by Anne Ross
Divination (dewiniaeth, rhamanta or difaliaeth)
The Celts as an ancient and widely-scattered people have preserved many archaic tendencies, customs and beliefs. Superstition and second sight, as well as deliberate omen-seeking, have always been a feature of their spiritual proclivities and superstitious practice. The word rhamanta is an archaic word; it would be more usual to call it dewiniaeth or difaliaeth, meaning divination or omen-seeking. It was a special kind of divination, which could be carried out alone by the one seeking to ascertain what would happen to him or her or those related to the would-be diviner, without the intercession of any other person. Neither Druids nor their successors or witches or any other such ‘disreputable’ persons had any rôle to play in this archaic process of rhamanta. We shall look at a few examples of this practice as recorded once again in the invaluable work of Elias Owen, whose religious calling did not prejudice him against an objective study of what he might well regard as pagan practices.
The examples which have been published in various books are very numerous and there are still oral traditions current which show that all memory of divination in this way has not been lost. It must have been somewhat alarming to go to the prescribed place where the future could be revealed or to participate in the necessary ritual, even in one’s home — one could surely never be certain what supernatural forces were being released to the detriment of the seeker after future knowledge. This being the case, rather than one young girl setting out for any given point on her own, the tendency was for, say, three to go together to keep each other company and to assist each other should the situation become too frightening or the revelations too distressing for a single person to handle. But it has always been the way with young single people to try to divine if and whom they were to marry and they placed what might be regarded as a totally misguided faith in these omens. To add to the general recklessness of such ‘seeking’, it was generally carried out in darkest night and, at midnight, they would start to chant the necessary or the relevant incantations. Sometimes the procedure was totally innocent; sometimes cruel practices were resorted to. One of them at least should have slept on a bed made of oat straw or one made from leaves of the rowan tree mixed with seeds of fern and with a pillow of the maidenhair variety.
There were special nights (the ‘spirit nights’) when omens and divination were particularly effective — Hallowe’en, or All Hallows Eve, as it is also known (Nos Calan Gaeaf); St John’s Eve (Nos Wyl Ifan) and Mayday Eve (Nos Calan Haf). These were three ‘Spirit Nights’ (Ysbryd Nosau). Of course, reading the omens where there was any doubt whatsoever about the manifestations, such as the direction in which the trail of a snail went, would immediately lead to whatever conclusion was desired. It would be more than easy to trace the name of the desired lover or beloved in the meanderings of the innocent mollusc. On St John’s Eve, at midnight, young women customarily sought for the plant Llysiau Ifan — St John’s wort — and the light of the glow-worm was believed to be helpful in this search. So this soft-bodied beetle must first be tracked down. When one was found, it would be carried in the palm of the hand and the desired plant sought amongst the fern-fronds. When sufficient had been collected, the flowers were made into a bouquet and carried to the girl’s bedroom. If in the morning the leaves had not wilted, it was a sign that the desired one and the occupant of the bedroom would be married within a year. If however the leaves were found hanging down or dead, this portended the girl’s own death or, alternatively, that she was not to get a husband within the year.
The Rev. Owen heard some oral traditions about the rhamanta and how one woman, who was still alive when he wrote in 1886, saw her future husband by rhamanta or divination, and her friend, also a servant, did likewise. Owen then relates a story that he had from oral sources. In outline, it was as follows: the young women in the rural areas of Wales were desperate to obtain a sight of the one they were destined to marry — no doubt some of them did not succeed in marrying at all. The mistress was let into the secret which was that same night that one of the two girls was going to try to look into the future and the second girl would do so the following night. The clock struck midnight and the second girl herself began to strike the floor with a leather strap, repeating the lines Am gyd-fydio i gyd-ffatio, or ‘we live together to strike together’, and immediately her master came down the stairs. Next day, the girl in all innocence questioned her mistress about her reason for sending her husband down the stairs to give her a fright. The mistress answered: ‘Take care of my children’. In due course this girl married her master and it is clear that sadly, the girl’s innocent question to her mistress had informed her of her own impending death. To return to the other girl, she saw a dark man but he was a stranger to her. However, only a week or two passed before a stranger walked into the farmyard and she at once recognised him as the person whom her divinations had revealed to her. Upon asking around the community, she discovered that he, too, was a married man. However, in due course his wife died and the servant girl became his second bride.
