[Stones] Barclodiad y gawres

[Ric]

thanks Thelma -

you have identified a source which others have cited
but not referenced. Curiously, i have Ellis'
'Dictionary of Celtic Mythology', where he lists both
Lleu and Blodeuwedd, yet makes no reference to Pen
Llyn whatsoever? Equally, the Cynfal (river / valley)
is clearly identified in the Mabinogion as the focus
for both the story and the holed stone?

can you kindly give me the full title of the Ellis
book - here or off group - i would like to see it,
please? 

with regards to the Ellis storyteller, in the late
1960's, the writer Alan Garner encountered a gentleman
by the name of Dafydd Rees who, unbidden, scratched
Blodeuwedd's name on piece of slate and pronounced
that a "Red Indian shot a man down by the river
there", where Garner was filming his version of
Gronw's fateful attempt to hide from Lleu, behind
Llech Goronwy - the Stone of Goronwy - a random
location film-set, in a river valley near Dolgellau.

this is a mighty coincidence, given the name of the
hill in the Cynfal Valley, where a holed stone was
subsequently recovered: "Bryn Saeth" or Hill of the
Arrow?

'Saeth' can mean a projectile, in the wider sense of
the word, but the Cynfal locals that i spoke to 
consistently translated 'saeth' as arrow, in the
context of the hill's place-name.

it may be, of course, that this myth was once
widespread with many local variants, as Dafydd
recalled (born c1890) and Ellis picked up, on the
Lleyn Peninsular? Garner himself records a 'menhir
with a hole through it, as if holed by a projectile'
in his native Cheshire? After all, there was a holed
stone at Avebury - the 'Ring Stone' - before the
villagers destroyed it, some time after Stukeley
sketched it, in the 18th century? Keiller found its
stump in the 1930's.

as the story revolves around a standing stone, i can't
help wondering if the myth came down to us from
neolithc times?

bests,

Ric


refs. 'Filming the Owl Service', 1970; 'The Voice That
Thunders', [Garner autobiog], 1997.


--- Thelma Wilcox <thelmawilcox at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi Ric, 
>   Looking it up in Peter Beresford Ellis's book of
> Celtic tales, he tells the story of staying on the
> Lleyn Peninsula, in the area around Trefor in the
> 1970s and  he says that the creation of  the
> Bloedeudd story is said to have happened here, he
> was told the tale by a chewdleuwr (storyteller) Its
> the spot where Lleu lived as an eagle., I see the
> story has my favourite pig in it - the fabulous
> Twrch Trwyth ;)  On the north shore Gwydon sought a
> name for his son.  south-west by Bardsey Island,
> Branwen's starling came ashore and so on. 
> Apparently there is the Lech Goronwry Pebr (the
> stone of Goronwry) with the great hole in it that
> Lleu killed him through, though I'm not sure where
> it is..
>   Thelma