The Mabinogion · 119 of 192 · tr. Lady Charlotte Guest
Tale THE DREAM OF RHONABWYg
And upon his feet were hose of fine Totness, and shoes of parti-coloured leather, clasped with gold, and the youth was of noble bearing, fair of face, with ruddy cheeks and large hawk’s eyes.
In the hand of the youth was a mighty lance, speckled yellow, with a newly-sharpened head; and upon the lance a banner displayed.
Fiercely angry, and with rapid pace, came the youth to the place where Arthur was playing at chess with Owain.
And they perceived that he was wroth.
And thereupon he saluted Owain, and told him that his Ravens had been killed, the chief part of them, and that such of them as were not slain were so wounded and bruised that not one of them could raise its wings a single fathom above the earth.
“Lord,” said Owain, “forbid thy men.” “Play,” said he, “if it please thee.” Then said Owain to the youth, “Go back, and wherever thou findest the strife at the thickest, there lift up the banner, and let come what pleases Heaven.” So the youth returned back to the place where the strife bore hardest upon the Ravens, and he lifted up the banner; and as he did so they all rose up in the air, wrathful and fierce and high of spirit, clapping their wings in the wind, and shaking off the weariness that was upon them.
And recovering their energy and courage, furiously and with exultation did they, with one sweep, descend upon the heads of the men, who had erewhile caused them anger and pain and damage, and they seized some by the heads and others by the eyes, and some by the ears, and others by the arms, and carried them up into the air; and in the air there was a mighty tumult with the flapping of the wings of the triumphant Ravens, and with their croaking; and there was another mighty tumult with the groaning of the men, that were being torn and wounded, and some of whom were slain.
And Arthur and Owain marvelled at the tumult as they played at chess; and, looking, they perceived a knight upon a dun-coloured horse coming towards them.
And marvellous was the hue of the dun horse.
Bright red was his right shoulder, and from the top of his legs to the centre of his hoof was bright yellow.
Both the knight and his horse were fully equipped with heavy foreign armour.
The clothing of the horse from the front opening upwards was of bright red sendal, and from thence opening downwards was of bright yellow sendal.
A large gold-hilted one-edged sword had the youth upon his thigh, in a scabbard of light blue, and tipped with Spanish laton.
The belt of the sword was of dark green leather with golden slides and a clasp of ivory upon it, and a buckle of jet-black upon the clasp.
A helmet of gold was on the head of the knight, set with precious stones of great virtue, and at the top of the helmet was the image of a flame-coloured leopard with two ruby-red stones in its head, so that it was astounding for a warrior, however stout his heart, to look at the face of the leopard, much more at the face of the knight.
He had in his hand a blue-shafted lance, but from the haft to the point it was stained crimson-red with the blood of the Ravens and their plumage.
The knight came to the place where Arthur and Owain were seated at chess.
And they perceived that he was harassed and vexed and weary as he came towards them.
And the youth saluted Arthur, and told him that the Ravens of Owain were slaying his young men and attendants.
Themes
◆Correspondencecosmology
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The chess game played by Arthur and Owain mirrors the surrounding battle, reflecting a structural parallel between the microcosm of the board and the macrocosm of the war.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The lifting of the banner causes the ravens to rise and recover energy, suggesting a hidden affinity or resonance between the symbol and the physical reality.
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 instruction to 'let come what pleases Heaven' acknowledges a divine ordering of the battle's outcome.
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.
The passage describes Owain's men as 'Ravens' who seize enemies and fly, indicating a capacity for form-mutability between human and animal states characteristic of Celtic myth.