_Book of Taliesin VIII_, Vol. I, p. 276, of Skene. I have followed Skene’s translation, with the especial exception of the curious line referring to the bean, so translated in D. W. Nash’s _Taliesin_. If a correct rendering of the Welsh original, it offers an interesting parallel to certain superstitions of the Greeks concerning this vegetable. Footnote 351: Rhys: _Hibbert Lectures_, note to p. 245. Footnote 352: Lady Guest’s translation in her notes to _Kulhwch and Olwen_. Footnote 353: The following episode is retold from Lady Guest’s translation of the Mabinogi of _Mâth, Son of Mathonwy_. Footnote 354: Now called Pen y Gaer. It is on the summit of a hill half-way between Llanrwst and Conway, and about a mile from the station of Llanbedr. Footnote 355: Said to have been at Rhuddlan Teivi, which is, perhaps, Glan Teivy, near Cardigan Bridge. Footnote 356: Poem XIX in the _Black Book of Caermarthen_, Vol. I, p. 309, of Skene. Footnote 357: “In Aber Gwenoli is the grave of Pryderi, Where the waves beat against the land.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXI THE MYTHOLOGICAL “COMING OF ARTHUR” The “Coming of Arthur”, his sudden rise into prominence, is one of the many problems of the Celtic mythology. He is not mentioned in any of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, which deal with the races of British gods equivalent to the Gaelic Tuatha Dé Danann. The earliest references to him in Welsh literature seem to treat him as merely a warrior-chieftain, no better, if no worse, than several others, such as “Geraint, a tributary prince of Devon”, immortalized both by the bards[358] and by Tennyson. Then, following upon this, we find him lifted to the extraordinary position of a king of gods, to whom the old divine families of Dôn, of Llyr, and of Pwyll pay unquestioned homage. Triads tell us that Lludd—the Zeus of the older Pantheon—was one of Arthur’s “Three Chief War-Knights”, and Arawn, King of Hades, one of his “Three Chief Counselling Knights”. In the story called the “Dream of Rhonabwy”, in the Red Book of Hergest, he is shown as a leader to whom are subject those we know to have been of divine race—sons of Nudd, of Llyr, of Brân, of Govannan, and of Arianrod. In another “Red Book” tale, that of “Kulhwch and Olwen”, even greater gods are his vassals. Amaethon son of Dôn, ploughs for him, and Govannan son of Dôn, rids the iron, while two other sons of Beli, Nynniaw and Peibaw, “turned into oxen on account of their sins”, toil at the yoke, that a mountain may be cleared and tilled and the harvest reaped in one day. He assembles his champions to seek the “treasures of Britain”; and Manawyddan son of Llyr, Gwyn son of Nudd, and Pryderi son of Pwyll rally round him at his call.