Volume 10 Number 1 Article 3

4-15-1983

Bright-Eyed Beauty: Celtic Elements in Charles Williams, J.R.R. Bright-Eyed Beauty: Celtic Elements in Charles Williams, J.R.R.

Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis

Nancy-Lou Patterson University of Waterloo, Canada

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Patterson, Nancy-Lou (1983) "Bright-Eyed Beauty: Celtic Elements in Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 10 : No. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol10/iss1/3

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Abstract Abstract Traces the influence of Celtic style and themes, though sometimes denied by Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams, on their works.

Additional Keywords Additional Keywords Celtic mythology—Influence on literature; Lewis, C.S.—Influence of Celtic mythology; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Influence of Celtic mythology; Williams, Charles—Influence of Celtic mythology; Nancy-Lou Patterson

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol10/iss1/3

MYTHLORE 35: Spring 1983 page 5

Bright-Eyed Beauty Celtic Elements

in C h a r le s W i l l ia m s , J .R .R . T o lk ie n , a n d C .S . L e w is

Nancy-Lou Patterson

Although i t was not to be published for forty years, when i t appeared after i t s author's death as The Silm arillion, a version of the "Quenta Silmarillion" was praised in 1937 by Edward Crankshaw, a reader for Unwin. Crankshaw wrote that "It has something of that mad, bright-eyed beauty that perplexes a ll Anglo-Saxons in face of Celtic art."'1 Tolkien was quick to reply that his writings were "not Celtic!" He fe lt " acertain distaste" for "Celtic things," he wrote to Stanley Unwin, because of "their fundamental unreason. They have bright color, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact 'mad' as your reader says—but I don't believe I am." (Ibid.)

In spite of To lk ien 's disclaimer, i t is th is mad

world with i t s broken designs which we are charged, in th is aptly-numbered thirteenth Mythcon, to explore. As everybody in attendance here w ill know, works related to The Silm arillion were read aloud to C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams (among others) and these men in turn read from their works to Tolkien , in that informal gathering ca lled The In k lin gs, which has inspired members of The Mythopeoic Society to read their works, of comment, praise, and cr it ica l analysis, to one another at gatherings like th is . In that sp ir it (or as nearly as I can manage without tobacco, beer, or masculine gender) I offer these comments, which I assure you are preliminary in every sense of the word!

When we speak of Celtic influences upon twentieth

century B ritish w riters in gen era l, and W illiam s,

page 6 MYTHLORE 35: Spring 1983

Tolkien, and Lewis in particular, we are thinking primarily o f the literature of the descendants of the Celtic tribes of Iron Age Britain and Ireland, Tacitus has given us the picture of these early people, and the tones he uses should be marked w ell, for we shall hear echoes of i t in the remarks of a l l three of our authors.

On the opposite shore stood the Britons, c lo se embodied and prepared for a c tio n .Women were seen rushing through the ranks in wild disorder, their apparel funereal, their hair loose to the wind, in th e ir hands flaming torches, and their whole appearance resembling the frantic rage o f the Fur ie s .The Druids were ranged in order, with hands u p lif te d , invoking the gods, and pouring forth horrible imprecations. The novelty o f the sight struck the Romans with awa and te rro r ... Feeling the disgrace of yielding to a troop of women and a band of fanatic priests they advanced their standards and rushed on to the attack with impetuous fu r y ... . The Britons perished. . .the island f e l l . . . t h e r e lig io u s gro v es, ded icated to su p e r s t it io n and badoarous r i t e s , were levelled to the ground.2

Hie "Britons" of th is passage are Walsh tribal people and the Romans are under the command o f Suetonius Raulinus. Tacitus' father-in-law Agricola had been governor of Britain, and we have here the fu ll imperial tone, in th is vivid account o f the slaughter of women and p riests .

Is the l i te r a tu r e derived from these peoples indeed "mad," "broken," and ch aracterized by "fundamental unreason?" Hie Celtic literature that we have preserves in written form not only the fo lk -ta les of nineteenth century Ireland and Wa le s , but the oral traditions of various aristocratic cultures in which court poets wove together h is to r y , genealogy , and shamanic r itu a l. Both poetry and prose are preserved. All th is has been filtered through and expanded by Christian writers, for litera cy and C hrisitanity came to the British Is les together.

