Hexwood: Hocus-Pocus

Disclaimer: this is a not-for-profit tribute to the work of the late Diana Wynne Jones

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Hexwood filk: the Wood contemplates the patterns it has woven out of the lives of Mordion, Vierran, Arthur and Martellian – one of a set of four filk-songs I wrote in the mid 1990s to accompany the book Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones. This one is not only not very ose, on the traditional fannish scale of ose, morose and more morose, but almost nearly positively cheerful – quite a difficult achievement in anything to do with Mordion Agenos. For those who have come here because you are following me as a writer, rather than because you have read Hexwood (although if you haven't, you really should), a summary of the background to the story can be found here: this particular song, however, is really intended for those who already know the book inside-out (inside-out being pretty-much its natural condition), in part because it's one long spoiler. You have been warned. These notes contain spoilers too.

I actually have mixed feelings about uploading this one. What it is is basically a catalogue set to music, listing cross-references between the themes in Hexwood and in the books of Caitlín and John Matthews. Caitlín and her husband are popular and populist Celtic scholars: they've done a huge amount of research and produced many scholary books, but their findings are not universally accepted. There are so many cross-connections that I suspect Diana had read their books and was deliberately playing spot-the-reference.

Relevant themes include the idea that the newly crowned king ceremonially marries the land, personified as Sovereignty, and the idea that just as the main Celtic goddess was divided into Maiden, Mother and Crone, so the principal god was divided into Youth, King/Poet and Sage, and various characters in Celtic mythology fall into that pattern. The Youth grows up and becomes in turn King and then Sage before progressing around the cycle and becoming a Youth again, just as Martellian becomes Reigner, then Merlin, then Mordion's adopted son and a child again, even though he's really Mordion's great-to-the-n^th grandfather (which means that Martellian becomes his own great-to-the-n^th+1 adoptive grandfather – shriek!).

Arthur and Merlin are typical examples of King and Sage figures, but the most important character for our purposes is Mabon son of Modron, whose name just means Son, son of Mother, and who personifies the theme of the Youth as a captive who needs to be rescued. Mabon is stolen from his mother as a newborn infant and is kept in a terrible prison, sometimes in a place called Glass Castle, sometimes, under the name Gwydion, in Spiral Castle – both names which resonate with Mordion's imprisonment in the spiral, flint-clad House of Balance. Sometimes, under the variant name Mabonograin, Son of the Sun, Mabon appears as a skilled and dangerous knight who has been dressed in scarlet and held captive in an orchard, where he is forced against his will to challenge and kill anyone who ventures through the gate.

The reason I have mixed feelings about uploading this filk is that it goes on a bit, even to me, yet I can't shorten it because there are just so many references needing to be included – dozens and dozens of the bleeders – and without the tune it doesn't scan very well. [You can hear me sing the tune – in what I consider to be an irritatingly breathy voice – here; answer "Yes" if asked whether you want to run blocked scripts or ActiveX controls.] There are bits of it I'm very pleased with, especially "Mabon was a Red Knight whose name was held in secret; // Comes now a day when all men shall speak it", but over all it's not one of my better things. Only somebody extremely patient would read it for pleasure – but then again the references it lists will be of interest to dedicated Hexwood fen, and it's probably less dry set as a song than it would be as a plain list. So we have the verse first, and then below that the references, line by line. After much consideration I decided to intersperse the notes with the verses in this way to save a lot of scrolling up and down, and because the references are likely to be of more interest than the poetry.

The relevant works are Mabon and the Mysteries of Britain and Arthur and the Sovereignty of Britain by Caitlín Matthews and, to a lesser extent, The Arthurian Tarot – A Hallowquest Handbook by Caitlín and John Matthews and Taliesin by John Matthews, listed respectively as MatMoB, AatSoB, AHH and T.

N.B. The fact that King Arthur spends part of Hexwood under the name Artegal suggests that the book also includes many allusions to Edmund Spenser's 16^thC work The Faerie Queene. If so, a braver and more patient reader than I will have to find them. I've tried to read the thing, I really have, but sheer howling boredom eventually compelled me to give up about a quarter of the way through.

In Norse mythology Fitela, a.k.a. Sinfjötli, is the incestuously begotten son and nephew of Sigmund and his sister Signý, a mighty warior who is eventually poisoned by his stepmother and then borne away to Valhalla by Odin himself (one of the guises of Martellian). In the poem Beowulf the hero listens to a bard singing tales of the heroism of Sigmund and Fitela.

In yet another, more frivolous allusion, Hexwood Farm was the central location in 1970s British children's comedy TV show Catweazle, about an 11^thC wizard who is accidentally thrown forwards into modern England. If you go onto Google Images and look up the eponymous Catweazle, you'll see that he bears a distinct resemblance to an older, scruffier Mordion, right down to the brilliant, face-engulfing smile: although he doesn't quite have a monobrow.

Even the name Orm Pender is a play on the name of a dragon in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. There are various dragons in Earthsea whose names begin with Orm – Orm Embar, Orm Irian – because of their descent from a common ancestor. A mighty and terrible dragon named Yevaud, who may or may not be descended from Orm, is known as the Dragon of Pendor. And Yevaud spends years hiding in a cave on the island of Sattins by transforming himself into a short, bow-legged, pigeon-toed, shy, awkward, incompetent and altogether fussy and harmless-seeming elderly wizard named (like Frodo) Mr Underhill, before resuming his true form and eating anyone who doesn't get away fast enough.

