Is it fair to say that we have all read or at least heard of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table? I don’t mean that to read this blog post you need to be an eminent Arthurian scholar. It will be erudition enough just to be aware that Arthurian legend is still alive as part of our mainstream entertainment. You may have seen from watching Disney’s ‘Sword and the Stone’, the BBC series ‘Merlin’ or Steven Spielberg’s ‘Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade’ Arthur and his Knights who have been immortalised, not by any Grail but through generations and generations retelling their story, echoing it through the ages so that Arthurian mythology is somewhat ubiquitous. We are all familiar with Arthur’s world, we know of his sword Excalibur, his kingdom of Camelot and perhaps be more familiar still with the Holy Grail, but what we may not be so familiar with is the ancient origins of these stories. Thanks to medieval writers such as Chretian de Troyes Arthur is known to us as not just a King but a champion of the Christian faith, but what if Arthur had much deeper roots and could arguably stem from an ancient Celtic people who worshipped severed heads? Arthurian legend is believed to have its roots in Welsh mythology, in particular a set of tales which were handed down through many generations through oral tradition and transcribed between the 12th and 13th centuries into what is now known as the Mabinogion. Arthur appears in five of the tales of the Mabinogion as well as narrative motifs and patterns which reoccur in Arthurian legend, as Jeffrey Gantz writes

‘ motifs and patterns do recur: the hunter Arawns’s testing of Pwyll by offering his wife must have contributed to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, While Gorsedd Arbeth may well anticipate the Siege Perilous. And of course the Holy Grail undoubtedly owes much to the numerous vessels and platters in The Mabinogion’.

So what’s that got to do with worshipping severed heads? I hear you ask, well in a tale of the Mabinogion which is thought to be a primitive version of the Grail legend, a sacred brotherhood of heroes is formed,which may be the inception point for the idea of the ‘Knights of the Round Table’ an order called ‘The Assembly of the Wondrous Head’.

The Assembly of the Wondrous Head is a fraternity that appears in the second branch of the Mabinogion in the story of ‘Branwen daughter of Llyr’. This order was formed of the seven survivors of the quest to save Branwen from the cruel hands of the Irish king Mallolwch (pronounced Ma-thol-uke), a perilous expedition wherein the fighting forces of one hundred and fifty-four Welsh districts fall, three people die of a broken heart and the mighty giant King Bran is killed by a poison spear to the foot. With Bran’s dying breaths he ordered these noble seven men to decapitate him and embark on a journey with his still living, talking, feasting head and bury it at the White Hill (Tower Hill or St Pauls depending on who you ask) in London.

The great labour upon which this fraternity of survivors would embark, was a journey that would take over eighty years to accomplish and leave them all as young as they were when they first picked up Bran’s giant head.

‘Eighty years spent at Gwales and they could not remember having spent a happier or more joyful time; never was it more tedious than when they first arrived, nor could any tell by looking at his companions that it had been so long…’ (Branwen) (Gantz,J. 1976, p.81)

The tale of Branwen, like many other stories of the Mabinogion, is a tale which can be used as a looking glass to steal glimpses into Celtic culture and tradition, however unlike other stories in the Mabinogion; Branwen gives us a possible narrative insight into the world of Celtic head worship. The Celtic obsession and love of heads is evident in countless carvings, sculptures and shrines dedicated to them across the Celtic world like the giant stone head found in Msecke Zehrovice, (Czech Republic) and the shrines and temples found in Provence as described by Stuart Piggott in his book ‘Druids’

‘It’s threshold a re-used pillar, carved with stylised heads, and containing fifteen human skulls of adult men, some cut from dried bodies and some retaining the large iron nails with which they had been fixed to some wooden structure’. (Piggot,S. 1968, p.52)

