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Home , Emain Ablach, The Voyage of Bran, Two Trees of Valinor

2.

C eltic iopLaences

on tbe bistoR # op tbe JpiRst Q ge Bjr m crnie BafinfieLD

Introduction *Celtic Things’

In 1957 The Sifniar/J/ion was In describing Celtic things as described by Edward Crankshaw, a "mad“, Tolkien was probably referring reader of Allen and Unwin, as having to the unsatisfactory state of the tales “something of that mad, bright-eyed as they have come down to us. Celtic beauty that perplexes all Anglo-Saxons tales lack the superficial cohesiveness in face of Celtic art" and containing and structure of Greek mythology, “eye-splitting Celtic names*. and some of the Norse matter. The J.H.H.Tolkien’s reply was indignant. Of druids allowed nothing concerning the names he wrote: “ Needless to say. their religion to be written down, so they are not Celtic," adding: “Neither that the tales were not recorded until are the Tales. 1 do know Celtic things after the decline of the beliefs upon (many in their original languages Irish wliich they had tested. Suppression and Welsh), and feel for them a of the old faith was stronger in Britain, certain distaste: largely for their and may account for the more garbled fundamental unreason. They have state of the and of the bright colour, but are like a broken Arthurian matter. In Ireland, tales stained-glass window reassembled were written down by Christian monks without design. They are, in fact, *mad’, who not only suppressed the divinity as your reader says...’ .1 of the heroes and grafted their history on to the early chapters of And there one might be tempted the Bible, but were engaged in a to leave matters, seeking the process of synthesising various local inspirations of Tolkien’s mythology traditions whose meanings they only in the Germanic material for probably did not understand. But to which he expressed an affection. dismiss “Celtic things’ on these However, by 1950, Tolkien was grounds would be to throw out the admitting that he had at the outset baby with the bathwater. With this desired his work to possess “the fair thought in mind, I perused The elusive quality that some call Celtic* Slim aril!Jon briefly to see if any trace (still qualifying this with the gloss of the Celtic “baby” was to be found "though it is rarely found in genuine in Arda. ancient Celtic things the influence of the Welsh language, upon the development of he later The Geography o f Arda freely acknowledged.1 The surviving Celts of the Tolkien was apt to deny the western seaboard resemble the sources of his material (as, for instance, peoples of Bcleriand in otte important the debt he owed to Wagner's Ring«). respect, and that is their abode on the He was familiar with both branches of shores of the ocean, with the vast the Celtic languages, and with Celtic unnavigable 3ea stretching out mythology! the Celts too, as the westward before them. It. is hardly Germanic tribes, belong to the North­ surprising, therefore, that, it is from west corner of the Old World of the Celtic matter that Tolkien has which The SilmariiHon and The Lord of drawn the inspiration for that which the Rings represent the legendary past. lay upon the ocean's further shores. It is likely, therefore, that the sound quality of Sindarin is not the only Alwyn and Brinley Rees point Celtic feature of Tolkien’s world. In out8 that “In metaphysical formulation the following article I propose to a ’crossing of water’ always implies a examine the mythology of the First change of state or status“! to the Irish Age for Celtic narrative influences, there therefore existed across the the Second Age and the question of Great Sea (as they too call the language being worthy of separate Atlantic) a happy Other world, home of study in their own right. the gods, known variously as the land 3 of the Living, the Islands of the Blessed It was from the final fruits of or the land of Promise; “a paradise over­ Telperion and Laurelin that the Sun and seas, situate in some unknown, and, moon were formed, and the , except for favoured mortals, last repositories upon Earth of their unknowable island of the west ...”6. light, were objects of quest, as are the Jewels strew the shores of , and Other-world apples of Celtic legend. upon the Land o f. the Living The male and female nature of the “dragonslones and crystals rain".7 Irish Trees of Valinor has its analogies too voyagers reach their goal after passing in the numerous male and female tree- various enchanted islands and traversing pairs of the Celtic world, such as the a final hedge of mist. Valinor similarly pines of Deirdre and Naoise, or the was guarded by the Enchanted Isles, rose bush of Esyllt and the vine of where 'the waves sighed for ever upon Try stan. dark, rocks shrouded in mist'.* There are tree Centres in Tolkien’s mythology with other But perhaps the most famous characteristics closer to Irish models Other-world island in Celtic legend is than to the Yggdrasil Centre. Perhaps the Arthurian , derived from the the best example in The SiJmarHh'on is Welsh “Availswn’ , Place of the Apple Valmar.1- A brief comparison of this Trees. Tolkien relates that a portion of sanctuary with Uisneuh, the sacred the high Elves returning from Middle- centre of Ireland13, will illustrate the earth dwelt upon an island within sight similarities; of Aman (Tol Eressea); the haven for “In the midst of the plain beyond their ships upon this isle they called by the mountains they built their city, the name of “Avallone". It is hardly Valmar of many bells"; the royal seat possible to doubt that the similarity of of Tara; these names is intended, that under the “Before its western gate there enchantment of secondary belief one is was a green mound, Ezellohar"; the hill to view the tales of Avalon as but a of Uisnech to the west of Tara, faded memory of Avallone of Eressea. “The Mahanaxar, the Ring of Loom, near to the golden gates of The other chief similarity Valmar”. the rath or enclosure at between Arda and the world of Celtic Uisnech whieh held the board for the mythology lies in its sacred centres. sacred fate-game of fidchell, Mythologies world wide speak of a upon the mound ... the two single Centre, the World Axis, an trees of Valinor“: the Ash of Uisnech umbilical link between our world and (the feminine centre! and (he L.ia Fail, the Other, Us chief symbols are those the pillar -stone of Tara (the masculine of mountain, pillar and tree. Each centre); people, however, observed its own "... the dews of Telperion and territorial Centre, so that the Earth in the rains that fell from Laurelin Varda ancient times was full of such symbolic jt hoarded in great vats like shining lakes, holy places.9 that were to all the land of the Valar as wells of water and of light": Connie's The world of The SUtnariUion too Well and the Well of Segais. abounds with sacred centres of various models. Those in whieh the axis is represented by a tree may indeed have The History been inspired by the Norse Centre, with the world-tree Vggdrasil and the three The historical pattern set out in wells at its roots. However, Celtic The Siimariilion strongly resembles that mythology also has its tree Centres, of the Irish , such as , the Other-world particularly as related by Charles “Palace of Apple Trees". The goddess Squire in his Ceitic Myth and Legend, a who invited Bran across the sea gave work with which Tolkien could have him as token a “silver white-blossomed been familiar. The Elves may be branch from the apple tree of Emain in equated with the Tuatha De Danann, which branch and fruit are one"; Niam, originally the gods of the Cells but in a similar situation, offered to Oisin a presented by monkish redactors as an .10 These apple trees of immortal race who inhabited Ireland silver and gold bear more resemblance before the coming of the Gaels; "the to Telperion and Laurelin than does most handsome and delightful company, Vggdrasil, these are, indeed, to quote the fairest of form, the most Yeats “the silver apples of the moon, distinguished in ... their skill In music the golden apples of the sun.