Tag Archives: Rhiannon

Mythology

Enchanted Poetic Vengeance in The Mabinogion

Enchanted Poetic Vengeance in The Mabinogion

Vengeance in The Mabinogion has a tendency to involve some form of enchantment. Contrasting this with The Tain, where time and time again vengeance involves a stone to the skull or spear up your backside during actual combat, The Mabinogion has numerous tales of revenge or villainous intent revolving around magic. It is, perhaps, the most effective use for enchantment in The Mabinogion, because it provides insight into how the ancient Welsh viewed the function of vengeance, not just as bloody retribution, but also as a “teaching moment” for morals or empathy.
In the Third Branch of The Mabinogion, Pryderi is the King of Dyfed and the son of Rhiannon. When Dyfed is magically emptied of all living people and livestock except Pryderi and his immediate family (The Mabinogion 37), he and his mother’s new husband, Manawydan, head for England to try and support themselves. After much back and forth, they return to Dyfed, where Pryderi ends up following a white boar to a caer. Once inside the caer, he touches a golden bowl that has chains that extend into the sky and becomes stuck fast, frozen (The Mabinogion 40). When Manawydan returns to the castle alone, Rhiannon chides him for not coming back with Pryderi. She goes in search of her son, and joins him in his predicament inside the caer. The caer than vanishes, along with Rhiannon and Pryderi, leaving Manawydan and Pryderi’s wife Cigfa to fend for themselves. They return to England for a time, then come back to Dyfed with some wheat to plant and try and prosper in their hollow kingdom. After planting the wheat in three different fields,  Manawydan notices that each time he is about to harvest the wheat it is all destroyed. He stands vigil at the third field and notices mice trashing his wheat. He captures one, and in a well-played moment of subterfuge threatens to hang it for its crimes. He is petitioned three times by a scholar, a priest, and a bishop, to free the mouse, however he refuses. Finally, he tells the bishop he will free the mouse on the condition that Pryderi and Rhiannon are returned and Dyfed is freed from its enchantment. He also tacks on that no retribution is to be taken against Dyfed for his actions (The Mabinogion 45). Of course, the bishop is revealed to be an enchanter seeking vengeance for Gwawl, who was put in a bag and beaten by Rhiannon’s husband Pwyll years before. The magnitude of this vengeance, decades after the fact and not even against the people directly responsible for the beating, seems over the top and extreme in its complexity, however it is important to note that no one died. For all the years of torment suffered by Pryderi and his family, there was no bloodshed. This tale is long, and it involves many dead ends and what seem to be pointless details, however this structure strengthens the impression of the state of limbo that the characters are constantly faced with in their empty kingdom. The point of this enchanted vengeance is not pain, death, or torture. Instead, they are unable to move forward, unable to thrive, only able to exist. By using enchantment, their punishment is a prolonged purgatory state from which there is no escape. Any attempt to escape (such as the various trips to England) are met with forces that drive them back to the gray, dead land of Dyfed.
In the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, enchantment abounds. We first encounter enchanted vengeance when Math punishes his sons for raping his foot-holder and virgin, Goewin. His method of punishing them is to turn them into different pairs of animals, one male and one female, every year (The Mabinogion 53). The first year, they are a stag and a doe, and Gilfaethwy gives birth to a fawn. The next year, they are a sow and a boar, and Gwydion gives birth to a piglet. The last year, they are wolves, and Gilfaethwy whelps a pup. The symbolic implied rape between the brothers is part of the poetic justice behind this enchantment. They have been reduced animals, which is what their behavior had already reduced them to. Each brother takes his turn as the victim, with Gilfaethwy taking double-duty, which is only fair as he was the one who raped Goewin, Gwydion was the enabler.
In the same tale, we see that Gwydion takes vengeance on Blodeuwedd for her attempt on Lleu’s life by transforming her into an owl, so that all the other birds will shun her and she will be relegated to the night for all of eternity (The Mabinogion 63). At first, this seems arbitrary, as the punishment does not tie into the crime. But on further analysis, we are reminded that Blodeuwedd is a woman who was formed out of oak, meadowsweet, and broom flowers to be the bride of Lleu (The Mabinogion 58). To exile her into darkness is a cruel fate for a creature of her nature, she has gone from the ultimate fertility figure to a predatory hunter, a woman designed to provide companionship is then shunned and reviled.
The Mabinogion has many examples of enchantment. We have women made of flowers, mysterious foal-stealing claws, magic cauldrons, and tyngeds. However vengeance is where these enchantments shine in the elegance of their construction and the chilling thoroughness of their execution.

