Cerridwen: Celtic Goddess of Inspiration

Prologue

The flicker of moonlight on water appeared like molten silver; the brilliance of each wave crest stirred my heart and imagination, for they appeared like creatures. Unknown and alien, they would rise from the fathoms of the lake and sip at the glistening rays of our nearest satellite. Their eventual lapping on the shores would sing another song as two worlds collided, and yet there upon the lake’s inky surface stood the epitome of an even deeper world.

Her face was obscured by the fluid fabric of her immense cloak that moved about her form sensuously, making love to her bodily contours and each molecule of water that caressed her. Tendrils of black fabric stretched out in all directions about her, seemingly unaffected by the constant pull of land to water. The trees whispered about me, their chitter-chatter telling of other mysteries unknown to me, and yet we shared something within this moment: they understood what I was seeing, and I, in a language alien to me, could understand their connection to this being that stood impossibly upon the lake—not within it but upon its surface.

The figure on the lake moved her right arm, long, slender, and black as night, and held aloft a staff of darkened wood, which twisted up from the lake’s surface. Her presence felt as ancient as the valley that surrounded me. Clouds passed over the moon, and the silver crests became jet-black and almost solid, to the extent that even their lapping changed its tune. A sigh—audible, loud even—seemed to rise from somewhere…the lake? The being? The trees? Who could tell, but something stirred, something changed. A sudden flash to my right and a burst of yellow appeared in the curtain of night that hung adorned with stars in the deep blue Welsh sky. It was accompanied by a delayed boom as something unknown sucked the sound from the moment, only to expand it back into being a second later. Three bodies of light streaked across the sky towards the sharp peaks of Aran Benllyn. Mouths gaped in awe at the sight. From the depths of space, meteor lights burst into our world, bringing with them stories of unknown places a million light-years away. Before us stood someone from another world, and yet at this juncture they expressed themselves here, on the shores of Lake Bala. The world of humankind, the world of origins, and the world of deep mystery collided.

The figure lifted both arms—had she seen the meteor crash to the mountains behind her or had she sensed it, did she call it? What magic was this? In awe, I fell to my knees before the figure on the lake and whispered:

O Cerridwen,

Duwies yr Awen,

Ceidwad y Pair,

Rho dy Awenyddiaeth

A’r fy siwrne

Ac ar fy ngwaith.¹

O Cerridwen,

Goddess of Awen,

Keeper of the Cauldron,

Bless me with the light of Awen

On my journey

And on my work.

The hard pebbles dug into my knees, and I winced in discomfort, momentarily breaking the illusion of solitude that I had felt to this point. I became intensely aware of other figures around me, calling, singing, whispering, and crying. The sploshing sound of cold water as others entered the lake momentarily obscured my vision of she who stood upon the inky surface. I pulled myself back into focus, and there she was again: Cerridwen, keeper of the cauldron, goddess of inspiration, testing, and transformation. Slowly I arose to my knees and entered the cold waters of her lake to stand before her, and there to ask my question, which was related to what you now hold in your hands. Should I write it? Should I expand on what I had previously penned?

Her answer was as clear as day, unexpected and momentarily disarming: If not you, then who? If not now, when?

Before I realised what was slipping from my lips, I heard myself say, Oh, come on, that was Hillel—he was the Jewish scholar who said that!

To which she replied, Even he drank from my cauldron, albeit he called it something else.

So I guess I had my answer. It made me giggle. I bowed to the lady on the lake and walked steadily backwards out of the frigid waters as others walked past me to seek her counsel. The clouds parted yet again, and the creatures of the crests returned to play along the lake’s choppy surface.

A A A

You might wonder that the above account may appear fantastical or even purely fictional, but I can assure you that it was not. This was yet another year where over seventy people descended to the shores of Lake Bala (Llyn Tegid) in North Wales, the legendary home of Cerridwen and her family, the location for the saga of the tale of the birth of Taliesin, to immerse in ritual and vision. Cerridwen really did stand on the lake’s surface, although beneath the fabric stood an actual human being, a person who gave up their identity to allow for something else to take her shape and form temporarily. This was an act of magic and devotion to a deity that has long been a part of my life.

Since I first stepped foot onto the path of Paganism in the early 1990s, Cerridwen has been there. As a child and a teenager, Cerridwen was there. In the pen-and-ink drawings of Margaret Jones and the dancing words of Gwyn Thomas in their illustrated history of Taliesin and Cerridwen, she was there.² In this book, my hope is to explore the nature of Cerridwen in the hope that how I was inspired may in turn inspire you. Together we will explore where she came from, who she is, what the past can teach us about her, and, perhaps most appropriately, how she is perceived and worked with in the present day.

