Tag: Shapeshifting

Summer Solstice: Taliesin, Ceridwen and Magical Cauldrons

With the sun at its zenith and the Earth at the peak of her abundant glory, this is the time for manifestation, for flowering and empowering, for achieving the full potential offered by those long daylight hours. Male drones swarm about the queen bee, who will choose carefully with whom she will mate, and the hues of purple and white heather brushing the hillside are alive with their potent hum. In ancient times, as the drone must give up his life after coupling with the queen, so too the king in his role as guardian of the land must also give up his, for as the wheel of the year turns, the power of the Sun must wane as that of the darkness waxes. Now more usually it is the Green Man and Faery Queen who preside at the Solstice, reminding us that connection with the Otherworld is just behind the veil.

In Britain, Summer Solstice was once dedicated to Ceridwen, keeper of the Sacred Cauldron, the goddess whose story is mentioned in the medieval Tale of Taliesin and with whom she is intricately bound. Though this folktale is of relatively recent provenance, it is clear that this goddess of transformation, magic, shapeshifting and rebirth has a much more ancient pedigree, the energy of which can be felt at the ancient cromlech of Pentre Ifan near Nevern in Pembrokeshire. Ceridwen is also a dark moon goddess, and as this Solstice falls at the dark moon, it seems particularly relevant to recount her story now.

Drinking from her magical cauldron was said to confer inspiration (Awen), prophetic gifts and the art of storytelling, so Ceridwen has an intimate connection with welsh poets and bards  who call themselves sons of Ceridwen. This tradition is enshrined in folklore through the character of Taliesin, the sixth century bard of the Brythonic chieftan called Urien, and a legendary figure of other traditions, including the Arthurian. Here is their story:

Taliesin began life as a boy called Gwion Bach. One day, he found himself on an island on Lake Bala in North Wales where the giant Tegid Foel lived with his wife Ceridwen. Together they had two children, a beautiful girl and a boy called Morfan who was said to be very ugly. In order to compensate for his lack of good fortune,  Ceridwen decided to brew a potion in her wondrous cauldron that would bestow wisdom and knowledge on her son. She sought special herbs from the Earth, gathered on certain days and hours, and made from them a magic brew that needed to be kept at constant temperature. She had a blind  man tend the flames, and to Gwion Bach was given the job of tending, for this potion needed to be stirred for a year and a day.

Eventually, just as the allocated time arrived, Ceridwen fell asleep and alas! three drops sprang from the cauldron and landed on Gwion Bach, who had shoved Morfan out of the way. But not just any three drops, for only the first three contained any magical properties, the rest of the potion was poisonous. Gwion instantly attains the gifts of prophecy and wisdom – and knowing he was in grave danger, he takes flight.[1]

With Ceridwen in hot pursuit, Gwion magically shape shifts into a series of creatures in order to keep ahead of her. First he transforms into a hare, and Ceridwen gives chase in the form of a black greyhound. Then he turns himself into a fish, and she an otter. He then turns into a bird, and she a hawk. Finally, he ends up cornered in a barn and there transmutes into a single grain of corn.  Ceridwen became a high crested black hen – and gobbles him up!

She immediately becomes pregnant, and knowing that is Gwion that she carries, vows to get rid of him when he is born. In the time honoured manner reserved for magical characters of divine birth and many founding heroes, the child is spared, instead placed into a containing object, in this case a leather bag, or a coracle, and set adrift out at sea. Within time he is washed up on the shore of the Conway, where he is found by one Prince Elffin ap Gwyddno, who happened to be out salmon fishing. The prince cuts open the coracle and upon seeing the forehead of the baby says, ‘behold the radiant forehead!’ (in Welsh tal iesin), to which the child replied, ‘Tal-iesin he is!’ So thus named, Prince Elffin saddled the coracle onto his horse, the child reciting stanzas all the while, and takes him home to his wife. They raised the boy as their own and found themselves in receipt of riches and wealth as a result.

Taliesin goes on to goes have an illustrious career as a bard and rescues his step father from imprisonment on several occasions through his clever use of riddles and prophecy. King Maelgwn Gwynedd, to whom Elffin was in service, was so impressed with his poetic ability that he asks him who he was and where he had come from. His reply is the enigmatic Song of Taliesin as follows:

‘I was with my lord in the heavens when Lucifer fell into the depths of hell;

I carried a banner before Alexander; I know the stars names from the North to the South.

