Arthur and the Sovereignty of Britain: king and goddess in the Mabinogion (review)

Reviews -,*g many studies. What David Daniel, Milagros Ortega Costa and F. Ellen Weaver attempt however, is a re-contextualising of their actions and a re-examination of their impact. M a n y of the other essays are also a restatement and extension of existing scholarly interpretations of the woman's position. This is understandable, and many of the details added are dluminating and valuable. The added dimension of the Jewish women in the Netherlands gives interesting depth to Shenin Marshall's own contribution, for example, while Sherill Cohen shows how despite the restrictions of the Counter-Reformation, in Italy women gave the lead in devising new and more appropriate institutions for women whose choices were limited and whose morals were threatened in a social structure which gave them limited access to property. Sybil M . Jack Department of History University of Sydney Matthews, Caittih, Arthur and the Sovereignty of Britain: king and goddess in the Mabinogion, London, Arkana (Penguin), 1989; paper; pp. xviii, 334; R.R.P. AUS$19.99. Caitiin Matthews and her partner John Matthews have between them cornered the ancient Celtic end of the New-Age Arthuriana market. Their technique is to use early Welsh and Irish legends as the basis for spiritual and mythological speculations about the world of the Celtic Arthur and his Dark Age contemporaries. This book contains a wealth of references to Arthurian legends and the 'matter of Britain', but its style is marked by a nanative incoherence which makes it a trial to read and detracts from its usefulness as a source-book of British mythology. The basic plan is an investigation of the ancient Celtic myth of the Sovereignty goddess as it is revealed through some of the stories of the Mabinogion, a coUection of medieval tales written in Middle Welsh to which Matthews bas acquired access through the admirable translations of Jeffrey Gantz. The figure of Arthur is somewhat tenuously attached to this enterprise as the archetypal mythic figure of the 'king' who 'marries' the Sovereignty goddess in a symbolic union prefiguring a fruitful and prosperous reign. The tales which are discussed are 'Lludd and Llefelys', 'The dream of Macsen Wledig', 'The dream of Rhonabwy', 'The lady of the Fountain', 'Gereint and Enid' and 'Peredur'. Arthur does not appear in thefirsttwo of these tales, and the most important Arthurian tale in the whole Mabinogion collection, 'Culhwch and Olwen', is inexplicably omitted from the central plan, though there arefrequentreferencesto it during the course of the book. In each chapter there is a summary of one tale followed by a commentary which releases an onslaught of connections between the events and characters of 140 Reviews that tale and other events and characters from a vast range of Celtic and/or Arthurian legends. A U the tales are read as a paradigm of the king/Sovereignty union, with these protagonists apparently appearing in a number of mythic guises, such as the 'Provoker of Strife' and the 'Queen of Hallows', sometimes accompanied by their son, the 'Wise and Innocent Youth'. The commentaries fail to become anything more than a series of random connections between items of Arthuriana as widespread as Old Irish saga, medieval French romance, Malory, and W . B. Yeats. Such connections might have been interesting and useful but they are not organized into a meaningful framework of argument that offers us a reading of the tales, beyond the basic assertion that they are all a re-telling, in some form, of the Sovereignty myth. Stripped of the paraphernalia of parallels, connections and mythic manifestations, this is ultimately all that Caitlin Matthews has to say about the Mabinogion. Tables and charts throughout the book appear to give some structure to the relentless barrage of cross-references, but a study of them leaves the reader none the wiser. Chapters 8 and 9, on the British Otherworld and the 'mythic pattern' of the straggle between a mortal hero and an Otherworld king for possession of the Sovereignty goddess in her 'Flower Bride' aspect are the most coherent. The final chapter, attempting to link Arthur with the British Sovereignty goddess, leaps skittishly from one Arthurian fragment to another and remains entirely unconvincing. I searched the...