The head was a holy object to the Celts and I think the tale of Branwen is a great example of a narrative that explores sacred attitudes towards the head and unlike historical accounts from the likes of ancient scholars such as Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (90BCE-30BCE), Roman historian Livy (59 BCE-17 ACE) or the stoic philosopher Posidonius (135 BCE- 51BCE) are the closest thing to a Celtic perspective of their own culture. So what does this tale tell us about Celtic attitudes towards the severed head? Well firstly the head of Bran in the tale is a magical object and like the wise whispering head of Mimir in Norse mythology [1] he is still ‘as good a companion as he ever was’ (Gantz,J. 1976, p.80) after his decapitation, this shows us that the Celts thought there is a power that resides in the head. Secondly as the Assembly of the Wondrous Head feast happily for Eighty years without aging a day, so we can perhaps assume that they are gifted with eternal youth by Bran. This could mean that the Celts thought that the power within the head could affect the world around it, further evidence of this can perhaps be seen when his head is finally buried as it protects Britain from foreign plagues.

‘For while the head was concealed no plague came across the sea to this island’ (Gantz,J. 1976, p.81).

‘The merriment of the Assembly’ Illustration from the book ‘Branwen: A Tale from the Mabiogion’ by Aidan Saunders

The head makes the land and people prosper at the end of Branwen and the merriment of the Assembly contrasts greatly with the violence experienced throughout the tale pre-Bran’s decapitation. Bran also carries the moniker ‘Pierced Thighs’ which alludes to his infertility (as well as his inevitable death via spear) and is reminiscent of the Fisher King of Arthurian Legend, as well as Peredur’s[2] uncle in later tales of the Mabinogion. The characters in these tales are maimed and their lands suffer for it, showing us a connection between Kings and natural order

‘This idea of a sympathetic relationship between the potency of the king and the fertility of the land is supported by Irish texts which hint that a king might be ritually married to the tutelary earth goddess of the tribe’ (Gantz,J. 1976,p18).

So does prosperity experienced after the decapitation indicate to us that the Celts believed it was natural and beneficial to worship heads? If we look further afield to Sophocles who explored the connection between leaders and their effects on nature, order and chaos in his play Oedipus Rex. In Oedipus the city of Thebes is ravaged by plague as punishment for the unwittingly unholy actions of the protagonist [3]. By sacrificing his eyes and living a life of exile, the land is naturally restored. In Branwen however we could argue that Bran’s sacrifice doesn’t merely restore natural order it elevates it by gifting life and vitality to his Assembly and acting as plague prevention. I think this shows that in Brans final state he has achieved a Celtic apotheosis, Bran is so called ‘Bran the Blessed’ and the events post decapitation are nothing short of miraculous, I think Brans head reveals an exaggerated perspective upon Celtic attitudes towards death and the power of the soul, which was believed to be indestructible (Piggot,S. 1968, p. 113).

The continued vitality of the ‘Assembly of the Wondrous Head’ reminds me of the Grail knight in ‘Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade’, who was kept alive for seven hundred years by the power of the Grail. This may seem like a ridiculous comparison, but it can be argued (and has been) that the early tales of the Mabinogion may be inspiration for French Arthurian writer Chretien de Troyes. Some tale structure and names seem tantalizingly similar and Chretien even admits that the finder of the Grail in Arthurian legend of Perceval, is a Welshman (Gantz,J. 1976, p.25) and shares a similar name to Peredur, a character of a remarkably similar story. As aforementioned the Mabinogion is strewn with examples of vessels which can lay claim as forerunners of the Grail in Arthurian myth, the magical bowl in Manawydan, the dead reviving cauldron in Branwen, other vessels occur in the tales of Peredur, Owein and Culhwch and Olwen. All have regenerative powers and all require an expedition to the otherworld or a foreign land to obtain. Bran’s head fulfils this criteria for potential grail inspiration and being a divine figure who is arguably sacrificed is perhaps more in keeping with the Christian idea of holy receptacle, central to the miraculous transubstantiation of common wine and bread into the actual flesh and blood of a divinity, one Jesus Christ.