Irish prose is usually divided in four groups. First is the Mythological Cycle, which t e l l s o f "Hie Peoples o f the Goddess Danann," the p re-C eltic occupants of Ireland. Second is the Ulster Cycle, which describes King Conochbar's warriors, esp ecia lly CuChulainn. Third is the Fenian Cycle, te llin g of Finn Mac Qma i l l , h is warriors, and h is son Oisin (Ossian) . Fo urth is the Historical Cycle, which gathers together ta les o f kings including the high-kings o f Ireland.

Traditional dates for these events range from 300 BC to 800 AD.3

The Welsh s to r ie s are gathered in the Four Branches o f the Mabinogion, in con ten ts o f the Arthurian C ycle, and in poems including those attributed to T aliessin , Merddyn, and others. Related to these various forms but reflectin g a new tradition are the sp ec ifica lly Christian works, including saints' ta le s , and poems of Celtic monastic l i f e .

Hie flavor of C eltic litera tu re can be expressed succinctly by giving three quotations, each o f which is in profound co n tra st to the o th ers save for an astonishing vigour and b r illia n ce of d e ta il: they arethe counterparts of C eltic a rt, pure gold and s ilv e r inlaid with in tricate sp ira ls and interlacements of bright enamel work.

In the Tain Bo Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) , the "centerpiece of the Ulster cycle," the ta le begins with a pillow talk between King A i l l i l and Queen Medb concerning their respective wealth, which

leads to a raid upon King Conochbar to stea l h is fin est

bull to make up their ta l ly . Hie following passage describes the hero CuChulainn's battle-rage in the co n flic t arising from th is beginning. He goes into b attle dressed in

twenty-seven tunics of waxed skin, plated and pressed together, and fastened with strings and cords and straps against h is clear skin, so that h is senses or h is brain wouldn't burst their bonds at the onset o f h is fu ry .4

But th is precaution fa ils :

Hie f ir s t warp-spasm seized CuChulainn, and made him into a monstrous th in g .. . . His body made a furious tw ist inside h is sk in , so that his feet and skins and knees switched to the rear and h is heels and calves switched to the f r o n t .. . . His face and features became a red bowl: he sucked one eye so deep into h ishead th at a wild crane co u ld n 't probe i t . . . t h e other eye f e l l out along h is cheek.(Ibid. p. 150.)

Hie twisting of the body conforms to the conventions of Migrations Art, and the other d istortions suggest the ornaments and animal elements in Celtic Art.

Then,

. . . th e hair of h is head twi sted lik e the tangle o f a red thornbush...and the hero-halo rose out of h is b row .... Then, t a l l and

MYTHLORE 35: Spring 1983 page 7

thick, steady and strong, high as the mast of a noble ship, rose up from the dead centre of his skull a straight spout of black blood darkly and magically smoking lik e the smoke from a royal hostel when a king i s coming to be cared for at the close of a winter day. (Ib id ., p. 153.)

These images reach back through the continental Celtic past to the deepest wells of Indo-European mythology. After th is we are not surprised to learn that on a good day, the hero is praised as "handsome" because he had "three d is t in c t kinds o f hair" (brown, red, and yellow)". (Ib id ., p. 158.) "Fbur dimples in each cheek—yellow , green, crimson, and b lue—and seven bright p u p ils , eye je w e ls , in each k ingly eye."(Ibid.) Crankshaw's bright-eyed beauty and Tolkien's bright co lo rs o f broken stained g la s s are su rely derived from passages lik e these.

My second quotation is from The Mabinogion, a ta le called "Owein, or the Countless of the Ebuntain," which takes place when "The Emperor Arthur was at Cber Ll ion ar Wysg [Caerleon on Usk] ."5 The narrator, who has desired to find a worthy adversary, t e l l s o f a wonderful encounter with a Court where people o f unearthly beauty entertain him, and where the lord of that Court directs him to go out to meet the "keeper of the forest," (Ib id ., P. 196.) a one-eyed, one-footed man seated upon a mound. This apparition sends him on the following mission:

take the path at the head of the c lea r in g ... and climb the slope until you reach the summ it; there you w ill see a vale like a great va lley , and in the middle a great tree with branches greener than the greenest f i r . Beneath that tree is a fountain, and beside the fountain a great stone, and on the stone a silver bowl and a silver c h a in ... . Take the bowl and f i l l i t and throw the water on the stone, and you w ill hear a tremendous thundering.... A shower of birds w ill come and s i t in the tree, and in your own country you have never heard such singing as th is ...an d you w ill see a rider on a pure black horse dressed in pure black brocade, with a standard of pure black linen on h is spear. He w ill attack you at once...and i f you do not find trouble in th is you w ill never find i t as long as you l iv e . (Ib id ., p. 197.)

