The Mabinogion · 42 of 192 · tr. Lady Charlotte Guest
Tale PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWCs
Thou seest the many lovely maidens that there are in this Court; thou shalt have her whom thou best likest for the lady of thy love.” “Lady, I came not hither from my country to woo; but match yourselves as it liketh you with the comely youths I see here; and none of your goods do I desire, for I need them not.” Then Peredur rode forward, and he came to the Palace of the Sons of the King of the Tortures; and when he entered the Palace, he saw none but women; and they rose up, and were joyful at his coming; and as they began to discourse with him, he beheld a charger arrive, with a saddle upon it, and a corpse in the saddle.
And one of the women arose, and took the corpse from the saddle, and anointed it in a vessel of warm water, which was below the door, and placed precious balsam upon it; and the man rose up alive, and came to the place where Peredur was, and greeted him, and was joyful to see him.
And two other men came in upon their saddles, and the maiden treated these two in the same manner as she had done the first.
Then Peredur asked the chieftain wherefore it was thus.
And they told him, that there was an Addanc in a cave, which slew them once every day.
And thus they remained that night.
And next morning the youths arose to sally forth, and Peredur besought them, for the sake of the ladies of their love, to permit him to go with them; but they refused him, saying, “If thou shouldst be slain there, thou hast none to bring thee back to life again.” And they rode forward, and Peredur followed after them; and, after they had disappeared out of his sight, he came to a mound, whereon sat the fairest lady he had ever beheld.
“I know thy quest,” said she; “thou art going to encounter the Addanc, and he will slay thee, and that not by courage, but by craft.
He has a cave, and at the entrance of the cave there is a stone pillar, and he sees every one that enters, and none see him; and from behind the pillar he slays every one with a poisonous dart.
And if thou wouldst pledge me thy faith to love me above all women, I would give thee a stone, by which thou shouldst see him when thou goest in, and he should not see thee.” “I will, by my troth,” said Peredur, “for when first I beheld thee I loved thee; and where shall I seek thee?” “When thou seekest me, seek towards India.” And the maiden vanished, after placing the stone in Peredur’s hand.
And he came towards a valley, through which ran a river; and the borders of the valley were wooded, and on each side of the river were level meadows.
And on one side of the river he saw a flock of white sheep, and on the other a flock of black sheep.
And whenever one of the white sheep bleated, one of the black sheep would cross over and become white; and when one of the black sheep bleated, one of the white sheep would cross over and become black.
And he saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one half of which was in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green and in full leaf.
And nigh thereto he saw a youth sitting upon a mound, and two greyhounds, white-breasted and spotted, in leashes, lying by his side.
And certain was he that he had never seen a youth of so royal a bearing as he.
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 active supernatural agents such as the Addanc in the cave, the lady on the mound, and women with resurrection powers.
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.
The supernatural lady appears at a critical moment to guide Peredur's quest and warn him of the Addanc's craft.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
Magical transformations occur where sheep change color between black and white and a tree exists simultaneously in burning and green states.