Hocus-Pocus
Tune: my own, which you can listen to here

I am the Forest of Logres, I am the Land;
I will not be mastered by a foreign Hand
Except it come in reverence to serve me:
By Earth's far-scattered earth my power shall break the cruellest bars
To draw the Mabon to me from his prison among the stars
To set the wide worlds free:
That Merlin's blood might come to claim his own,
That Arthur's kin might come to claim the Throne.

Line 1: "There is a sense in which the Hallows are hidden within the land itself at the four corners of the realm of Logres, the 'inner Britain.' These do not constitute 'buried treasure' ... but the guardianship by Sovereignty's champion of the elemental, power-bestowing energies that hold the land in balance."      [AatSoB p. 247]

Lines 2-3: "It is only those ... invaders who draw their empowering emblems and mystique from the deep, mythical framework of the land who are successful ... "      [AatSoB p. 13]

Line 4: Right across the Reigners' empire all teleport portals – all the channels between the worlds – are made of flint from Earth.

Lines 4-6: "... the role of Mabon is a dual one: he bears responsibilities and burdens, and releases others from them: he is both prisoner and champion."      [MatMoB p. 156]

Line 5:        The Names of the Constellations
       16 Caer Sidi          The Zodiac (Hanes Taliesin)      [T p. 265]

Caer Sidi, here interpreted by John Matthews as the Zodiac itself, is the place of imprisonment of Gweir or Gwair, one of Mabon's equivalents or aliases – see notes for verse 12. [Personally I'm 80% sure Caer Sidi was a real place in Monmouthshire, now called Sudbrook Camp, an Iron Age fort at the mouth of the Severn which has now been partially washed away, but which must once have been called something like Caer Sudd and which shares some distinctive features with Caer Sidi in the stories, particularly the presence of an especially pure spring just upstream. If you're interested you can read about it here.]

Chorus,
Line 2: "Within Celtic tradition the complex webs of familial relationships were guided by an older system of reckoning descent and succession through the female. This meant that the nephew or sister's son of a king had a greater right to the throne than the king's own son ... "      [AatSoB p. 96]

Mordion is presumably related to Arthur via "those two girl Servants" (Nimuë and Vivienne?) who put Martellian into stasis, who were the first or almost the first of the line of Servants and were immediate descendants of Martellian/Merlin and, therefore, cousins of Arthur's.

Who from his mother's womb was cruelly reived,
Chained from his birth, unceasingly to grieve,
Who never once had lain between his mother and the wall:
The seed of Merlin, 'prisoned and in pain
In the house of stone of mine laments, but I shall break his chains
That he may come to rule:
That Merlin's blood may come to claim his own,
That Arthur's kin may come to claim the Throne.

Line 1:        "Oh do you know, or have you heard
       Of Mabon, Modron's son?
       Who from his mother's womb was reived
       When time was first begun?"      [MatMoB p. 187]

Line 2: "... those... who, like Mabon, the immemorial prisoner, grieve unceasingly."      [MatMoB p. 66]

Line 3: "... tell me if thou knowest aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken when three nights old from between his mother and the wall?"      [From The Mabinogion: Culhwch and Olwen, quoted in MatMoB p. 132]

Lines 4-5:        "With every tide I heard a cry, in every stream a moan;
       I swam ... and found a wicked wrong.

       ... And we shall find who is it groans within these walls alone.

       Oh tell us who is it laments within a house of stone:
       But Mabon, born of Modron's womb, within these walls alone.

       Now I have dwelt within these walls before the birth of time ... "      [MatMoB p. 189]

"Who is it that laments in this house of stone?"
"It is Mabon, the son of Modron, who is here imprisoned; and no imprisonment was ever so grievous as mine ... "
                                                                           [From The Mabinogion: Culhwch and Olwen, quoted in MatMoB p. 132]

Mordion is of course imprisoned in the House of Balance, which is made of flint derived from Earth: quite possibly, from England, since Southern England is a good source of flint. He has lived on English soil all his life without knowing it – and the house of stone referred to in the Mabinogion must likewise have been made of English stone (or at the least just-over-the-border Welsh stone) since it was in fact either Caer Loyw, the castle at Gloucester, or Sudbrook Camp, an Iron Age fort at the mouth of the Severn

Line 6: "Mabon ... the One Who Will Come, be he ... monarch, hero, poet, seer or champion of truth. The potentiality of Logres strives to be born ... but it remains latent until the times and tides are right for it to manifest."      [AHH p. 58-59]

Mabon was a hunter and a fine sweet bard:
This was set to hunt for men, from music he was barred;
His songs and tales were crushed and riven from his soul.
The hero of the tales was his mother's brother's son:
This was bred for like a beast by the mating of close kin,
Owned like any foal:
Merlin's blood who might not know his own,
Arthur's kin who might not claim the Throne.

Line 1: "Maponus ... was a god of ... music and hunting ... his harp is that of a Celtic poet ... "      [MatMoB p. 151]

Line 2: "Maponus the avenging hunter still rides the Northern hills; Maponus the harper still sings under them."      [MatMoB p. 156]

Maponus is the Romano-British/Gaulish form of Mabon, lightly crossed with Apollo.