In th is passage the world of Faerie abuts upon the l i f e of mortals with a b r illia n tly focussed and sunlit autonomy, so absolute i t cannot be g a in sa id , the furthest thing imaginable from the "Celtic Twilight" of Romantic thought.

My final quotation comes from a tenth-century Irish poem in which a hermit (a monk pursuing the d istin ctiv e eremetic monasticism derived by the Celtic Church from i t s contacts with Eastern Christianity) describes h is hermitage:

I have a hut in the wood, none know i t but my Lord: an ash tree on th is s id e , a hazelon the o th e r .. .6

Here the hermit lacks for nothing:

Fruits of rowan, black sloes o f the dark blackthorn; foods o f whorts, spare b e r r ie s .. .

A clutch o f eggs, honey, produce of heat- peas, God has sent i t ; sweet apples, red bog-berries, who rtle -b err ie s .

Beer with herbs, a patch of strawberries, delicious abundance; haws, yew berries, kernals of n u ts .. .

In summer with i t s pleasant, abundant mantle, with good -tastin g savour, there are pignuts, wild marjoram, the cresses of the stream—green purity! (Ib id ., p.69.)

In these lin e s , a few among many, the most exquisite illuminated manuscript world is evoked, a sen sib ility en tirely d ifferent from the others, yet couched in the same bright language of images. A world o f primaeval powe r , a world of faerie wonder, a world of natural delight: each of these passages shows an aspect of theCeltic cosmos.

I have chosen passages which are not only typical of Celtic litera tu re , but w ill perhaps, strike echoes from the writings of Williams, Tolk ien , and Lewis, as a song may cause a glass to chime in sympathy. There are elements drawn from Celtic sources in the works o f a ll three writers. Getting them to admit i t i s another matter!

page 8 MYTHLORE 35: Spring 1983

I w i l l consider the three authors in the chronological order of their b irth s. Charles Williams was born in England of B ritish parents in 1886. His Arthurian poetic cy c le , published in T aliessin Through Logres (1938) and The Region o f the Summer S tars (1944), lik e a ll Arthurian works, contains elements from C e lt ic so u rces, and h is n o v e l, War in Heaven (1930) makes the Holy G rail, arguably a C eltic element, and certa in ly an Arthurian m otif, i t s centerpiece.

When in h is posthumously-published essay, "The Figure of Arthur," (1948) Williams outlined the early mentions of Arthur, he included, along with Nennius's h is to r y , G ild a s 's De E xcid io B r it ta n ia e , which d escr ib es the leader Ambrosius, and the Annales Cambraiae, in which the name Arthur appears, but he makes no mention of Arthur's appearance in "Cullwch and Olwen," which is probably the most primitive part of The Mabinogion. And he f la t ly denies the relationship between the Grail and "vessels o f plenty and cauldrons of magic"7 from the C eltic trad ition , declaring that "The E ucharist, in Europe, was e a r lie r than any evidence of the fables." Like Tolkien, Williams was uncomfortable with C eltic elements: "Cauldrons ofm agic...are a l l very well at f i r s t , but maturing poetry desires something more," he opened, and passed on quickly to Geoffrey of Monmouth. On the other hand, Myrddin and Tallessen are admittedly bards "in the Welsh ta les," (Ib id ., p. 33.) and Williams agreed that Geoffrey drew upon th is trad ition .

In h is commentary, "Williams and the Arthuriad," C.S. Lewis pointed out that Williams did "not pretend to in vestiga te . . .the original sources, the C eltic ta le s or the French romances."8 This om ission Lewis

proceeded to correct. After a l l , "Taliessen i s a poet

and magician in the Mabinogion," (Ib id ., p. 97.) he

wrote. Lewis compared Williams' evocation of Taliessen with "the or ig in a ls in the Mabinogion" and the reader soon learns that Ceridwen and her cauldron find a place in the poems as w ell. In fa c t, the mood and motifs o f Williams' poems make fu ll use o f the idea of C eltic magic and mystery as i t was understood by ea r ly twentieth century Romantics.

