Luned & Lundy names

Lundy, Isle of Avalon Gods, Saints and Heroes

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Luned / Lunette/ Lynettee

Loomis states that the wife of Gawain, LUNED or LYNETTE = Moon Goddess.

'lune' - 'moon'

Luned (-t) is the older form of the name. - (Bromwich)

'Lynete/Lyonors was the possessor of a precious cup and a marvellous healing power'

'Malory ch14 (33,22,23,26) a cup of gold 'That is rich and precious'

'In Wolfram's 'Parzival' one of the grail maidens is called 'Florie von Lunel.'

'The beauty of Luned was much celebrated among the bards of the middle ages.

'Called Lunette in the French romances

'Morte d'Arthur story of Gareth who undertook the adventure of the Castle Perilous on her behalf.

'Gareth married her sister Lyones of Castle Perilous, Luned married his bro.Gaheris.

Luned and her sister Lyones = Lundy and Lyonesse.

In " Jones' Welsh Bards" Luned is said to be the same person as Elined one of the daughters of Brychain. The same Elined who is thought, by some authorities to be St. Elen, the source of the three ancient church dedications on Lundy, at Abbotsham and at Croyde.

( Luned = St. Elined = St. Elen ).

'The goddess of the moon has from earliest times also been the power that could blast or bring to luxuriant ripeness all green things.... Diana of the Ephesians....the vegetation goddesses Hecate, Demeter, Persephone, had also their lunar aspects. Plutarch for instance says: 'One Demeter is in the earth, lady and mistress of that which is on the earth, and the other is in the moon, and is called by those who live in the moon, Kore or Persephone." (De Facie Lunae, LXX.) We have noted that original tradition made Gareth the lover of Lynete, and Chretien de Troyes makes Gawain, who is of course Gareth under another name, lover of Lunete, and says expressly that she was the moon. (Ivain l.2398.) Lunete like Lorie de la Roche Florie, is called a fay, her name assuming the corrupt form Felinet. Probably her Welsh progenitor is Arianrhod, 'Silver ?" a name which suggests a lunar nature. Is it coincidence that both in classical and Arthurian mythology the mistress of vegetation, heroine of an abduction story and the object of a mystery cult, should be equated with the goddess of the moon?

Though Strabo refers to the goddesses whose rites, celebrated in an island near Britain, resembled those of Samothraceas Demeter and Kore, it is more than possible that they were blended with the rites of another goddess, sometimes equated with Persephone, also worshipped at Samothrace, Hecate. We read in a classical source that 'In Samothrace there were mysteries of the Korybantes and of Hecate.' In the Cave of Zerynfhos, 'It is said that they worshipped Hecate with orgies and performed initiation rites to her and sacrificed dogs.' Hecate and Demeter were both shape-changers. IN her ability to take on both a hideous and a radiantly beautiful form, the Grail Messenger or Grail Bearer corresponds closely to Hecate - Demeter, worshipped at Samothrace.

Another point on which the goddess of Samothrace and the goddess who appears in the Grail romances agree, is that they both are messengers or guides to the otherworld. Hecate is thought of as the guide of the spirits of the dead to her under-world realm. The resemblance between the Greek and Celtic conceptios of that Otherworld has been conclusively demonstrated in Nutt's extended study. Loomis

'The report preserved by Strabo that in an island near Britain sacrifices were offered to Demeter and Kore like those of Samothrace finds an incredible amount of corroboration in Arthurian romance. For the corresponding divinity, who must have sprung from ancient mythological roots which ran deep in the soil of the British Ilses, and whom we can trace back to Wales and Ireland, shares six characteristics with the Greek gdodesses. She is the heroine of a seasonal abduction story. She is mistress both of moon and vegetation. She transforms herself from the most hideous animal-like forms to radiant beauty. She is a guide to the otherworld. She embraces a youthful god with the knowledge of her husband, who interrupts them with his lightning stroke. Finally she is associated with a cult in which a priestess bears a vessel adorned with lights in an initiation ceremony, intimately connected with the healing of a maimed god.

the lady Alundyne

The tale of 'Owain and the Lady of the Fountain' appears in the Mabinogion a collection of welsh prose tales put together between the latter part of the 11th and the end of the 13th centuries.

Some versions of the 'Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain' give the ring of Lunette as one of the treasures, showing that the story of Owain and the Lady must have been widely known.