Further evidence to support my ‘Head as Grail’ theory may be gleaned from the supposed inspiration of Perceval and the grail quest, Peredur. In the quest for the Holy Grail Perceval first fails to obtain the Grail due to not asking the Grail questions which are ‘what is the Grail?’ and ‘who does it serve?’ thereby failing to restore the maimed Fisher King to health and subsequently the land to fertility (Coghlan,R. 1996 p. 118), Peredur, in similar circumstances, doesn’t realise he should ask any questions upon being confronted with a head on a platter and a sharpened spear dripping with blood. This results in the kingdom falling into chaos.

‘When you went to the court of the lame king and saw the squire carrying a sharpened spear, with a drop of blood running from the point to the lads fist like a waterfall, and other marvels as well, you asked neither their cause nor their meaning. Had you asked, the king would have been made well and the kingdom made peaceful’. (Gantz,J. 1976, p. 249)

Is it possible that the severed head in Peredur is synonymous with the Grail in Perceval? Now I suppose there may be a creative leap by Chretian de Troyes allowing him to go from a severed head to a sacred drinking cup.But then again, if we look at what we know about Celtic practices perhaps we don’t have to leap too far. After all there is written evidence that the Celts used to turn the head, a vessel of the soul, into actual drinking vessels as witnessed by Livy who wrote

‘They cleaned out the head as is their custom and gilded the skull, which thereafter served them as a holy vessel to pour libations from and as a drinking cup for priests and temple attendants.’ (Green,M. 1996, p.54)

When thinking of the Grail, I would bet that most people see the Indiana Jones ‘Cup of Christ’, divine beaker of blood version. But as we know the Grail has deeper and more ancient roots than those of Christianity, we also know that Christianity has borrowed heavily from pre-Christian religions and myths. As Philip Freeman says in his book Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods,Goddesses and Heroes : ‘The ancient themes of Celtic mythology were blended with Christian traditions’ so maybe the Grail of Christ is borrowed from an earlier holy vessel. Could you imagine a more holy vessel to those people who inhabited the world in the time of Branwen? A head of a King, giant and supposed son of the sea god Llyr! Could the fate of Bran’s head be one of cup transformation and later Christian utilisation?

Whether this was ever depicted in any iterations of the Bran myth, we cannot know as we don’t know the rendition of the story of Branwen heard by Chretien de Troyes. This tale, before being transcribed was passed down through the oral tradition for generations by a culturally decentralised Celtic people who perhaps didn’t record history that accurately

‘Celts, true to their escapist nature, tended to view history as what ought to have happened rather than as what actually did’ (Gantz,J. 1976, p.13).

The Celts probably had a thousand variations of this tale, and with each retelling exaggerated and aggrandised more and more to shock and entertain audiences. It is not such a stretch to think that in early renditions of the story Bran’s head gets turned into a cauldron. Perhaps Bran’s head and the resurrection cauldron also mentioned in the story is one and the same thing, but through multiple retellings were separated into different magical artefacts or maybe even changed by medieval writers to appeal more to their contemporary audiences.

Alas this is all conjecture and fantasy. One of the most alluring things about the Celts is that we know hardly anything for sure, most sources about the everyday lives of Celts are written through the perspectives of ancient Romans, Greeks or medieval monks, all of which portray their own bias. In the modern day we can only add our own perspectives and hypothesise upon questions posed to us by artefacts and texts, like doing a jigsaw in the dark. We can maybe feel the outline of the pieces but can never be sure if they connect. It is annoying that only one battered version of the Mabinogion lives on, making it impossible to compare renditions of these tales and gain different cultural insights into who wrote them and how much truth lay behind the fantastical hyperbole. The versions of the tales we can read now may be pale imitations of their true outspoken form. During transcription I am curious how many of these stories were left on the cutting room floor and if there was anything that connects the tales of the Mabinogion more cohesively? Doubtless there are hundreds of Celtic stories lost to the wind and although this may encapsulate the Celtic spirit, their absence is a black hole in world history and we should treat the loss as severely as the lost plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