Lewis remarked in h is essay that Williams "assumes that you know the B ible, Malory, and Wordsworth pretty w ell, and that you have at le a s t some knowledge of M ilton, Dante, Gibbon, the Mabinogion, and Church

history." (Ib id ., p. 189.) This puts the Celtic element in Williams into the context and emphasis which i t is given in h is work—as one of the many aspects of Western culture upon which he drew freely to enrich and em bellish h is own v is io n a r y re -cr ea tio n o f the Arthuriad.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892 in South Africa of a B ritish mother and father, the la tter of German descent. Much has been written of the Germanic element in h is works, but the C eltic element is present as w ell, despite h is protestations of d is ta s te . Specific motifs appear in The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945) , which is based upon Breton lays o f the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. His poem Imram (1955) is based on the Irish seefaring ta le s , in particular The Imram of S t. Brendan (eighth century). And Wales i t s e l f i s a place in h is humorous medievalizing story, Farmer G iles of Ham (1949). But i t is C eltic language which plays an intimate role in the development o f h is masterworks, the ta le s o f Middle-earth, of Arda and the Children of Iluvatar.

Tolkien saw the Walsh names o f railroad coal-cars

in King's Heath Station in 1901 (he was nine) and on a la ter journey to Wales he heard the language spoken. As an adult he wrote of the beauty o f i t s sound. His Elvish language, Sindarin, is modelled on the phonology of Welsh. On a v i s i t to Brittany (circa 1913) he was disappointed to find that instead o f people speaking

QBreton there were only bathing machines. Humphrey Carpenter recounts how a teacher presciently encouraged Tolkien's in terest in Welsh, te llin g him to "Go in for C eltic," because there was money in it !

In 1955 Tolkien in h is ro le as p h i lo lo g is t delivered a lecture on the C eltic element in the English language, en titled "English and Welsh," in which he acknowledged that The Lord of the Rings, o f which the f in a l volume had ju s t been p ub lished , "contains. . .much of what I personnaly have received from the study o f things C eltic." (Ib id ., p. 224.) It was Tolkien's desire to create "a body of more or le s s connected legend," Carpenter quotes him as saying, "which I could dedicate simply: to England." Amongother q u a lit ie s , i t would possess "the fa ir elu sive beauty that some ca ll C eltic (though i t is rarely found in genuine ancient C eltic things)"—but " it should be 'h igh ,' purged of the gross, and f i t for the more adult

MYTHLORE 35: Spring 1983 page 9

mind of a land long steeped in poetry." (Ib id ., p. 90.)

The su ggestion that "genuine C e lt ic things" contain much that is gross and immature might remind us, ever so gently , o f that mentality which found the Druid groves "dedicated to superstition and barbarous rites."

C.S. Lewis i s , o f the three w riters, not only youngest, but the only one who was, in fa c t, a Celt. He was born in 1898, o f Welsh and Irish descent, in

Ulster, but h is boyhood brush with mythology took a Teutonic form: the Rhinegold, S ie g fr ie d , Balder,Norse, Icelandic, the Eddas. Cb the other hand, in h is evocation of a personage from Welsh tradition , Merlin, he drew a powerful figure:

"Fellow," he said in Latin, " te ll the Lord of th is House that I am come." As he spoke, the wind from behind him was whipping the coat about h is leg s and blowing h is hair over his forehead: but h is great mass stood as i f i thad been planted lik e a tree , and he seemed in no hurry. And the voice, too, was such as one might imagine to be the voice of a tree , large and slow and patient, drawn up through roots and clay and gravel from the depths of the Earth.23

In 1930, w riting to Arthur Greeves, Lewis characterized C eltic myth with the following pentrating remarks: "M [atthew] Arnold. . .sa id that GermanRomanticism.. .was a kind of clunsy attempt at the 'natural magic' o f the C e lt s ." 11 Not so , Lewisconcluded:

The Celtic was much more sensuous: also lesshomely: a lso , en tire ly lacking in reverence,of which the Germanic was f u l l . Then again the Germanic glowed in a sense with rich sombre colours, while the Celtic was a ll transparent and fu ll of nuances—evanescent— but very bright. Che sees that Celtic is essen tia lly Pagan, frivolous under a ll i t s m elancholy, incapable o f growing into re lig ion , and —I think—a l i t t l e h eartless. (Ib id ., p. 374.)

