THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON: CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

Trystan and Essyllt: A Celtic Myth in Romantic Guise

An exploration of the origin of the name and character of Essyllt should begin with a realization that the earliest recorded Cornish place-name (AD 967 A.D.), hryt eselt or ‘Ford of Essyllt’, was found on an Alaw stream. This place-name predates the earliest known Trystan and Essyllt romance.

Why is this place-name significant? Because the only other extant Alaw stream in Britain is that found on Anglesey, where we are told the Welsh Branwen died and was buried. It has long been thought that the Brangain found in the Essyllt story is none other than Branwen. What has not been established is that Branwen may, in fact, be Essyllt.

The following comparison of the Trystan and Essyllt story with that of the Mabinogion’s tale of Branwen Daughter of Llyr is illuminating:

TRYSTAN AND ESSYLLT

1) The Irish Morholt comes to Cornwall

2) Trystan and Essyllt, accompanied by Brangain and the love philtre, go from Ireland to Cornwall

3) Essyllt marries Mark (“Horse”)

4) Trystan is mortally wounded by a poisoned weapon; Essyllt travels from Cornwall to Brittany to heal him; Trystan dies before Essyllt can reach him and she dies of grief

BRANWEN D. OF LLYR

1) The Irish come to Gwynedd

2) The cauldron-bearing Llassar and his wife go from Ireland to western Wales

3) Branwen marries Mathollwch ( = Irish king Echu “Horseman” Feidlech), who takes with him many horses and the cauldron

4) Bran is mortally wounded by a poisoned weapon; Branwen travels from Ireland to Wales, where she dies of grief

Mathollwch from Feidlech is not at all difficult to account for, given the interchangeability of M- and F-. Mathollwch is linked to Talebolion on Anglesey, a place-name supposedly meaning “Payment of horses”, although Tal- also has the meaning of ‘tribute’ and this would fit the context better. Tal- could also be for “Forehead, brow”, indicating a geographical feature. According to P.C. Bartrum’s A Classical Welsh Dictionary, March son of Meirchion was placed in the pedigree of a certain Egri of Talebolion.

Morholt was long ago shown by Oliver J. Padel ( ‘The Cornish Background of the Tristan Stories”, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, Number 1, Summer 1981) to be a reflection of the Irish Diarmaid’s sword Moraltach.

Various absurd etymologies have been proposed for the name Essyllt – all of them unnecessary, as a perfectly acceptable Welsh word provides the best derivation. Kenneth Jackson opted for *Adsiltia or (based on 10th century Welsh forms Etthil, Ethellt, Etil) Adthiltia/Atthiltia. More recently attempts have been made to connect Essyllt with the name of the Slovenian goddess Adsalluta. John Koch has proposed an *Ad-sug-lata, but as the form of the Slovenian name is Adsalluta, not Adsullata, this is not convincing. In any case, theories which utilize the prefix Ad- for Essyllt ignore that fact that Proto-Celtic *ad- (Andrew Hawke of the National Dictionary of Wales) normally gives Modern Welsh add-, Middle Welsh ad-. Celtic scholar Ranko Matosovich of the Proto-Celtic Etymological Dictionary says that the prefix *ad-s- would certainly be assimilated to *ass and we would expect the initial a- to remain in Welsh.

On the other hand, Proto-Celtic *eks-, “out of, from”, which normally became ech- in Welsh, developed differently before s. It could and often does appear as ess- or eis-. And this brings to mind the note of Sir Ifor Williams in his version of The Poems of Taliesin (III, 21):

Eissyllyd, D. esill, essillydd, essilltydd, eisilltydd, silltydd… The exx. show that eisllydd refers sometimes to the ‘stock’, sometimes to the ‘progeny’, the ‘descendents’… Could not Esyllt as a girl’s name be derived from it?

The Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru lists the following:

Esylltydd, esyllud, gw. Eisillydd, eisyllud >

Eisillydd, esill(t)ydd, sill(t)ydd – “descendent, offspring, issue, progeny, posterity; stock”

All, presumably, from

sil, “seed, offspring, progeny, descendents”

Andrew Hawke confirmed that the word is most likely from the prefix *eks- plus the word seed, making eisillydd to mean literally ‘[person] from/out of the seed’. It is considered less likely that eisillydd is from Latin exsilio, ‘spring out, spring forth’, especially given that fact the early Irish kinship group names were fronted by Sil, meaning ‘the Seed [of X]’.

