Ceridwen or Cerridwen ( ''Ke-RID-wen'') was an enchantress in
Welsh medieval legend. She was the mother of a hideous son, Afagddu, and a beautiful daughter,
Creirwy. Her husband was
Tegid Foel Tegid Foel is the husband of Ceridwen in Welsh mythology. His name rendered into English would be "Tacitus the Bald". In folklore, Tegid Foel is associated with Bala Lake, Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake) in Gwynedd and may have been the tutelary deity of tha ...
and they lived near
Bala Lake () in north
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
. Medieval Welsh poetry refers to her as possessing the cauldron of poetic inspiration (
Awen) and the Tale of Taliesin recounts her swallowing her servant Gwion Bach who is then reborn through her as the poet
Taliesin
Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the '' Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts ...
. Ceridwen is regarded by many
modern pagans
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
as the
Celtic goddess of rebirth, transformation, and inspiration.
Etymology
Marged Haycock catalogues various forms of the name in the early texts and in less detail in her edition of the Taliesin poems These mainly occur in manuscripts which have been dated to the 13th century, though they may, of course, be using earlier forms or 13th century adaptations of earlier forms. ''The Black Book of Carmarthen'' gives ‘Kyrridven’. ''Peniarth 3'' gives ‘Kyrrytuen’, ''The Book of Taliesin'' variously gives ‘Cerituen’, ‘Kerrituen’ and ‘Kerritwen’, while ''The Red Book of Hergest'' gives ‘Kerituen’. So ‘-fen’ is the most common termination (a mutated form of archaic ‘ben’ : ‘woman’). The variant forms ‘fen’, ‘uen’ and ‘ven’ are all due to variant scribal practices in the spelling of the sound in the modern letter ‘v’, as is the letter ‘w’, which was also sometimes used for this sound, causing the final syllable to be confused with ‘wen’ as a mutated form of Gwen (fair, blessed) a common ending to Welsh names. So ‘Ceridwen’ as a modern Welsh form of the name. Similarly, the difference between the ‘C’ and the ‘K’ initial consonant is clearly simply a matter of a different spelling convention to represent the hard ‘c’ sound. But the following vowel, ‘y’ or ‘e’ could well represent a shift in actual pronounciation of the vowel sound.
Sir Ifor Williams asserted that ‘Cyrridfen’ is the most likely original form from ‘cwrr’ (bent, angled), so ‘woman with a crooked back’, fitting the stereotype of a witch. Marged Haycock accepts ‘ben’ but questions the first syllable as ‘cyr’, suggesting other possible alternatives which could relate to ‘crynu’ (shake or shiver), or ‘craid’(passionate, fierce, powerful), but also notes her daughter Creirwy, with the first syllable a form of ‘credu’ (belief) and so, by analogy, her mother’s name as Credidfen would mean ‘woman to be believed in’, making the mother’s and daughter’s name stems a pair.
The earliest poems emphasise her keeping of the cauldron of
awen and so a source of poetic inspiration. Cuhelyn Fardd (1100-1130) spoke of being inspired by her muse, while Cynddelw Prydydd Mawr (1155-1200) acknowledged her as the source of his art and Prydydd y Moch at the beginning of the 13th century specifically mentions the cauldron of Kyridfen as the source of the gift of
awen. These and other references by identified bards are in addition to the many references by unidentified bards in ''The Book of Taliesin''.
Legend
According to the late medieval ''Tale of Taliesin'', included in some modern editions of the ''
Mabinogion
The ''Mabinogion'' () are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, create ...
'', Ceridwen's son,
Morfran (also called
Afagddu
Morfran (Middle Welsh: ''Moruran'' "cormorant"; literally "sea crow", from ''môr'', "sea", and ''brân'', "crow", from Common Brittonic *''mori-brannos'', as in French ''cormoran'' < L ''corvus marinus'') is a figure ...
), was hideously ugly – particularly compared with his beautiful sister
Creirwy – 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
Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the '' Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts ...
, 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
A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of s ...
(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. She threw him in the ocean instead, sewing him inside a leather-skin bag (or set him in a
coracle, depending on the story). The child did not die, but was rescued on a Welsh shore – near
Aberdyfi
Aberdyfi (), also known as Aberdovey ( ), is a village and community in Gwynedd, Wales, located on the northern side of the estuary of the River Dyfi.
The population of the community was 878 at the 2011 census. The electoral ward had a larger ...
according to most versions of the tale – by a prince named
Elffin ap Gwyddno; the reborn infant grew to become the legendary bard
Taliesin
Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the '' Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts ...
.
Later interpretations
It has been suggested that Ceridwen first appeared as a simple sorceress character in the ''Tale of Taliesin''. Its earliest surviving text dates from the mid-16th century, but it appears from its language to be a 9th-century composition, according to Hutton. References to Ceridwen and her cauldron found in the work of the 12th century or Poets of the Princes (such as
Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr) he thus considers later, derivative works. In them, according to Hutton, Ceridwen is transformed from a sorceress into a goddess of poetry. Citing this and a couple of other examples, Hutton proposes that the substantially created a new mythology not reflective of earlier paganism.
[Ronald Hutton, ''The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy'', Blackwell Publishing, 1993, p. 323] Nonetheless, references to Ceridwen's cauldron (''pair Ceridwen'') are also to be found in some of the early mythological poems attributed to the legendary Taliesin in the ''
Book of Taliesin
The Book of Taliesin ( cy, Llyfr Taliesin) is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before ...
''.
The Victorian poet
Thomas Love Peacock also wrote a poem entitled the ''Cauldron of Ceridwen''. Later writers identified her as having originally been a pagan goddess, speculating on her role in a supposed Celtic pantheon.
John Rhys
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
in 1878 referred to the Solar Myth theory of
Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian ...
according to which "Gwenhwyfar and Ceridwen are dawn goddesses." Charles Isaac Elton in 1882 referred to her as a "white fairy".
Robert Graves
Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...
later fitted her into his concept of the
Threefold Goddess, in which she was interpreted as a form of the destructive side of the goddess. In
Wicca
Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was ...
, Ceridwen is a goddess of change and rebirth and transformation and her cauldron symbolizes knowledge and inspiration.
Cerridwen: Keeper of the Cauldron
/ref>
See also
* Finn MacCool and the legend of the Salmon of Knowledge
The Salmon of Knowledge ( ga, An Bradán Feasa) is a creature in the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology, sometimes identified with Fintan mac Bóchra, who was known as "The Wise" and was once transformed into a salmon.
Fenian Cycle
The Salmon sto ...
*Fáfnismál
''Fáfnismál'' (''Fáfnir's sayings'') is an Poetic Edda, Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript. The poem is unnamed in the manuscript, where it follows ''Reginsmál'' and precedes ''Sigrdrífumál'', but modern scholars regard it as a ...
*Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire
Cottingham is a large village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England with average affluence. It lies north-west of the centre of Kingston upon Hull, and south-east of Beverley on the eastern edge o ...
which was possibly named after Ceridwen.
References
{{Authority control
Fictional characters who use magic
Fictional witches
Welsh mythology
Witchcraft in folklore and mythology