> [[branchaw]]. "Pwyll and Purusamedha: Human Sacrifice in the Mabinogi". Abstract. > [pdf](a/branchawIDK.pdf) ## Abstract > Horse sacrifice rituals with common elements are found in the recorded traditions of at least three Indo-European peoples. In ancient India, there is the well-known asvamedha in the Vedas; in ancient Rome, the October Equus festival; and in medieval Ireland, a report by Geraldus Cambrensis of a kingship ritual involving the sacrifice of a mare. The idea of an identical sacrifice centering on a human instead of a horse is found in ancient India, in the purusamedha, and in ancient Rome, in a move by Julius Caesar to dispose of his enemies. Hitherto no corresponding idea of human sacrifice has been identified among the Celts, as Puhvel (1987) writes: “The Irish rite installed and consecrated a king, but there is no visible parallel of human sacrifice.” > <br> > The first episode of the Mabinogi, I argue, is independent from the rest of the text and contains sufficiently many themes and narrative details in common with the Vedic rituals to be connected with the other Indo-European systems of horse and human sacrifice. In my talk, I lay out the similarities and, where possible, offer explanations for the divergences. > <br> > In all cases, Vedic, Italic, and Celtic, the human sacrifice has a less actual status than the horse sacrifice. The Purusamedha is theoretical and mostly symbolic, even when encoded in narrative and not presented as a ritual; the victims go free at the end. The act of Julius Caesar was a single occurrence of execution, carried out more ritualistically than most, in contrast with the Equus festival, which took place every October. Geraldus presents the Irish horse sacrifice as carried out in practice whenever a new king ascended. The instance of human sacrifice that I am looking in Welsh at is conveyed through a mythological tale, in which the slaying is presented not as sacrifice but as single combat, and the victim does not die onstage. > <br> > That is to say, whereas the horse sacrifice was an inherited Indo-European ritual, the extension—in narrative or in theory or in isolation--to a human victim was an independent and natural innovation in each of the branches. However, a comparison of the Irish horse sacrifice with the Welsh narrative encoding human sacrifice shows that each contains Indo-European elements missing from the other. Therefore the tradition must there be sufficiently old that the Irish and Welsh were derived from a common source containing all elements present in either, rather than the 12 th century narrative being based directly on the 12 th century ritual.