This book contains a lot of history and scholarship necessary to delve into the cauldron of Cerridwen’s making, for her evolution is as colourful and varied as the history of the land that gave rise to her name. Whilst the historical and scholarly component is important, this is also a book that is indicative of the power of relationship. In essence, this is not Cerridwen’s story alone. It is the story of Cerridwen, the people and traditions of Wales, and me, and my hope is that this will also become a part of your story.

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1 Search YouTube for my channel—Kristoffer Hughes—for sound files of all Welsh entries in this book.

2 Gwyn Thomas, Chwedl Taliesin, darluniwyd gan Margaret Jones (Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1992).

Introduction

Eight years ago I wrote a book called From the Cauldron Born: Exploring the Magic of Welsh Legend and Lore, and in it I explored a single tale from Wales that tells the story of the birth of Taliesin. Within it the reader encounters what has become a goddess of the New Age, Cerridwen; alas, the space that I had within that book was limited and my exploration of Cerridwen condensed to a single chapter, albeit threads of her were stretched through the entire book. I felt that I did not do her great justice, and I have wanted to expand on that ever since. To those familiar with my previous works, there is much in this tome that will feel familiar and much that will be new. I have written this book to expand on From the Cauldron Born; to some extent it is its sequel.

So, who am I and why exactly am I writing this book? My own spiritual practise follows a Welsh Druid path. I am the current chief of the Anglesey Druid Order in North Wales, the ancestral seat of the ancient British Druids. We are a mytho-centric order, where we glean spiritual teachings and practises from the mythologies of Britain preserved by the Welsh. We are an order immersed in a living mythological landscape, where the spirits, beings, and gods of the old legends feel very much present and alive. We utilise scholarly and visionary tools to explore the function of mythology and the beings that inhabit that landscape, and we do so in a way that makes them relevant to twenty-first-century practitioners of Druidry and Celtic-inspired Paganism. The aim of this book is to provide you with an in-depth exploration of Cerridwen: where she came from, the landscape and peoples that perpetuated her, and who she is today.

The book will commence with the physicality and material evidence for Cerridwen’s existence through various guises and over vast periods of time. Here I will delve into the mythologies that refer to her, medieval bardic poetry, and the landscape that she is connected to. We will also look at the relationships she had with other Welsh mythological figures. This section will focus on the scholarly, where I explore the material aspect of Cerrid­wen’s evolution. Here, location is also of great importance, for Cerridwen did not arise and develop in a vacuum, but rather from the moist green mythological and rugged landscape of Wales; this in itself tells us much of the deity that she has become. There is a lot of information in the early chapters of this book and a lot to take in, but I offer it to honour the enormous span of time and the people who recorded Cerridwen’s name and function. It is important to me as a Welsh person that these systems are honoured as the spirit of preservation that guarded and maintained this material.

Eventually I will move steadily away from the scholarly, albeit I shall not entirely abandon it, and look at Cerridwen in relation to deep mystery, profundity, and what she can teach us about what lies within the cauldron’s belly. In this part we look deeper into the mysteries of origin and of the power that Cerridwen arises from. I will also be exploring the progression of Cerridwen from muse to witch to goddess. Here I will focus on the expression of mystery and explore the nature of the breath of Awen, the spirit of inspiration—this is the place of deep initiation and the precursor to transformation. In this realm we will explore Cerridwen’s function within modern witchcraft.

The closing chapters will be focused entirely on devotional practises, prayers, inner journeys, and invocations. This will be the nuts and bolts of modern daily practise and how we integrate Cerridwen and her function into our everyday spirituality.

The Function of Magic

Whilst a significant chunk of this book is an exploration of where Cerridwen came from and the systems that gave rise to the creation of the name itself and her function, it is also a book of magic and practise. There are times within this book where I will ask you to stop and consider the information that you have read and journey inwardly to discover the magic within those concepts. I will primarily do this through the power of sigils. Truth be told, I am a terrible and horrible meditator. I have struggled with meditation since I first started this path—my mind will wander, I get bored, and I have tried every technique and method one can find, but to no avail. I hasten to add that I do not believe I am alone in this.

So, with that, I will not ask you to meditate as such but rather to contemplate, using sigils that capture the essence and spirit of what is being considered. Combined with imagined scenes and the power of your imagination, the sigils will come to life and capture the essence of what I am describing to you. I find this technique suits my fickle brain far more effectively than trying to meditate on a subject. The sigil contains all the details of the written description preceding it, so all you need do is gaze at the image and contemplate.