Line 4: "... he is the child of her brother. The incestuous parentage of the hero is well-attested in Celtic folklore. Such a union produces a special child with superhuman abilities: yet he is generally outcast ... "      [MatMoB p. 80]

Mabon was the foal of the mare of the Earth,
Rent from his mother on the day of his birth:
This was not truly born, for him no dam will mourn;
But he shall have the horse-girl, the Dark Maid,
Fated to mourn his sorrow and come to bring him aid
From the hour that she was born:
Merlin's blood sore-sundered from his own,
Arthur's kin in exile from the Throne.

Line 1: "... Pryderi is the foal.... Rhiannon and Pryderi operate as human beings, yet their innerworld resonances are those of mare and colt."      [MatMoB p. 33]

Pryderi is one of the mortal figures within the Mabinogion who act out the rôle of Mabon.

Line 2:        "Three hours from my mother's womb ...

       Go back before the birth of time and see the giant stand.
       He swallowed me up and snatched me from my own sweet mother's hand."      [MatMoB p. 189]

Line 3: "Mabon is 'the birth that has never been born, and never will be ...'"      [MatMoB p. 166]

Line 4: "... in British and Irish tradition the desired one is dark ... "      [AatSoB p. 175]

The hero as a Servant was broken by a load
More than his strength would bear, with a cruel goad
To drive him as a horse in harness on his weary rounds:
But he shall come to sojourn in the Other Lands
To learn to hold his own fate in his own two hands,
Healed of the worlds' wounds:
Merlin's blood come here to claim his own,
Arthur's kin come here to claim the Throne.

Lines 1-2: "... he undergoes a necessary sojourn ... as a prisoner, tied to a task which is ... demeaning to one of his nobility, but which establishes his willingness to 'stand at the gate' between the worlds of the living and the dead ... he becomes one ... whom no one can deceive because he has already suffered his term ... "      [MatMoB p. 70-71]

Line 3:
Initiate Pupil:           Totemic Experience:

Pryderi ... servitude as a foal/horse
                                                            [MatMoB p. 147]

Lines 4-6: "... what seems to be a phase of madness ... is in fact an initiation in which the candidate is forced to ... become responsible for himself in the Otherworld ... Only such a sequestration is able to heal trauma inflicted by the world. It is seldom a gentle healing, but it is wholesome and invigorating."      [MatMoB p. 139]

"... the paradise of Avalon. Those who have eaten of the fruit of the apple which grows there can only return as the reborn Mabon, the son of Modron, because that fruit bestows ... potent restoration of spent strength."      [MatMoB p. 164]

Mabon was a Red Knight set to guard an orchard,
Bound and compelled into a service hard:
Forced to kill many men unwillingly.
I lure the red hawk out to me from his corroding hood
And he shall dress in brown and be the Guardian of the Wood,
Gentle and kingly:
Merlin's blood called here to claim his own,
Arthur's kin called here to claim the Throne.

Lines 1-3: "... the Red Knight ... had been forced to defend the garden, unwillingly killing many knights... "      [AatSoB p. 155]

"... a red knight of great stature ... has, perforce, defeated and killed many knights who have come to the garden ... 'I am called Mabonograin ... for all my youth and noble birth, I was buried alive ... ' the red knight is trapped ... he cannot, in fact, succeed to the next appointed role in the cycle ... just as Mabon has been imprisoned from the beginning of the world, so Mabonograin has been bound to the garden so long that [it] ... has become a living hell ... "      [The Mabinogion: Gereint and Enid, quoted and commented on in MatMoB p. 158-159]

Line 4: In Gereint and Enid the same character – Gereint – who eventually frees the Red Knight Mabonograin (Son of the Sun) also jousts for and wins a sparrowhawk. But basically Mordion is the hawk because so much emphasis is put on his hawk-winged monobrow.

Line 5: "In the Succession of the Pendragons, the hero who descends to the Underworld becomes the guardian of the Otherworldly Hallows in the paradise of Avalon."      [MatMoB p. 163-164]

"The role of Wild Herdsman is often associated with temporary madness or displacement from society and is a phase which many heroes undergo."      [MatMoB p. 138]

       "... the Wild Herdsman ... :: Meaning: Accomplishment; enjoyment of solitary pursuits; love of nature; aesthetic pleasure derived from one's goods; relaxation and leisure; ease; fulfilment of physical sensation."      [AHH p. 92]

Line 6: "... Maponus ... is the champion of the Matres, swift and eager to avenge, gentle and loving with animals or women."      [MatMoB p. 151-152]

In the wood the Herdsman stands dumb until you ask:
This must speak when spoken to, and wear a craven mask;
An owl to hunt in silence at his masters' whim.
But owls are wise and innocent, like Mabon – he shall fly
To Merlin's Isle, there to learn to speak more Gramarye
Than those who "trained" him:
As Merlin's blood to come into his own,
As Arthur's kin to come unto the Throne.

Line 1: "The Wild Herdsman ... will only speak in answer to questions ... "      [MatMoB p. 137]

Line 4: "The Wise and Innocent Youth, who is Sovereignty's son, is Mabon ... the innocence of Mabon is revealed as a manifestation of Sovereignty herself."      [AatSoB p. 48-50]

Sovereignty is the animus loci, the local/national aspect of the Goddess, the female personification of the Land to whom the King is symbolically wedded.

