The Match Between Rival Twins in Myth and Literature
Tiamat, Mother of all beings. This upheaval is expressed in a well-known Welsh myth where the struggle for domination between male and female is still going on.
The myth tells the life story of Llew Llaw Gyffes, whose name is translated by Robert Graves “the Lion with the Steady Hand” and by others as “Lugh (the Sun god) with the Long Arm”. Llew’s mother is Arianrhod, whom Graves identifies with the Greek Nature goddess Ariadne; but in the changing scene in Wales, she has limited power over humans and nature, being under the rule of her uncle, Math the Magician. Arianrhod gives birth to Llew with no husband to her name, thus proves her independence of male rule and raises the wrath of her male relatives. She puts obstacles on her son’s way to have a name, bear arms or take an earthly wife, but is tricked by her uncle and her cousin Gwydion into doing it. The wife, Blodeuwedd, is made of flowers and thus a suitable bride for the young hero, whose leonine name signifies him as the representative of the Sun of Spring; but she betrays him at Midsummer, giving her love to his guest Gronw Pebyr, who is not only after her love but also after Llew’s property. Gronw kills his host who turns into an Eagle, whose flesh is eaten by an old sow – another figure of the Goddess, in charge of Death and Inspiration. Blodeuwedd, whose name means “owl” and thus identified also with the Goddess of Wisdom, flies away in the shape of this bird. In the end, Gwydion finds Llew, rescues him and returns him to his property, where he kills Gronw in turn. This story is a mixture of ancient female mythological elements and later male rule over them. Here, although Gronw who kills his host is nowhere called “evil”, the woman is certainly considered a traitor to her husband and to society.
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The idea of assigning to the two representatives of the year the characters of good and evil seems to have originated in the Zoroastrian religion of Persia. There, the ancient dichotomy was represented by the rivalry between Ahura Mazda, god of Light and every thing good, and Ahrimon, god of Darkness and everything evil. The idea was taken up by the budding Christianity, probably in Rome where Persian ideas were rife, and deepened to become the basis on which that new religion was built. The ruling entity in the world was divided between God in Heaven and Satan in the Underworld (or Hell), with the traitorous Woman taking her part mainly with evil, unless she abstains from using the power of her sex appeal.
This idea became well established in medieval times, appearing in many fairy tales, which were the popular literature of the period. One of its classical representatives is the book of Thousand and One Nights, and one of its best-known stories is that of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. In this story, like in many other tales, which appear, for instance, in the Grimm Brothers’ collection, one of the brothers is rich and evil, the other is poor but good (rich and evil, as has been mentioned, fit the character of the Underworld Roman god Pluto). The poor and good brother is, naturally, the hero of the story, and is the one who finds the thieves’ treasure, which causes his rich but still greedy brother’s death. An interesting character plays the role of the Goddess in this story, in the figure of the adopted slave girl Marjanah (who, in translations, is called either Morganna or Marianna – both names of the Great Goddess). With her beauty and wisdom she helps Ali Baba to win his fight against the cruel thieves; in the end she is given to Ali Baba’s son as a wife and wins an important place in society. This strong woman definitely takes the side of “good” in this story.
Two of the 19th cent. Romantic novels mentioned above have used the idea that when a woman has two potential lovers, one must be good and the other evil; the woman’s choice between them defines her as innocent or as a traitor. One of these books is The Count of Monte Christo where, in order to get Mercedes, the woman he loves, Ferdinand turns his rival, the pure-hearted Edmond Dantes who is supposed to be his friend, over to the French authorities as a traitor and supporter of the exiled ruler Napoleon Bonaparte. Dantes escapes his tomb-like prison, and in the figure of Monte Christo gets his revenge on Ferdinand. Mercedes, who had married Ferdinand in Dantes’ absence, is considered by him a traitor, until he finds out she had been told he was dead. Her own doubts of her actions lead her in the end to the neutral place of a nunnery. The now rich Dantes, together with his actions of revenge, must be identified as evil. This oscillating story between good and evil and their changing place forms a very tortuous presentation of the match for love and power.
Jane Austen’s book Persuasion is much simpler than that, and the parts of good and