The Dilemma of Deity

Within my spiritual practise Cerridwen is perceived as a goddess, but what exactly is a goddess and do they in fact even exist? This book does not expect you to conform to the manner by which I work with and perceive deity. There are a number of ways that people may develop relationship with what some may refer to as a god or goddess, and neither is right or wrong. In that spirit, I do not expect you, the reader, to even be a theist, or an individual that works with deity. Cerridwen is flexible enough to be a psychological component to those who may be atheistic or nontheists. The rise of a figure to the status of deity is a process referred to as apotheosis, and this is important, for often the main complaint and criticism of modern-day Pagan practitioners is that they connect to and are often devoted to deities that may not ever have been identified as such in the past. I shall delve deeper into the function of apotheosis in the coming chapters.

From my perspective, I am a polytheist, and the deities of Celtic Britain are very much a living part of my spiritual expression. All of this will be explored in this book in direct relation to Cerridwen.

Language and the Celts

There is a lot of Welsh in this book, but I ask that you do not despair nor lose heart, for Welsh is not as difficult as people are often led to believe. The Welsh language has the benefit of being phonetic, meaning every single letter is pronounced, unlike many in English. English is my second language, and as such I can tell you from first-hand experience how difficult learning English was; whilst the structure of the English language has rules, there are also numerous exceptions to those rules, which is not the case in the Welsh language.

To not include the Welsh language would do the material and Cerridwen a disservice, for it is the primary language that served to preserve, protect, and disseminate the tales, legends, and poetry that refer to her and her family. But before I commence with the main body of work, it is important to provide you with a brief introduction to what constitutes the term Celtic and what the Welsh language actually is.

Modern Welsh is a widely spoken language for 875,600 people, with at least 100,000 first-language Welsh speakers residing in other parts of the world.³ The language itself evolved from what linguists refer to as the Indo-European family of languages. It is believed that Proto-Indo-European came into being around six thousand years ago and evolved into the cultural melting pot of Europe and parts of Asia. As the people moved steadily across the European landscape, language differentiated into several dialects influenced by the people and their connection to the various lands they settled upon. Indo-European is commonly asserted to have nine branches with various offspring. Celtic is one of those branches, which in turn splits common Celtic and further into two family groups of related but distinct Celtic tongues, insular Celtic (of the British and Irish isles) and continental Celtic, e.g., Celto-Iberian. The insular Celtic languages in turn are categorised as Brittonic or P Celtic, consisting of Breton, Cornish, and Welsh, and the other member being Goidelic or Q Celtic, consisting of Irish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic, and Scots Gaelic.

Whilst biological archaeology can express much about the movement and origins of people, there is another avenue of human exploration: that of culture. The term Celtic does not wholly apply to the archaeology of blood and genetics alone but refers to a cultural continuum that reaches back to the distant past whilst simultaneously being firmly rooted and given expression in the present. All too frequently the term Celtic is utilised in a past-tense manner, and often this is to the expense of the realisation that the Celts are also a people of the now, of today. I am a Celt and my first language is Welsh, which in turn is defined as a Celtic language and as such is connected to the subtle streams of cultural expression that reach back almost three thousand years. Many of the symbols, myths, legends, traditions, and subtle regional artistic expressions of my culture are inherently Celtic; they voice the sum totality of that line of consistency and quiddity.

It is doubtful that any of the perceived ancient Celtic cultures would have identified as Celtic, but there are strong idiosyncrasies that connect these people to each other, such as the use of torcs, the veneration of the head, commonality of artistic style, depositions of precious objects into water, and the style and décor of coins. Particularly telling is the fact that many of these styles of expression remained even after the disruptive Romanisation of the ancient European world. All of this gives credence to a commonality of culture.⁴

Language is a living thing, it is not a relic, and cultures are primarily identified by their use of language. Whilst the Welsh language has evolved and developed over centuries, it still is at its heart a Celtic language similar to that spoken on these lands during the time of the Iron Age Druids, around 2,100 years ago. In fact, the Welsh language is an example, and a rare one at that, of an indigenous language that continues to be widely spoken today. The islands of Britain have many languages that decorate it and add flavour and diversity to our glorious landscape, but it is the Welsh language that has the oldest roots reaching deep into the soil of Britain—a language that J. R. R. Tolkein described as the senior language of the men of Britain.⁵ It is something that was birthed on mainland Europe and then given expression and colour, vibrancy, and vitality by the connection that early Britons had to these islands. In this way it is organic, and the current regional dialects and subtle variations give further credence to a tongue that was very much influenced by the land itself.

