Math son of Mathonwy

At a Glance

• Central figures: Math fab Mathonwy, lord of Gwynedd, who cannot live unless his feet rest in the lap of a virgin; his nephews Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the maiden Goewin; and Arianrhod, whose shame gives birth to Lleu Llaw Gyffes.
• Setting: The kingdom of Gwynedd in north Wales, principally the court at Caer Dathyl and the cantref of Arfon, as told in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi.
• The turn: Gilfaethwy’s desire for the virgin footholder Goewin drives Gwydion to conjure a war with the south, and in the chaos Gilfaethwy rapes her - destroying Math’s arrangement and forcing Math to act.
• The outcome: Math punishes his nephews by transforming them into mated pairs of animals for three years; he then seeks a new footholder, but Arianrhod’s failed virginity test produces two sons, the second of whom - Lleu Llaw Gyffes - Math and Gwydion raise to manhood despite every curse Arianrhod lays against him.
• The legacy: Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the bright-handed one, whose name and story echo the Irish Lugh and who stands at the center of Welsh mythological memory as a figure made entirely by magic and maternal refusal.

Math fab Mathonwy held Gwynedd. He was a sorcerer of such power that he could hear any whisper carried on the wind, provided his feet rested in the lap of a virgin. Without that contact he would sicken and die. The girl who served him was Goewin daughter of Pebin, and she sat beneath him in court every hour he was not at war.

His two nephews, Gwydion and Gilfaethwy, sons of his sister Dôn, served as his chief counselors. They were clever men. One of them was too clever by far.

Gilfaethwy’s Sickness

Gilfaethwy could not eat. He could not speak in company without losing the thread of his words. Gwydion watched his brother waste and finally cornered him.

What is it?

Goewin.

That was enough. Gwydion understood the problem at once. The girl sat at Math’s feet all day. She was untouchable - not by law alone but by the physical arrangement of the court, the king’s senses wound around her like a web. To get Gilfaethwy near Goewin, Gwydion would have to get Math away from Caer Dathyl entirely. The only thing that could do that was war.

Gwydion went south to Pryderi’s court in Dyfed. He went as a storyteller - a cyfarwydd - and Pryderi welcomed him. By the end of the evening Gwydion had talked Pryderi into trading his pigs, animals that had come as a gift from Annwn itself, for twelve stallions and twelve greyhounds that Gwydion had conjured from mushrooms and dry leaves. The illusion would hold until morning.

When it broke, Pryderi marched north. Math called his war-host and rode to meet him. Caer Dathyl emptied.

That night, while Math fought in the south, Gilfaethwy forced himself on Goewin in the king’s own bed.

The Animals

Math killed Pryderi in single combat - sorcery against sorcery, Math the stronger. He returned to Caer Dathyl. Goewin told him everything, standing in front of the court.

Math married her on the spot, to give her the honor that had been stolen. Then he turned to his nephews.

He struck them both with his staff. Gwydion became a stag. Gilfaethwy became a hind. Math drove them into the forest.

Go. Live as animals. Come back in a year.

They came back with a fawn between them. Math took the fawn and made it a boy. Then he struck them again. Gwydion became a sow. Gilfaethwy became a boar. Another year. Another offspring. Then wolf and she-wolf for a third year, a third cub. Three years, three shapes, three children born between them - each brother forced to be mother in turn. When they finally stood before Math as men again, they were gaunt, silent, and cured.

Arianrhod’s Test

Math needed a new footholder. Gwydion suggested their sister Arianrhod, daughter of Dôn. She came to court and Math asked her plainly whether she was a virgin.

I know of nothing to say I am not.

Math held out his wand and told her to step over it. She did. The moment her foot crossed the rod, a large yellow-haired boy fell from her and screamed. Before anyone could move, something else - small, unformed - dropped from her too. Gwydion snatched it up, wrapped it in silk, and hid it in a chest at the foot of his bed.

Arianrhod fled. The yellow-haired boy Math named Dylan. The child took to the sea the moment he was baptized, swimming like a fish, and was called Dylan Eil Ton - Dylan Son of Wave. He never came back to land.

The Chest at the Foot of the Bed

Gwydion heard a cry from the chest one morning. He opened it and found a boy, small but fully formed. He raised the child himself, and the boy grew at twice the rate of other children - at four he looked eight, and at eight he could have passed for a youth of the court.

Gwydion brought him to Arianrhod’s fortress, Caer Arianrhod, on the coast. She asked who the boy was. Gwydion told her.

Arianrhod’s face set like stone.

I lay a destiny on him. He will have no name unless I give it.

Gwydion took the boy away and schemed. He disguised them both as cobblers, sailed a boat beneath Arianrhod’s walls, and when Arianrhod came down to try on shoes, the boy threw a stone and hit a wren on the deck of the ship - right between the leg and the bone. Arianrhod laughed despite herself.

The bright one has a skillful hand, she said. Lleu Llaw Gyffes.

Gwydion dropped the disguise.

He has a name now. You gave it.

Arianrhod cursed again - the boy would never bear arms unless she armed him herself. Gwydion tricked her with a phantom fleet, an illusion of ships massing offshore, and in the panic Arianrhod handed weapons to the boy she did not recognize.

She cursed a third time - Lleu would never have a wife of any race on this earth.

The Woman Made of Flowers

Math and Gwydion together gathered oak blossom, broom, and meadowsweet. From the three flowers they conjured a woman and named her Blodeuedd - Flower Face. She was beautiful and she was not human.

They gave her to Lleu. For a time the arrangement held.

Then Gronw Pebr, lord of Penllyn, sheltered one night at Lleu’s court while Lleu was away. Blodeuedd and Gronw looked at each other and before the evening ended they were lovers. Within days they were plotting Lleu’s death.

Lleu could not be killed easily - not indoors or outdoors, not on horse or on foot, not clothed or naked. The only way was a spear forged for a year during Sunday Mass, and Lleu had to stand with one foot on a cauldron’s edge and one on the back of a he-goat, wrapped in a net, beneath a thatched frame beside a river. Blodeuedd coaxed the secret from him, and Gronw forged the spear.

When the moment came, Lleu stood in the impossible posture and Gronw drove the spear into his side. Lleu screamed, became an eagle, and flew into an oak tree. He was not dead, but he was not a man.

Gwydion searched for him. He followed a sow that fed on rotting flesh falling from the branches of a great oak. High in the tree sat an eagle, wasting away. Gwydion sang three englyn - three verses of poetry - and with each verse the eagle came down one branch. At the third verse, the eagle landed in Gwydion’s lap. He struck it with his wand. Lleu lay there, skin and bone, barely alive.

Math and Gwydion nursed him back. Gronw Pebr was hunted down and killed by Lleu’s own spear thrown through a stone that Gronw held as a shield - the hole remains in the stone to this day, beside the river Cynfael. Blodeuedd was not killed. Gwydion turned her into an owl, condemned to hunt alone in darkness, hated by every other bird. Her name became Blodeuwedd - owl.

Lleu took back his lands. He ruled Gwynedd after Math, and no one in Arfon forgot how he was made.