The resemblance of the name of the countess, Alundyne, to the word Lundy is striking but just to emphasise the connection an early English version of this story reads;-

" The riche lady Alundyne,

The dukes daughter of Landuit."

Both names differ far less from 'Lundy' than do many of the names in the Arthurian myths which have become changed over the years.

( see elsewhere for scribal confusion etc.)

The name of the countess appears as Laudine in 'Yvain.'

The name of the maidservant, Luned becomes, in the French Romances, Lunette.

In the variant versions of the tale of 'Owain and Luned and the lady of the fountain' the castle is either on an island or a tower in a woodland glade.

In the 'Livre d'Artus' the story of Merlin and Nimue is interwoven with the story of the fountain and Lunette is more openly depicted as an enchantress. In this version it was she who made the fountain and the associated chapel.

Lear

King Lear, is by the Welsh authorities called indiscriminately Llyr or Llydd.

Lindos

A sacred site on the Island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. It is on the Trans Europe St. Michael Line

Lydda

St. George was originally an eastern saint and his cult spread westward from its source in LYDDA.

In his book 'Avalonian Quest,' Geoffrey Ashe tells of a Georgian legend contained in an 8th cent. manuscript. The legend says that Joseph of Arimathea and St. Philip, the Apostle, travelled to Lydda and there consecrated a church to St. Mary. This church was put in Joseph's care. ( According to the 1254 Patent Rolls the church on Lundy was dedicated to St. Mary).

*** The King who received them would not become a Christian but gave them the island of 'Ynys Witrin', (later called Glastonbury)? where they built a wattle church, in honour of St.Mary, which it was claimed had been dedicated by the lord himself.

Lydney

'In other cases the hillfort may have been built & used solely as a sanctuary in which the priests and their assistants lived & worked,receiving & perhaps accomodating worshippers, as at Lydney.'Trav.Guide to Celtic Brit.'-

(lydney) - the cult objects.....suggest that the deity was concerned with healing... the sun .. and water.

'Temple of Nodens -built after 366/7-Nuada of the silv.hand-Nudd-Llud Llaw Ereint-llud of the silv.hand also -- LUGH.

'remarkable number of rep.of dogs

'a great hall surr.by alcoves or bays.

sacred sleep---land of nod

'Lord of Hounds' = Pwyll,Lord of Annwn.

***** 'The siting of the Lydney temple makes it clear that the wide estuary of the Severn (Sabrina) was of first importance. ross

p228 'The temple at Bath was one of what would seem to have been a series of shrines associated with healing springs and their presiding deities, stretching right round the Severn estuary to include the impressive temple at Lydney, and one at Caerwent.

**** 'Shrines assoc. with aquatic cults occur in the region of the Severn estuary and adjacent areas.

Llydaw

The first stanza of triad 70 names the mother of Urien as Nefyn, daughter of Brychan Brycheiniog; the second stanza says

'The second, Owain and Morfudd daughter of Urien and Anarun archbishop of Llydaw, by Modron daughter of Afallach their mother.'

'A'r eil, Owein mab Vryen a Moruud uerch Vryen ac Anarun Archesgob Llydaw, o Vodron merch Auallach eu mam;

Owain is descended on his father, Urien's side from Brychan Brycheiniog and on his mother, Modron's side from Afallach. His brother is Anarun the Archbishop of Llydaw.

The Breuddyd Rhonabwy contains a reference to 'Howel fab Emyr Llydaw' - 'Hoel, son of the prince ( of ) Llydaw' . Other early welsh texts including 'Geraint' mention Hoel but do not identify Llydaw.

Professor John Rhys in Celtic Folklore says that 'Llydaw' signified 'land which one had to reach by boat'

Ladon

Ladon - the sleepless dragon who guards the tree of the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides ( the Twelve Labours of Hercules).

London

Prior to its sacking in the Boudiccan revolt, Colchester was the capital of Roman Britain and London, in the words of Tacitus was, '....an important settlement for businessmen and merchandise.' By about 70 AD, in the aftermath of the revolt, London became the centre not only of administration but also of the transport system.

Archeological and other evidence seem to indicate that London, the largest city in middle Roman Britain, was an insignificant settlement during the later Roman years. The city was abandoned quite soon after 410 and didn't become a significant burgh again until quite late in the Anglo Saxon period.