“11 and playing, the most gifted in mind and temperament that ever came to ’ loves the coasts and the isles’ .17 Ireland.’ » A resume of the histories Manannan is the son of the sea-god Ler. of both peoples will make the He is known by the title of 'Lord of similarities plainer still. the Headlands’ , and is the special patron of sailors. Like Ossfc, he The Elves camo to Middle-earth summons storms. His homes are the from the city of Tirlon in Valinor; they isles of and Arran. Of Uinen, knew wars and sorrows in their Ion® Case’s spouse, Tolkien had this to say; labours against , until their ’ to her mariners cry, for she can lay fading and final departure into the calm upon the waves, restraining the West to make way for the age of Men. wildness of Ossfe’ .1« ’ ’ , the name The Tuatha De Danann came to Ireland of Manannan's wife, means ’ gentle’. from the Other-world cities of Findias, Fallas, Murlas and Gorias. They knew Orome 'is a hunter of monsters wars and sorrows in their long struggles and fell beasts, and he delights in against the Fomorian demons, only to be horses and in hounds ... and he is called doomed at last by the coming of by the Sindar Tauron, the Lord of mortals. Many of them then ’ chose to Forests .... The Valarbma is the name of shake the dust of Ireland off their his great horn.'10 Here we have a disinherited feet, and seek refuge in a description of Cernunnos, the Celtic paradise ... situate ... in some unknown ... horned god. Lord of the Animals, who island of the west...’ .15 The rest ceded appears in English folklore as Herne to mortals the upper earth, and retired the Hunter. In Irish legend he appears into their ’ sldhe’ or mounds. as Finn Mac Cumail, leader of the war band known as the Fianna. Finn, a deer This, then, appears to be the deity beneath his mortal guise, lived by inspiration for Tolkien’s motive of the hunting in the forests and had two ’ fading'. Squire contends that this is an faithful hounds. His Welsh counterpart ancient Celtic motive. ’ The story of is Gwynn ap Nudd, the leader of the the conquest of the gods by mortals ... Wild Hunt. is typically Celtio. The Gaelic mythology is the only one which has Mandos ’ is the keeper of the preserved it in any detail, but the Houses of the Dead, and the summoner doctrine would seem to have been of the spirits of the slain".20 With him common at one time to all the Celts.'1« the souls of dead mortals rest before leaving the world. In Irish legend it is The other great theme of The in the House of (an island of , that of the quest of the Skelligs) that 'the dead have their three Silmarils themselves, cursed as it tryst". McCana relates that “the belief was by the kinslaying of Alqualondfe, has survived in Ireland that on moonlit may have been inspired by the Irish nights the souls of the dead can be tale ’ The fete of the Children of seen over the Skellig rooks, on their Tuirenn*. Here, the murder of Cian by way to the Land of the Young.’ 21 the sons of Tuirenn results in Cian’s son laying on them an eric to seek and bring back for him the chief treasures Of the individual tales which of the world, first among these being make up the history of the First Age, the three golden apples from the apple- there is one which was close to tree of Findchaire, or (in a later, Tolkien’s heart and has enough Celtio classically influenced redaction) the influences to form the subject of an Garden of the Hesperides. Though article in its own right. That is the after long labours they succeed in their story ’Of Beren and Luthien’ . task, all die of the hardships and wounds they have sustained in their Elopements form a recognised quest. narrative branch in (’ aitheda’ J. Their underlying symbolism, Some few of the Valar, Elves and like that of abduction tales, is that of Men have their counterparts too in the rivalry between the gods of winter Celtio legend. Others are such universal and summer for possession of the earth mythological archetypes that it would goddess. In the elopement stories, the be unwise to claim for them any lover represents the summer king with particular inspiration. Amongst the whom the goddess naturally chooses to Valor, Oss& shows a dear resemblance flee despite attempts to prevent her by to the Gaelic Manannan. Osse is the the old god of winter (represented vassal of Ulmo, ’ master of the seas that either as her father or an aged husband wash the shores of Middle-earth', who who keeps her in seclusionX22 The s best known Celtic elopement tales are does not escape from him until Hu an “Deirdre and the Sons of Uisle’ , has retrieved it for her. 'Diarmuid and Griinne’ , and “Trystan The motive in Tolkien’s work of and Esyllt". Other secluded maiden the union of mortals with women of stories based on a similar theme are immortal race is, as already mentioned, 'Culhwch and Olwen* and ’ Clan and intimately woven with that of the Ethne’ . Celtic notion of kingship, and is therefore to be found in several Celtic In "Deirdre and the Sons of Uisle’ , tales. As the representation of the land, Naoise encounters the ’ loveliest woman the goddess became symbolic of its in all Ireland* hidden ’ in a place set sovereignty, and no king could claim apart' by the aged Kin« Conchubar who the right to rule save that she had has brought her up to be his bride.33 accepted him as her spouse. "Nowhere Deirdre, like Grainne, Esyllt and Luthien, was this divine image of sovereignty elopes with her young love and endures visualised so clearly as among the Celts, with him many perils in the wild. and more especially in Ireland where it Ethne’s father attempts to keep her remained a remarkably evocative and from marriage by shutting her away in compelling concept for as long as a tower (neither on earth nor in native tradition lasted."17 Luthien’s heaven), just as imprisons mother also fulfils the role of Luthien high in the boughs of the tree goddess of sovereignty. She is wed to Hirilorn. Olwen’s father, like Thingol, a king of non-divine race and herself agrees to give his daughter in marriage maintains the land inviolate and free of if her lover will seize for him certain stain. She inhabits, indeed, a sacred Other-world treasures.24 Grainne’s wood in the Celtic tradition, her lover Diarmuid, like Beren, is slain by a nightingales reminiscent of the birds of magical wild beast (the Boar of Ben Rhiannon, which ’ lulled the living to Bulbent, which has been harrying the sleep'.28 This role is to be repeated area and which he has hunted in again in a later age with Luthien’s company with his rival, Finn. The final descendant Arwen. scenes of "Df Beren and Luthien’ strongly recall 'Diarmuid and Grainne'. The Celtic goddess as simple Grainne, watching from the ramparts of personification of the earth's fertility her castle, sees the hunters returning is also easily recognisable in The home, Finn leading by the leash SUmarJHJon. Of the Welsh Olwen we Diarmuid’s own hound, and thus she are told that four white trefoils sprang knows that her lover is dead. The body up wherever she walked.29 Similarly, of Diarmuid is placed upon a golden Tolkien wrote of Vina30: “AH flowers bier and carried back to the home of spring as she passes’ ; and of Luthien31 his foster-father , the Irish god that ’ flowers sprang from the cold of love.25 earth where her feet had passed".