I was in the fort of Gwydion, in the Tetragrammaton;

I was in the canon when Absalon was killed;

I brought seed down to the vale of Hebron;

I was in the court of Don before the birth of Gwydion;

I was patriarch to Elijah and Enoch;

I was head keeper on the work of Nimrod’s tower;

I was atop the cross of the merciful son of God;

I was three times in the prison of Arianrhod;

I was in the ark with Noah and the Alpha;

I witnessed the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah…

I got poetic inspiration from the cauldron of Ceridwen..

And I shall remain until doomsday upon the face of the earth.

And no one knows what my flesh is – whether meat or fish.’ [2]

Many, including Robert Graves, have tried to demystify this riddle (more on this another time) and together with other poetic utterings contained in the Book of Taliesin, it ensured that the historical Taliesin entered into the realm of legend. In this way he becomes the enduring embodiment of the inspired poet/bard archetype who has had many incarnations, including a later, possibly more famous one, in the form of Merlin at the court of King Arthur.

It was however through Ceridwen that he ultimately gained his inspiration (anwyn) and this was achieved through the medium of her magical cauldron, as he says. That cauldrons were considered both wondrous and practical by the Indo-European then Celtic people is not in doubt, and cauldrons were at the centre of the Celtic Mystery traditions. There were said to be three, the cauldrons of rebirth, inspiration and transformation. Ceridwen’s cauldron seems to bestow all three powers, and therefore it is she, as Mistress of the Cauldron, who holds the mysteries of transformation, as her shapeshifting abilities in the tale show; inspiration, as demonstrated in the bardic and prophetic insights its potion bestowed; and rebirth, as the character of Taliesin demonstrated.

Symbolically we know that through life experiences we are transformed and grow as we shed old ways and take on new forms, but there is also another ecological aspect to this story. It is through a deep connection with the other than human world, mediated through the prophetic and inspirational properties of certain plants, and the deep wisdom embodied in animal lore that shape shifts throughout the seasons, that we become more in harmony with the natural world, with the land. From this connection emerges a deeper knowledge of the Otherworld, which both is of and permeates the physical world, and it is in this liminal space that deep insight and wisdom is found. This mystical understanding is one of the great gifts of the Grail tradition, with which stories of wondrous cauldrons and also later intertwined.

[1] ‘The Tale of Gwion Bach’ from ‘The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales’ edited and translated by Patrick K. Ford, 1997, 2019

[2] ‘The tale of Taliesin’ from ‘The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales’ edited and translated by Patrick K Ford, 1997, 2019

Picture credits: ‘Ceridwen’ by Christopher Williams (1910), ‘Ceridwen and Gwion Bach’ by Tim Rossiter

January Wolf Moon: Fenrir, Freyja and her Necklace

January is named for the Roman two headed god, Janus, who looks both backwards to the ending of the old year and forward to new beginnings. In Celtic tree lore, it is the time ruled over by birch, the first tree in the forest to start producing leaves (B or Beith in the Ogham alphabet). Birch is self propagating and therefore highly adaptive and able to thrive in areas cleared by forest fires, making it associated with new beginnings. It was traditionally used to drive out the spirit of the Old Year, but this became distorted later when it was used to flog children.   It was used by druids as kindling to ignite fires, and silver birch is often associated with light bodies such as the sun, moon and the stars.

The January full moon is often called Wolf Moon. Wolves rule the midwinter nights and the image of the wolf howling during a full moon is probably the origin of the concept of the werewolf, a fearsome predator that feeds on blood. Though now more often linked to Native American tradition, the wolf is also a key animal in Celtic and Norse mythology. Solitary and shy, but able to survive in packs and hunt ferociously, the wolf was often associated with death and sometimes destruction, but with the understanding that clearing away the old is a necessary step in the process of renewal. It was a companion of the Welsh goddess Ceridwen, one of the sacred guardians of Britain, and one of the four sacred animals of the Celtic Brigid,[1] all of which demonstrate the importance of wolf to the ancient British landscape.

It is in Norse mythology, however, where wolf has its most intriguing role. Fenrir the wolf was the feared offspring of the frost giantess and trickster Loki who grew to such a huge size that he had to be bound in chains to prevent the prophesied destruction of the world, Ragnarok. Eventually, when the time was nigh, he broke free of the magical chains made by the elves themselves, swallowing the god Odin whole in the drama known as the twilight of the gods. Fenrir was the father in turn of another wolf who chased the sun until finally ‘taking possession of it.’ Not only did the sun disappear from view, but the world was engulfed in a hideous winter of freezing and bloodshed as a result, so there is a possible association here between the wolf and celestial phenomena such as eclipses, comets or meteor impacts, a harbinger of destruction, even a deliver of it.

