From the Mabinogion

Pwyll Prince of Dyfed.

If we look at the structure we see it is well considered, and revealing of the underlying intention of the tale.

Part 1

Pwyll was at Arberth; he  rode out hunting. He came across another’s pack of hounds which had brought down a stag. He drove them off and ‘baited his hounds’ on it instead. The other hunter rode up. It was Arawn, King of Anwm (the underworld), and was incensed: Pwyll had broken protocol and dishonoured him. They only way he could repay was to change places for one year and a day. They each took on the form of the other and took each other’s place. After the year, on the last day, Pwyll was to meet Arawn’s rival King Hafgan at a tryst. Pwyll was to strike one blow, no more.

Pwyll spent the year in pleasantry, hunting and fine talk; each night with the queen, though, was spent chastely. At the time of the tryst, Pwyll ordered the retinue that under no circumstances were any to aid him against Hafgan. The blow was dealt and King Hafgan pleading innocence of any wrong, died. Pwyll took over Hafgan’s province alongside with the one he was looking after.

The two re-exchanged forms and places, the debt of honour was paid.

Part 2

Prince Pwyll was still unmarried. Amongst his retinue was rumour of a mysterious mound nearby, where anyone who spent the night was either set upon or found some marvel. They set to test it. On the first night a woman came past on a horse, finely arrayed. Pwyll sent a follower to see who she was. Try as he might though, and although her horse ambled he could not catch up with her. The next night the same. On the third night Pwyll himself resolved to do the job. He could not catch up with either, so hailed her, at which she stopped for him. She was Rhiannon, daughter of Hefydd the Old. She was to be betrothed against her will; her heart was set only on Pwyll. Pwyll was agreeable; they set off for her father’s to discuss the matter. A feast was ordered. A young man came, greeted Pwyll; Pwyll greeted him as honour demanded. The man asked a favour of Pwyll; he agreed to grant it. But it was Rhiannon’s hated betrother: Pwyll, on his honour had granted a favour without asking who it might me. He had to delay his marriage to Rhiannon for a year, whilst she spent it with the man, but chastely. After that year they must meet at a tryst.

At the tryst the man was tricked and captured, and only let go once he agreed to releasing Rhiannon. He did, and the marriage was allowed between Pwyll and Rhiannon.

Part 3

After three happy years Pwyll’s retinue became uneasy; they needed an heir, and there did not seem to be any chance. Put her by and find another wife, they said. He asked for another year. During that time a boy was born. The six midwives watching mother and baby fell asleep. Upon waking they could find no child. To save themselves they made it look as if Rhiannon had eaten the child in the night. She was distraught, sought counsel. As no body was to be found they advised her to take penance, over punishment. It was to last seven years: at the town gate she had to tell who would listen her tale, and offer to carry them in on her back.

In another part of the county lived Teyrnon Twryf Liant, Lord of Gwent Is-Coed. He noticed that whenever his prize mare foaled the foal disappeared. He resolved to discover what happened to them. His mare was ready to foal, so he spent the night with her. As she foaled a claw came through the window and grabbed it. He cut off the arm with his sword; he heard a great howling; he looked saw no one only a baby in fine covers that had been dropped. They looked after the child; he grew prodigiously. At the age of four they heard they tale of Rhiannon and her child. Seeing the resemblance, they took the child to court and returned him to his mother. They would take nothing in return: they had done the honourable thing.

This is a fine tale, and well told. I have divided it into Parts; in the book the tale consists of one long narrative divided at the salient parts by an extra spacing.

The structure is strong, and clear: there are here three episodes of loss: Pwyll of his Princedom, of his marriage, and of their child. The first and third Parts depict the loss as by magical/otherworldy means: Pwyll must enter the otherworld for a year; the child is abducted by otherworldly means. Both are returned at the end of a set time: four years for the child reflects the three years of marriage before the child’s birth and possibly the year previous spent apart. Alternatively the fourth year reflects the last year allowed by the retinue for the birth before more steps would be taken to procure an heir.

There are two trysts which decide the fate of Pwyll’s fortunes. Can we expect a third such bond or agreement in the last Part to complete a pattern? There is no tryst, nor need of one. What there is though, and this proves the intent of the whole, is Lord Teyrnon and wife returning the child they had given a name to and raised for four years – as the honorable thing to do. Honour is the key to the whole tale: it is lack of honourable conduct allows Pwyll to bait his hounds on another’s kill. Restitution proves Pwyll’s readiness to rule: he acts out Arawn’s kingly role in the otherworld, including adopting chastity, and also wrests another realm from King Hagfan. Honour without wisdom brings about the calamity of the marriage betrothal in Part two: Pwyll acted honourably to his guest, but not wisely in granting a stranger a favour.

Does the structure prove itself a ring? Part one parallels Part three, as outlined above on the theme of otherworldly loss. The tale opens with Prince Pwyll in Arberth; his first act is to go out hunting. The whole tale ends with the lost son replacing his deceased father, adding more land to his kingdom, and seeking out a wife. The paralleling we expect is more general: Part one and three repeat the acquisition of land and the otherworld agency themes. Otherworldly agency occurs also in the central Part: Rhiannon’s horse cannot be caught up with, no matter how strong the pursuing horse.

The mysterious claw which seizes the baby/foal (there is the echo here of a horse-reverence we find in the following tale, amongst the Irish) and loss of arm immediately calls to mind Grendels’ arm in the hall of Heorot in Beowulf. We can only speculate that the composer of this tale was equally au fait with the Beowulf tale.  Wisdom would seem from this to be a virtue of the capacity of sight: because the young man was not recognised in Part two, the calamity befell Pwyll and Rhiannon’s betrothal. Because Teyrnon recognised the child’s resemblance to Pwyll in Part three he could be restored to his place and parents. Greek Athena, goddess of, yes, hunting, as well as wisdom was known for her keenness of sight, an ability of super-natural penetration. On a more contemporaneously accessible level there are Biblical references to sight and wisdom, mostly connected with the omnipotence of God and his all-seeing. Especially keen-sight, and all-sight are epithets of the divine/supernatural/otherworldly; that none could recognise Pwyll or Arawn in their opposite forms in Part one is important in this respect. Wisdom comes with honour, but also, and especially, with experience of both the natural and super-natural; it is also perhaps an epithet of royal lineage, that goes with good rule, respect and stable government. Not necessarily age, note.

The Lais of Marie de France continued: BISCLAVRET

Of the Lais of Marie de France, Bisclavret has aroused much controversy. Bisclavret, an early werewolf story, has gained comments as a misogynistic tale. In Bisclavret the married king Bisclavret regularly absents himself several days a week from his castle. Eventually his wife gets him to unveil his secret, in a time honoured fashion that goes at least back the Bible. He reveals that he turns into a wolf; that as long as his clothes remain he can change back. His wife then steals his clothes so he cannot change back, and once the king is declared missing, marries her new suitor. The deception is unmasked, king restored, and wife and new suitor/king suitably done away with.

How are we to read Bisclavret? This is deception of the worst kind: the loving embrace that then reveals one’s vulnerabilities to the world, as it were. Is this tale a prime example of the misogyny of the time, and especially of Church attitudes? We cannot read well the signs of older cultural models. As Dutch historian Johan Huizinga asserts in his excellent essays Men and Ideas, the marriage of convenience was very much the model for nobles and people of rank. Woman were commodities, because vehicles for succession through child-bearing; in the case of lack of issue, as we see in other tales, the man would be advised Put your wife aside, choose another to ensure an heir – because, of course, it was always the woman who could not conceive (I do suspect it was well-known that it was as much the man’s inability; this would never be stated in public, or the public place of text). The flip-side to this is, if a woman is so positioned with a man with doubtful proclivities, as in Bisclavret, the woman could be just as likely to ‘Put the man aside’ and find a mate better suited. And with all the elements of supplanting that goes with this.

