Another story from the Mabinogion that involves magic and mayhem. This is day 6 of Folktale Week for “Harvest”.
Here are little field mice harvesting the wheat from Manawyddan’s crop field and leaving nothing but straw behind.
Backstory: Manawyddan became Rhiannon’s husband, and Pryderi’s stepdad, and becomes Lord of Dyfed. During a hunt of a shining white boar, both Pryderi and Rhiannon become trapped in a castle.
Whilst trying to figure out how to free them, Manawyddan farms three fields of wheat, but the first two crops are cut down by thieves.
So he sets up to watch the third field at night and spots a horde of mice stealing the wheat. He catches a slow, fat one. This mouse turns out to be the pregnant wife of the magician who had entrapped Rhiannon and Pryderi. So Manawyddan sets the mouse-wife of the magician free, in exchange for his wife and stepson.1
Lots more happens. How glorious it would be to spot a horde of mice chopping wheat by moonlight.
A tangled web of magic and mythology. And an unfortunate hiding place.
Death of Gronw
The summarised story for Folktale Week on day 5 is about “Death”.
In the Mabinogion, Gronw Pebr, Lord of Penllyn, falls in love with Blodeuwedd, the wife of Lleu.
The thing is, Blodeuwedd was created out of the flowers of oak, broom and meadowsweet. Blodeuwedd means Flower-Faced in English.
Herself falling in love with Gronw, the magical Blodeuwedd is now making her own choice of lover, and the two conspire to kill Lleu in order to be together.
Lleu has to be killed in a certain way, and Blodeuwedd tricks him into revealing how this can be done, and passes this information to Gronw to carry out.
Gronw ambushes Lleu, but when he throws his spear at Lleu for the fatal blow, Lleu transforms into an eagle. Lleu flies away and is later found by his magical uncle Gwydion, who restores him to human form.
Together they ambush Gronw, then Lleu throws his spear at Gronw whilst he is cowering behind a shield made of stone. The spear penetrates the stone and kills Gronw. Then Gwydion curses Blodeuwedd and turns her into an owl.1
The pierced slate stone of Gronw Pebr (called Llech Ronw) is supposedly located in Blaenau Ffestiniog in Merionethshire, to this day.
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The origin story of Merlin according to the Mabinogion. No biggie.
Three little drops
Taliesin, the great Celtic bard and magician also known as Merlin, was born on the winter solstice. “Solstice” is a wonderful day 4 prompt from Folktale Week.
His story as told in the Mabinogion, is a little bizarre. It begins with the goddess/witch known as Ceridwen who had a magical cauldron that could make a potion granting wisdom from its first three drops.
It would take a year and a day for the potion to be cooked. A blind man tended the fire beneath the cauldron, and a young boy called Gwion stirred the pot. Three drops spilled onto Gwion’s hand as he stirred so he instantly gained great wisdom and knowledge.
Ceridwen wasn’t happy, it was intended for her awful son. She chased Gwion, even as they both transformed into many different forms.
Eventually, Gwion transformed into a single grain of corn, but Ceridwen became a hen and ate him. She became pregnant from this and knew it was Gwion, deciding to kill the child when he was born. However, he was so beautiful that she couldn’t do it. Instead, she threw him into the ocean inside a bag of sealskin.
Gwion was rescued by a Celtic prince named Elffin and when he was reborn (by being fished out of the water and bag), he was renamed Taliesin.1
Think Winter Solstice, think Taliesin, think Merlin. All magic!
The Courtship of Culhwch and Olwen. This is real mythological adventure stuff.
Some weird things people do for love
Feel like I’ve overcooked this one. But here is what Day 3 of Folktale Week is about:
Culhwch & Olwen: a romance story from the Mabinogion, this is about a prince who refuses to marry his step-sister so his step-mum curses him to only ever be able to marry the otherworldly Olwen, daughter of a giant. He’s never met her, nor knows where she lives, but on hearing her name, he falls in love with Olwen.
So Culhwch enlists the help of his cousin, King Arthur, and a ton of Arthur’s men, to search for the elusive Olwen. But when he finds her, her dad says the only way he can marry Olwen is if he undertakes a bucketful of challenges, and then slays the dad (a giant).
Culhwch tells Olwen he’s got this, and goes off on his adventures with his list of challenges, in the company of his merry men.
After a really, really long time (during which time Olwen is no doubt living her life with books, friends, and good food) he returns, having completed every impossible challenge, and gets to kill the giant and marry Olwen.
This take is a modern-day Culhwch going off on his adventures to woo the lovely Olwen, who I see as a homely introvert. She seems pretty content with reading, tending her plants, and who knows what adventures she gets to do with her friends whilst he’s away.1
Couldn’t simplify it without feeling lost. Perfect metaphor for my life!
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Weirdly, I found it tough to identify a satisfying ritualistic process to recreate from the Mabinogion. Here’s a depiction of the Fountain Ritual where Owain (one of King Arthur’s knights) takes on a challenge to prove his awesomeness [knights rarely have anything better to do, I’ve discovered].
The challenge went as follows (with words to the effect of…)
“Under a tree is a fountain, and by the side of the fountain is a marble slab, and on the slab is a bowl, attached by a chain of silver so it can’t be carried away. Take the bowl and throw a bowlful of water on the slab. There’ll be a mighty peal of thunder, the heaven and earth trembling with fury. The shower will be hailstones. Then the weather will be fair but every leaf will be gone. Then a flight of birds will come and alight on the tree, and they’ll sing sweetly.”
