It's been a whirlwind of life since October, full of big changes. And the journey continues. CW: loss and grief
Photo: A verdant grass-covered mound visible near Stonehenge (2013). I do not know its name or if it has one.
I wrestled with whether or not to write this. I am aware that virtually everyone experiences grief and loss, and I do not want to make mine seem like some sort of attention-seeking. However, it has been a looming factor in my life for a while now, and so I shall write about it in case it might help someone else, and also because it is hard for me to think of other things, at times.
I am currently, and have been for a couple of years now, going through the slow and painful loss of a close family member to severe dementia. Nothing quite brings me back down to gritty reality, quite strips the romance and enchantment from life, like the world-shattering pain of grief. (The only thing that comes close, in my personal experience, are the horrors of abuse, although I'm sure there are other contenders, as I in many ways am lucky to have a life of much privilege.)
It is not my first time losing a close loved one or friend. I find it easier at this point to count relatives who are still alive, and I'm only 39. But, it is the first time for me that it has happened to their mind, forcing me to watch powerlessly as they gradually wither away and lose themselves, slowly slipping into oblivion until death, when it finally comes, will be begrudgingly welcomed as a relief. This past Calan Gaeaf was particularly hard, as I could barely bring myself to stand at my ancestor altar, knowing this is where I will soon have to place a new photo, although I of course know not exactly when.
Shining Rider of the Road We All Must Travel
In the religious sense, I am first and foremost a dedicant of Rhiannon -- the Divine Queen and one of the Great Mothers, but also, in my personal experience, She is associated strongly with grief and death. It is an association I have made since many years before I knew my now-fading loved one's fate. I also gleaned it before knowing about similar parallels in the worship of the ancient goddess Epona. I have had more than one personal experience of interacting with Her where She appears to be in a psychopomp-like role or has spoken of death in a very intimate way. I consider these experiences to be SPG (Shared Personal Gnosis), as I am not the only person who has experienced this side of Her. A prominent example that springs to mind is that of Kristoffer Hughes, a person who, as a coroner (Hughes, 2014, p. 2), is far more intimately acquainted with death than I and describes Rhiannon as "the sorrowful queen, the embodiment of grief and bereavement, compassion and humility" in his book The Book of Celtic Magic (Hughes, 2014/2020, p. 83).
As far as evidence from the lore, there is of course nothing that blatantly states "Rhiannon is a goddess of grief and death" from primary sources. However, that does not mean there is no evidence. Rhiannon is the only figure from the whole of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi who is described as emerging from a mound, and mounds have long been associated with death, ancestors, and the Tylwyth Teg (Fair Folk) across Celtic cultures, including the Welsh. What's more, in the First Branch, She emerges from the mound the sacred number of 3 times, proving the ease with which She can traverse between the worlds, and each time it is at evening (itself a time often symbolizing liminality and the closing of life). She does this dressed in a "shining golden garment of brocaded silk" (Davies, 2007, p. 8) while riding on a large pale white horse and moving as if outside of time. As She rides out from the mound, She appears to move steadily by those viewing from a distance, but in reality, as one gets closer to Her, they find She is going so fast as to never be caught -- just as life seems, in objective outside observation, to go by at a steady pace, but as soon as you try to pin down a moment of it, you find it is slipping away from you faster than you can ever hope to capture it. This is just one of many symbolic ways I interpret this passage; it is not solely a metaphor for the inability to hold onto time and to life, in my mind, but I will leave my other interpretations for a more relevant post.
Rhiannon also has 3 birds whose song lulls the living to sleep and wakes the dead, reminisce of the death and (re)birth portion of the life-death-(re)birth cycle (Davies, 2007, p. 196). Theirs is a song that always seems near even if the birds themselves appear to be far away (Davies, 2007, p. 33). Here again, we have the warping of space-time and, to me at least, what could be a metaphor for the fact that death can be near to us even if it seems like it should be far out on the horizon of our concerns. The theme of grief, and softening its sting, is also tied into Rhiannon's birds, who sang their magical song for 7 years to ease the grief of the friends and brothers of the colossal giant and high king Brân, whose head was severed in war in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi (Davies, 2007, p. 32-3). The birds were also demanded by the giant chief Ysbaddaden in Culhwch and Olwen specifically for their song to soothe him on the night before his death (Davies, 2007, p. 196). It would appear then, even just solely from Her birds, that Rhiannon has some fairly direct associations with death -- and more specifically with soothing grief and the death-to-(re)birth arc of the circle of life.
Photo: A close-up of the statue I use to represent Rhiannon. She is standing partially nude, with revealed left breast and abdomen and arms, with the left leg also mostly revealed, and flowing fabric over Her in a Greco-Roman style -- the style the ancient statues of Celtic gods were done in post-Roman colonization. A small gold star is on the fabric above Her right breast. Her right hand is running through Her own hair above a diadem on Her head, while Her back and left arm are reclining on a large white horse with grey mane and tail which is standing behind Her, facing to Her right. The statue has some overlaps with Gallo-Roman depictions of Epona, not because I think They are identical, but because to me it represents Their overlaps and that Rhiannon's roots are highly likely to be far older than the medieval period.
