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Culhwch came in, and asked a boon of Arthur; and Arthur answered that he should receive whatsoever his tongue might name, "as far as the wind dries and the rain moistens and the sun revolves and the sea encircles and the earth extends; save only my ship and my mantle, and Caledfwlch my sword, and Rhongomiant my lance, and Wynebgwrthucher my shield, and Carnwenhau my dagger and Gwen Hwyfar my wife.
Culhwch the son of Cilydd the son of the Prince of Celyddon rides out to seek the help of Arthur: "And the youth pricked forth upon a steed with head dappled gray, of four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed hoofs, having a bridle of linked gold on his head, and upon him a saddle of costly gold.
It is difficult for a student of symbolism not to believe that there were Theosophical activities in fifth- and sixth-century Britain. Another glimpse of the feeling of the age you get in the two oldest Arthurian romances: The Dream of Rhonobwy, and Culhwch and Olwen.
Their three spears were three pointed piercers. Well; one must stop somewhere; Culhwch himself was in no hurry to. He went on until the armies of the Island of the Mighty and the chief ladies of Arthur's court, with all their peculiarities, had been enumerated. But here, I say, you are let into an elder world; beyond this one in space, beyond it in time.
So far we have the glittering imagination of the twelfth-century bard; you might think working in a medium not wholly Celtic, but Norman-influenced as well; imagining his Arthurian Culhwch in terms of the knights he had seen at the courts of the Lords Marchers, were it not that just such descriptions are the commonplaces of Irish Celticism, where they come from a time and people that had never seen Norman knights at all.
By the truth of heaven thou shalt receive it cheerfully, name what thou wilt." So Culhwch made his request; and it is really here that the ancient ages come trooping in: "I crave of thee that thou obtain for me Olwen the daughter of Yspaddaden Head of Giants; and this boon I seek likewise at the hands of thy warriors. Gwallgoyc another. Sol and Gwadyn Ossol and Gwadyn Odyeith.
Matthew Arnold, who had such qualifications, compared the work of the later bards to peasants' huts built on and of the ruins of Ephesus; and it is still easier for us, with the light Theosophy throws on all such subjects, to see the greater and more ancient work through the less and later. I shall venture to quote from Culhwch and Olwen: a passage that some of you may know very well already.
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