Lines 4-6: "... the archetype of ... Mabon, the Young God, whose youth and wisdom totally overset the ingrained cunning of either ancestral gods or sage Druids ... capable in the combat of knowledge since [he has] imbibed from its very source. This youthful ability to confound wise men ... "      [T p. 33]

Line 5:        "And so was England born.
       She is not any common Earth,
       Water or Wood or Air,
       But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye
       Where you and I will fare."      [Rudyard Kipling, Puck's Song]

"Gramarye is the old form of 'Grammar', meaning magical lore... "      [MatMoB p. 8]

Others claim it falsely but this is Fisher-Lord,
Sin-Eater without blame, whose shame cuts like a sword:
The knight who may not laugh for grieving deaths of children.
Unhealing shall he ever bleed for the blood upon his hands,
Yet he shall free the waters through the power of the Land
And learn to laugh again:
Merlin's blood ashamed to face his own,
Arthur's kin who dare not claim the Throne.

Lines 1-2: "The title of Fisher King ... is an amalgam of two ideas from the French romances, wrought of pécheur (sinner) and pêcheur (fisher); the one who has lost the empowerment of the Hallows loses them through sin, according to this scenario, which ... is but a Christianized way of interpreting the king's failure to ratify his bond with Sovereignty."      [AatSoB p. 187]

Actually I think Caitlín Matthews has got this all back to front, and the "sinner" idea is a later interpolation/pun. She herself says that "... behind the title Fisher King we may discern a faint trace ... of the King Under the Wave ... " and I'm quite sure, myself, that the Fisher King is a mortal version of the Rich Fisherman, who she herself says is "... possibly a type of Mannanan ..." – that the manifestations of the Land are not as gender-limited as she seems to assume and that the Fisher/Wounded King is himself a male manifestation of Sovereignty/the animus loci, his wounds being an expression of the Wasteland in his body which is also the Land itself, rather than – as she interprets it – the Waste being the product of his failure to become one with Sovereignty, symbolized by his wounds. But her interpretation, however suspect, is quite appropriate to Mordion who is crippled and cut off from his potential power by his sense of his own sin, and seems seriously to believe himself guilty of some crime committed in infancy, over and above the crimes he was compelled to commit as the Red Knight. Strictly speaking this allusion is a cheat, because the same person cannot be both Fisher King and Grail Knight at the same time – but the Fisher King is also the Grail King, and Mordion is going to become a Grail King, a sacrificial Wounded King, by the end of the book.

The Fisher King is or became equated with the Lame or Wounded King – see below.

Line 2: A Sin-Eater is, in some Celtic communities, a sort of scapegoat shaman who takes the sins of a community or individual onto himself and bears them away with him.

"Three hours from my mother's womb, and what was then my crime?"      [MatMoB p. 189]

Line 3: "... a common Celtic theme, the Ridere gan Gaire (the Knight Without Laughter), in which the ... death of a knight's [children] causes him such sorrow that he is unable to make merry."      [AatSoB p. 115]

"The King of Suffering is wounded by grief ... "      [AatSoB p. 176]

Line 4: "The Wounded King ... his unhealing wounds keep him in continual suffering ... "      [AHH p. 44]

       "On that pall there lieth a knight
       Whose wounds they do bleed by day and by night ... "      [Mediaeval Corpus Christi Carol]

Mordion bleeds both metaphorically/emotionally and literally, from the unhealed wound on his wrist.

Line 5: "... the Grail-seeker has to find the gate and enter the Otherworld, where he will be subjected to tests and challenges which will establish whether he is the rightful champion, 'he who frees the waters,' the destined Grail-winner."      [AatSoB p. 254]

Mordion could be said to have freed the waters with a vengeance when he demolished the sides of the river-canyon.

By Grail and Gaming Board I call my Champion in,
By Sword and Staff the ruling Game of Wood to win –
My Springtime Lord come to me at the turning of Spring.
He shall learn to wield his power, to ensorcel and enchant;
He shall cast down the old rule of the Waste-begetting tyrant,
Cause of his suffering:
Merlin's blood, kept 'prisoned from his own,
As Arthur's kin here summoned to the Throne.

Lines 1-2: There are thirteen Hallows according to Celtic tradition, but only four – Spear, Sword, Cup and Dish – in the high Arthurian romances. Sword, Spear, Grail and Stone Chessboard are the four chosen by Caitlín and John Matthews for the suits in The Arthurian Tarot: a Hallowquest Pack.

"... Mabon is... liberate[d] ... from his prison, so that he is enabled to find the hidden treasures of Annwn."      [MatMoB p. 17]

"This is part of the Succession of the Pendragons where the kingly candidate must enter the Underworld and fetch the Hallows from their guardian ... "      [MatMoB p. 50]

"The gwyddbwyll board... is one of the prime symbols of Sovereignty herself, since it represents the land of Britain over which so many champions, invaders and defenders have fought in game after endless game ... The game ... is nothing more than the Game of the Goddess – the ultimate contest as to who shall have sovereignty over the land."      [AatSoB p. 98-99]

"The gwyddbwyll (literally, 'wood-cunning') board was one of the prime treasures of the Island of Britain. Whoever possessed it or played upon it was likewise part of the archetypal movements within the land itself."      [AHH p. 88]

In the book the Wood is the board over which the game of the Bannus is played out to decide who shall reign.