As young girls were so desperate not only to know that they would marry, but to discover who the man should be, they were much occupied in trying to discover this by occult means. One of these methods involved the aid of a ball of yarn. This mode of looking into the future was usually carried out at night by two young girls after all the other members of the household had gone to bed. It has been called coel ede wlan (let the wool reveal the future, or ‘the yarn test’). It was carried out in this manner: two young women took hold of a ball of yarn and, using small pieces of wood, fashioned a miniature rope ladder. They then retired upstairs, opened a window, threw the artificial ladder down to the ground, and the girl who was carrying out the incantation began winding the ladder up, saying: ‘Y fi sy’n dirwyn, Pwy sy’n dal?’ (‘I am winding, who is holding?’). This was performed three times and, should no lover make his appearance, there would be no marriage that year. Next night the other girl tried to ascertain her future status, and with whom, and she hoped for better luck for her efforts. The belief was that the spirit of the future husband would mount the wool ladder and make himself known to his future wife.
Owen also records another tale which he collected orally from a fellow churchman, the Rev. R. Jones, rector of Llanycil. Two young men from Ffestiniog went off to court two girls in the parish of Maentwrog, who were employed as servants at a farm called Gellidywyll. As they were going towards the farm, one of them said ‘I want to rest for a little’. He sat on the ground and seemed to fall asleep at once. This startled his friend, but he was terrified when he saw a blue light coming from his mouth. He tried to wake him up but could not arouse him; he appeared to be dead. However, after a time the blue light was seen returning, and it re-entered the mouth of the sleeping youth who instantly woke up, and they went on together towards Gellidywyll. It happened that at the very moment that he felt himself falling asleep, his love had used the yarn incantation, and during his short sleep, he dreamed that he had seen his sweetheart at her window, and the girl said that he had appeared at her window. In a few months the two were married.
Another form of divination was to walk around the church seven times or nine times on certain nights. Owen calls this the twca test, or knife test. He says that it was a very common method of incantation. This is how it went — the person who wished to know whom he or she would marry went secretly to the church and circumambulated it seven times, while repeating the following: ‘Dyma’r twca, Lle mae’r wain?’ or ‘Here’s the knife, where’s the sheath?’ It was thought that the spirit of his or her future partner would become visible to the one who held the knife, with the sheath in his or her hand, and it would be found that the one fitted the other exactly. Owen comments that he was told by someone who made this test that if the person was to become a wife, the lover would surely appear to her; if it was her fate to die unmarried, then a coffin would come to meet her.
Another mode of seeing one’s future partner was the
washing test. In this form of divination the young woman had to take a garment to be washed, for example a stocking, to the water-spout or pistyll, and to carry two pieces of wood with which she would strike the garment being washed. She went on her knees and began to strike the stocking, saying ‘Am gyd-fydio i gyd-ffatio’. It was thought that her future husband would then appear, take up the second piece and join her in her work of beating. If the vision were to appear, then the marriage would take place within six months.
9 Folk healing, herbal remedies and charms
The Celts in general seem always to have had a partiality for and expertise in healing. Folk medicine often chanced upon truths that subsequent generations found it extremely difficult to better. Much ancient medical lore must have been lost in the early periods of our dependency on government from Rome. Yet it undoubtedly remained at a folk level, the ancient recipes for healing being handed on from generation to generation in the old manner. As early as the Neolithic period in European prehistory the art of trepanning was known and there is clear evidence for the long survival of many who had undergone this delicate operation, attested by bone growth in the post-operation period. The skull and the fleshed human head had a long sanctity in the Celtic world down many thousands of years. There is much evidence for this important cult in later Celtic religion and folklore. It is noteworthy that the roundel of bone removed in the operation of trepanning was regarded as apotropaic and magical, examples with holes bored through it near the edge, clearly for the purpose of suspension, having been found in graves.
