I / THE TRADITION
The Three Concealments / the related disclosures
The concealment tradition brings together Brân’s head at the White Hill, Gwerthefyr’s bones at the island’s principal ports, and the dragons hidden by Lludd at Dinas Emrys. Protection depends on their remaining concealed. Related versions also remember the consequences of disclosure; the versions are discussed under TYP 37 and 37R.
THREE THREADS
- Landscape as memory
- Protection without spectacle
- What should remain undisturbed
II / THE AUTHOR’S INTERPRETATION
From the old story
to the first pages.
The author identifies the hidden-things tradition as a frame for The Broken Island series. Book One mentions that inheritance in its Author’s note; it does not directly retell the three concealments. Read this file as an introduction to the older tradition, rather than a key to particular objects or events in The Silent Summer. What interests the author is the idea that protection may depend on something remembered, tended or left undisturbed.
Return to the opening ↗III / A QUESTION TO CARRY
Can leaving something undisturbed be an act of care rather than an absence of curiosity?
Source trail
Reference edition: Rachel Bromwich, fourth edition (2014). The summaries above are original paraphrases; traditional headings and variants follow the identified TYP references.
- Peter C. Bartrum — A Welsh Classical Dictionary — Gwerthefyr Fendigaid; Gwynfryn
printed pp. 365, 402; TYP 37 and 37R - Peter C. Bartrum — A Welsh Classical Dictionary — Lludd and Llefelys
printed p. 475; TYP 37