One of the key writers on these topics Johan Huizinga, also commented: It is manifest that the political and military history of the last centuries of the Middle Ages as described by Froissart, Monstrelet, Chastellain… reveals very little chivalry and a great deal of covetousness, cruelty, cold calculation, well-understood self-interest, and diplomatic subtlety. The reality of history seems constantly to disavow the fanciful ideal of chivalry. (Chivalric Ideals in the Middle Ages). In Equitan the relationship of the seneschal and his wife perhaps fell under these last designations. That she is described in the text by Equitan, as a lady who needs love: the marriage, as most of the period was one of convenience and arrangement

We cannot, I suspect, judge Bisclavret’s wife by any standards than what we know of those of the time. It probably was not actually accepted practice for the wife to do this, put the husband aside – especially not a king – and hence its appearance in this tale: we glimpse something perhaps of Marie de France’s originality in her choice of content here. In this tale could we say then that the dynamic is in the discord between the reality of the mores of the time, and those of the chivalric mores some attempted to re-introduce? Is this the source of the dynamic of the Lais as a whole: contemporary discord and the search for harmony? We see the novelty and great achievement of Marie de France in writing about amour courtois against this background and winning favour and acclaim through doing so. This new perspective does seem to be the gestalt behind Marie de France writing-up, and presenting these Lais.

If we apply Huizinga’s assertion we can perhaps see a more contemporaneous interpretation that gives an alternative reading. We dabble here with Intentionality: how can we gauge Marie de France’s intentionality in this tale? When we look again at Equitan we see how the writer valued romantic love above the mores of her time, we see in the central part of the tale, the ‘heart’ of the tale where the story was leading, and from where the consequences derive, how the constancy of the affair between Equitan and the seneschal’s wife was lauded: in all that time he neither took another lover nor neglected her, that he was willing to kill for her so they could take up an honourable relationship in marriage. But is there anything in here that shows her ‘bucking the trend’, rather than producing a romantic fantasy? In the tale of Equitan we hear the wife’s fears and doubts, and they are indeed given full expression: they match the king’s for intensity and responsible awareness. She is no member of the ‘lower orders’ struck dumb, abashed or overawed by being feted by the king; she is her own woman, and well aware of the responsibilities of her and, later we see, his position. So, yes, I think we do see here cause for reading intentionality in the Lais.

Lord of the Rings: Reprise

I have to thank Diana Wynne Jones for indicating a seasonal structure of the tale. This holds for the first two volumes, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers. As she writes, the journey from the Shire did indeed begin in autumn. It was a delayed exit, after the Birthday Party, and Gandalf’s revealing last visit. Perhaps the events on Weathertop are suggestive of Halloween. The gathering of peoples at Rivendell suggestive of Christmas-tide/New Year By the time the Fellowship gets to Caradhras the snows are there. Lothlorien is perpetually in leaf, we learn. It is one of the places outside of the seasons, time even.

And yet the sequence would suggest that Rivendell represents All Soul’s Day: the past does come alive at the Council of Elrond; many ghosts from the past, and people connected with past deeds and events gather here. In this case, and it seems a strong one, then the Weathertop episode is suggestive of being earlier than Guy Fawkes’ Night.

When Frodo and Sam arrived in Ithilien towards the end of Book Four it was Spring, the scents of flowers and herbs so encouraged the hobbits but make Gollum choke. The last volume, Return of the King is divided between the growing strength of the year as Minas Tirith’s fortunes grow stronger, and the perpetual Winter landscape of Mordor that Frodo and Sam travelled through. This is suggestive of an overall midsummer to midsummer sequence; this is indeed a traditional timescale and structure. Consider the timescale in more detail: Diana Wynne Jones noted that as the Ents and the hobbits attacked Isengard, Sam was entering Cirith Ungol to rescue Frodo: a deliberate tower reversal. As the long-anticipated arrival of the Rohirrim entered Minas Tirith at last, Frodo and Sam entered into Mordor proper.

I have resisted reading the sequence of the whole three volumes as a Christian calendar, and yet it is tempting to read Frodo and Sam’s journey through Mordor as the deepening darkness of Tenebrae. The main events on Mount Doom would then be Easter Friday, and Golgotha: Frodo’s weakness at the end echoing Christ’s cry Why have you forsaken me? Does the War of the Ring end at Easter? And the crowning of Aragorn occur at midsummer? We have echoes in this of many Old and Middle English texts. On this scale the hobbit’s journey would begin in autumn and end the following autumn back in the Shire. The leaving from Grey Havens would then be a proper Old Year leave-taking, as all the people who represented the ‘old way’, the Third Age, depart and make way for the new.

The appendices of The Return of the King give a month-by-month, almost day-by-day chronology of the War of the Ring. There the main Weathertop episode is given as October 6th. The Fellowship sets out from Rivendell on December 25th. Frodo looked in the mirror of Galadrial on February 14th. Then it is noted that Aragorn took the Paths of the Dead on April 8th. At that time Frodo and Sam were held by Faramir in Ithilien. By the 14th Sam had just recued Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol, Denethor had killed himself, and nearly Faramir, and the battle of Pelennor Fields was just to begin. It is interesting to note that the book comments: 23rd April the Minas Tirith company approached the Black Gates and Aragorn ‘dismissed the faint -hearted, and Frodo and Samwise cast away their arms and gear.’ Here is a deliberate parallel on the casting-away of the cumbersome, superfluous and ‘dead weight’.

I cited these entries because the first events fall on significant dates – Weathertop’s dating remains an anomaly – and the latter ties in all dates and events. Tolkien places the destruction of the Ring, and diminishment of Sauron, on April 25th. Why is this date significant? For Tolkien it may mark the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli, or 1916’s Anzac Day. It might signify the surrender of German troops in northern Italy and the fall of Mussolini, 1945. That Tolkien served in WWI we know – the significance of the Gallipolit Campaign, and of  Anzac were significant for all; but whether his son, the recipient of the unfolding story, served in northern Italy, I do not know.

There are elements of the tale that do not seem to fit anywhere in either of these schemes: the Mines of Moria, Paths of the Dead, maybe even Shelob’s Lair sequence, for one follows neither a specific seasonal nor Christian schemata. Recent editions of the books include extensive appendices. The seasonal, even monthly, time scale is carefully plotted there. I still see no foundation of a Roman Catholic calendar in the overall sequence of events.

The Return of the King

The last two books that make up the Return of the King are also a tripartite structure, centred on Aragorn.

The three storylines:

                                                                         Aragorn’s sequence                                                                 

Merry and Eowyn disguised ride to M/T       Paths of the Dead                        Sam uses Ring, rescues Frodo

Siege of Gondor                        Dead acknowledge Aragorn as Isuldur’s heir  Into Mordor

Rohirrim and wild men of Druadon    capture of Corsairs: Dead freed            Part of orc company

Battle: Nazgul chief dead   Aragorn reveals himself to Sauron via palantir   Frodo struggles with the Ring

Arrival of corsairs at Pelennor Fields      Faramir acknowledges Aragorn       Gollum again

Denethor’s death                                       Last Debate                                             Sam’s pity of Gollum                      

                                                                  Houses of healing                                     Mt Doom                                                                   

                                                                         Last battle                                               Gollum’s last act

                                                                  Aragorn crowned

This is where Aragorn is no longer in hiding, but revealed as heir of Isildur, and of Gondor. His gift of healing is the king’s gift; this is Aragorn’s third acknowledgement: the oath-breakers on the Paths of the Dead acknowledged him, Faramir acknowledged him, and lastly his king’s gift of healing asserted his claim.