However fickle and complicated the term Celtic may appear in its historical countenance, in the twenty-first century it is a term that millions of people who occupy the western flanks of Europe—from Galicia in Spain across Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and Scotland (particularly the western Scottish islands)—connect with as a functionality of their identity.⁶ This identity, whilst sociopolitical for many, is a cauldron of bubbling influences that speaks of a deep, ancient connection to the land. For a people that were often displaced and forced into the western regions of the islands, slaughtered and subjugated to shame and humiliation, we are still here. Even as recently as the nineteenth century, people were humiliated for speaking Welsh in the classrooms, owing to the pecuniary interests of educational institutions to boycott the Welsh language for economic reasons. Simply for speaking their native tongue, Welsh children were often forced to wear a large wooden plaque about their necks called the Welsh Not.⁷

Fundamental to this sense of survival is our identity as peoples who shelter beneath the Celtic umbrella, which in and of itself is an important and deeply healing component of our centuries-long search for rootedness and meaning.⁸ Today music, art, language, and literature unite a people connected by something deeper than blood alone: the spirit of Celtica. Whilst there continues to be much heated argument in academia as to the use and validity of the term Celtic, to an extent the ship of Celticism has sailed, and a new Celtic dawn has risen high into the skies of Western Europe.

With all this in mind, whenever you come across the term Celtic within the pages that follow, I am referring to Celtic as it is used and understood by millions of Celts today, myself included, not to a romantic and idealised version of the past but something that is present right now, in this time. In a manner, the term Celtic is similar in nature to the term Pagan: it is an umbrella. In that spirit, Pagan can shelter and give meaning to those that walk beneath it—Wiccan, Asatru, Druid, etc. Celtic has a similar function: it gives shelter and meaning to the living languages and cultures of Celtica today.

As such, Cerridwen is a living aspect of this cultural continuum, which stretches deep into the distant past. She has developed and evolved, changing her shape and form to suit and fit the needs and wonderings of the people. She has developed in the same manner that the Welsh language has evolved over so many centuries. There is an element of her that transcends location, and her spirit is truly universal, but it is also important and honourable to be mindful of the cultural keys that gave her function and form, and this has been preserved for everyone to enjoy by the Welsh.

As a Welsh person, I can say that we do not own this material nor the keys that provide access to Cerridwen’s mysteries. We are simply custodians of it, caretakers and guardians, not in a possessive sense, for no inspiration could be gleaned from that. Rather, our function as a people is to assist others who are thus moved to discover the beauty, magic, and transformative qualities of the Celtic heart and its deities and spirits whilst honouring our foundations. It is also vitally important to develop nonappropriative practises whilst keeping the source, development, and locality-specific idiosyncrasies of the material in mind. This will lead to a sincere and honourable way to simultaneously respect and work with the material. The often-contentious subject of cultural appropriation and the development of nonappropriative practises will be explored later in this book.

A pronunciation guide is offered to you at the back of this book. In itself this can be a little two-dimensional, therefore, in addition, online videos of the poems, words, terms, and phrases are available for you to watch and listen; please see the resources section at the conclusion of this book for details. These will offer you a deeper insight into the beauty of the language. I also ask that where Welsh versions of devotional practises and prayers are given, you give it your best shot and have a go—nobody is going to judge you, and in my experience the gods certainly like a trier. When using the Welsh language, use the resources I offer and listen deeply to the sounds and the patterns within the sounds, for these are what you will be imitating.

My hope and wish to inspire you is infused into every word of dry ink on paper that follows—every single one of them is written with the intent that maybe, just maybe, you will be moved to develop your own relationship with Cerridwen. When I tell you with utmost conviction that it has totally transformed my life, I do not jest nor say it lightly. For when I sipped from her cauldron, I was destined to never be the same again, and ever since my life has been a rollercoaster of magical experiences. Are you willing to take a similar journey?

Kristoffer Hughes

Isle of Anglesey, Wales

spring 2020

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3 See https://gov.wales/welsh-language-data-annual-population-survey-2019.

4 Aldhouse-Green and Howell, Celtic Wales, 1–12.

5 Davies, The Welsh Language, 1–13.

6 Aldhouse-Green and Howell, Celtic Wales, 13.

7 Davies, The Welsh Language, 75–76.

8 Collis, The Origin and Spread of the Celts, 25.

At the Chair of the Bard

In the days of Arthur, a nobleman lived in the land called today Penllyn. His name was Tegid Foel, and his homestead, according to the story, was a body of water, known today as Llyn Tegid. And the story says that he also had a wife and to her was given the name Cerridwen, and she was learned in the three crafts, which are known as magic, witchcraft, and divination. Also, the tale says that Tegid and Cerridwen had a son, whose looks, shape, and form were terribly ugly. They named him Morfran, meaning sea crow, but owing to his ugliness they eventually called him Afagddu, or utter darkness.

