THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON: CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

The Lady of the Lake

We have seen above that the Arthurian ‘Lady of the Lake’ was, in reality, Dea Latis of the Avalon Roman fort at Burgh-By-Sands, Cumbria. But later Arthurian romance would further identify her as Niviane or Viviane. Where did the French romance authors get this name for the lake goddess?

In Welsh tradition, Nyfain (variants Nyuein, Nyven, Nevyn) daughter of Brychan is the name given to the mother of Urien. This Brychan is said to be the famous Irish chieftain known to have founded the Welsh kingdom of Brycheiniog and to have fathered eleven sons and twenty-four daughters. However, there was also a Northern Brychan, whom the Welsh sources associate with a Manaw, supposedly either Manau Gododdin at the head of the Firth of Forth, or the Manau that was the Isle of Man. The tomb of this Northern Brychan is either on an island called the Island of Brychan, which is near or bordering on Manaw, or is at a place called the Valley of Brychan within Manaw itself.

No satisfactory site has been identified fitting these descriptions. However, as Gaelic corrie means ‘valley’, the Valley of Brychan is certainly an error for the Coire or ‘Cauldron’ of Breccan, i.e. the Corrievreckan, the name of a whirlpool situated between the Inner Hebridean islands of Jura and Scarba. Today this location is marked on maps by the Gulf of Corryvreckan.

In the Metrical Dindshenchas (Part 18), we are told the following about Breccan’s fate in the whirlpool:

“No generous chieftain that reached it ever returned hither again from its white-paven floor, since Breccán of Bérre went his way.

Breccán son of Partholan, that seer of old, drank no wholesome draught: he was drowned here with his fifty ships by the crowding waves of the whirlpool.

I know the tale sages tell of the mighty whirlpool's home, whence comes, to denote it perpetually, the familiar name and its clear reason.

I have heard of famous Breccán, whose is the loud-roaring grave—him that enriched every hearth of Uí Néill, busily plying in his vessel a brisk trade.

Breccán son of Maine, rich in graces, the Cauldron drowned with its red spray, and he lies under the heavy high-piled strand with his ship and his valiant following.

Though it has buried unforgotten Breccán, his name endures in story with his bark and its burthen that lie beneath the whirlpool's stormy water.”

Maine was a son of Niall, and so this tale provides the names of different Breccans whose names became attached to the whirlpool. I would suggest that the name Maine here accounts for the ‘Manaw’ associated with the Northern Brychan in the Welsh sources.

The Corrievreckan is also linked to the Cailleach, the goddess in her aged form, and is considered to be a portal to the Otherworld.

Nyfain’s name cannot, as some have thought, be an eponym for the ancient Novantae tribe, whose territory (roughly Dumfries and Galloway) was ruled over by Urien. The identification is etymologically impossible. But the name could very easily represent the Irish goddess Nemhain. Nemhain was one of the premiere battle-goddesses of Ireland, and was often paired with Macha, Morrigan and Badb.

In the Vulgate Merlin, the forest name of the Lady of the Lake is first given as the Forest of Briosque and only later as Broceliande, the name used by Chretien de Troyes. While Broceliande has been sought in various places, none of the candidates work geographically or etymologically. I would derive the Old French ‘Briosque’ from the –fries component of Dumfries, the town situated just West-Southwest of Lochmaben in Dumfriesshire. While once thought to be the ‘Fort of the Frisians’, authorities now correctly identify –fries with Gaelic preas, Angl. Pres(s), gen. phris, Angl. –fries, gen. pl. preas, (b)p(h)reasach, ‘bush, copse, thicket’. Spellings such as Dunfreisch, Droonfreisch, and Drumfriesche occasionally occur in old documents.

It makes a great deal of sense to envisage Merlin and Viviane in the Dumfries region, as this was the home stomping grounds of Myrddin, the Welsh prototype for Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Merlin. Broceliande, then, is simply Briosque + land.

In the context of any discussion of Myrddin and Nemhain in southwest Scotland, it is necessary to mention the Locus Maponi or ‘place of [the god] Maponus’, identifiable with Lochmaben in Dumfries (or perhaps the Ladyward Roman fort near Lochmaben, or even with the Clochmabenstane just south at Gretna Green; see the listing for Mabon in Chapter 6). As is well known, Mabon was the son of Modron, i.e. Matrona, the Divine Mother. This is the same Modron who is presented as the wife of Urien, son of Nyfain/Nemhain. [There is a strong probability the “stone” under which Merlin was imprisoned by the Lady of the Lake in Broceliande is none other than the Clochmabenstane.  Her “lake” may have been at nearby Lochmaben.] 

While it is tempting to give Modron the Divine Mother the name Nemhain, we are not justified in making this assumption. And, indeed, given the proximity of Lochmaben to the Annan River, and the presence of a St. Ann’s on a tributary of the Annan which has its confluence with the latter river at Lochmaben, it makes more sense to associate Modron/Matrona ‘the Divine Mother’ with a British version of the Irish goddess Anu. Annan is the genitive of anau, cognate with Welsh anaw ‘riches’, Gaelic Anu the name of the Irish goddess of prosperity. Geoffrey of Monmouth made this goddess, in the guise of ‘Anna’, the sister of Arthur.

For Nefyn or Nemhain in the early Welsh poem Cad Godeu, see the listing for Achren in Chapter 6.