Merry’s hidden entry into Minas Tirith, Aragorn using the Paths of the Dead, and Sam’s rescue all involve being hidden, and for Aragorn and Sam a wielding of power: Aragorn must reveal himself as Isildur’s heir, and Sam use the Ring. The entry into Gondor, Aragorn’s riding with the dead, and Frodo and Sam’s entry into Mordor all mark points of entry into the ‘last act’. All three parties use subterfuge: Merry and the Roharrim avoid orcs by using the wild men’s back paths of Druaden; Aragorn and company sailed upriver in the Corsairs still under Mordor’s flags, and Frodo and Sam hid within an orc company. Then came a critical moment when Merry helped slay the Nazgul chief by revealing himself as not-man to circumvent the dictum of his slaying, Aragorn revealed his true nature to Sauron, and Frodo and Sam very nearly revealed themselves to the orcs. This is followed by three changing events: the blend of Merry and Aragorn’s story-lines, that is of Rohan and Gondor, as Aragorn arrived at his destined place to turn the tide of the battle, and Gollum once more joined Frodo and Sam as helper and aid. There followed a moment of reflection then as Denethor died and Gondor deliberated its next act, and Sam’s own deepened knowledge of the effects of the Ring allowed him empathy with Gollum. The last two acts see completion of Aragorn’s claim to kingship, and the long with-held last claim to the Ring by Gollum. For a moment the long-in-hiding Aragorn and long-waiting Gollum share a destiny-fullfillment.

The Lord of the Rings 2

The Two Towers

Book Four

Tolkien exploits the breakup of the Fellowship’s splintering focus as an opportunity to interlace adventures, in the traditional manner. We have three distinct foci from here on: that of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli as they pursue the orcs; that of Merry and Pippin carried off by the orcs; that of Frodo and Sam as they pursue their own path. In the book this is shown by the alternating of the first two story-lines. The third line, Frodo and Sam, has a book to itself: Book Four.

If we unpick the braid, the interlacing, we see the plotted courses below:

Fellowship                           Merry and Pippin                                       Frodo and Sam       

Boromir’s death                       captured                                          Gollum: oaths and promises

Roharrim: hobbits alive          uruk hai and orc squabbles          dead marshes to the Black Gate

Fangorn: Gandalf returns       Ents                                                Ithilien/battle/oliphaunt: Caught by Faramir

All to Edoras                             Ent moot                                       discuss Boromir’s death – Faramir’s test

Helm’s Deep battle                  Ents attack Isengard                  Gollum caught. Frodo has him released

Saruman’s last trick                 The palantir                                 Minas Morgul: army leaves

Gandalf and Pippin to Gondor   Pippin revealed to Sauron    Gollum’s betrayal to Shelob- Frodo not dead

If we compare the first two story-lines purely on a schematic basis we can see they form a pattern of paralleled events: the capture, then transport of the hobbits matches the loss of Boromir and tracking of the orc host: both Boromir and the hobbits are ‘taken’ by orcs; the initially awkward relations between remains of the Fellowship, and the Roharrim can be seen in the squabbles between Saruman’s uruk-hai and Sauron’s orcs; then comes a return of a leader: Gandalf, and Treebeard; this is followed by the all-important confrontation at Edoras, and the Ent-moot; the attack on Helm’s Deep matches the attack on Isengard; Saruman’s secret is revealed: the palantir, and Pippin is revealed to Sauron in the palantir; then come the divisions: Gandalf and Pippin ride off alone, and the Merry and Pippin fellowship is broken.

But what of the last story-line, that of Frodo and Sam? Here is another reverse chiasmus. All story-lines centre on the gathering of forces: Edoras, the Ent-moot, and the meeting with Faramir: a major change in fortunes. In each meeting a leader is tested and comes through. We see the battle on Ithilien between Faramir’s men and Sauron’s Southerners in reverse position to the battles of Helms’ Deep and Isengard. This reverse chiasmus emphasises the bond between Saruman and Sauron: the arrival at the very much intact Black Gate is in reverse position with the arrival at a ruined Isengard. Gollum’s betrayal of Frodo to Shelob is in reverse position to the betrayal of Boromir: both were oath-breakers. Sam discovered that Frodo was not in fact dead. This echoes the earlier scene where the remains of the Fellowship discovered Merry and Pippin were not dead. This last is not an exact point-for-point cross-parallel but it is an unmistakeable echoing.

The Lord of the Rings

As the name suggests the Lord of the Rings is indeed a book of ring compositions. J R R Tolkien was amongst his many achievements an expert of Beowulf, another ring-rich text. It is recorded as a child and avid reader one of his favourite books was Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Both of these have we have seen are rich in rings.

So, are Tolkien’s other books rings also? Give me a chance!

If we look at The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the trilogy we see enough rings to keep us going. It gets busier from then on!

The first volume is itself two books. The books carry multiple story-lines.  The first book begins in the Shire, and ends in a safe haven once again, in Rivendell. In between we have all manner of dark deeds.

The centre of the first book is once more seemingly safe indoors in Bree. Only, here, the themes work their magic: we have an attack by the Nazgul in the night, attempted murder.  We also have here the introduction of another major theme and character, Strider/Aragorn. The Bree episode is neatly framed by two events: the capture of the party on the Barrow-downs, and by the events on Weathertop.

How can these two possibly be parallels? The knights of the barrow-downs are not at rest because they failed in the battle against the witch-king of Angmar. And he is? The chief of the Nazgul. The barrow knights want more unresting dead to carry on the battle against the trapped dead of the Nazgul. For those not knowing the story, or unfamilar with this part, it is the chief of the Nazgul attacks Frodo on Weathertop.

Consider the Nazgual here: they enter the Shire, then break down the door of Crickhollow; they break open the gates of Bree; attack Frodo on Weathertop; attempt to break into Rivendell by the ford. In this last instance they are washed away by elf magic.

The story-line that holds this structure as a ring is the big story-line, of the ring, of big events outside the Shire that continually encroach and cast long shadows over lives of peace.

Behind this first book is the ring of Gandalf; it is hidden, only known by hints at the time, but revealed in the crucial Council of Elrond at Rivendell. Gandalf’s friendship to both Bilbo and Frodo was of the utmost importance to the whole tale of the one Ring. It is he who reveals its true nature to Frodo, and its legacy of danger. But then he disappears again; he was to meet them at Bree, the centre of the ring, or, as Strider/Aragorn asserts, at Weathertop at the very latest. It is not until they get to Rivendell, Frodo gravely injured, that he appears again. He had been a prisoner of Saruman; he had been inquiring into ring-lore and became caught in Saruman’s machinations. It was only the arrival of Gwaifir the eagle rescued him. The ring had taken him from the hobbits he trusted in the Shire, to Isenguard and a trusted advisor who turned out to be anything but, to Rivendell and safe colleagues.

The second book sees the making of the Fellowship, and ends in the break-up of the Fellowship. The centre of this book must be the dire events in the Mines of Moria, and the fall of Gandalf.

This is framed by the attempt to cross the mountain pass of Caradhras, and by the safe haven of Lothlorien: high mountain pass in snow, and low forest in leaf. An obvious parallel of opposites; what is particularly apposite here is that Gandalf could not save the company at Caradhras, that his power was found wanting. It is important that it was up to the men, particularly Boromir, to save the company. In LorienGandalf has gone and Boromir begins to be revealed as fractured and untrustworthy in his response to Galadriel. In both these two framing events the melding of the fellowship is a crucial factor: it is Boromir mostly, followed by Aragorn who forge pathways through the snow who rescues the party. In the latter it is the bonding of Legolas and Gimli, in the trust engendered by their mutual blindfold entry into Lorien, and the trust offered by Galadriel to Gimli bridging the traditional antipathy of Elves and Dwarves, that proves such a crucial factor in the coming battles.