Like many lost treasures we will never know the true significance of the loss and will have to navigate around the dark matter using sources from history and any surviving contemporary texts to create a patchwork quilt of Celtic knowledge. Myth is integral to this as we can get an inside Celtic perspective and possibly glimpse at historical events masked by exaggeration and hyperbole. Robert Graves in his book ‘The Greek Myths’ writes : ‘It’s difficult to overestimate myths value in the study of early European history, religion and sociology’ and says that ‘True myth may be defined as reduction to narrative shorthand’ , If this is true then who knows what ancient historical events the Mabinogion is shining its light on from under its mystical veil. Was Bran actually just a king so great that he was to be immortalised forever as a giant? Did his tribe really fight in Ireland where there were so many warriors that each one slew in battle was immediately replaced by another as if the warriors had been resurrected, much like the Persian immortals of Thermopylae? Was the Bran who fell in battle, canonized by having his head turned into a sacred drinking vessel which would later be known as the cup of Christ? And if so is it buried under St Paul’s cathedral? there is only one way to find out Grail hunters! Grab your shovels.

So ends this branch of the mabinogi, about the blow struck at Branwen (one of the three unhappy blows of this island), about the Assembly of Bran, wherein the hosts of one hundred and fifty-four districts went to Ireland to avenge that blow, about the seven years feasting in Harddlech, about the singing of the Birds of Rhiannon and about the Assembly of the Head which lasted eighty years’ (Gantz, J. 1976, p82)

Footnotes

[1] Mimir ‘The Wise One’ is the guardian of memory according to Norse mythology. He has a well of wisdom at the bottom of the world tree Yggdrasil. After the Aesir (Norse pantheon) and Vanir wars, the rival forces exchanged warriors and chiefs, Mimir was sent to the Vanir to advise a newly appointed Chieftain. The Chieftain was wise when accompanied by Mimir but was indecisive in his absence, frustrated by the inconsistency of their new chieftain the Vanir took revenge, decapitated Mimir and send his head to the Aesir King Odin. Odin unabashed rubs Mimir’s head with herbs to prevent it rotting and chanted charms and incantations over it as he didn’t want Mimir’s knowledge and wisdom to be lost, Mimir’s head becomes reanimated and Odin speaks to him for advice.

[2] Peredur is the principal character from ‘Peredur Son of Evrawg’ in the Mabinogion, it is a tale that seems to mirror ‘Perceval, The Story of The Grail’ featuring familiar characters such as Arthur, his Knights and the Fisher King.

[3] Oedipus (Swollen-Foot) had his feet bound and was left on the side of a mountain because it was prophesised to King Laius of Thebes his father, that his son would be his death. Discovered by a Sheppard Oedipus is given to the King and Queen of Crete who are unable to have children and raise Oedipus as their own. As Oedipus grows older an oracle tells him he is fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother, mortified he flees Crete at once. Whilst walking on a road outside Thebes King Laius on horseback runs into Oedipus, thinking he is a vagabond he makes to whip Oedipus out of the way and Oedipus in turn throws Laius off his horse killing him instantly. Oedipus then defeats the Sphinx and is rewarded the kingdom of Thebes Oedipus and marries Jocasta…his mother.

Bibliography

Gantz,J.(1976) ‘The Mabinogion’. St Ives, Penguin.

Jones,D.(1937) ‘In Parenthesis’. London, Faber&Faber.

Handford,S.A.(1951) ‘Caesar,The Conquest of Gaul’.London, Penguin.

Piggot,S. (1968) ‘The Druids’. London, Thames and Hudson

Coghlan, R.(1996) The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legend’.London, Claremont Books.

Green,M.(1996) ‘The Celtic World’. Abingdon, Routledge.

Graves,R (1955) ‘The Greek Myths’.London,Penguin.

Mackillop,J. (2005) ‘Myths and Legends of the Celts’ London,Penguin

Freeman,P (2017) ‘Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses and Heroes’ New York, Oxford University Press