Line 3: "... the loss and finding of ... Mabon – a quest which is analogous in effect to the search by Demeter for Persephone in the Classical myth."      [MatMoB p. 13-14]

"Maponus ... was a god of the sun ... "      [MatMoB p. 151]

At one level Mabon – who is also Maponus, the Romano-British Apollo-equivalent, and Mabonograin, Son of the Sun – is a young Sun God retrieved from darkness, Spring retrieved from Winter – a male Kore/Persephone to Modron's Demeter. It is quite appropriate that Mordion is fair-haired, and that Apollo is a god of music and healing.

"Otherworldy gateways open more easily at the sacred overlays of linear time with Otherworldly timelessness; that is, during the major Celtic agricultural feasts ... "      [AatSoB p. 214]

Mordion arrives in the Wood at dawn on 21^st or 22^nd March i.e. on or about the Vernal Equinox. Also, the Bannus was switched on on or about February 1^st, the Celtic Spring Festival of Oimelc.

Line 4: "This removal from the world of men is a sabbatical for the purpose of intense tuition in Otherworldly ways."      [MatMoB p. 139]

Lines 4-5: "[Mabon] becomes either a hero of great wisdom and daring, or else a seer-poet. He changes the old order of things, threatens all which is entrenched and overturns evil customs. His opponents challenge, but are unable to overcome him ... "      [MatMoB p. 167]

Lines 5-6: "... the hero... who will find the Grail and heal the wasteland... "      [AatSoB p. 76]

"The restoration of the Wasteland is the hope and goal of the Seeker. This can be achieved by the quest for the Hallows and by their skilful wielding in the world .... The Hallowquest is not a selfish or individual regeneration, for the healing of one person, their alignment with their true spiritual source, is also the partial healing of the land."      [AHH p. 63-64]

"Heathland swept by war and destruction ... [Five of Swords] Throughout the Arthurian legends, we encounter many criminal knights, none more so than Sir Bruce Sans Pitié, whose cruelty and devious methods make him an enemy to be feared. He is finally overcome by Lancelot [a Grail Knight], but not before he has caused widespread suffering and destruction. Meaning: Defeat; slander; cowardice; unethical behaviour; divisive means; thwarted plans; sloppy or malicious thinking causes things to go awry."      [AHH p. 68]

"Goreu [another mortal Mabon-figure] ... combines the qualities of prisoner and champion ... he is the cousin of Arthur... he avenges the wrongs endured by his family by slaying the giant who oppresses them ... "      [MatMoB p. 155-156]

Champion and Tyrant both of mingled blood are bred;
In each one magery and mundane man are wed:
In one the brute is lord, in one the Power springing.
The wounded knight restores my strength, he'll mend the wounded land:
Blood-royal Healer heal the link from the mundane world of man
To the Other's singing:
Merlin's blood is summoned by his own,
Arthur's kin I call to claim his Throne.

Lines 1-3: "The Grail-winner ... [has] in him a share of ... mixed parentage ... but in him the blood of Sovereignty's representative is paramount. His opponents ... are drawn from a similar mixture of earthly and Otherworldly races; in ... [them] the blood of Amangons [a brutal tyrant who raped Otherworldly maidens and fathered these mixed-race descendants] is paramount. What they do not have, they steal; whoever obstructs them, they destroy." {AatSoB p. 254]

Line 4: "In Celtic tradition, Sovereignty's champion is invariably wounded deeply... " {AatSoB p. 40]

Mordion will heal the damage done by the Reigners' exploitation of Earth, and thereby bring peace and prosperity.

Lines 4-6: "... the land of Logres 'lost the voices of the wells', ... not only the loss of the Otherworldly communion but also the withdrawal of the Grail from earthly realms. In order to obtain this wonder-working Hallow by which the land will be restored to its former fertility, the Grail-seeker has to find the gate and enter the Otherworld ... He must be attuned to the needs of the land ... " {AatSoB p. 254]

Line 5: "The Grail-winner is always a scion of a royal line... " {AatSoB p. 254]

Upon the soil of Logres his own red blood to shed
For to raise up Merlin living from the dead,
Both son and father each to other as the Wheel turns:
Power in the scarlet blood flowing down the Staff,
Power in the Cup to grant them both a clean rebirth,
Freed from a past that burns:
Merlin by blood to come into his own,
Now Arthur's kin is come to claim the Throne.

Line 1: "... the royal blood of the Grail family become one with the holy earth of the land."      [AatSoB p. 204]

In pagan tradition the Sacrificial King has to bleed onto the soil of his kingdom.

Line 3: "... the Wheel of the Year upon which the major harmonics of Sovereignty and king have been placed."      [AatSoB p. 312]

On the wheel of the Succession of the Pendragons – see verse 11 below – Pen Annwn is both above and below Mabon in the sequence. Mordion imagines Hume to be his magically created son, whereas as Martellian he is in fact Mordion's great-to-the-n^th grandfather.

"The Lord of the Wheel [one of the rôles of the Wild Herdsman] is concerned with the progress and initiatory testing of the hero."      [AatSoB p. 228]

Line 4: "To which list [of Hallows] we must add the Spear Which Drips Blood... "      [AatSoB p. 198]

"The spear ... is the weapon that wounds the Wounded King ... hence the blood that flows continually from it ... "      [AatSoB p. 173]

Lines 5-6: "... the Grail itself: an otherworldly vessel whose gifts include variously: rebirth, knowledge, spiritual fulfilment ... and magical power ... those who win [the Grail-quest] die to the world and are reborn or initiated into a different and Otherworldly condition."      [MatMoB p. 48-49]

Halfway through - congratulations if you've made it this far.

