots of other northern european polities were claiming spurious links to the classical world in the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries. (For example, the Franks had Francius, and you only have to read the opening of Gawain and the Green Knight to see a nice little run-down of these things.) The big book on this is David Dumville's Histories and pseudo-histories of the insular Middle Ages. This is all fascinating and tells us a lot about how the Brtitish/Welsh were imagining themselves and their national identity in the early middle ages, but it's not true.William of Newburgh saw perfectly clearly that this pseudo-history - which, again, is really interesting and wonderful stuff - was a load of tripe shortly after Geoffrey's time. The Tudor historian Polydore Vergil blew it conclusively out of the water in the time of Henry VIII. Only the Welsh continued to cling to it until the early 18th century, for all sorts of very interesting reasons. (Ceri Davies at Swansea has written on this, but I'll have to dig out the reference.) I don't mean to go all academic here, but it is really wierd (to my eyes) to find pseudo-history which has been hugely well-studied and about which we know loads taken as straightforwardly true, in a way that hasn't been done since 1750. All this stuff is fascinasting, and tells us a lot about what our ancestors believed at various times (which is why there have been big projects examining the role of pseudo-history in shaping national identity over the last years) but historically, in the literal sense, it's not true and never has been.
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 8:59:06 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 26, 2008 8:59:06 GMT -1
Oh, and winking understood! Sorry I'm a bit stressed at the moment. I do really love this stuff, don't think for a moment I don't. M
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 16:43:07 GMT -1
Post by poseidia on Feb 26, 2008 16:43:07 GMT -1
Don't apologise for being stressed Megli - that was a wonderful post of yours - thank you very much for the time and effort you put into it. As you can tell I'm not an academic and I actually am quite taken with the idea of being fixed in time at around 1750. My whole interest in this stuff comes at me from a psychic direction - lots of unbelievable synchronicities which have led me on a path of historical discovery. However, if my psychic guides were last on the planet in 1750 (and judging by the stuff I get it could be earlier than that) it is hardly surprising my point of view is way out of date and positively invalid.
It isn't at all important to me to be right. I am just happy to find people who are actually interested in this stuff to exchange views with and get me scurrying to my sources. I hope it wasn't my post that stressed you and glad you picked up on the wink! This should be fun and relaxation shouldn't it.
However, be prepared for me to continue annoying you with the 1750 arguments and earlier because unfortunately that is where I am coming from.
:-)
On a serious note though may I just ask the moderator as I am new around here whether my archaic views could just become a general annoyance. I don't want to simply be a disruption to a serous academic board and I will gladly sign off if everyone feels it would be best.
By the way I am really weird - sorry. For example in the world I inhabit the proposition that someone had a discussion with King Arthur on the phone in which Cwm Cerist was revealed as the site of Camlann is actually good evidence for me and I am really looking forward to visiting the spot.
Posted with love and may I suggest a glass of nice wine and perhaps a meal out might be the solution for today's stress.
Take care
Paul
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 16:54:11 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 26, 2008 16:54:11 GMT -1
Aw, bless you for that! Cheered me up. Ignore me Paul - I'm the resident academic pedant! This stuff is my actual dayjob, so trying to dsengage from academic ways of thinking when discussing the exact same material is sometimes rather tricky. I don't think this board is meant to be academic in any sense, as I understand it so far. All best Mark
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 17:45:45 GMT -1
Post by redraven on Feb 26, 2008 17:45:45 GMT -1
On a serious note though may I just ask the moderator as I am new around here whether my archaic views could just become a general annoyance. I don't want to simply be a disruption to a serous academic board and I will gladly sign off if everyone feels it would be best. I am not a moderator, but you can get in the queue for being annoying and I am way ahead of you! ;D RR
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 18:14:54 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Feb 26, 2008 18:14:54 GMT -1
I am a moderator, and when appropriate I answer with the rant, not with the edit.
BTW Paul, Mark/Megli is being somewhat humble in simply calling himself an 'academic'. He is a doctor of Celtic Studies at Oxford. He is a true gem, not only does he know what he's talking about he actually *cares* about it too.
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 18:17:26 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Feb 26, 2008 18:17:26 GMT -1
However, be prepared for me to continue annoying you with the 1750 arguments and earlier because unfortunately that is where I am coming from. Get me a frock coat while you're there please. By the way I am really weird - sorry. For example in the world I inhabit the proposition that someone had a discussion with King Arthur on the phone in which Cwm Cerist was revealed as the site of Camlann is actually good evidence for me and I am really looking forward to visiting the spot. Would this be the king Arthur who proclaims himself as such and carries a sword he calls 'Excalibur' which often spends the night in the cells?
|
|
|
CAMLANN
Feb 26, 2008 18:59:03 GMT -1
Post by megli on Feb 26, 2008 18:59:03 GMT -1
Thanks LR - but before my head gets too big I must point out that I am the lowest of the low on the academic rung - the new postdoc who does lots of hands-on classroom teaching! I really do care, though.
|
|