Lludd of the silver hand

Having now brought Bladud and Lud to the table, in welsh mythology we find the much earlier warrior king Lludd who as we noted earlier etymologically and historically is the original welsh version of the catholic and Latin Lud.

The Magic spear

H.R.Millar - (1905)

The full title of this high king of Britain was 'Lludd Llaw Eraint' or in Latin English - 'Lud of the silver hand'. Anyone with even a slight knowledge of the Legends and Myths of Britain will notice straight away the silver hand motif, this is one of the strangest of the reoccurring themes that run literally throughout the entirety of the old stories of the Welsh and Gaelic peoples.

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The Welsh legends known as the 'Mabinogi' are the original four tales split into what are known as the four branches - what we know as the welsh 'Mabinogion' is a later collection of stories surrounding these four main narratives. These are the branches or tales of -

-Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed-

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-Branwen, daughter of Llŷr-

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-Manawydan, son of Llŷr-

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-Math, son of Mathonwy-

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( Whilst Wikipedia is by no-means an authority -
It does serve as a nice intro and it is relatively easy on the eye.)

The collected volume now holds between 9- 20 stories depending on which compilation and compiler you are referring to. The most well known of whom was Lady Charlotte guest who was the first English translator to take on the task. The title 'Mabinogion' was taken from Lady Guest's miss spelling of a word at the end of the last branch of the 'Mabinogi' (the original four tales) , whilst we are not going into an analysis of the welsh legends themselves it does make the point that many 'translators' and authors over the Milena have re-written , re-edited and compiled the indigenous folklore of the old world and quite often blatantly in-accurately.

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The tale in question within the text that speaks primarily of lludd is that of 'Lludd and Llefelys'. The story begins with the two noted characters Lllud and Llefelys - family members of a line of ruling kings who had recently taken back the crown after beating out the invaders with their recently deceased father Beli the great.

Here is another level of the connections between Lud and Lludd - Lud's fathers name was HELI and (as shown above) lludd's father was BELI. So you have lud and lludd , heli and beli.... I think the assumption that these two figures are one and the same is a very obvious one.

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Other linguists , researchers , mythologists and authors have made the connection between Lludd and lud before and seeing as Geoffrey of Monmouth himself said that he translated his Historia from the welsh legends then it comes as no big surprise. However when we take a longer look at the parents of these two fabled kings a far stranger and more powerful underlay starts to peek out from underneath. In the welsh version Beli the great was the Husband of the welsh goddess Dôn. Don is the welsh mirror of the Irish goddess Dana or Danu, both of these goddess's are the supreme mother figure in both of their Pantheons.

Now at this point our study must bridge over to the Irish legends having identified Lludd's mother as Don we can see that the Gaelic culture had their own mirror of all of the welsh characters. To be more accurate it is best to say that the Welsh mirrors the Irish as all scholars of British culture know that the Welsh Language and mythology came trickling down from Ireland. This can be seen in any region of the world with specific groups dialect's and their ultimate origins - the oldest always has the most elemental and principle language (and often the most simple)while at the same time having the most intricate and detailed mythology.

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This simple fact is the primer for the next post in which we will delve into our final mythological cross-over.. This leads us to our most startling discovery in the search for the identity of King Bladud and ultimately the possible origins of the Celtic settlement in the city now known as Bath.

Daniel J.Tatman