Bibbity Bobbity Boo: Magic Items

There are several magic items in the Mabignogi, as well as in the other tales, namely the tale of "Gwion Bach" and "Taliesin." This is by no means exhaustive of all the magic items in the Mabignogi and the other tales, but these seemed particularly significant to me.

In the tale of "Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed," Rhiannon's former suitor, Gwawl, shows up to her feast to celebrate her engagement with Pwyll, and Pwyll agrees to grant any request he has, without knowing who he is. Gwawl asks to be allowed to marry her instead, and Pwyll can't back out honorably. Rhiannon comes up with the plan to allow it to happen in one year and a day, and that they'll make all the feast preparations. In the meantime, she'll have Pwyll disguise himself as a beggar and ask Gwawl to fill the magic bag, supplied by Rhiannon, with food from the feast. The bag is magic and cannot be filled, so Pwyll will ask Gwawl to stamp it down into the bag, trap him in the bag when he does so, and call his men to descend upon the court. This is precisely what happened, and once Pwyll caught Gwawl, he let his men play badger-in-the-bag with him, kicking and hitting it. This allows Pwyll a chance to bargain with Gwawl to make him promise to not take revenge on him and Rhiannon, then they let him go. I believe that the magic bag could be associated with the fertility goddess aspect of Rhiannon, since it implies that it can keep an endless amount of food, much like the symbol of the cornucopia. I think that in most folk tales and lore, containers, such as cups, bowls, and in this case, a bag, are generally associated with the generative capabilities of women, so it makes a good deal of sense that Rhiannon's magic item is a container. Also, it's use helps get Rhiannon out of a bad marriage, and allows her to be with the man she loves and wishes to marry.

The next significant magic items I'd like to discuss are Gwydion son of Don and Math's magic staffs in the tale of "Math son of Mathonwy." They don't always seem to need them, but they both use them to perform magic feats. The first mention of a staff is when Math punishes Gwydion and Gilfaethwy for raping his foot-maiden Goewin, by striking them with his "staff of enchantment" and changing them into animals and switching their genders three different times, but more on that in Part 2 where I'll discuss transformations. The next time Math uses his magic staff is to test whether his niece Aranrhod daughter of Don is still a maiden, since he is considering marrying her. He holds the staff low to the ground and asks her to step over it, and when she does, a yellow-haired baby boy falls to the floor. I understand this to be a magic test of her virginity, and I'm guessing that she fails, since a baby comes out of supposedly nowhere and she runs off after this happens. The next time a staff is mentioned in this tale is when Gwydion finds Lleu Llaw Gyffes in the form of an eagle, and strikes him with his staff to make him turn back into a human. When he does, he is barely alive, just skin and bones, which makes me think that he was killed as a human and was existing as a spirit until Gwydion changed him back. I think it's interesting that both Math and Gwydion have magical powers and use magical staffs, yet Gwydion is clearly subordinate to Math since Math is able to punish him by transforming into an animal and Gwydion can't change back on his own. Staffs are often associated with male magic as they are phallic symbols, which makes Aranrhod's magic virginity test of stepping over the staff even more poignant.

The next magic items are both cauldrons, but with slightly different properties - the cauldron of rebirth in the tale of "Branwen daughter of Lyr" and Cerridwen's cauldron in the tale of "Gwion Bach." In the case of Cerridwen's cauldron, I think that it is more of a tool for a magically gifted person than magical in itself. I do find it interesting that the text says that "all the juice of those herbs except the three aforementioned drops would be as powerful a poison as there could be in the world, and that it would shatter the cauldron and spill poison across the land" (Ford, 163). Yet, the text never says that the cauldron actually shatters, so perhaps, because the spell went awry with Gwion Bach receiving the good magic drops, the poison was foiled. This makes me question Cerridwen's foresight, since I would assume if the cauldron did shatter, she and everything and one around her would die, from the sound of the text. However, even the scribe thought this was weird, and Ford translates "indeed, this tale is illogical and contrary to faith and piety" (Ford, 163). Here, the cauldron is a feminine magical tool, as it represents the power to create and is symbolically linked to the womb.

In the tale of "Branwen daughter of Lyr," the cauldron is even more strongly representative of a womb. It is even called the cauldron of rebirth, and Bendigeidfran says " 'if a man of yours is killed today, cast him into the cauldron, and by tomorrow he will be as good as ever - but he will be without speech' "(Ford, 63). The cauldron itself has the power to give life back to the dead. Bendigeidfran gives the cauldron to Matholwch, the Irish king to whom he allows his sister Branwen to wed, to make recompense for Efnisien disfiguring his horses. Later, the Welsh go to war with the Irish when they hear that Matholwch has made Branwen serve as a scullery maid since his countrymen aren't happy that he accepted the apology for what happened to his horses. The Irish use the cauldron of rebirth to keep their numbers up, and they keep it full, so Efnisien can't put any Welsh dead in it. Efnisien realizes that he need to stop this so that the Welsh have a chance of victory against the Irish, so he pretended to be a dead Irish soldier and was thrown into the cauldron alive. According to the tale, "he stretched himself out in the cauldron, then, until the cauldron broke in four pieces, and his heart as well. From that came such victory as the men of the Isle of the Mighty [the Welsh] got, and their only victory was the escape of seven men" (Ford, 70). I believe that since this cauldron is meant only for the dead, the cauldron breaks because Efnisien enters it alive and with the goal of destroying it. He sacrifices himself in order for his countrymen to have a slight victory by living to fight another day. I believe part of this story was adapted in Disney's The Black Cauldron, with the loyal small furry critter throwing himself in the cauldron to save his friends and keep the Horned King from creating an undead army.