Merlin was the old lord who gave up his Throne,
For to raise up Arthur to the place that was his own,
His heir become Pendragon as the seasons cycled:
Now Mabon shall be Pendragon, and Arthur cede his seat,
And Merlin shall rise from the earth like the slain and living wheat
As Mabon's new-made child:
Merlin once more to come into his own,
With Arthur's kin to come to claim the Throne.

Lines 1-6: "The threefold male pattern is as follows:

       (a) Mabon – the Wondrous Youth, the Pendragon's champion, who succeeds to the place of
       (b) Pendragon – the King or Poet, the arbiter and ruler, who succeeds to the place of
       (c) Pen Annwn – Lord of the Underworld, the judge and sage, who succeeds to the place of
       (a) Mabon... etc"      [MatMoB p. 18]

Traditionally Merlin is a Pendragon only in the sense of being a seer-poet, not a ruler, but in the context of the book he is a former king who has ceded his power to his descendant Artegal/Arthur.

Corn-Lord chained and captive in the Spiral Tower,
In Glass-Castle long alone, shall spring up green in power:
He shall change places with the old enchanter-lord.
To the Castle of the Game a strolling player, flaunting fine,
He'll come to call his true love out from her place within the line
Ranked at the ogres' board:
Merlin's blood who comes to claim his own,
Arthur's kin who comes to claim the Throne.

Line 1:        "Perfect was the captivity of Gweir in Caer Sidi,
       According to the tale of Pwyll and Pryderi.
       None before him was sent into it
       Into the heavy blue chain which bound the youth.
       From before the reeving of Annwn he has groaned,
       Until the ending of the world this prayer of poets:
       Three shipburdens of Prydwen entered the Spiral City
       Except seven, none returned from Caer Sidi."      [From Preiddeu Annwn by Taliesin, trans. Caitlín Matthews, quoted MatMoB p. 107]

Gweir is one of Mabon's aliases. The name literally means "Hay," and as Mabon is a sacrificial Sun God figure, going down into the Underworld and then returning, I have associated this name with the dying and undying Corn God/John Barleycorn. Again, it is appropriate that Mordion has fairish, hay-coloured hair. The only bit that doesn't match is that, as the last in a long line of Servants, plenty before him were "... sent into it//Into the heavy blue chain which bound ... "

Line 2: "... Caer Sidi ... the Tower of Glass, the Spiral Castle ... "      [MatMoB p. 110]

       "Oh tell us who is it laments within a house of stone:
       But Mabon, born of Modron's womb, within these walls alone.

       Now I have dwelt within this house before the birth of time;
       Three hours from my mother's womb... "      [MatMoB p. 189]

Within the context of the story the glassy, pearly, spiral House of Balance where Mordion is held prisoner probably is Caer Sidi, the Spiral Tower made of glass against which Arthur ventures, as well as being a house of stone – of flint.

Line 3: "Those who venture into Annwn in order to effect a change there... always suffer a substitution: each hero takes on the attributes of... the Underworld King."      [MatMoB p. 25-26]

Line 4: "The Chessboard Castle is always a place of testing. Those who come there often find a game of chess under way in which the pieces move by themselves."      [AHH p. 92]

The people in the castle are all effectively self-mobile playing-pieces in the game of the Bannus.

Lines 5-6: "... he must identify the [giant's] daughter from a roomful of identical-looking women ... "      [MatMoB p. 102]

Strictly speaking Vierran is neither the giant's/ogre's daughter, nor does Mordion call her actually from the ogres' board (table), which I put in just for the rhyme, because Siri beat her to it: but she is a servant in the castle of the ogres, and figuratively she is "at their board" because the Reigners feed and clothe her.

I sing of the Dark Maid who speaks only truth:
The servant of the Goddess, fierce, intemperate, uncouth;
Kind to heal and harsh to strengthen guides the Grail Knight.
She by her magics raised him as her foster,
Speaking him mind to mind – a woman-warrior
Who in his dark brought light:
Thus Merlin's blood can come into his own,
Thus Arthur's kin can come to claim the Throne.

Line 1: "... the admonitory Black Maiden ... the satirist-challenger ... "      [AatSoB p. 26-27]

"The Black Maiden ... is intelligent and self-reliant, speaking her mind and not suffering fools gladly; as the defender of the unprotected, she is assiduous and fair-minded; she imparts a sense of justice to all who encounter her."      [AHH p. 72]

Line 2: In the Arthurian romances the Black Maiden/Luned is generally the handmaid of a Sovereignty figure.

"[She] is known for her outspokenness ... so rude in her behaviour that no knight would deign to speak with her ... "      [AatSoB p. p. 111]

Line 3: "... Sovereignty's champion is invariably wounded deeply; his healing is effected by a Cailleach who alternately plunges him into a cauldron of poison and a cauldron of cure – the first one to toughen him up, the second to heal him ... "      [AatSoB p. 40]

Lines 3-5: "... the Celtic woman warrior who trained her fosterling... "      [AatSoB p. 308]

"She presents an aspect of the Goddess identifiable to anyone familiar with Celtic mythology: that of the woman warrior who often acts as bodyguard or resourceful companion to the champion ... The Black Maiden... fulfils the role of tutor ... "      [AatSoB p. 26-27]

She passed by the marker at the boundary
Between the worlds – passed by the marker-tree
To speak the truth unto the time-wracked Seeker there
And show him when and how he must now advance:
He with her aid now comes to restore the Balance –
Pendragon's worthy heir:
See Merlin's blood come now to claim his own,
See Arthur's kin come now to claim the Throne.

