On Ceridwen

Ceridwen is wildly misunderstood and misrepresented in modern times. 

Some people, like my very educated and intelligent girlfriend who shall be referenced a lot on this blog, don’t believe Ceridwen was a Goddess at all. Her first known appearance came in 14th century England, long after any Pagan religions died out following the institutionalization of Christianity. My girlfriend, who was raised Pagan and has a lot more information behind her than I could ever hope to have, believes that the worship of Ceridwen jn that context is mostly a poorly conceived Wiccan phenomenon.

(My girlfriend does not like Wiccans, guys. Fair warning.)

Others – mostly Wiccans and neo-pagans pulling strongly from a Wiccan base – believe Ceridwen is a Goddess of inspiration and reincarnation. This might be true if one assumes She was ever a Goddess in the first place, but it ignores the very basic reality that no one who read Her myths would ever call Her a happy – or necessarily willing – mother. The pregnancy that gives Her many of Her epithets began with theft and ended with the baby literally being thrown into the sea.

Let me explain.

According to Wikipedia,

According to the late medieval^[8] Tale of Taliesin, included in some modern editions of the Mabinogion, Ceridwen’s son, Morfran (also called Afagddu), was hideously ugly, so Ceridwen sought to make him wise in compensation. She made a potion in her magical cauldron to grant the gift of wisdom and poetic inspiration, also called Awen.

The mixture had to be boiled for a year and a day. She set Morda, a blind man, to tend the fire beneath the cauldron, while Gwion Bach, a young boy, stirred the concoction. The first three drops of liquid from this potion gave wisdom; the rest was a fatal poison. Three hot drops spilled onto Gwion’s thumb as he stirred, burning him. He instinctively put his thumb in his mouth, and gained the wisdom and knowledge Ceridwen had intended for her son. Realising that Ceridwen would be angry, Gwion fled. Ceridwen chased him.

Using the powers of the potion he turned himself into a hare. She became a greyhound. He became a fish and jumped into a river. She transformed into an otter. He turned into a bird; she became a hawk. Finally, he turned into a single grain of corn. She then became a hen and, being a goddess (or enchantress, depending on the version of the tale), she found and ate him without trouble. But because of the potion he was not destroyed. When Ceridwen became pregnant, she knew it was Gwion and resolved to kill the child when he was born. However, when he was born, he was so beautiful that she could not do it.

Her daughter, Crearwy, was one of the most beautiful women in the world; however, Her first son, Morfran, was so hideous that Ceridwen had to create a potion to make him wiser to compensate, and Her second son was literally the reincarnation of the servant who stole Her first son’s birthright. Ceridwen was literally forced to carry this unwanted son to term (presumably because abortion didn’t exist then), and then found Herself so overcome by maternal love that She couldn’t bear to kill the son She never wanted to give birth to in the first place. That son, whose name was Taliesin, was rescued by a Welsh prince and later became one of the most famous and long-lasting British bards to ever live.

What do we call that, class? Yeah, we call that reproductive coercion.

Supposedly, Taliesin obtained all his creative and artistic prowess from Ceridwen’s cauldron. This is why many modern Pagans consider Her to be a Goddess of reincarnation and inspiration; but the truth is, that creative and artistic prowess wasn’t bestowed willingly by Ceridwen. It was stolen from Her.

Does that mean that Ceridwen didn’t create that artistic inspiration? No – in fact, one could argue that the inspiration Taliesin obtained wouldn’t have existed had it not already belonged to Ceridwen in the first place. However, worshiping Her as a Goddess of Inspiration and Reincarnation glorifies Her victimhood. It makes Her unintentional and undesired contributions more important to historical records than anything else She ever did. If other myths about Her ever existed in the first place, they have died out in the millennia or so that has passed since their inception, making the worst moment of Her life our only way of seeing Her. We have no idea whether or not She was truly a Goddess (though Her continued survival certainly suggests so). To be quite honest, seeing people overlook these aspects of Her wig me out. 

I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to worship Ceridwen in the guise most people give Her. That’s why I won’t do that on this blog. When I mention Ceridwen, I include every piece of that myth and a healthy amount of UPG to go with it. That’s what Ceridwen – Her myths, Her personage, Her perspective – deserves.