Dahud: a Breton flokloric figure (Well-versed in Magic or Blessed Mage)

Synonyms: Dahut
Brezh: Well-versed in Mgic or Blessed Mage

According to Breton legend Dahud was the daughter of King Gradlon of Cornwall and Malgven the Queen of Hyperborea. Dahud was born upon the wave, on a storm-tossed boat and she was the cause wherby the magical city of Ker-Ys was caused to be built.

Dahut was a child of the sea and she pledged herself to great Ocean in marriage whereby she would gain the riches of shipwrecked vessels in exchange for the sacrifice of sailors who were taken to her bed for one night and killed by a black mask that she made them all wear.

Then, one spring day a handsome red night comes to Ker Ys and bids Dahut open the sea defences. For the city is protected by a high stone wall and has but a single entrance. A great protal made of bronze, the sole key to which is hung about King Gradlon's neck. That night Dahut steals into her father's chamber and unfastens the key from about his neck.

At that precise instant the sea rears up and overcomes the city's defences. Waking her father, Dahut implores him to save her and so they take the king's magical steed Morvarc'h (sea-horse) and attempt to flee. But instead of crossing the waves the horse is caught in an undertow and they are all threatened with death.

At this point Saint Guenole intervenes and persuades Gradlon that to survive he must abandon his daughter. Thus Dahut is lost to the waves. Some say that she was transformed into a morverc'h (a mermaid) and can still be seen combing her long yellow-gold hair and lamenting the loss of her city.

This tale, at one level at least, is an example of the drowned city tale common to the Cymric, Breton and Cornish peoples (The tales of Cantre'r Gwaelod and Lyonnesse being similar stories). It is also a tale of the Christian saint overcoming the wicked pagan. However, there is an older strain than this in that Ker Ys is still held by the Breton to be the fairest city in all the world. How could such a view be reconciled with the wickedness of Ker Ys in later tales?

Dahut is born on the sea, takes great Ocean as a husband and sacrifices sailors to him every evening. She takes the sailor to her bed from dusk until dawn when he is killed. Fairly obviously Dahut is a spirit of the sea and it could be that this tale is one of the interaction of the Sun with the sea. For, to the peoples of the Western fringes of Europe, the sun is subsumed by the sea at dusk before being born again from the land at dawn. Thus Dahut takes her lover to her bed each night, murders him each dawn, casting him into the sea just as another suitor appears from the landward direction.

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