Saturn instructing Janus in the arts of building ships and coining money.[1] The sinister aspect of Manannán is scarcely reflected by Manawyᵭan, who is represented as gentle, scrupulously just, and always a peacemaker; neither is he described as a magician; but he is made to baffle utterly one of the greatest wizards known to Welsh literature.[2] His connection with the other world is to be inferred, among other things, from his marked attachment to his brother Brân,[3] the terrene god mentioned in the first lecture (p. 94). Further Manawyᵭan, like Cronus vagrant, figures as one of the three landless monarchs of Britain.[4] This description only ceases to be altogether applicable to him when, late in life, he becomes the husband of Rhiannon, widow of Pwyỻ Head of Hades, and accepts as his own a district in the territory of Pwyỻ's son and successor Pryderi. How he came to be without land and without power is partially explained in the Mabinogion: while Manawyᵭan was away with his brother Brân, possession was taken of the throne of this country by their kinsman Caswaỻawn son of Beli (p. 153). For Caswaỻawn had put on a magic tartan that made him all invisible except the sword with which
- ↑ Preller's Röm. Myth2. p. 411.
- ↑ R. B. Mab. pp. 53-8; Guest, iij. 175-84.
- ↑ He appears very sparingly in Irish as Manannán's brother: he is called 'Bron, the son of Allott, and brother of Mananann [sic] mac Lir, by Brash, who, p. 210, cites the manuscript Bk. of Lecain.
- ↑ R. B. Mab. p. 44; Guest, iij. 163; Triads, i. 14 = ij. 35 = iij. 38.
mod. Irish meanadh). So one sometimes finds him called Manawyt (with a t not standing for ᵭ), as in the Bks. of Aneurin and Taliessin: see Skene, ij. 63 and 155, in the latter of which Manawyt and Pryderi are associated with Caer Sidi (p. 249).