If Essyllt is ‘[she] from/out of the seed’, i.e a descendent, offspring or progeny, this provides us with yet another striking tie-in with Branwen. The latter is called one of the three chief rieni of the island of Britain. Various translators have rendered rieni as “matriarchs” (Will Parker), “ancestresses” (Patrick K. Ford), “queens” (Jeffrey Gantz, presumably thinking it an error for the Welsh word for queen). Ifor Williams advocated ‘parents’ or ‘ancestresses’. However, the origin of the word rieni or rhieni W. cyn, “former”) or cuno- (perhaps in the sense of “warrior”) + -march/-farch, “horse”. There is also a hypothetical *cuno- meaning “high”, thought to be found in Cunetio (Kennet, Wiltshire), Kent (Kenet, Cumbria) and Welsh Cynwyd (Merioneth, Wales).

In the past it has been supposed that Cunomorus/Cynfor possessed, in addition to his British name, a Roman name Marcus. If this were so, it would adequately account for the Welsh form March.

However, Kyn-/Cyn- could also have been easily interpreted by someone with a rudimentary knowledge of English as OE Cyne-, a common proper name component. Cyne- means “royal” or “kingly”. A perceived Cyne + march could then have been wrongly be rendered as “Royal or Kingly horse”, i.e. King March.

So when Wrmonoc says, ‘fama ejus regis Marci pervolat ad aures quemalio nomine Quonomorium vocant’, “his [St. Paul Aurelian's] fame flew to the ears of King Marcus, known also as Cunomorus”, he might well be mistranslating Cunomorus or, rather, Cynfarch, as “King March”.

Various roots have been drawn upon for the name Drustanus. It is often said to be Pictish, but there is no reason why it could not also have had a cognate in the British language being spoken in southern England. We have Proto-Celtic *dreuto-/drouto-, ‘brave’, *druto-, ‘fool’, *dreuto-/drouto-/druto-, ‘dear’. It is this last that is the most important of the possible stems. For *druto- yielded Irish words like druth, ‘wanton, unchaste; harlot; courtesan’, as well as drus, “hot-blooded; amorous; desire; appetite; lust; concupiscence; incontinence; rape.” Another Irish druth, from the root meaning ‘fool’, meant ‘jester; buffoon; imbecile; fool’. Similar words are found in Welsh.

The Welsh were well aware of the mythic subtext of the Trystan and Essyllt story. In their Ystoria Trystan or ‘History of Trystan’, Essyllt quite rightly appears as the goddess over whom March ‘the Horse’ and Trystan compete with in a typical seasonal cycle. The story ends with Arthur making peace between husband and lover in a way that beautifully reflects the divine division of the year:

“Then Arthur judged her to the one while the leaves were on the wood, and to the other while the leaves were not on the wood, and to her husband to make the choice. He chose the time when the leaves were not on the wood, because at that season the nights would be longer. Arthur announced that unto Esyllt, and she said: ‘Blessed is the judgment and he who gave it’; and sang this stave:

Three trees have a happy way:

Holly, ivy, yew, are they;

Green they keep their leaves always.

Trystan’s am I then for aye.

In this wise March, son of Meirchion, lost his wife for ever.”

I would see in the ‘prototype’ of the Trystan and Essyllt story a myth in which a Horse God, cf. the Classical Poseidon, is made the husband of a Horse Goddess, cf. the Classical Demeter, whom Poseidon raped while the two were in the form of horses. Essyllt, ‘[she] out of/from the seed’, conforms remarkably well to Ceres/Demeter, the goddess of grain. The Irish Grainne’s name is cognate with English grain, of course, and means just that.

Trystan, historically the son of Cunomorus/Mark/March, was cast in the role of the Horse Goddess’s second consort. Together, Trystan and March shared the Goddess between themselves, one having her for the summer half-year, the other for the winter-half year. Although in Arthurian romance Trystan is made the nephew of March, in the myth – as in history – Trystan was the son of the Horse Goddess by March. Essyllt was the wife/lover of the God of Winter (March) and the mother/lover of the God of Summer (Trystan), who were, of course, merely two aspects of the same male deity.

In passing, I should note that the medieval writer Giraldus Cambrensis said the following about Branwen’s Anglesey:

‘…so could the Isle of Mona provide a requisite quantity of corn for all the inhabitants [of North Wales]: on which account there is an old British proverb, “Mon mam Cymbry’, that is, Mona is the mother of Wales.’

Could it be that Branwen as a grain goddess presided over the harvest of grain on Anglesey during the pagan period? And could it further be that one of the reasons the British druids made their last stand on the island against the Romans was because of its importance as a granary?