ThingoFs opposition to Beren places him, mythologically, in the role Conclusion of the winter king seeking to avert the doom pronounced by the coming of his In summary, it may be said that rival. The text of The Silmar/Won Edward Crankshaw was correct; The shows Beren clearly to be the Stlmariliion is rich in Celtic inspiration; representation of summer. He passed indeed, it is Celtic at its very core. the winter in Doriath with "a chain ... on The topography of its enchanted West, his limbs' so that he could not reach and the greatest of its Other-world Luthien. Vet 'on the eve of spring’ , treasures, the Two Trees of Valinor her song "released the bonds of winter’, and the Silmarils that entrapped their and "the spell of silence fell from light, have a provenance in the apple- Beren ... doom fell on her, and she trees of Avalon and Emain Ablaoh. If loved him.’ 25 it was from Teutonic myth that Tolkien took the name of ’ Elves", then it was Other Celtic motives may be from Irish legend that he drew their detected in this tale. The shadow cloak soul. From Irish legend too comes the that Laothien wove of her hair is history of their long defeat, the motive reminiscent of Celtic cloaks of of the ’ fading’ . Though the meeting of invisibility and darkness, and also of the Beren and LOthien was ’ conceived in a magic cloak without which the immortal small woodland glade filled with bride may not return to her own kind. hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire’ 31 Celegorm, like the husbands in these where Tolkien's young raven-haired tales, hides Leethien’s cloak, and she bride danced and sang, it was upon 6 ancient Celtic *aitheda" that the tale of solar deity. Her name means 'brightness', and their elopement was modelled. her other epithet, 'Deor-greine’, Is 'Tear o f the Sun’. A closer study of the tales of the First Age would no doubt yield 12. TheShmrMan, p.38-39. enough Celtic material to fill a volume of its own, but the borrowings cited 13. Rees, op-cit., Chapter 7. above are enough to demonstrate that, though there are many other influences 14. tb it, p.30. upon it, there is a sense in which The SiLmariJfion is the broken stained-glass 15. Squire, op.cit, p.133. window of Celtic myth, reassembled with design. And that the light that 16. Mmd p.119. shines through it, the Light of the Blessed Realm, is the very same that 17. Tlte SAuerMon, p.30. greeted St. Brendan as he emerged from the hedge of mist upon the shores IB. Lbkt of the Land of Promise, that land that ‘ will remain forever without the 19. B id , p.29. shadow of night. For its light is Christ. 20. Smt, p.2a

