Brân the Blessed- Celtic GodDeity"King of the Island of the Mighty"

The Giant King

Brân the Blessed, Bendigeidfran in Welsh, was the son of Llŷr and king of the Island of the Mighty. He was so vast that no house could contain him and no ship could carry him. When he sat upon the rock at Harlech, his men could feast in the halls behind him while he looked out across the sea toward Ireland.

The Marriage of Branwen

The catastrophe that would consume Brân's kingdom began with a diplomatic marriage. Matholwch, king of Ireland, sailed to Harlech with thirteen ships to ask for the hand of Branwen, whom the text describes as one of the three chief maidens of the Island of the Mighty. Brân agreed, hoping to unite the two islands in peace. The match was celebrated, and Branwen spent her wedding night with Matholwch.

But Brân's half-brother Efnisien, a man described as capable of causing strife between the most devoted brothers, had not been consulted about the marriage. Taking violent offense at the slight, he mutilated the Irish king's horses, cutting their lips to their teeth and their tails to their backs. The insult was so extreme that Matholwch prepared to depart in rage.

The Gift of the Cauldron

Brân, horrified by Efnisien's act, desperately sought to repair the alliance. He sent messengers with gifts: replacement horses, a staff of silver as tall as Matholwch himself, and a plate of gold as wide as his face. When Matholwch remained cold, Brân offered a final gift: a cauldron with the power to restore the dead to life. A slain warrior placed in the cauldron would rise the next day, whole and strong, though he would never speak again. Brân had received this cauldron from Llásar Llaès Gyfnewid, a giant who had emerged from a lake in Ireland carrying it.

Matholwch accepted, and the marriage proceeded. But in giving the Irish a cauldron that could raise their dead, Brân had armed them for the war to come.

The Suffering of Branwen

Branwen went to Ireland and bore Matholwch a son, Gwern. For a time she was honored as queen. But the Irish nobility never forgot the mutilation of their king's horses, and they demanded vengeance. Branwen was driven from the royal chamber and forced to work in the kitchens, where the butcher struck her across the face each day. She was forbidden from receiving any visitor from Britain, and ships were prevented from crossing between the islands, so that no word of her treatment could reach her brother.

For three years Branwen endured this punishment in silence. But she trained a starling, teaching the bird to speak and attaching a letter to its wing. The starling flew across the Irish Sea and found Brân at Caer Saint in Arfon. When Brân learned what had been done to his sister, he summoned every warrior in the Island of the Mighty and prepared for war.

The Crossing of the Irish Sea

Brân waded across the Irish Sea, too large for any ship to bear him. His fleet sailed beside him, but the king walked through the waves, carrying his musicians and entertainers upon his back. Irish swineherds watching from the shore reported to Matholwch that they had seen a mountain moving across the water, with a ridge upon it like a forest and two lakes on either side of the ridge. Matholwch asked Branwen what this could be. She told him: the mountain was Brân, the ridge was his nose, the forest was the masts of the British fleet, and the two lakes were his eyes, blazing with fury.

The Irish retreated across the River Liffey (identified in the text as the Linon) and destroyed the bridge. But Brân laid himself across the river, and his men walked over his body to reach the far shore. "He who would be chief," Brân declared, "let him be a bridge." This saying became proverbial in Welsh tradition.

The House of Treachery

The Irish sued for peace, offering to build an enormous house large enough to contain Brân, the first building ever constructed to hold him. They offered to give the kingship of Ireland to Gwern, Branwen's son. Brân accepted, but the Irish had prepared a trap. Along the pillars of the great house, they hung two hundred leather bags, each containing an armed warrior waiting to ambush the British at the feast.

Efnisien, the very man whose malice had caused the war, saved his people through suspicion. Walking along the hall before the feast, he squeezed each bag, asking what was inside. "Flour," the Irish answered each time. Efnisien squeezed until he felt skulls crack beneath his fingers, crushing the brains of all two hundred hidden warriors.

The feast began, and young Gwern was presented as the new king of Ireland. He went around the hall receiving the embrace of each of his uncles. When he came to Efnisien, the malevolent half-brother seized the boy and thrust him headfirst into the fire. The hall erupted into battle.

The Battle and the Cauldron's Destruction

The fighting was ferocious. The Irish threw their dead into the cauldron of rebirth, and they rose again to fight, silent, relentless, and unkillable by ordinary means. The British were overwhelmed; their ranks shrank while the Irish forces continuously replenished themselves.

Efnisien, who had set the whole catastrophe in motion, chose to redeem himself. He hid among the Irish dead and was thrown into the cauldron with them. Once inside, he stretched himself with all his might until the cauldron burst into four pieces and his heart burst with it. Without the cauldron, the Irish could no longer raise their dead, but the cost had been staggering. Only seven British warriors survived.

The Wounding of Brân

During the battle, Brân was struck in the foot by a poisoned spear. The wound was mortal, and no healing could save him. Knowing his death was certain, Brân commanded his seven surviving companions to cut off his head and carry it across the sea. They were to take it first to Harlech, where they would feast for seven years, and then to Gwales in Penfro, where they would feast for eighty years more. Finally, they were to bury the head on the White Mount in London, with its face turned toward France, and as long as it remained there, no invasion would cross the sea to harm Britain.

Branwen, crossing back to Britain with the survivors, looked upon the devastation that had been wrought on both islands because of her marriage. She spoke the words: "Woe that I was ever born. Two good islands have been destroyed because of me." Her heart broke, and she died.

The Assembly of the Noble Head

The seven survivors carried Brân's head as he had commanded. At Harlech, they feasted for seven years while the three Birds of Rhiannon sang to them, and they felt no grief or passage of time. The birds seemed to sing far out over the sea yet sounded as if they were in the room, and their music surpassed all other sound.

Then they traveled to Gwales, where they found a great hall with two open doors and one closed door. They entered, and the head of Brân was as pleasant a companion as it had ever been when alive, speaking and jesting and prophesying. For eighty years they feasted in this timeless enchantment, aware of no sorrow and no loss.

But one of the seven, Heilyn fab Gwyn, opened the forbidden third door. At once, all the grief of the eighty-seven years fell upon them. They could remain no longer. They carried the head to the White Mount in London and buried it as Brân had instructed, its face toward France, guarding Britain against invasion.

The Disinterment

The Welsh Triads record that Arthur later dug up the head, declaring that Britain should be defended by human arms rather than magical talismans. It is listed among the Three Unfortunate Disclosures of the Island of the Mighty.