Mythology

The Good Son- The Tain and the Mabinogion

The Good Son

There are surprisingly few similarities between the Celtic Irish mythology of The Tain and the Celtic Welsh mythology of The Mabinogion. The characterizations are vastly different, the settings are different, the social etiquette is different, even the combat styles are different. One place we see some degree of consistency is in the symbols that surround the two main heroes, Cu Chulainn and Pryderi. Many of the symbols we see in The Tain regarding Cu Chulainn are used in The Mabinogion to describe Pryderi, in spite of being very different stories written in very different styles about very different heroes.
One of the most visible examples of this symbolism is in the origins of the heroes Cu Chulainn and Pryderi. Both of their birth stories have the conspicuous presence of horses on the night of their birth. Cu Chulainn’s birth story is complicated, as he is in a way thrice conceived (and I just had an occasion to use the word “thrice” for the first time ever). The first time, Deichtine and Conchobar take shelter at house where the host’s wife goes into labor and gives birth to a boy. At the same time, a mare gives birth to two foals (The Tain 22). The next morning, the house is gone, but the boy and the foals remain. The boy survives for a few years, raised by Deichtine, but dies in early childhood. Later, she is visited by the god Lugh, who tells her he was the host the evening the child was born, and he makes her pregnant through mystical means. This baby dies before birth and is “reabsorbed” by Deichtine, and she finds herself a virgin once more (which is quite convenient). She eventually conceives Cu Chulainn by her husband, and although these seem to be separate events, they are told in a way that implies they are all somehow required in the conception of Cu Chulainn. It is as if his essence had to be filtered and distilled in this process somehow, so he could become the hero he was meant to be.
On the night of Pryderi’s birth, he vanishes from Rhiannon’s care and appears at a manor where a lord is standing watch against a great beast that is killing a newborn foal every year on that night (The Mabinogion 17). When a giant claw comes in through the window and snatches the foal, the lord hacks of the beast’s hand and gives chase. It is then that he finds the infant Pryderi and decides to raise him as his own. In this way, Pryderi is symbolically the result of multiple births, the first to his mother, Rhiannon, and the second when the lord finds and rescues him. It can be argued that his return to his real parents could be construed as a third rebirth, although that argument is a bit of stretch.
The presence of the foals, born the same night as the hero, is significant. That the horse was a symbol of fertility is not in doubt, look no further than Macha giving birth while racing against horses in The Tain to confirm that this is more than coincidence, it is a reoccurring theme (The Tain 7). In a culture that relies on the horse in battle, the horse would have held a great deal of significance as a symbol of authority and military strength. The horses being born into the world at the same time as the heroes is the equivalent of being born with a sword in your hand. It signifies his future power.
Another similarity is that neither hero goes by his name given at birth. Cu Chulainn is born Sétanta and gains the name Cu Chulainn after he kills Culann’s hound in self-defense and agrees to become its replacement, becoming “the Hound of Culann” (The Tain 84). This is his rite of passage and the point where he becomes a sworn warrior. Similarly, Pryderi starts life named Gwri by his foster parents. When his foster parents realize he is the son of Rhiannon and Pwyll and return him to the castle, his real parents rename him Pryderi, the name he will wear as ruler of the land he will now inherit (The Mabinogion 20).
Our heroes also share the common trait of accelerated growth in early childhood. This serves to set them apart from the rest of the mortal world. These heroes are, after all, more or less demigods. Cu Chulainn is the son of Lugh, and is therefore half god. Pryderi is the son of Rhiannon, and is therefore half god as well. Their accelerated growth signifies this aspect of the divine within them, as if their mortal bodies can not contain the power within them. We see similar tales of mythological figures maturing at unnatural rates in the story of Väinämöinen in the Kalevala, who is born to Ilmatar a fully formed 700 year old man, or Athena springing from Zeus’ head fully formed.
These similarities in early childhood point to both Pryderi and Cu Chulainn possibly being a common archetypal Celtic hero. Both heroes are born under auspicious circumstances and in the presence of horses, both heroes have a specific identity that they assume once they ascend from boyhood to manhood. These similarities seem to be the ingredients that are used to signify that they are heroes of supernatural origin and destined for great things.

