[Celtic Religion by Edward Anwyl]@TWC D-Link bookCeltic Religion CHAPTER VII--THE CELTIC OTHER-WORLD 9/29
Modern folk-lore, like mediaeval legend, has its stories of the inter-marriages of natives of this world with those of the other-world, often located underneath a lake.
The curious reader will find several examples of such stories in Principal Rhys's collection of Welsh and Manx folk-lore.
In Irish legend one of the most classical of these stories is that of the betrothal of Etain, a story which has several points of contact with the narrative of the meeting of Pwyll and Rhiannon in the Welsh Mabinogi.
The name of Arthur's wife, Gwenhwyfar, which means 'the White Spectre,' also suggests that originally she too played a part in a story of the same kind.
In all these and similar narratives, it is important to note the way in which the Celtic conceptions of the other-world, in Britain and in Ireland, have been coloured by the geographical aspects of these two countries, by their seas, their islands, their caves, their mounds, their lakes, and their mountains.
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