It does get tricky when book One and Two are paralleled.

Is it plotted this way:

Shire: Frodo and Sam leave (Merry and Pippin join)  –  Rivendell: Fellowship leaves

Old Forest/Barrow downs –  Mountain pass

Bree: attack at night; introduction of leader, Strider/Aragorn   –  Mines of Moria and loss of leader, Gandalf

Weathertop  –  Lorien

Rivendell: meetings  –  Parth Galen: break up of Fellowship

?

Or this way:

Shire: Frodo and Sam leave —  Part Galen: Frodo and Sam leave

Old Forest: Tom Bombadill and Goldberry –  Lorien: Galadriel and Celeborn (reversal in roles)

Bree: attack at night; introduces leader Aragorn  –  Moria attack in dark: loss of leader Gandalf

Weathertop — Caradhras mountain (un)pass in snow

Rivendell: meetings — Rivendell: leavings

?

This latter ring, a reverse chiasmus, is the only example of such a form in the whole trilogy. I may yet be wrong on that assertion, or even that structure – although it does seem to fit very neatly. This second ring structure uses more superficial phenomena as its basis: similarity of pattern eg of Tom Bombadill and Goldberry with Celeborn and Galadriel. It has less to do with the history backstory, the emotive aspects, or the main story-line.

It is possible to see a bigger ring here for Gandalf: from the Shire, to the tower of Saruman, to Rivendell, then Caradhras in the mountains, and his fall in the Mines of Moria. A path full of parallel heights and low places; but how can we parallel hobbit holes with the mines of Moria, other than superficially? If we can, then what does this tell us about the nature of Gandalf, or his part in the story-lines?

Lies Inc by Philip K Dick, and other matters

One of the first Philip K Dick novels I read was Lies Inc, initially published in 1966 as The Unteleported Man. I was immediately hooked.

1

The one image of the many I want to bring to mind, is that of the means the inhabitants of Whale’s Mouth, NewColonizedLand, used to scuttle earth’s colonisers.

For those who do not know the story, it is set far into the future. Lies Inc is an organization intent on creating a quiescent population. They do this by continually bombarding people’s minds telepathically with a feedback of personal memory mixed with inconsequent thought. The person cannot distinguish an original thought, or follow a through-line. They can conduct relatively easy tasks but are unable to question authority to any disruptive level.

The original inhabitants of Whale’s Mouth could not challenge the colonisers technologically so they picked up on Lies Inc’s techniques. The formed themselves into books; they comprised the life stories of whoever the readers were, and full of instantly recreated memories of the readers; most importantly, took the readers up to the present moment. The effect was that the readers became so enthralled in their own life story, a ‘take’ on their own life story, they became caught in a solipsistic loop, incapable of further action.

2

This image has so many repercussive parallels in our culture. Do we see here the attraction of the soap opera, of the highselling magazines? The hook is in the ability to describe the life, making coherence out of the jumble of impressions, half-resolved tensions, aspirations based on rickety superstructures, the half-understood, and the ignored detail. But is it the ‘real’, the ‘true’ or even the ‘valid’ story?

This also is dialogue, with the protagonist of the book, and the antagonist of the memory. The book ie autobiography, as a memory-place. Memory-places are essential to us: our house, apartment, car even is a memory place. We decorate and ornament all with our own or combined personal effects. We live within mirrors, we feel comfortable there. It is not our image pleases so much as what we effect: that we can trace our place in time and space with these designs and objects.

Another way of seeing this is in our use of chiasmus, a device of two parts that relate to each other intimately. They relate either antithetically or sequentially: they parallel each other either inversely or directly. But they have a crossing point, a connection. You can find chiasmus in everything we make. Take music: listen to the patterning of counterpoint; but importantly the structure of a fugue by Bach; a symphony, even. Listen to the arch structures of Bruckner’s later works. There is the setting up of structures of phrases and musical relationships, and there is the restatement of key phrases and structural elements, changed perhaps, but only within the parameters set up in the first part. It is everywhere in architecture.

Our reasoning uses the same structures: think of dialectics. It is a form of two parts, intimately related: it sets up a tension, an interrogation, as in music, and holds it in harmonic relation. Think of the basis of argument, discussion.

Think of Shakespeare (if you must!). His Sonnets are full of struggle and tension. The root cause of this tension is the structure: he posits an argument, a statement of being, then complicates it with antithesis. The form, the Sonnet, is his resolution, a form that exists outside the personal world of the self; it is a statement of the tension, but not the thing itself: an artifact, that has its separate existence. This theme is another major theme through the Sonnets.

In his early plays we see him use chiasmus prodigiously; in Love’s Labours Lost it is a great piece of language-furniture. The form then goes through variation and development in the Sonnets, to emerge in the later plays as a major structural element. Look at MacBeth: both Lady M and M set out from antithetical positions, then diverge as events draw them, to end up in opposite camps. The language of MacBeth himself is full of chiasmi that express his feeling of entrapment within a structure of act and retribution: ‘Foul is fair, and fair is foul’. Contra-diction, frustrated movement, entrapment, one commentator states; MacBeth is ensnared by his reason, and what options it gives him; he has no way out.

From chiasmus to ring: is this from dialectic’s thesis and antithesis, to synthesis? Is the ring-structure that of the syllogism? It is still a trap, a gilded cage. If we look at the pioneering work in neuro-phenomenolgy of Professor Dan Lloyd we see similar forms: the sensory input, and the brain’s mapping create a back and forth response (as he puts it a ‘recursive recession’) that maps our body in space: the mind’s space. It is the superstructure of consciousness. We are forever trapped in our images that are and are not ourselves.

I have become very wary of dual-option thought: yes-no; this or that; up or down, Conservative-Labour. Think of the Matrix: this reality, or that one – that’s all, folks!

I want a way of thought that works on multiple bases and results in multiple possibilities. I want a way of thought more in tune with a multiverse, that allows more options.

There is a greater harmonic out there to tune to.

Time to move on, folks.

Chronology of Ring Structures, and Other Matters

1

Out of the plethora of information within the text how do we recognize a pattern, or one in particular from the others at play there?

Jack Zipes in Why Fairy Stories Stick, commenting on Relevance Theory, writes:  relevance is not a commodity, but a “property of inputs to cognitive processes. It can be a property of stimuli, for example, which are inputs to inferential processes….Stimuli are… found in the external environment of the organism; assumptions, which are the output of cognitive processes of perception, recall, imagination or inference, are internal to the organism….” And, further on: When we claim that human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance, we mean that cognitive resources tend to be allocated to the processing of the most relevant inputs available, whether from internal or external sources.

So, we find the pattern because it is there to be found.  We recognize relevance because it is part of our brain architecture. This must be what Mary Douglas meant in Thinking in Circles. But whether it is an acquired or built in processing function is not clear. Because we have this ability we construct with it: we put in markers when we construct information media/text. Zipes goes on to write: There is a domain or module within our brains that enables us to form and conceptualise information according to variable linguistic conventions….

This takes us further, it suggests how we pick up the right signals from the text. These variable linguistic conventions then, are they artificial, arbitrary conventions a culture recognizes as its own and so imposes through education and habituation? If this is so then what do we mean by them? I suppose we could put forward the use of parallelism; in the Bible it is a major linguistic resource. In ancient Egyptian and Sumerian we do not find linguistic but structural parallelism. In early Greek we do not find linguistic parallelism. In Homer also we find parallelism as a structuring device: the Iliad alternates days and nights. The further extension of the biblical form of linguistic parallelism is to be found in Arabic texts; Islamic texts use it as a major resource. One of these days I’m going to have to back that up.

2

I’ve been rereading Frances Yates’ Art of Memory.