 The 10th January, the date of this year’s full Wolf Moon, is also the birthday of the Norse goddess Freyja. As mistress of the runes, prophetic vision, and magick, she was once one of the most important figures in the Norse pantheon, and certainly one of the oldest.  Originally a Mistress of the Wild Animals, she is often seen in a chariot pulled by cats or riding a wild boar. Later, like Inanna in the Middle East, she became the typical goddess of sex and war, and as (possible) leader of the Valkyries, prowled the battlefields with Odin, choosing half of all slain warriors to take to her great hall.  

One of her most striking attributes was a cloak of falcon feathers which enabled her to shapeshift into a bird and take astral flight. Shamanistic and extremely ancient in origin, this type of magical ability was known as seidr and said to be gifted by Freyja herself. Indeed, even Odin had to come to her to learn the art of reading the runes showing that she once had precedence over him.

As mistress of prophet visionary and shape shifting, Freyja would have had mastery over the four primal elements Earth, air, fire and water, and therefore alchemical knowledge of how to work with the treasures of the Earth. This knowledge is encoded into the story of how Freyja obtained her famous necklace, Brisingsamen. Here my version of the story:

One winters night, Freya lay dreaming in her bed of fur. She saw the ancient ash tree that stood at the centre of the Nine Worlds and it was spangled in a web of light that shone like diamonds. Yearning to be there, she stepped out of bed and pulling on her cloak made of the softest and lightest of falcon feathers, she flew towards the tree. There she alighted on a branch and traveled down the solid trunk and down into the roots that burrowed towards the heart of the Earth. As she journeyed, she could hear strange notes given out by the rhythmic clanging of a hammer and she followed the sound until she ended up in a candle-lit chamber. Four dwarfs were busy at work, one hammering sheets of gold, one pulling it into long wires, and the other two cutting and polishing stones of every colour and hue until their light radiated out onto the walls of the cave, causing it to sparkle like the night sky.

Freya stepped towards them and saw they were making a necklace, the most beautiful and powerful necklace she had ever seen, and she longed to possess it. She pleaded with the dwarfs, offering them riches and gold in exchange, but they already had mastery of all the treasures in the seams of the Earth and needed no more. What they did, want, however, was for each of them in turn to spend a night with the beautiful goddess. Freyja agreed and stayed with them to learn the magical arts of alchemical transformation taught by the dwarves, who was a master of each element. This was how she came to be in possession of Brisingamen, the necklace that shone bright as the Milky Way.

The story as handed down to us is patchy, and for many it is purely sexual in nature, the goddess sleeping with each of the dwarves in turn to obtain the treasure. Strangely, the necklace is also not a magical object per se and has none of the attributes or named powers as for example Odin’s ring or Thor’s hammer. Yet to Freyja the necklace is of prime importance so much so that she is prepared to do anything to retain it, and there is a disturbing end to the story.

Odin saw that Freyja had obtained the necklace, and how, and was apparently angry, even outraged. He ordered the trickster Loki to steal it from the sleeping goddess and bring it to him forthwith. Freyja soon realised her necklace was gone, and who had taken it, and came to confront Odin. Apparently, with very little persuasion, she struck with him a dark bargain in order to secure its’ return: she was to incite war between two kings and their great armies, then revive them on the battlefield so that they might rise up and fight again.

The reason for this request is not explained and could be interpreted simply as a moral warning against coveting material possession, or even against sexual promiscuity, both of which could bring unwanted consequences. But there could also be something more behind this rather intriguing story. The necklace could represent some sort of primal power, and one that is linked to the stars of the Milky Way, it could symbolise secret and eternally powerful knowledge that has been lost in the mists of time. The silver birch with its association with light bodies, the wolf with its cosmic symbolism and Freya’s starry necklace all demonstrate that the stars of the Milky Way were much for central in the psyche of our ancestors than it is in today’s light polluted world, and the long dark nights of the North would have been the perfect place to view it. Furthermore, the wolf myths also hint at a cataclysmic event that led to Ragnarok, the destruction of everything including the gods, when an old order broke down in order to make way for a new. And in this it is tempting to see parallels with today’s world with the lunar eclipse and important conjunctions around this January full Wolf Moon.

[1] See www.exemplore.com for more details