Ancient Gaulish Parallels
Turning to comparative analyses: in addition to the usual horse(s), the ancient Gaulish goddess Epona [meaning: divine horse] was also sometimes depicted in Her iconography with ravens, those well-known symbols of death (Green, 1989, p. 18) -- Rhiannon also has birds who are associated with death, although it is not attested in the Welsh literature what type of birds Rhiannon's birds are, to my knowledge. However, raven song is also not frequently thought of by humans as sweet or soothing, so the similarity is merely in the birds and not necessarily in the type. There are also several known ancient depictions of Epona with dogs (Green, 1989, pp. 17-18), which were symbolic of healing, hunting, the underworld (there's that death symbolism again), and fertility (Green, 1992, pp. 197-205). In addition, dogs were a common attribute across Gaulish and Brythonic goddess carvings "of a general mother-goddess type" (Green, 1992, p. 201) -- immediately upon motherhood, Rhiannon was framed for Her newborn son's death in the First Branch specifically with the blood of newborn dogs, tying in themes of both death and loss alongside birth and fertility simultaneously within the same event. (In Welsh culture, dogs are also symbolic of fierce warriors in praise poetry such as in Stanzas 9 and 21 of the Gododdin.) Of course, the foal -- often suckling Epona's mare or lying at rest beneath Her -- is also often present in Epona's iconography (Green, 1989, pp. 20-1). Pryderi, Rhiannon's son, was born on the same night as a foal which was then later given to him, a literary device often referred to as "twinning".
Epona's more common epithets in archaeological inscription remains, to my knowledge, are Rigana (Gaulish: "queen" -- a direct cognate of the root of the word Rhiannon) and Regina (Latin: "queen") and Augusta (Latin: "august; majestic/venerable/supreme), although it should be noted She is not the only Gaulish goddess with these epithets. Much of Epona's iconography depicts Her with the attributes common to the Mother Goddesses and granters of fertility and abundance of the land, even sometimes being depicted alongside the Matres or in triplicate Herself in the style of the Matres (Green, 1989, pp. 17 & 21-22). Epona's imagery has been found not at one specific body of water or healing spring (as is often the case with other more local, less supra-regionally worshipped ancient Celtic deities) but across a number of healing springs, and in at least one site, She was depicted in relation to other Gallo-Roman deities of healing, namely Apollo and Stirona (Green, 1989, p. 17). Statuary of Epona has also been found at ancient gravesites (alongside more blatant death deities such as Erecura) and holding keys, a common attribute of psychopomps (Green, 1989, pp. 18-19). In addition, Epona's feast day was Eponalia, observed as part of the popular winter celebrations of Saturnalia on 18 December (Green, 1989, p. 23). I find this a bit too conveniently aligning with the timing of the still-ongoing horse skull tradition of the Mari Lwyd from Christmas to New Year's time in Wales.
Rhiannon's father is given in the Mabinogi as (H)euf(e)ydd Hen (sometimes written Hyfaidd) -- Heufydd the Old. His name is cognate with the Gaulish god Ogmios (you may recognize the name as cognate with the more obviously linguistically related Irish Oghma as well) (Rhys, 1908, p. 62). Also depicted as old, Ogmios was the god of eloquence and binding, bearing chthonic associations with death and the underworld (Brunaux, 1988, p. 72; Lucian, pp. 63-7; MacCana, pp. 37-41). If Heufydd Hen's lost Welsh lore likewise painted Him as a master of eloquence (and it may or may not have), then Rhiannon certainly inherited this trait from Him. Here again, too, is a known god from the ancient pre-Christian Celtic world who is tied to themes of death -- and His Welsh linguistic cognate is Rhiannon's father in the Mabinogi.
Image: Epona, "Relief der Pferdegöttin Epona aus Schwarzenacker im Römermuseum Schwarzenacker" By Lokilech - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11606235
Epona and Rhiannon are clearly not identical, and I am not trying to imply They are. Epona is Gaulish and Rhiannon is Welsh and likely Brittonic before that. Their places of origin and the majority of Their attestations are separated not only by the Channel but also by hundreds of years. There is no ancient direct written evidence spelling out that Epona and Rhiannon are related, and unlike some other figures in Welsh literature, Their names are not linguistically cognate, although Rhiannon's name does have the tell-tale theonymic suffix -on. Ronald Hutton, rather famously, in Pagan Britain, says "There is no trace of a widespread cult of Epona in Britain ... and no solid evidence for a native British horse goddess" (2013, p. 367).
I respect Hutton's work, but I have to disagree, because his stance does not take into account the reality we are dealing with. Almost nothing written survives concerning pre-Christian Celtic religion in the first place, especially before Roman contact. The same can be said of physical remains of images or writing to deities. They are virtually non-existent in Celtic regions before Roman occupation, and for Britain in particular, the Roman occupation was quite late and butted right up against the importing of Christianity, leaving little time for native British culture (as opposed to imported Roman or Gallo-Roman culture) to take up interpretatio Romana for their own deities or to leave statuary and written votives to their gods. It appears in fact that the pre-Roman Celtic cultures did not make statues and inscription dedications to their gods for us to find -- it was not a part of native culture. Therefore, to insist on the presence of these in order to even consider the existence of any pre-Roman Celtic deity is to dismiss most possibilities out of hand. At the end of the day, we simply cannot say for certain, but things need not be known without a shadow of a doubt in order to consider the evidence of their possibility.