Lines 1-2: "Certain natural features of the landscape have always acted as Otherworldly doorways."      [AatSoB p. 212]

Lines 3-4: "The Black Maiden battles hard to bring her protégé to self-knowledge and responsible action ... "      [AatSoB p. 27]

"The Black Maiden becomes the Damoiselle Maldisante ... whose nagging tongue spurs the hero on to magnificent deeds by dint of her encouragement."      [AatSoB p. 230]

Line 5: "... the redeemer or ransomer ... stands in the place of Mabon, whose task is to share the common lot of the prisoner, the unredeemed, for the sole purpose of ending all imprisonment; in order to realign creation and its creatures with their primal directive."      [MatMoB p. 172]

In the old tales a maiden made all of flowers
Into an owl was turned, to hunt and to devour;
So this Child like an owl was shunned and set to slay:
Who would be leaves for shame believes himself a rending Worm;
Who dressed Wolf in wolf-skin shall dress in his true burning form –
The beast of Sovereignty:
Merlin's blood in pain recalls his own,
Arthur's kin in shame to claim the Throne.

Lines 1-2: "The creation of Blodeuwedd from the flowers ... Blodeuwedd is transformed into an owl, a night-hunting bird ... "      [MatMoB p. 81-82]

"... she wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting ... "      [Alan Garner, The Owl Service]

Line 3: "... beneath a tree, is the Golden Child, the Son of Light or Mabon."      [MatMoB p. 184]

"... the Puer Eternus, the Wondrous Youth, Mabon ... "      [MatMoB p. 13-14]

"Childe Roland to the dark tower came ... "      [Robert Browning]

Mabon is an archetypal child or youth, and Mordion was set on to slay from when he was a small child, and in some ways, because of his peculiar history, remains rather child-like as an adult – but he is also a Child in the old sense of a young knight.

"... an owl, a night-hunting bird which other birds shun."      [MatMoB p. 82]

Line 4:        "How shall I find you, Mabon, my son?
       How shall I know you, my pretty one?
       By leaf, flower and feather... "      [MatMoB p. 191]

Line 5: "... totem animal helpers whose aid was summoned by the ... shaman ... donning a costume created from the fur ... of the creature in question."      [T p. 149]

Strictly, this would make Mordion's totem animal the camel – since he sees himself as such, and dresses in camelhair.

"Nor should we forget, indeed, the great Dragon of the Heavens, the constellation of Draco, which turns about the central nail of the Pole, holding together the fabric of the cosmos itself."      [T p. 265]

Mordion of course becomes a dragon-shape outlined by the burning stars of his own pain, and the Bannus offers him eternal peace through transmutation into the constellation of the Dragon – which he refuses because he's going to have a good crack at holding the cosmos together.

Line 6: "... the device or totemic beast of the greatest line of kings, the Pendragons ... the beast of Sovereignty herself ... the land of Britain itself is understood to be the dragon ... "      [AatSoB p. 32]

In the old tales a true maid she was enchanted
To a monstrous form which could not be supplanted
Until her true knight kissed her to a maid again:
The times they have changed, and now it is the Maiden
Who shall give the fier baiser and kiss the dragon,
Balm for all his pain:
And Merlin's blood comes now to claim his own,
And Arthur's kin comes now to claim the Throne.

Lines 1-5: "... she is enchanted into a monstrous shape, such as a dragon ... The means of disenchantment ... remained true to the original stories: a kiss was sufficient. In medieval romance, where the ... story soon abounded, this kiss was known as the fier baiser or daring kiss." [AatSoB p. 70]

Now as before two dragons in bloody strife
Upon the soil of Logres fight for their life
And by this combat choose if Merlin lives or dies:
Now as before one fights for the invaders
And you may mark the one who fights here for Logres –
Being the one who cries:
Now Merlin's blood in blood shall win his own,
Now Arthur's kin by blood shall have the Throne.

Lines 1-2: "The emblematic beast of Britain... does battle with the foreign dragon."      [AatSoB p. 32]

Line 3: "Vortigern had attempted to build a tower... but it fell down three times. His magicians said that it would remain standing only if the blood of a child who had no father was sprinkled on the foundations. But Merlin [the child in question] confounded the magicians and showed that the cause of the tower's collapse was because of the two dragons which warred continuously beneath it. The red one signified the Britons and the white one the Saxons... "      [AHH p. 24]

Lines 4-6: "It is significant that it is only the British dragon that screams, not the foreign dragon... In some senses the shriek of the dragon is the voice of the land itself crying out under oppression."      [AatSoB p. 38]

In his dragon form Mordion cries in the sense of weeping rather than screaming, but he is certainly crying out under oppression.

Mabon was a Red Knight whose name was held in secret;
Comes now a day when all men shall speak it:
He that was Slave shall come to hold the mastery.
Mabon shall be Pendragon and Pendragon shall prevail:
His fate is fixed to follow the old pattern of the tale,
Freed and yet never free:
And Merlin's blood comes now into his own,
And Arthur's kin comes now unto the Throne.