She traces two distinct lines of descent for memory arts. The first, what she calls the Scholastic she traces from Cicero’s account of Simonides,  alongside Quintilian, the anonymous Ad. C Herennium, libra IV,  through to Albertus Magnus, then St Thomas Aquinas. These sources all explicitly cited a memory art in their texts. Thomas Bradwardine, 12thCentury Archbishop of Canterbury used the Ad. C Herennium as a basis for a memory system.

The second line claims descent from ‘Democritus’, and into the burgeoning of memory texts in Renaissance times.

A further line can be traced from the 13thCentury work of Raymond Lull. His was an Augustinian-Platonist form; he tried to recommend it to many monastic schools, and eventually the Franciscans took it on. It was later banned.  Traces of it can be found in the later un-published memory work of Leibniz. I noticed an Augustinian reference to a memory system earlier: in St Augustine’s Confessions subsection 8 of chapter 10 begins: So I must also go beyond this natural faculty of mine… The next stage is memory, which is like a great field or a spacious palace, a storehouse for countless images of all kinds….

The problem is the big break in transmission when Europe was over run, and scholars and texts scattered or destroyed. St Augustine’s must have been one of the last references to the classical memory art. He died as the Vandals from Spain overran the north African coast, where he was bishop of Hippo.

The Scholastic line identified memory arts as a Rhetorical device. The later theological scholars identified it as a part of Prudence, and hence, no longer a part of the Trivium. Transmission , therefore, became more a matter of advanced study than basic study. It was less available to general levels in the monastic schools.

The Renaissance scholars were part and parcel of the wrench of away from monastic control of education towards a more secular-based education sector. Also there was the advent of printing: memory arts of the ‘Democritus’ line proved very popular. ‘Democritus’ as a source was only possible in retrospect, as it were, as before the Renaissance period his works had not been available. The main line of this memory art was from Aristotle’s laws of association. What was available of the Ad. C Herennium work on memory was also very incomplete. Why ‘Democritus’? He was a contemporary of Socrates, one of the best at the time. He is often considered now to be the father of modern science studies. Unfortunately he did not have a Plato to record his work; very little has come down to us, and then only as part of critiques etc. His work has mostly been used by Epicurus (341 to 270BCE). Again, most of his work we known through his followers and commentaries and critics.

Frances Yates speculated that the ‘Democritus’ line also shared a link with Byzantine culture. There is evidence of a translation into the Byzantine Greek of the anonymous Ad. C Herennium , libra IV. On which the line was also largely based.

All we have so far as a record of memory arts begins with Cicero and/or ‘Democritus’. We are back to Simonides again. Simonides of Ceos lived between 556 to 468 BCE. He was a highly respected poet, famed for the beauty of his work. Another quality he was renowned for was the drawing of close links between poetry and painting: poetry, as ‘ painting that speaks’; painting as ‘silent poetry’. Here we see the predominantly visual aspect of his work: this has implications in his memory art – the visualization of space, objects within space, positioning within that space, are all essentials of his system. The Quintilian method in Institutio Oratorio, allowed also for a word-based system. By itself Cicero’s account in De Oratore was not particularly clear on how to actually use the system; Quintilian’s work, 1stCentury AD, gave examples on the use of space, objects, placing, and the orator’s mental traverse of the space. The Dialexeis, of 400BCE also has a section on memory arts. This is also in part a word-based system.

Is this as far back as we can go in tracing memory arts? Frances Yates quotes a tantalizing passage from Plato’s Phaedrus. Here there is an Egyptian tale where the god Thoth displays his new invention of writing to the god of upper Egypt, Thamus. Upon explaining its uses Thamus refuses the gift on the grounds that writing would make the people lazy, and no longer strive to remember: You have invented an elixir not of wisdom, but of reminding…. So, prior to this the people had to rely solely on oral knowledge, and thereby on a means of memory retention.

3

Frances Yates does give a very intriguing speculation comment: One can imagine that some form of the high art might have been a very ancient technique used by bards and story-tellers. The inventions supposedly introduced by Simonides may have been symptoms of the emergence of a highly organized society.

This may or may not refer to a ring-structure practice. Frances Yates seemed unaware of the method in this and surrounding work.

We did notice this about the emergence of highly organized societies earlier, though, in relation to both the ancient Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Tale of Sinuhe was written, it is estimated, in 1875BCE. Clearly Thoth’s invention of writing won out in the end. The latest version of the Epic of Gilgamesh was recorded around 1100BCE. Both of these were a long time before the writing of the Iliad, (latest estimation 9^thCenturyBCE), another major ring text.

The Hymns of Zoroaster, also considered to have parallelism in structure, have been suggested of a period similar to Gilgamesh. There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the language of the Sanskrit RigVeda hymns. These are estimated to date from between 1100 and 1700BCE. As far as I can discern the RigVeda do not use parallelism or ring structure.

The later major ring text, Old Testament of the Bible, however, is estimated to only have been recorded between the 3^rd and 5^th CenturiesBCE.

I suppose it all comes down to nomenclature: memory arts were novel, at times controversial. What was ring-structure? Did it have an appellation? If we were to look in old texts for references to it, what would we look for? Maybe it was too well-known , too old, too well used to need a name; taken for granted. And so when we find the Renaissance grand master of memory arts Camillo actually using chiasmic structures in his text, what are we to think? Donald Kunze Ph.D., Prof. of Architecture and Integrative Arts, writes, The 16c. master of memory arts, Giulio Camillo, used chiasmus to indicate the role of the three-part Kabbalistic soul in his literary model of the cosmos of mind.

We have a gap, then between the proliferation of texts in this form between 10thCentury and 13thCentury in the West, and this new appearance in the 15^th Century (Camillo, 1480 to 1544) Italy. Between the 13^th Century and Renaissance a radical rethinking occurred in the field of scholastic thought. Part reaction against the speculative freedom of Abelard, this rethinking took the form of an assertion on strict content and practice.

Professor Kunze in his essay goes on to ask: Is chiasmus a tool of literati who appropriate spatial forms to pull their plots to closure, or is there an independent architectural tradition of chiasmus? In his essay he calls chiasmus,’ the logic of halves’: that is, of one half mirroring the other, this second half is by necessity reversed as in an actual mirror. He goes on to relate this to Lacan and psychological crisis-states. This is not really our main concern here; what we want to know is how this forming or structuring of a text has been repeatedly passed down through time, or if not that, then repeatedly rediscovered. Professor Kunze explored the form as a possible basic mental reflex. If that is so, then it is not repeatedly rediscovered as repeatedly expressed. But there is this proviso, where strict form is insisted upon, as in monastic establishments of this liminal period, then its expression could only occur outside the monastic centres, that is, amongst the travelling scholars. This is what we found when we looked at the writing of The Song of Roland.

4

In an earlier Shakespeare play we find:

“The shepard seeks the sheep,
and not the sheep the shepard;
but I seek my master,
and my master seeks not me;
therefore I am no sheep.”

This is given as an example of chiasmus; there do seem to be many such examples, a great many connected within logic and reasoning. On Shakespeare’s famous sonnet 129:

TH’expence of Spirit in a waſte of ſhame
Is luſt in action, and till action, luſt
Is periurd, murdrous, blouddy full of blame,
Sauage, extreame, rude, cruell, not to truſt,

one commentator stated, The opening inversion allows the next line to comprise a near-perfect rhetorical chiasmus. This play on structure, was used by Shakespeare in his Sonnets to great effect, playing the logic of the heart against that of the head. Here we have another example of Professor Kunze’s ‘logic of halves’.

Bishop Lowth (1710 to 1785) introduced the study of parallelism in the Bible. This in turn caught the attention of Laurence Sterne, then studying Divinity. Sterne went on to write the ground-breaking Life and Times of Tristram Shandy. Mary Douglas established the book was constructed as a chiasmus, but was an incomplete ring.