We have here Lewis writing at h is most unguarded, not for publication but to the friend to whom he had confided h is most intimate adolescent fantasies as well as h is deepest religious in tu ition s. He goes so far as to say that "They"—Germanic and Celtic myth—"are almost one's male and female soul." The Germanic, that i s , i s masculine for Lewis, and the Celtic is feminine. In th is context we can also infer that the male is

mature and the female is immature, perhaps even that the male is pure and the female gross. Lewis wroteelsewhere that "the imaginative man" was older in him than the rational. Today's readers may prefer to compare th ese elem ents to the l e f t and r igh t hemispheres o f the brain . Lewis continued that Germanic myth uses earth images while "Celtic runs to the elements," that i s , to wind, water, and f ir e .

Besides the insights these passages give us into Lewis' psychology, they t e l l us much, not o f what C eltic literature contributed in i t s e l f to h is works, but of what h is apprehension of them contributed. But Lewis' writings have a powerful, even w ildly inventive quality that we micht dare to c a ll Celtic in i t s e l f , a true continuation of the Celtic trad ition . In h is most richly imaginative works the very q u a lities of Celtic literature might almost be said to appear again.

In the blue waters and rosy forests of Malacandra there can be heard the b r it t le tinkle and seen the b r illia n t flash of that stained g lass world in which a hero has three colors of hair and seven jewelled pupils in each eye . In the lush landscapes a f lo a t on Perelandra, the fragrances of Faerieland, the Sid, the place of the Goddess come wafting. In Merlin's ca ll to the powers o f the natural world in That Hideous Strenth—

one might have b elieved that he lis te n e d co n tin u a lly to a murmur o f evasive sounds; rustling of mice and sto a ts , thumping progressions of frogs, the small shock of fa llin g hazel nuts, creaking of branjlges, runnels tr ick lin g , the very growing of grass 12.

—and on every page of the seven novels o f Narnia, that poignant evocation of a perfected world of nature, i t s f r u i t s , n u ts , flo w ers, and le a v e s , g ild ed with

page 10 MYTHLORE 35: Spring 1983

praeternatural b r illia n c e , finds i t s place again. As

Lucy found in the resurrected Narnia o f A slan’ s Country, "every rock and flower and blade o f grass looked as i f i t meant m ore."13 In C .S. Lewis' w ritings, as in early medieval C eltic lite r a tu r e , the C eltic element finds fu lfillm en t in Christian form.

NOTES

1 L etters o f J .R .R . T o lk ien , Humphrey Carpenter,editor (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981) , p. 25.

2 T acitus, Annals, trans. A. Murphy, quoted in Meyers Dillon and Nora Chadwick, The C e ltic Realms (London: Cardinal, 1967), p. 44.

3 Alwyn Rees and B rin ley R ees, C e lt ic H eritage (London: Thames and Hudson, 1961) , pp. 26-27.

4 The Tain, trans. Thomas K insella (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1970), p. 148.

5 The Mabinogion, trans. Jeffrey Gantz (Harmonds-worth: Penguin, 1976) , p. 193.

6 Kenneth J. Jackson, A C eltic Miscellany (Harmonds-worth: Penguin, 1971) , p. 68.

7 Charles Williams, "The Figure of Arthur," ArthurianTorso (London: Oxford University Press, 1948) , p. 23.

8C.S. lew is, "Williams and the Arthuriad," Arthurian

Torso, p. 93 9 Humphrey C arpenter, J .R .R , T o lk ien , A Biography (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1977) , p. 67.10 C.S. Lew is , That Hideous Strength (London: TheBodley Head, 1945) , p. 334.11 They Stand Together, Walter Hooper, ed itor (London: C ollins, 1979), p. 373. Lewis was writing on Matthew Arnolds' On the Study o f C e ltic L iterature.12 That Hideous Strength, p. 355.13 C .S. Lewis, The Last B a tt le (New York: TheMacmillan Company, 1955) , pp. 162-163.

P r e v ie w o f T h e

N e x t I s s u eIssue 36 w ill feature: "The A rtist as Magician:

Yeats, Joyce, and Tolkien" by Dominic Manganiello, "The Hero in Tolkien" by Edith Crowe, "The Nature of Dreams in The Lord of the Rings" by Karl Schorr, "Whys of Passage: An Approach to Descent Into H ell" by M.E.P it ts , "C.S. lew is' The Great Divorce and the Medieval Dream Vision" by Robert Boenig, other a r t ic le s as space permits, plus a ll the regular continuing features.