Mythology

WTF Mabinogion, Why You So Weird?

WTF Mabinogion, Why You So Weird?

What the hell did I just read? No, seriously, what the hell was that all about? Pryderi gives his mother, Rhiannon to Manawydan… because loyalty?? Not sure. But Rhiannon seems ok with this. So tra la la, all is well until BOOM! A curse descends on the land, and all the crops and critters are lost. Rhiannon, Manawydan, Pryderi, and Pryderi’s wife Cigfa seem to be the only people living in this desolate land. So Manawydan and Pryderi decide to hunt and fish for a while. Somehow, this life becomes tiresome, and they decide to move to London and open a saddle shop. Sure, why not, two crazy kids in the big city with a dream to make the best damn saddles around. Of course, when the other saddle makers find out how awesome Manawydan and Pryderi’s Saddle Emporium is they take the logical course of action and decide to create a better product at a reasonable price to encourage a healthy and competitive market. No wait, they decide to try and KILL them. A reasonable response, don’t you think? Pryderi wants to kill them in retaliation, Manawydan says, no, let’s go into business making shields. So they do, and Manawydan and Pryderi’s Saddle Shield Emporium is a big hit. Then the other shield makers get their knickers in a twist and decide to get stabby. Pryderi wants to kill them, Manawydan says, no, let’s going to business making shoes. Thus, Manawydan and Pryderi’s Saddle Shield Shoe Emporium is born. Oddly enough, in spite of Manawydan prediction that shoemakers are yella’ bellied, they get homicidal at their success as well. Why these guys didn’t just open up Manawydan and Pryderi’s Saddle Shield Shoe Pointy Things & Seige Weapon Emporium in the first place is beyond me. Somehow, the shoemakers are the final straw, and Manawydan and Pryderi head home. One day, they are out hunting when a white boar appears and leads them to fort or caer. The dogs chase the boar into the fort, and Pryderi decides to go in after his dogs. Inside he finds a golden bowl that freezes him in place as soon as he touches it. Manawydan, like the mensch he is, waits until sundown and then just leaves without Pryderi. When Rhiannon asks where her son is, Manawydan shrugs and says, “Dunno. Somewhere.” Rhiannon is annoyed at his slacker attitude, and goes in search of Pryderi herself, only to fall victim to the same fate when she finds him. Perhaps if they had had some OSHA training at the castle, she would have known to knock him away with a stick, rather than grab it herself. Cigfa sees that only she and Manawydan are left, and she is distraught. Manawydan basically promises not to rape her (I think) and then says, “Hey, you know what we should do?” to which, Cigfa should have replied, “Go in search of our missing mates in the exact place we know they are?”. “Naaaah,” says Manawydan, “Let’s go to London and become shoemakers!” (I somehow missed the fact that the caer had vanished when I first read this… but still). “ Wait,” says Cigfa, “didn’t you and my husband try that and it ended up with hoards of wrathful cobblers chasing you with torches and pitchforks?” “Shhhhh, let’s not speak of such trivial things.”, said Manawydan the sub-genius. Off they went, and Manawydan and Pryderi’s Cigfa’s Saddle Shield Shoe Pointy Things & Seige Weapon Shoes Again Emporium is open for business. Of course, after a year of this the shoemakers once again go on a rampage. And Manawydan and Cigfa head back to their empty kingdom. This time, he plants some wheat. Just as he is about to harvest it, some magical mice destroy his crops. So he captures one in a glove and plans on executing it for it’s crimes. After a dude begs him repeatedly and in different disguises not to kill it, he finally asks they guy why he wants this mouse so badly. Guy admits it’s his wife, and that he had cursed the land in retaliation for Gwawl being subjected to Badger-in-a-Bag two stories ago. Manawydan negotiates the freeing of Pryderi and Rhiannon, as well as the restoration of his land. Then dude tells them that Pryderi and Rhiannon were held in place by door knockers and ass collars. Then I just “noped” outta there, cuz this shit be cray cray.

(I wrote this before reading the 4th branch because I was running out of time. Now I wish I had written about the 4th branch instead of this nutso thing)