21. Rees, o p e d , p-97-98

NOTES 2?. «m i

1. L e t t e r s , ed. Carpenter Allen and Unwin, 1981. 23. F rom The T £ n tr. Kinsella, Thomas. (2nd no. 19. ed) OUP, 1970.

2. Ibid. no. 131. 24. The AtdUhogian, tr. Junes, Gwyn and Jones, Thomas. Dent, 1974. 3. Allan, J. et ai. An introduction la Ch'isdt Bran’s Head, 1978. p.49. 25. Taken from: Neeson, Eori The s e c o n d boot o f Hsh myths and Legends Cork: Morcier 4. This subject was discussed by Press, 1966. K.CJ-razer in his article "W hose Ring was it anyway?” tM a to m 25). 26. TheSmooriKon, p.165-166.

5. Rees, Alwyn and Rees, Brinley C e ltic 27. MacCana, o p u d t, p.92. h e r it e g e Thames and Hudson,1961. p.107. 28. The Atabrtogion, p.115-116. The name B. Squire, Chai-fes CeHJemyth end Legend "RMannon” itself means "Great Queen”. (2nd e d ) Newcastle Publishing Co. kic., 1975. p.133. 29. m id, p.lll. 7. From ", son of Febal”, In: MecCana, Proinsias (2nd 30. The StnanXon, p.29. ed.) Newnes Books, I9B3. p.125. 31. /b id p.165. 8. The Allen and IJnwin, 1977. p,102. 32. L e t t e r s , no.340.

9. See: Tolstoy, Nikolai The quest far MerSn 33L Severin, Tim The Stendan voyage Arrow. (Sceptre ed.) Hodder and Stoughton, 198a 1979. Chapter' a

10. See: Graves, Robert The white goddess (pbk. ed.) Faber, 19GI. p.254, and Rees, op.cit, p.314-315.

11. From "The song of Wandering Aertgus” in Jeff ares, A. Norman W .R Y e e t s : p o e t r y Macmillan, 1965. Golden apples, o f course, appear hi other European mytholo^es and fok tales, having In some (such as the Firebird) a clear solar signif icance. Niamh of the Golden Hair herself would appear to be a