The Mabinogion · 37 of 192 · tr. Lady Charlotte Guest
Tale PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWCn
And Peredur put on garments like those that Gwalchmai wore, and they went together unto Arthur, and saluted him.
“Behold, lord,” said Gwalchmai, “him whom thou hast sought so long.” “Welcome unto thee, chieftain,” said Arthur.
“With me thou shalt remain; and had I known thy valour had been such, thou shouldst not have left me as thou didst; nevertheless, this was predicted of thee by the dwarf and the dwarfess, whom Kai ill-treated and whom thou hast avenged.” And hereupon, behold there came the Queen and her handmaidens, and Peredur saluted them.
And they were rejoiced to see him, and bade him welcome.
And Arthur did him great honour and respect, and they returned towards Caerlleon.
And the first night Peredur came to Caerlleon to Arthur’s Court, and as he walked in the city after his repast, behold, there met him Angharad Law Eurawc.
“By my faith, sister,” said Peredur, “thou art a beauteous and lovely maiden; and, were it pleasing to thee, I could love thee above all women.” “I pledge my faith,” said she, “that I do not love thee, nor will I ever do so.” “I also pledge my faith,” said Peredur, “that I will never speak a word to any Christian again, until thou come to love me above all men.” The next day Peredur went forth by the high road, along a mountain-ridge, and he saw a valley of a circular form, the confines of which were rocky and wooded.
And the flat part of the valley was in meadows, and there were fields betwixt the meadows and the wood.
And in the bosom of the wood he saw large black houses of uncouth workmanship.
And he dismounted, and led his horse towards the wood.
And a little way within the wood he saw a rocky ledge, along which the road lay.
And upon the ledge was a lion bound by a chain, and sleeping.
And beneath the lion he saw a deep pit of immense size, full of the bones of men and animals.
And Peredur drew his sword and struck the lion, so that he fell into the mouth of the pit and hung there by the chain; and with a second blow he struck the chain and broke it, and the lion fell into the pit; and Peredur led his horse over the rocky ledge, until he came into the valley.
And in the centre of the valley he saw a fair castle, and he went towards it.
And in the meadow by the castle he beheld a huge grey man sitting, who was larger than any man he had ever before seen.
And two young pages were shooting the hilts of their daggers, of the bone of the sea-horse.
And one of the pages had red hair, and the other auburn.
And they went before him to the place where the grey man was, and Peredur saluted him.
And the grey man said, “Disgrace to the beard of my porter.” Then Peredur understood that the porter was the lion.—And the grey man and the pages went together into the castle, and Peredur accompanied them; and he found it a fair and noble place.
And they proceeded to the hall, and the tables were already laid, and upon them was abundance of food and liquor.
And thereupon he saw an aged woman and a young woman come from the chamber; and they were the most stately women he had ever seen.
Then they washed and went to meat, and the grey man sat in the upper seat at the head of the table, and the aged woman next to him.
Themes
◆Animismcosmology
The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.
The passage depicts a landscape populated by supernatural guardians like the chained lion and the huge grey man, reflecting a worldview where natural places hold embodied spiritual agents.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
Arthur explicitly states that Peredur's return and actions were foretold by the dwarf and dwarfess, indicating a divine or fated ordering of events toward an intelligible end.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
Peredur makes a binding vow to never speak to a Christian again until his sister loves him, treating the spoken word as a magical constraint on his future actions.