Another gap. And followed by another to the 19^thCentury literature, and Treasure Island. I am still greatly intrigued as to what Stevenson used as a template. Could it be his discursive imagination took him to The Book of Mormon (published 1830)? Attention is drawn to the chiasmic form in The Book of Mormon:

 

 a) And now . . . whosoever shall not take upon him the name of Christ

b) must be called by some other name;

c) therefore, he findeth himself on the left hand
of God.

d) I would that ye should remember also, that this is the name . . .

e) that never should be blotted out,

f) except it be through transgression;

f’) therefore, take heed that ye do not
transgress,

e’) that the name be not blotted out of your
hearts . . .

d’) I would that ye should remember to retain the name . . .

c’) that ye are not found on the left hand of God,

b’) but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called,

a’) and also, the name by which he shall call you

The Voyage of St Brendan/ Brendan the Navigator

1

St Brendan was a fifth century Irish priest, a Kerry man by birth. His brother was bishop of Tuainn-Muscraighe, and his sister abbess of Annadown. He was mostly based at the monastery of Clonfert.

It is recorded he undertook two voyages, the first apparently unsuccessful; the second (565 to 573AD) is recorded as The Voyage of St Brendan. The tale was written in Latin, it is thought in the ninth century. Many have taken the tale to contain the basic elements of real voyage; the destination a matter of speculation. Some suggested Madeira; others the Canary Isles; some even suggested the Antilles. Tim Severin, noted explorer, suggested the first landing in the Americas. He sought to prove this by undertaking a similar voyage following what is known as the ‘stepping stones’ route: following trade routes to, amongst and beyond, the islands of the Hebrides, Orkneys, Shetlands, Fair Isle, then Iceland, Greenland to Nova Scotia. It was suggested that for the journey to be successful would have needed exceptionally warm periods. Recent work on climate change has suggested that during and immediately following the Roman period was a particularly warm period. The Romans at last left Britain in 410, so this would suggest a possibility.

However philologists have noted a great many similarities between events and places in St Brendan and other voyage tales of a similar period of record.

The tale is divided into twenty-nine chapters of varying lengths.

Chapter 1  St Barrid arrived, and told of finding the Island of Paradise on a voyage. Brendan was prompted to find it also.

2  He assembled fourteen monks to accompany him.

3  They fasted for forty days at three-day intervals, to prepare.

4  They visited St Enda.

5  Three latecomers begged to be admitted to the group.

6  They set sail. Their first sighting was an island with a dog who took them to a hall with no people but food laid out. One of the latecomers was tempted to steal, by a devil.

7  The latecomer was exorcised and the devil expelled, but the man died and was buried there.

8  They landed at another island where a young man brought them bread and water. They sailed on.

9   They sailed long, then found an island of flocks of huge docile sheep. It was Maundy Thursday, they stayed until Easter Saturday. A man suddenly appeared, hereto known as ‘the steward, ’and informed them they were to go to the next island for Easter Monday and the Resurrection then to sail to a further island, an island of birds, for Pentecost.

10  On their journey to the next island they beached on a low island. When lighting a fire there it suddenly sank – it was a whale: Jasconius.

11 They arrived at the next island, a paradise of birds, which all sang psalms and praised God.  One bird flew down to Branden and told him they were fallen angels God had given mercy to.

12 They sailed for a long time before arriving at a further island where they were met by members of the silent order of St Ailbe. They ate with them. They celebrated Christmas there.

13  After Epiphany they sailed on, another long journey. They arrived at an island rich in fish; the spring water, however, was too rich and they fell asleep for days.

14  They sailed on again over a ‘curdled sea’.

15  They found themselves once more at the island of sheep, encountered Jasconius, and the further island of birds. They told him he was to voyage for seven years to prepare himself and his crew. That each Maundy Thursday was to be spent on the island of sheep; each Easter was an encounter with the whale Jasconius; from Easter Sunday to Pentecost on the Island of Birds, and each Christmas with St Ailbe.

16  They journeyed on again. Their boat was approached by a fierce sea creature; another came and fought with it. They ate the torn apart sea beast.

17  They found an island of ‘compartments’ where three groups of young, older and elderly monks lived apart from each other. They communicated by singing hymns. The second latecomer left the boat here.

18  They were found by a huge bird carrying large grapes. They landed on the island of large grapes; they stayed there for forty days.

19  They sailed on and were chased by a flying gryphon, which was killed by the previous grape bird.

20  They arrived at St Ailbe’s. It was Christmas.

21  Set sail on a crystal clear sea.

22 They passed a silver pillar in the sea, wrapped in a kind of net.

23  They passed an island of blacksmiths, who threw slag at them.

24  They passed a volcano island. It was a portal of hell. They lost their third latecomer there.

25  They came across Judas Iscariot  on a rock in the sea: God allowed him Sundays free from Hell, and he spent it there. The sky was full of devils come to reclaim him, but Brendan intervened and gained him some respite.

26 They came across an island where lived Paul the Hermit, clad only in hair. He told them how he too sailed out on a similar voyage.

27  They returned to the isle of sheep, Jasconius, and the isle of birds.

28  They arrived at the Promised Land of Saints.

29  They returned home. Brendan died.

2

In the Voyage of St Brendan we see maybe see parallels with both The Odyssey, and Sinbad (a Persian name for dweller on the river Sind; no tale has yet been found of Sinbad in Persian): the whale-as-island does not seem to occur in Homer, but it does in Sinbad; all three texts do have an island where the inhabitants throw rocks etc out to sea at the boat – in Sinbad and Homer this is a blinded giant, in Brendan they are forge-workers. It is possible to see the water of sleep in Brendan as an equivalent to both the adulterated food that changes the crew’s natures, in Sinbad, and the Lotus eaters in Homer; I wonder whether the island where the third crew member is lost to hell, can be seen in Homer as the episode where Odysseus contacts the spirits of the dead, and Sinbad joins the dead in the grave-pit with his wife’s body. The grazing animals occur in all three texts: the quiescent sheep of huge size on Brendan’s island of sheep; the oxen of the sun in Homer; and the sheep bodies used to gather the jewels in Sinbad. I wonder if this is too fanciful a connection, though. The whale-as-island (Jasconius) only occurs in Brendan and Sinbad, but is an important element in both, occurring several times in each text.

At first I thought there must be a template these writers used, a wonder-voyage template, or at heart an Ur-voyage all these was based on. Then sense woke up and, well, writers, storytellers riff on what has gone before, and combine elements from other stories. And then there are the complications of time: transmission problems of who recorded them, why, where, and how. All these add their element, some small, sometimes re-casting the entire piece into another form.

So, we can see in the Brendan, the basic premise of The Voyage of Bran: a voyage towards a paradise, combining  elements of flipped perception (the flowery plain that is the sea: the whale that is an island). The next step is to trace the specific elements in earlier literatures that were available to the writers of the text under investigation.

3

In the twelfth century Irish Book of Leinster several other such wonder-voyagers are recorded, they are known as imram. Of the seven officially recognized imram only four seem to have come down to us: The Voyage of Bran; the Voyage of Maelduin; the Voyage of the Boat of Hui Corra; and the Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Riagla. There is also a parody of the genre, in the Aislinge Meic Con Glinne.

The Voyage of St Brendan was a Latin tale recorded elsewhere. It spread surprisingly quickly; versions have been found in Dutch/Middle High German; Venetian; Anglo-Norman; Occitan/Catalan; Norse and in Caxton’s Golden Legend. That is just two hundred years’ worth of published versions.

In the Journal Modern Philology (Vol 15, Number 8 -1917) William Flint Thall gives a very welcome examination of the phenomenon of imrama, and possible influences upon their conception.