The Celts would seem to have had a quite remarkable feeling for medicine and a very comprehensive knowledge and understanding of healing and apotropaic plants. There are wonderful passages in the rich repertoire of early Irish MSS, some of which describe in detail the various herbs which were used to heal those wounded in battle. Skilled physicians with a knowledge of surgery were also popular characters. Here we are commenting on the wider Celtic world but it is necessary to narrow our outlook in order to concentrate on what pertained to Wales. One can make a distinction between the dual rôle of the Welsh physician/ surgeon and contrast this with the tradition in England of separate professions of physician and (barber-) surgeon. The fascination for the Welsh of everything pertaining to medicine and anatomy is clearly attested throughout the tradition. One interesting passage on the ‘constituents of man’ is alleged to have been the work of the sixth-century pencerdd (chief poet) Taliesin. The passage is entitled ‘The Elements of Man’:
Man consists of eight parts: — the first is the earth, which is sluggish and heavy, whence is the flesh. The second is the stones, which are hard, and these are the materials of the bones. The third is water, which is moist and cold, and is the substance of the blood. The fourth is salt, which is briny and sharp, whence are the passions and the faculties of feeling, in respect of corporeal sense and perception. The fifth is the air, or wind, whence is the breath. The sixth is the sun, which is clear and fair, whence is the fire, or corporeal warmth, and the light and colour. The seventh is the Holy Spirit, whence are the soul and life. The eighth is Christ, that is the intellect and wisdom, and the light of the soul and life.
If the part of man that preponderates be of the earth, he will prove unwise, sluggish and very heavy, and will be a little, short, thin dwarf, according as the preponderance may be, whether great or small. If it be of the air, the man will be light, unsteady, garrulous, and given to gossip. If of the stones, he will be hard of heart, understanding and judgement — a miser and a thief. If of the sun, he will be a man of genius, affectionate, active, docile, and poetical. If of the holy spirit, he will be godly, amiable, and compassionate, of a just and tender judgement and fond of the arts and sciences: and this cannot otherwise than equiponderate with Christ and divine sonship.
There are a few medical Triads allegedly dating to this period with the composition of which Taliesin is likewise accredited:
There are three intractable substantial organs: the liver, the kidney and the heart.
There are three intractable membranes: the dura mater, the peritoneum and the urinary bladder.
There are three tedious complaints: disease of the knee joint, disease of the substance of a rib, and phthysis; for when purulent matter has formed in one of these, it is not known when it will get well.
The decades between the sixth and tenth centuries were fully taken up with troubles of a national kind, and the arts and sciences in Wales seem to have been neglected. This is indicated by the paucity of literary remains of that period, leaving us with no information about the state of the science of medicine nor about the status of the physician in the country in general. This is not however the case during the lifetime of that great compiler of the Welsh laws, Hywel Dda (the Good). His laws were promulgated somewhere in the middle of the tenth century, and those concerning the court physician were clearly set out, giving him and his art a clear and definable status.
