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III. THE CULTURE HERO.
the same manuscript, where,[1] instead of Gweir son of Gweiryoed, we read Geir son of Geiryoed,[2] and the probable identity of Geir with Gwydion will appear when the etymology of the latter name comes to be discussed later.
Poetry associated in its Origin with the Culture Hero.
One of the most remarkable things in the Taliessin poem just cited, is the statement that, in consequence of what he went through in his captivity, Geir should for ever continue a bard or poet; but traces of a somewhat similar notion meet one in the once prevalent belief, that if a man spent a night on the Merioneth mountain, where the giant Idrys was thought to have
- ↑ Triads, ij. 7; R. B. Mab. p. 300.
- ↑ The difference is of importance, and the reading Geir is supported by the other versions (Triads, i. 50, iij. 61) in which the name is mentioned. The genuineness of the latter has in its favour the fact that they say nothing about Arthur, while they describe the personage here in question as Geir son of Geiryon, lord of Geirionyᵭ, a locality whose name survives in connection with the Lake of Geirionyᵭ, whose waters fall from Gwydion's country into the Conwy a little below Llanrwst. Thus the earlier Triad in the Red Book and all the other published versions of the Triads read Geir, while the later Triad in the Red Book and the verse in the Taliessin poem, which may be regarded as of about the same age, probably, as the portion of the Red Book in which the Triads occur, give us Gweir: which then is to be regarded as having the prior claim? The probability is decidedly in favour of Geir, which, as meaning 'word,' and otherwise unknown as a proper name, may readily be supposed to have been replaced by the better known personal name Gweir; I should, however, not discard the latter, but rather regard both Geir and Gweir as referring to the same. Geiryoed was pronounced, as in modern Welsh, Geirioeᵭ; similarly the Gweiryoed of the Triads was Gweirioeᵭ. Add to this that the old forms Gweir and Geir become later Gwair and Gair.