It has been speculated that the oldest of the imrama is the Maelduin tale; linguistically, however, the early sections of Hui Corra win out. The oldest complete imram is Maedluin.

Many of the imrama share episodes:

Maelduin and Bran share episodes with – the Isle of Laughter; the otherworld Queen, drawing the hero to her with a magic ball of yarn.

Maelduin and Hui Corra have the Isle of Laughter; the isle of Weeping; the hell-miller; the female water woman; wonderful apples; an isle of compartments; an pedestal isle; a rainbow river; a silver pillar in the sea.

Bran and St Brendan have a four-footed isle(?); birds who sing the hours; mention of one hundred and fifty islands.

Maelduin and St Brendan have the three latecomers who are lost.

Maelduin and Bran have an isle of singing birds; walled isle of monsters.

Inner structures of the tales also show characteristics in common–

Bran had a voyage to, some have it Tir na N’Og, the isle of eternal youth; in some versions it is the Isle of Women. On the way there he lost a crew member on the Isle of Laughter. On his return journey he was instructed to pick up the lost man.

There is a looping round here, by design, and what it loops around is the central episode of the finding and residence upon the Isle of Women. The boat arrived and the crew were reluctant to go ashore; Bran was pulled ashore by a magical ball of yarn (‘clew’).

When the crew eventually grew homesick and resolved to return, the Queen was reluctant to release them . This is a framing of the central episode of residence.

There is little to the tale to structure anything else on. The tale opens with Bran dreaming of a beautiful woman telling him where all beauty, joy and lasting life is to be found . It ends with Bran and his crew unable to land back in Ireland: it was a year’s trip outside normal time scales: they arrived back as legends of themselves only; they would become ashes if they set foot back on land again.

The tale of St Brendan is more substantially structured.

There are three runs of three episodes:  chapters 9, 15, and 27 see the recurrence of landing at the isle of huge sheep

10, 15, 27 the whale, Jasconius

11, 15, 27 the isle of Birds

And there is one run of two: chapters 12 and 20 where St Brendan met St Ailbe. These two episodes frame chapter 15 where St Brendan lands again at the Isle of Birds: this time the birds reveal to St Brendon:  Your voyage will last seven years. Every year you will spend Maundy Thursday with ‘the steward’ (chapter 8?); Easter an encounter with the whale Jasconius; Easter Sunday to Pentecost with the Isle of Birds; and Christmas with St Ailbe.

What’s interesting about this is that St Ailbe’s order are silent: Christmas with a silent order! The mind boggles.

And also the Easter with the whale Jasconius: he always sinks and strands them. But then the dating of Easter was always the sticky problem between the Celtic Church and the Roman Church; what better image of the ambiguous problem between the churches!

The whole tale began with the arrival of St Barrid, who told his tale of a wonder-voyage. St Brendan resolved to follow him.

In last but one chapter 28 he landed at the Promised Land of the Saints. Then returned home.

How does the central chapter 15 fit in with this? It is where The Will of God is revealed to him – through St Barrid’s arrival (1), the information of the birds (15), and Brendan’s prophesied death (29) on the Promised Isle of Saints, on his return.

St Barrid’ s tale is interesting: he went to visit his son (!!!), who told him of a voyage to the Island of Saints. He set off himself. It was a short and direct route. Then he returned.

Why-ever did not St Brendan use the same route?! Instead he seems to have gone round and around in ever-widening circles, always returning every year to the same places for Easter and Christmas.

The tale seemed to be based on the need for all to cleanse themselves spiritually through the voyage; it was another take on the pilgrimage scenario.

The isle of the Promised Land of the Saints had a river down the centre they were not allowed to cross. Perhaps Bran’s amorous Queen and women lived over the river – Brendon and crew were all chaste monks…!

Are these circlings, then, rings? We are used to seeing the smaller rings within each half of the whole: here the circlings are like ‘layers in an onion’. But do they ascend and then descend from the centre?

Who would you parallel Judas Iscariot (25) with?  Devils tormented him, and St Brendan won him one more night of peace from them; a devil made an earlier appearance on the first isle they encountered ( 6/7): the devil that tempted the latecomer to steal, had to be exorcised, and led to his death. It said it had been with for seven years. But the scale is all wrong.

Do we match St Ailbe (11 et al) with Paul the Hermit (26)?

Apart from that there is little that fits.`

The tale of Maelduin is more substantial again, coming in with thirty-five episodes. It ends as it began with Maelduin arriving back in Ireland, but with his father’s murderers, his vengeance on them the reason for the voyage, forgiven. It is not easy to find a centre to the tale, though.

A great many episodes here are also found in St Brendan: the isles of the empty banquet hall with food laid out; island of birds singing psalms; several naked hermits clad only in hair; columns/pillars in the sea; islands of great sheep; isles of savage smiths throwing things at them; crystal seas; cloudy seas. As above many episodes are shared with the other extant imrama.

3

One German commentator found parallels in Maelduin with Virgil. The above William Flint Thall was able to dispute most/all of these satisfactorily. Virgil’s Aeneid must take its place along with Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica;  with  Sinbad; the Odyssey, in the generous genre of wonder-voyages. And let’s not forget Noah. Latterly there are the tales of Sir John Mandeville, Marco Polo et al. The episode elements are predominantly provided by the cultures that have recorded them. It is essential to remember these tales have accrued many layers of transmission-elaborations before we got to them.

To suggest that eg the whale episode, would come from a single source completely disregards the sea-going traditions and experience of other cultures. There is and has been, after all, more than just one whale in the sea! That many episodes are repeated indicates that other cultures were indeed just as rich in story sources as others; and just as ready to borrow where something took their fancy.

Many episodes here are to be found in the Norse sagas. I envision a long-term and intimate trading of wonder-tales, legends and folk stories amongst traders from many European and Eastern European  countries. This camaraderie, maybe at times contests of story-tellers, would have enriched each other’s repertoires at all the different ports and trading centers they met. I envision here, I suppose, an early collection of traders spanning the known world of early and middle medieval Europe. Maybe small-scale and rag-tag; but traders can be quite intrepid, especially when there is a profit to be made.

This is not so fanciful either; it was in the mid twelfth century that Scandinavian traders were busily working the old Viking routes of the Baltic, and then the North Sea coast. They became based at Visby on Gotland, off the Swedish mainland. And then the German Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, founded Lubeck . Lubeck was a specially built town/city in Schleswig, ideally placed to regulate traffic in the Baltic coming in over the Skagerak of Denmark. Under The German Hanseatic League, trading was built around the centers of Bruges, Antwerp, London, Bergen, Visby, Lubeck, Hamburg, Cologne and deep into the eastern Baltic: Helsinki, Novgorod, the Danube and east and south.

As Vandals, Huns and Goths displaced the peoples of Europe, sacking centres of learning, the scholars and learned fled West. They enriched the academies of Western Europe and also Ireland. Just as Irish monks had and continued to venture out in turn into European centers of learning, European traders were coming in to them; or centers in contact with them.

The St Brendan tale gained such wide popularity due to a number of related factors. In its written form it was, unlike the other imrama, in Latin, the lingua franca of the emerging West after the Roman decline and emigration of peoples.  As such it could be read and understood by a wide range of cultures. The tale also emphasized the Christian religion, which was a major part of the newly emergent states of Europe; dissemination – look at the countries that versions appeared in: Dutch/Middle High German; Venetian; Anglo-Norman; Occitan/Catalan; Norse – all were part of the main trade routes of the middle ages.

I have heard whispers of the Babylonian Talmud text of the voyages of Rabbah bar-bar Hannah. Another source to search out!

The Poem of the Cid /My Cid

I have resisted this work for quite a while, presuming it to be like The Song of Roland, bloody, bloodthirsty and violent. The two are set around the same times, eleventh century, and based on real events connected with the expulsion of the Moors from Spain.