The Mawddwy (Myddfai) Physicians
The Myddfai physicians consisted of a line of country doctors who lived in the parish of Myddfai, Carmarthenshire (see 40). They have always aroused intense interest in Wales both because of the unusual feature of what one might call a ‘practice’ of family doctors as early as the thirteenth century. Their beginnings are associated with a story which survived in a series of medieval medical manuals. The oldest of these refers to a Rhiwallon Feddyg and his three sons, Cadwgan, Gruffudd and Einion who were doctors in the court of Rhys Gryg, Lord of Dinefwr in the thirteenth century. Myddfai was a manor in the territory of the lord Rhys and with the ending of the native Welsh princes was incorporated in the lordship of Llandovery. It is likely that a succession of these physicians continued in Myddfai right down to the eighteenth century. This succession of professional and well-educated families was typical of Celtic society and extended to and is paralleled by examples from Scotland (for example the Beatons of Dunvegan, Skye: vide Companion to Gaelic Scotland, p.22). In the last 200 years the skills of these physicians have attached themselves to a folk tale about Llyn y Fan Fâch.
The origin of the Meddygai Myddfai according to the legend of Llyn y Fan Fâch
In the twelfth century a widow lived near Llanddeusant in Carmarthenshire. Her husband had been a farmer but had fallen in the disastrous war of the Princes.
The widow was left with a son to rear, but good fortune came to her. In spite of her lonely state her livestock flourished and increased to such an extent that she was unable to find sufficient pasture for them on her own farm so she sent a proportion of them to the Black Mountain which adjoined her property. The cattle loved best the small lake on the north-western side of the hills known as the Carmarthenshire Vans. The lake was called Llyn y Fan Fâch, ‘the Little Van Lake’. All went well and the boy grew to manhood and was customarily sent by his mother to take care of the cattle grazing on the mountain. One day, while he was walking along the edge of the lake, he was astounded to see, sitting on the surface of the water, a young woman. She was one of the most beautiful beings that had ever been seen by mortal eyes; her long hair fell over her shoulders in ringlets which she combed while using the calm surface of the lake as a mirror. Looking up, she saw the young man standing on the edge of the lake staring at her in astonishment and almost instinctively offering to her the barley bread and cheese which his mother had given him for his lunch when he left home. He was overcome by his feelings of love and admiration for this beautiful girl before him, and he continued to hold out his hand towards her, while she quietly drew nearer to him but would not accept the proffered food. He attempted to touch her but she avoided him, saying ‘Your bread is hard-baked and I am not easy to catch’, then she dived under the water and was gone from his sight, leaving the forlorn youth behind. He had no choice but to return home, bitterly disappointed and regretting that he had been unable to become better acquainted with the girl, whose beauty outshone that of all the girls he had ever seen. It is perhaps noteworthy that the parish of Mydd
fai used to be renowned for the beauty of its girls, but whether they were related to the lady of Lake Van or not is impossible to determine!
When he got home he told his mother about the astonishing vision he had witnessed. She told him to take some unbaked bread with him in his pocket, because there must have been some magic connected with the hard-baked bread that prevented him from taking hold of the girl. Next morning, before the sun had risen, the young man was at the lake, not only with the intention of looking after his mother’s cattle but of trying to find the beautiful lake maiden he had seen the previous day. He looked everywhere and watched the surface of the lake, but only the ripples which were created by a fresh breeze stirred and a cloud hung ominously on the summit of the Van, all of which added to his misery and frustration.
Hours passed and then the wind dropped and the clouds which hid the Van Mountain from view dispersed before the strong light of the sun. Suddenly the youth was shocked to see that some of his mother’s cattle had wandered almost to the opposite side of the lake, which was a precipitous and treacherous height. He remembered his duty and it compelled him to attempt to rescue them. He began to make haste to their aid when to his great joy the one he sought appeared before him as on the previous occasion and seemed to be even more divinely beautiful. He once again held out his hand to her, full of raw dough which he offered to her with his heart, vowing to love her forever. She refused everything, saying: ‘Your bread is not baked; I will not have you’, but as she vanished beneath the waters she smiled playfully at him and this aroused hopes in his heart which kept him from despair. As he made his way home he thought about her and was greatly cheered. His mother knew very well that he had not succeeded in his quest and she suggested that next time the bread he took should only be slightly cooked, as this was probably more pleasing to the mysterious girl with whom he had obviously fallen wildly in love.