Persona

Featured Welsh Content

In the first Persona game on the original PlayStation, the mythical Welsh creature Cath Palug appears as a demon, looking like a green-haired woman with cat ears. Cath Palug was a monstrous cat in Welsh mythology that slaughtered almost 200 warriors on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.

Unfortunately, the North American localisation, called Revelations: Persona, altered many of the names from the Japanese version of the game to generic and unfitting ones. In Cath Palug’s case, its name was changed to “Babe”.

The PSP remaster, known as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona outside of Japan, reverted many of these names back to how they appeared in the original Japanese title, including Cath Palug.

In Persona World Guidance, a Japanese encyclopedia that details demons and more from the first three games in the Persona series, the description for Cath Palug seems for have conflated multiple mythical creatures into one.

Original Japanese text:

キャス·パルク

ケルト神話における地母神ダヌーの
魔女の姿。スコットランドではカリアッハ
ベーラと呼ばれている。カリアッハベー
ラという名はアイルランドやマン島にも
存在するが、場所によって性質が異な
り、スコットランドでは冬の精、あるい
は冬と夏の精であるとされる。冬には
陰鬱な老婆の姿だが、夏になると美しい娘に変身するという。

An English translation of the above quote from Google Translate is as follows:

In Celtic mythology, she is the witch form of the earth goddess Danu. In Scotland, she is called Cailleach Bhéarra. The name Cailleach Bhéarra also exists in Ireland and the Isle of Man, but her nature varies depending on the location. In Scotland, she is said to be a spirit of winter, or a spirit of both winter and summer. In winter, she appears as a gloomy old woman, but in summer, she transforms into a beautiful young woman.

It sounds like Atlus designed the demon based on the mythical Welsh creature Cath Palug, giving it cat ears and naming it accordingly.

However, the writer of Cath Palug’s text entry for the book may have seen the appearance of Cailleach Bheare, another Celtic-inspired demon with green hair from Shin Megami Tensei II, and tried to pass them off as one and the same. The description says Cath Palug is the witch form of Irish goddess Danu, while stating the creature is known as Cailleach Bhéarra in Scotland. However, Cailleach Bhéarra is the Irish name of the Gaelic hag figure, and in Scotland she is known as Cailleach Bheurra or the more modern Beira.

Demons called Cailleach Bheare and Danu appear in later Shin Megami Tensei games, both with green hair like that of Cath Palug in Persona.

Welsh mythical figure Arianrhod is also a demon in the first Persona game. Like Cath Palug, her name was changed to something more generic in the North American localisation. In this case, Arianrhod became “IronBride”. Her name was reverted back to the original with the PSP remaster of Persona.

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