So basically a storm will come and try to blow Owain away if he throws water from the bowl on the marble slab. Only the most awesome will be able to withstand the storm. Owain’s self-confidence is markedly bolstered after succeeding at the ritual challenge.
My mountains may or not be modelled after Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon).
Short tales from the Mabinogion, made even shorter. With pictures.
It’s the start of Folktale Week and the first prompt is Birth. I’ve looked at the Mabinogion for inspiration and wanted to share the birth story of Pryderi.
Rhiannon (inspiration for Stevie Nicks’ song of the same name), described as a strong-minded Otherworld woman, gives birth to Pryderi, but on the night of his birth the baby is kidnapped whilst in the care of Rhiannon’s six ladies-in-waiting.
Rhiannon is accused of murdering her son and spends many years punished by forcing her to tell travellers of her crime outside the walls of the castle. Years later the boy is found, recognised, and returned to his parents.
Both Rhiannon and Pryderi are linked with horses. Rhiannon is also connected to three mystical birds whose song can “wake the dead and lull the living to sleep”.
I have a great love of stamps and old posters so I am making my own Mabinogion-inspired stamp collection.
I’ve learnt to measure strength, not with weights or speed, but by the adversity I overcome.
It still surprises me how in the fleetest of moments a chronic illness can break your spirit. You can endure pain for days, handle the impact on your everyday, but then comes the time when your spirit breaks and you simply can’t handle it anymore.
It has already taken the light from your eyes, sapping what is left of your energy and your dignity. Whilst your body screams, your soul does too, and you are left grieving for your lost self, angry that this is yours to endure.
Then it passes, you gasp for a breath as you grasp for life, ready to survive once again.
“the measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls”
—First Lady Michelle Obama
I had whispers of a quote at the back of my mind about ‘the measure of a man’ when writing this, and wondered if my thoughts on the life cycle of being chronically ill came anywhere close to the same meaning.
I found a Samuel Johnson quote describing how “the true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good”.
Plato meted out “the measure of a man is what he does with power”.
First Lady Michelle Obama gave us “the measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls”.
Philip K. Dick offered his version as “the true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give”.
I noted a contribution from Richard E. Simmons that fell some way towards my own thoughts. “Simply stated, life’s greatest paradox can be summed up in the words, True strength is found in humility.” Not being a follower of biblical verses myself, assigning meaning to my words via biblical text feels like a clash of beliefs. But for context Simmons is referring to a story in Corinthians where the apostle Paul asks God to remove the pain and suffering of a thorn in his flesh. God tells him no, instead offering the paradox: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness”.
Nowadays we are likely to talk about strength alongside physical endurance, speed, stamina, power, while the trope healthy is the new skinny conjures lovely images of strong and able-bodied women in miniature outfits looking pretty sassy.
These were the images I idolised. I took great lengths to strengthen my core, improve my speed, my endurance, all the while believing my strength lay in how fast I was on the road, the hockey pitch, in the water or on a netball court. It was about how high I could jump. It was about how defined my muscles were. How toned my abs became. How strong I was able to convey by body shape alone. And I connected with that. I felt that I was able to measure up as someone who was strong because I put that effort in to be fit, with bonus points for managing career, child-rearing, university degree and the onset of a mental illness. As long as I was strong, I was strong.
The irony is that Pliny the Elder most convincingly satisfies what I’m trying to get at;
“the depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach”.
It’s taken a chronic illness putting me on my back, shrinking all of my muscle, hindering my ability to walk more than a few hundred metres in one day, preferring a sortie with wheelchair to a walk in the woods, to understand what this other strength is. My able-bodied perception of strength has been smashed to pieces by this disabled body keeping a home for ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy—also referred to as MEcfs).
There’s no turning a blind eye to what it really means to be able-bodied, a perspective that I am now surrounded by, reminded of, and, in all honesty, fiercely jealous of—and what it means to be disabled. There’s also no escaping how easy it is to feel insignificant with this (still raw) label.
Martin Luther King Jr said “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”.
I used to write about mental strength not simply meaning the absence of a mental illness, and resilience was most definitely a part of that narrative: being able to withstand the battles in your head to achieve outward goals. But what if the ability to achieve outward goals is also snatched from your toolbox. What if all you have left is your perception of life, your concentrated view of the world from your pinpoint position on the planet, and what your purpose is now whilst lying in your bed, mostly alone and in pain?
It brings little comfort to reconcile the idea that suffering is equal to harnessing divine strength. I think I’d just like to have my mobility back, to not manage pain every day, to go about my life quietly, if need be, free from the chronically ill part most certainly.
It may sound disingenuous to not want to be put through these paces to ascend to some higher enlightenment level, but my mind isn’t ready to swap the rambunctious enjoyment of nature, nurture, learning, sharing, travelling, discovering, for some belief that there is a purpose and it’s a good-un, just have faith, just yet.
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The energy in bounds, ideas a-fizzing, feeling the flow.
Where does it all go? The smile on my face, happiness un-chartered, warmth of the glow.
Where does it all go? Synchronicity-city, serendipity highs, sparkling like rainbows.
Where does it all go?
Where does all the colour go? The laughter, the serenity, the buzz, the whirling, twirling, swirling of thoughts of clarity and contentment, meaning and melody.
Where does all my essence go? Leaving me lost, lethargic, lonely, low.
Where did I go? The other me that I know.
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