Dylan Ail Don

Dylan is a character in the mabinogi of Math fab Mathonwy. He is the son of Arianrhod. His twin brother was Lleu Llaw Gyffes.

Representation in Welsh literature

In the tale, Dylan is spontaneously born as a ‘yellow-haired, chubby boy.’ His birth occurs when his mother, Arianrhod, who is a virgin according to her brother Gwydion, steps over Math fab Mathonwy’s bent wand to test her virginity. Dylan is forsaken by Arianrhod as soon as he is born:

‘Then he took up his magic wand, and bent it. "Step over this," said he, "and I shall know if thou art the maiden." Then stepped she over the magic wand, and there appeared forthwith a fine chubby yellow-haired boy. And at the crying out of the boy, she went towards the door. (Guest, 1877: Ch. 9)’

A small formation is born at the same time, unbeknown to Arianrhod and it is concealed by her brother, Gwydion:

‘And thereupon some small form was seen; but before any one could get a second glimpse of it, Gwydion had taken it, and had flung a scarf of velvet around it and hidden it. Now the place where he hid it was the bottom of a chest at the foot of his bed (Guest, 1877: Ch. 9).’

This small formation later develops into Lleu Llaw Gyffes. It is Math fab Mathonwy himself who baptises and names him:

‘ “Verily,” said Math the son of Mathonwy, concerning the fine yellow-haired boy, “I will cause this one to be baptized, and Dylan is the name I will give him (Guest, 1877: Ch. 9).”

As soon as Dylan is in contact with his baptismal waters, he plunges into the sea and takes on characteristic of the sea, moving through the seawater as perfectly as any fish:

‘So they had the boy baptized, and as they baptized him he plunged into the sea. And immediately when he was in the sea, he took its nature, and swam as well as the best fish that was therein. (Guest, 1877: Ch. 9)’

He earns his epithet, Eil Ton, ‘the son of the wave’ by virtue of these very marine characteristics of his:

‘And for that reason was he called Dylan, the son of the Wave (Guest, 1877: Ch. 9).’

Rather like the foaming crest of a wave or something that is found under the waves , no wave ever breaks beneath him:

‘Beneath him no wave ever broke (Guest, 1877: Ch. 9).’

He is destroyed by Gofannon, who deals him a lethal blow:

‘And the blow whereby he came to his death, was struck by his uncle Govannon. The third fatal blow was it called (Guest, 1877: Ch. 9).’

Dylan is the subject of a eulogy entitled Marwnad Dylan Ail Don attributed to the bard Taliesin:

One God Supreme, divine, the wisest, the greatest his habitation,
when he came to the field, who charmed him in the hand of the extremely liberal.
Or sooner than he, who was on peace on the nature of a turn.
An opposing groom, poison made, a wrathful deed,
Piercing Dylan a mischievous shore, violence freely flowing
Wave of Iwerdon, and wave of Manau, and wave of the North,
And wave of Prydain, hosts comely in fours.
I will adore the Father God, the regulator of the country, without refusing.
Creator in Heaven, may he admit us into merry.

Dylan as a Celtic god

In literature on Celtic mythology, the character Dylan is sometimes taken to be the vestige of an ancient Celtic god. According to this line of thinking, representation of Dylan in Welsh literature and in folklore have been used to infer the attributes of his supposed divine ancient Celtic prototype. Squire (2000:158) prefers to see in Dylan the remnants of a god of darkness:

‘[T]wo sons were born at one birth – Dylan and Lleu, who are considered as representing the twin powers of darkness and light. With darkness the sea was inseparably connected by the Celts, and, as soon as the dark twin was born and named, he plunged headlong into his native element…Beautiful legends grew up around his death. The clamour of the waves dashing upon the beach is the expression of their longing to avenge their son. The sound of the sea rushing up the mouth of the River Conway is still known as "Dylan's death-groan". A small promontory on the Carnarvonshire side of the Menai Straits, called Pwynt Maen Tylen, or Pwynt Maen Dulan, preserves his name.’

On the other hand, MacCulloch (1911, Ch. VI) has preferred to see Dylan simply as the remnants of a local sea-god of North Wales:

‘Dylan, however, has no dark traits and is described as a blonde. The waves lament his death, and, as they dash against the shore, seek to avenge it. His grave is "where the wave makes a sullen sound," but popular belief identifies him with the waves, and their noise as they press into the Conway is his dying groan. Not only is he Eil Ton, "son of the wave," but also Eil Mor, "son of the sea." He is thus a local sea-god, and like Manannan identified with the waves, and yet separate from them, since they mourn his death. The Mabinogi gives us the débris of myths explaining how an anthropomorphic sea-god was connected with the goddess Arianrhod and slain by a god Govannon.’

Etymology

The etymology of the name Dylan is disputable. In Welsh, there is a bound item dylanw- which appears in dylanwad ‘influence,’ dylanwadol ‘influential’ and dylanwadu ‘to influence’ [1] [2]. This element dylanw- appears itself to be a compound of the prefix dy- and the noun llanw ‘tidal flow’ [3]. The prefix dy- appears in numerous words in Welsh and is reconstructed in Proto-Celtic as *dī- with the meaning of ‘off, away’ [4]. The item llanw is reconstructed in in Proto-Celtic as *φlanwo- ‘flood, filling.’ This *φlanwo- may plausibly have had a reduced form *φlanu- ‘flood.’ The name Dylan, then, can be maintained to be the descendant of a compound of Proto-Celtic elements *dī- φlanu-s which together basically mean something like ‘the flood that flows off’ which must have been applied to mean ‘the tidal flood that flows off.’ Alone, the Welsh element dy can mean ‘thy, thine’ or rather ‘your’ (singular) but there is no gloss of this word meaning ‘great,’ as the most cursory glance at the Welsh dictionary proves.[5]

References

• Guest, C. (translator) (1877). The Mabinogion. Chicago: Academy Press Limited.
• MacCulloch, J. A. (1911). The religion of the ancient Celts. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN-10: 048642765X
• Squire, C. (2000). The mythology of the British Islands: an introduction to Celtic myth, legend, poetry and romance. London & Ware: UCL & Wordsworth Editions Ltd.

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