Personally, I do not require something to be literally carved in ancient stone that spells out "Rhiannon and Epona are related" in order to consider it probable. I'm a big fan of Occam's Razor. Given that we do not have a whole lot to go on regarding Epona in the first place, and even less to go on from the pre-Christian archaeological record of the island of Britain, I find an uncanny amount of what we do have lines up quite thematically well to point to a possible shared origin between Epona and Rhiannon, especially when taken all together. Other pre-Christian Gallo-Roman goddesses were also depicted as mothers, with dogs, or birds, or keys (I do struggle to think of any goddesses besides Epona depicted with horses and foals -- that was pretty solidly Her schtick). It is, however, the case that I do not know of any other pre-Christian Gallo-Roman goddesses who are depicted as mothers and with dogs and with birds and with keys and with horses and foals and have an epithet of "queen", and all of these together align very well with what we have of Rhiannon's story in Wales.
Again, this is not to say that I think They are identical. I do not. But I do think They have some sort of relation (evolution? ancestry?) -- They have overlaps which are beyond merely circumstantial, and Their relationship is a far cry from Ronald Hutton's claim that "all that Rhiannon and Epona have in common is a horse" (Hutton, 2013, p. 366).
Photo: An adaptation of the Missing Man Table which is used to honor the missing and fallen in the U.S. military. I set up this adaptation as a place to honor the dead in general at our Bangor University Earth Religions Society's Calan Gaeaf/Samhain/Halloween potluck in 2015. A black chair with shiny steel legs is propped forward against a small square table (a round table was not available). The table is covered in a white cloth (here symbolizing death and spirit) that is topped with a candle (symbolizing the light and warmth of hope and to draw spirits to the table), an upside-down glass (symbolizing the inability of the dead to physically share in the meal with us), a place-setting of silverware (symbolizing our wish for them to take part with us to the extent they are able), and a plain white round plate with a halved lemon on the plate (representing the bitterness of loss) and some loose salt on the plate (representing our tears as well as the Earth to which we must all return).
The Song of the Birds of Rhiannon
Rhiannon is a goddess of autonomy and sovereignty (among other things). It can be easy, especially at times like this when we must watch our closest loved ones slip into the realm of the ancestors, to view Death as the ultimate sovereign -- ruling, eventually, over us all. I will admit that I sometimes sink into this defeatist, despairing doom of a thought pattern like Artax sinking into the Swamps of Sadness (this is a Neverending Story reference, for those who don't know -- a more fitting image than I at-first realized when I first wrote this down, given Artax is a white horse). Knowing Her own death associations, I thought Rhiannon would expect me to be more accepting and resigned to the fate that we all share. I expected Her to remind me that all of us small, insignificant little mortal beings experience this, and to find comfort in that. But when I went to Her with my grief, that is not what happened -- for the Divine Queen of death is also and simultaneously a Divine Queen of (re)birth, is also a caring mother who worries and grieves for Her son and mortal husband, is also the one who brings the sweet song-balm of heart's peace to the broken and grieving.
The song of the Birds of Rhiannon is a song of soothing. A song that brings repose, but also breathes new life into the dead. Both of these seemingly polar opposite ends are accomplished via the same means, reminding us that death and (re)birth are two sides of the same coin, part of the same cycle. The song of the birds of Rhiannon, and Her caring mother's embrace, brought me peace and compassion, sympathy and empathy, not the cold, neutral impersonality of death itself -- and I was brought to tears of thankfulness and relief and love.
Gentle is Her hand upon the eyes of the passing. Hail Rhiannon.
Sources Referenced
Brunaux, Jean-Louis (1988). The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries. London, Great Britain: B.A. Seaby.
Davies, Sioned. (Trnsl). (2007). The Mabinogion. Oxford University Press.
Green, Miranda. (1989). Symbol & Image in Celtic Religious Art. Routledge, London.
Green, Miranda. (1992). Animals in Celtic Life and Myth. Routledge, London.
Hughes, Kristoffer. (2014). A Pagan's Perspective on Death, Dying & Bereavement: As the Last Leaf Falls. Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota.
Hughes, Kristoffer. (2020, 8th printing). The Book of Celtic Magic: Transformative Teachings from the Cauldron of Awen. Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota. Original publication 2014.
Hutton, Ronald. (2013). Pagan Britain. Yale University Press. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vm0m8.13
Lucian, (1913). The Works of Lucian : with an English translation. Translated by A.M. Harmon. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/lucianiii130luci/page/74/mode/2up
MacCana, Proinsias. (1970). Celtic Mythology. Feltham, Hamlyn.
Rhys, John. (1908). All Around the Wrekin in Y Cymmrodor, vol. XXI. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/cu31924028058059/page/n71/mode/2up
Comments