Line 1: "... I am called Mabonograin; but I am not remembered by that name in any land where I have been, save only in this region ..."      [The Mabinogion: Gereint and Enid, quoted in MatMoB p. 158-159]

Line 4: "The answer to the mystery question is a mystery answer: Mabon shall be Pendragon ... Ruler of the Blessed Isles."      [MatMoB p. 175]

Lines 4-5: "Sovereignty has her own methods of assessing worthy champions for her empowerment: they may be ... of another race – but they will be right for Britain if she chooses them... "      [AatSoB p. 13]

And Arthur shall come waking out from his Hollow Hill,
Uphold Pendragon by his mighty will –
The Young Lord come to reign as Servant of the Land,
Who shall supply the Question of the Graal:
Wise, wounded, innocent, to guard and care for all –
All worlds beneath his Hand:
And Merlin's blood is come into his own,
And Arthur's kin is come unto the Throne.

Line 1: "The horn which hangs ready to signal the joy of Mabonograin's return to the world is an important instrument in the lore of recalling the spent Pendragons who spend their next cycle renewing their strength in sleep in the Hollow Hills."      [MatMoB p. 160]

Arthur, Merlin and Fitela have all been awakened from centuries of sleep in stasis boxes buried inside hollow-centred mounds.

Line 2: "The Gesta clearly indicates that Arthur relinquishes his kingship to another voluntarily, and 'sets another king in his place...'"      [MatMoB p. 163]

Line 3: "... Mabon ... is the Youth ... "      [MatMoB p. 152]

"The most crucial oath which the Pendragon makes is that by which the sovereign is wedded to the land ... In order to rule a land, the monarch must first of all respect the land ... "      [MatMoB p. 173]

Line 4: "... the answer to the Grail question 'Whom does the Grail serve?' becomes 'The land and the king are one.'"      [AatSoB p. 15]

This is a fiddle. Mordion answers the Grail Question – "Who am I, the Bannus?" – rather than asking it as the Grail Knight should.

Line 5: "The Wounded King represents the redemptive sacrifice of the Grail mysteries. His sufferings bring wisdom and insight ... "      [MatMoB p. 46 ]

"Mabon... the One Who Will Come, be he ... monarch, hero, poet, seer or champion of truth ... conquers by innocence ...
Divinatory Meaning: Innocence; purity; enthusiasm; warmth; a loving heart; joy, freedom; enlightenment; wholeness; health; intolerance of shadows in any aspect of life; clarity; directness; true vocation realized."      [AHH p. 58-59]

These are all things Mordion either has innately or lacked but has gained through his stay in the Wood.

"... Mabon ... comes ... to reconcile differences, to bestow the peace of the shepherd upon the flocks of the perplexed ... He himself is a ray of sunlight across the waters, down which the influence of the Otherworld is shed ... "      [MatMoB p. 175]

This Lord has learned the lore of alder and of oak
Who wears the Forest and his long pain like a cloak:
He came to me a slave – as shaman he shall govern.
Ten years spent in the Other Lands but he'll leave when he began,
To walk the worlds still wearing Logres like a second skin –
The Land's true lover:
Now Merlin's blood is come into his own,
Now Arthur's kin is come unto the Throne.

Line 1: "In modern Welsh the words for wisdom and trees are strongly interrelated: gwydd means 'trees'; gwyddon means 'magician'; and gwyddor means 'science'."      [T p. 228]

Lines 3-4: "The Otherworld... exists out of time, simultaneously cross-intersecting all time and... thus accessible to visitation from any point in linear time. Within the Otherworld, archetypal forces are perceptible, essential wisdom teachings are available to those who have the correct keys; it is the realm of quest and achievement, of challenge and encounter, of initiation and enlightenment."      [MatMoB p. 10-11]

Line 4: "The characteristic experience of the shaman ...

       3      He enters the Otherworld itself;
       4      He journeys there for some time;
       5      He receives teachings;
       6      He faces dangers/initiations;
       7      He returns 'to life' at the moment he left."      [T p. 41]

Mordion returns "to life" from his subjective ten-year stay in the timeless Wood after an objective three weeks, rather than no time at all – but that's close enough.

Line 5: "... a shaman, a walker between the worlds ..."      [T p. 38]

Line 6: "... the kingly candidate takes on the government of the land and all that it entails out of love for the land."      [AatSoB p. 241]

I am the will of England, I call the Mabon –
Child, foal and slave, owl, hawk, mage, knight and dragon –
Out from the bitter prison of his suffering:
Son of the Mother who shall come to lordship over all,
Who shall come to lie between the Dark Maid and the wall
And sow the seed of Merlin:
And Merlin's blood shall come into its own,
And Arthur's kin shall sit upon the Throne.

Line 1: "... Loegres ... of course is the name of England within the medieval Welsh legends."      [MatMoB p. 9]

Line 2: "The totems are symbolic of the initiatory changes which are wrought within the subject."      [MatMoB p. 147]

Line 4: "Modron bears a son/Mabon who will be her champion in battle."      [AatSoB p. 93]

Lines 5-6: "Before the final test [when he moves on to become Pen Annwn] he has, in the order of things, slept with a virgin ... who will give birth to the next Mabon in the new cosmic sequence."      [MatMoB p. 167]