[youth (?); young god (?)]
Young man stolen from his mother, Modron, when he was three nights old whom Culhwch is commanded to rescue in Culhwch ac Olwen. It is Arthur, however, with the aid of animal wisdom, who finds him in prison in Gloucester. The Welsh Triads describe him as one of the Three Exalted Prisoners, along with Gwair, of the Isle cf Britain. Later, in the hunting of Twrch Trwyth, Mabon succeeds in retrieving the razor from behind the ear of the boar. Only he can hunt the dog Drudwyn. In a poem from the Black Book of Carmarthen, Mabon is named a servant of Uthr Bendragon/Uther Pendragon. Learned commentators have long agreed that Mabon is derived from Maponos [divine youth], a Celtic god of Roman-occupied Britain and Gaul often linked to Apollo, just as his mother Modron is derived from Matrona, eponym of the Marne River. The name Mabon also appears elsewhere in early Welsh history and literature; of these, Mabon vab Mellt [son of lightning] is a doublet of Mabon son of Modron, while Mabon-Agrain (also Mabuz) is an Arthurian figure derived from him. W. J. Gruffydd argued (1958) that Mabon may be identified with or at least parallels Pryderi (or Gwair) of the Mabinogi.
Bibliography
- W. J. Gruffydd, Folklore and Myth in the Mabinogion (Cardiff, 1958)
- Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydain,
rev. edn. (Cardiff, 1978), 433–6, 557