Thankfully, the Cid is easier on the stomach. The version we have is based on the only extant manuscript that was written between 1201 and 1207, in Spain. It is not a complete manuscript, there are pages missing; the first one, for example. There is a name and attached to the manuscript, Per Abbad (Father Peter), but most writers view him as the recorder of an older document which has not survived. There seem to be several older documents about the Cid, all are fragmentary, and narrate the tale from different viewpoints, not all (the Arab, of course) very complimentary. The Poem as we now have it has only a passing relation to the personage of recorded history.

1

The Cid consists of 3735 lines, divided into 152 unequal laises (stanzas); there has been a further division in the text, into three cantares.

The story centres around the Cid, Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar. Sounds grand, but Vivar was a small village, and this had consequences later in the story. We first met him and his men riding from Vivar to Burgos to learn he had just been banished by King Alfonso IV, of Leon. We do not know why. Banished meant unable to set foot back inside Castile. He had to leave immediately in all that he stood up in; his wife and two daughters he left in the hands of a monastery. Beyond Castile, the south and east were still in Muslim hands.

He had to find money immediately to help house and feed the men who had chosen to stay with him. This is an important point in the story: the Cid always valued and took great care of his men. Initially he raised money by tricking a trusted moneylender. Luckily it paid off.

To raise capital, one major theme throughout the story, he went raiding Muslim towns, looting and ‘rescuing them’ for Christian governance.

The first cantare sees three major campaigns where the Cid rises from penniless to rich; rich enough to send a worthy gift of spoils back to King Alfonso with his blessing. This allowed the men who followed the Cid pardon, and permission to return whenever they wished. The Count of Barcelona challenged the Cid, thinking he was usurping his rule over his own region. He was vanquished, but with honour. At first upon capture he refused food, but when he was made to realize he would be set free he responded, and with gratitude.

The next cantare centres around the liberation of Valencia; the city became the Cid’s centre of operations. Not only did he liberate the city after a lengthy siege, but once liberated set up a Christian bishopric there. From those long campaigns he sent back greater and greater gifts to King Alfonso. The result being that the Cid gained his pardon, was able to repay all debts, and have his family returned to him. They lived in Valencia. Moroccan King Yusuf arrived and challenged the Cid, on the behalf of his fellows who had been vanquished. King Yusuf was beaten, and retreated. The Cid seized his magnificent sword, countless horses, tents and ‘spoils from the field.’

The third cantare is concerned with the responsibilities of reinstatement: he must allow his two daughters to become married to the two Infantes of Carrion. It was the King’s wish.

They turned out to be gutless and lacklustre characters, who saw the daughters of the great Cid as beneath them. On pretext of taking them to their own home they abandoned and beat the daughters, leaving them for dead in a forest. The Cid’s forethought provided help for them; they were saved. The Cid now turned to the King’s court for reparation. The trial was based at Toledo. The Cid handled the case very well, gaining all the dowry and wealth he had provided, and leaving the Infantes poor, but also members of his party gained reparations on the women’s part through duels. The Infantes were routed.

The two daughters married the princes of Navarre and Aragon; this, as one commentator has it ‘began the unification of Spain’.

2

The title Cid is from an Arabic word sidi/sayyid, ‘Sir’. Nor are the Moors in the tale portrayed as badly as in Roland. There are many examples of the Cid taking and being received by Moors as friends. There is a lot of in-fighting amongst the Muslim inhabitants: towns held by the Cid earlier on are grateful to him for his releasing them with property and lives intact as he moved out to take on the bigger rulers, the ones who also laid burdens on the smaller towns.

We see in the history of the Alhambra in Granada how the delightful gardens witnessed much slaughter and bloodshed by rival Muslim rulers. It is important here to distinguish between the Ummayid Arabic rule, based at Cordoba, and the new incursions of warlike Berbers from North Africa. The Berbers overthrew the settled Muslim rule and threw Muslim Spain into chaos as they vied for power and control amongst themselves.

The structure of The Cid

One source says, ‘Since 1913, and following the work of Ramon Menedez Pidal, the entire work is divided into three parts’. This has significance; although the text does divide into sections by explicitly stating ends and beginnings in the places the cantares are introduced. The only ambiguous one is the last one: the cantare begins with the humiliation of the Infantes in the ‘lion episode’, whilst the Penguin Classics edition begins it on the marriage betrothal of the Cid’s daughters prior to this, and where the Infantes come into the story fully.

In the first cantare we meet the Cid, his devoted friends, his family. He leaves his family at the monastery, has a dream of greatness, then has to go out from Castile. None is allowed, on pain of death, to sell him food, or allow him a bed for the night. He has to plan a ruse to raise money to fund his foray, and support his followers. First of all he plans raids on Muslim townships along a river course. Each is successful, but only with the Cid’s use of tactics. He is able to send back his first gift to King Alfonzo. Following this he plans a much more difficult raid among a bigger series of towns. This raid involves planning, trickery and subterfuge; he gains great prestige and booty from this.

We see the cantare begin with the Cids’ banishment from Castile, and it ends with the restoration of the Count of Barcelona to his freedom and region. The high point of the cantare must surely be the presentation of the first gift to King Alfonzo. It follows from this act that the Cid’s’ followers are pardoned their part in helping him, and allowed home.

The second cantare has three main raids: one in the Levantine, the second in the towns surrounding Valencia, the lengthy siege of the city. And then settling there as a Christian reconquered city. The emir of Seville is defeated in battle and much booty gained. At this point the Cid sets up the Christian bishopric, and is henceforth allowed restitution of his family. They all settle n Valencia. The last battle is with King Yusuf of Morocco. This is by far the greatest. The spoils are magnificent. He sends back his greatest gift to King Alfonzo, and wins his pardon. His renown as a great and wealthy warrior is settled.

The two main battles book-end the seizure of Valencia, a very prolonged siege as a battle of wills between Spain and Moor. The battle with the emir of Seville runs concurrently with the winning of Valencia.

This is surely the centre of the poem. All changes from here; from now on the whole tone of the poem is different. The latter part of the poem is concerned with justice under Spanish law, whereas the first parts were concerned winning prestige, wealth and a reputation for loyalty and honesty –  that is, of winning back his place in the Spanish sphere of civility and legality.

Throughout, the poem has set out to prove the Cid’s loyalty and honourable character. One under-theme is the beard of the Cid; he vowed never to cut it (or have it travestied) until he won restitution. All through the poem are references to his beard: well, the poem does take years to run the story’s course: even the King was outclassed by the Cid’s beard! Ok, but the point being the beard is a mark of the Cid’s commitment to the cause, and an emblem of his prestige.

3

So, does the first cantare parallel the last; and are the motifs repeated in reverse order, as is required of a ring?

The first cantare sees the Cid banished, cut off from law and recourse. He fights three campaigns against the Moors  of Henares, the Jalon river, and the Jiloca river.

In the last cantare we see three legal challenges to the treachery of the Infantes whereby the Cid reclaims his generously given wealth; and also three duels – one duel per campaign.

We begin (despite the lost first page) with the Cid realizing his banishment from Castile (a metonym for Christian Spain), and end with the Cid helping unite Spain through marriage. The central event also echoes this where we see the Cid settle Valencia and environs for Christian Spain, but also establish a Christian bishopric there under battling Bishop Jeronimo.

The reverse order of events is encapsulated in the court case: the lawsuit, the duels, the marriages (laises 135-52).

So, yes, it does work. We have the main ring of the whole poem, and as in true classical style, the three smaller rings of the cantres.

But where did Per Abbad learn of the structure? So little has come down from pre-Moor Spain. But what of Mozarabic Spain? I may have to hunt out Arabic sources, but also perhaps Sephardic as well.