Because of their son’s wretchedness, his mother became very sad in her heart, for there was no obvious means by which her son would win acceptance amongst the learned men of the day unless he beheld qualities markedly different from his looks. And so to deal with this matter, she turned her thoughts towards her craft to see how best she could make him in possession of the prophetic spirit and a great storyteller of the world to come.

After much labouring, she discovered that there was a way of bestowing upon him such knowledge by using the powers of the herbs of the earth and the effort of a human. This was what she must do: gather certain herbs and plants upon certain days and hours, and cast them all into a cauldron of water, then arrange the cauldron upon a fire. This had to be warmed continuously in order to boil the cauldron night and day for as long as a year and a day. Within this allotted time, she would see that three drops, of all the multitude of herbs, would spring forth, and upon whichever man they would fall, she would see that he would be all-knowing in all arts and full of the prophetic spirit. She would also see that the remaining liquid of the herbs, except for the three drops which came before, shall be the most powerful poison there could be in the world, and this shall cause the cauldron to shatter and spill its poison upon the earth.

The body of the story tells how she did collect great numbers of herbs of the earth; these she put into the cauldron of water and placed upon a fire. The story says that she took in an old blind man to stir the cauldron and tend it. The name of the boy who led the old man was Gwion Bach; to him Cerridwen set the task of stoking the fire beneath the cauldron. In this manner, each kept to his task, tending the fire and stirring the cauldron, whilst Cerridwen kept it full of water and herbs until the end of a year and a day.

At that time Cerridwen took her son Morfran and placed him close to the cauldron to receive the drops when their hour of readiness arrived for them to leap out of the cauldron. In that time Cerridwen set her haunches down to rest; in that time she happened to sleep, and during that time the three amazing drops leapt from the cauldron and fell on Gwion Bach, who had pushed Morfran out of the way. And at that the cauldron let out a scream and, owing to the poison, it shattered. At that Cerridwen awoke from her slumber and was enraged to see Gwion, who was filled with knowledge. Gwion in his wisdom sensed her temper was poisonous and that she intended to destroy him totally as soon as she discovered how he had deprived her son of the remarkable drops. At this he took to his feet and fled. Cerridwen, upon recovering from her madness, discovered by enquiring of her son the long account of how Gwion had driven him away from the place she had stationed him.

Cerridwen in her fury ran from the house, her heart pounding in anger that her son, her only son, had been cheated by the young one who had done nothing worthy of the gifts of the cauldron. The skies darkened beneath her anger as clouds billowed and blackened above her with peels of thunder followed by streaks of white-hot light. She lifted her skirts and took to pursuing the young one, who fled for the foothills of the Berwyn Mountains.

A scream rose in Cerridwen’s chest as the sight before her laid claim to Gwion’s possession of the three blessed drops. His arms fell forward with palms striking the ground, and he appeared to run with haste on all four of his limbs. His clothing wisped about him as grey mist and rose almost as smoke into the cooling damp air. A stub of a tail appeared at his rump and his legs buckled and changed their form; his skin morphed from pink and beige into the rusty brown of the soil. With an otherworldly crack his form collapsed in on itself and became smaller. Long, sharp ears sprouted from the head, and with that Gwion Bach had vanished, and in his place ran a hare.

Gwion did not foresee the power of Cerridwen, for the scream that rose from her lungs punched the air about him, a scream like no other and a scream only a mother could invoke. The clap of thunder above the running hare startled the creature to momentarily cower near the ground, and in that moment it turned its head to observe its hunter. With her hands raised she summoned the mighty one of the skies, Taranis, the god of thunder. An eight-spoked wheel appeared in the clouds above and spun furiously. The ensuing lightning blinded the hare, who cowered further as if seeking to become one with the wet grass. The burst of light and simultaneous crack blasted through the crown of Cerridwen’s head. She screamed as her clothing vaporised, her teeth elongated, and her form descended nearer and closer to the ground. Her mouth in a frozen scream lengthened into a snout, and without breaking her pace for a mere second, Cerridwen’s form became that of a slim greyhound. The hare took to its feet and ran with every strength of its being, but the breath of the greyhound was nearing; she would catch him