Rhiannon, The Tale of a Goddess & how it relates to mere mortals such as ourselves.
My first blog concerned an early development of my painting called Rhiannon. Rhiannon is a Celtic Horse Goddess, she is also known as Epona. There are many myths that surround the Goddess Rhiannon, I do not want to delve too deeply into these as they are very well documented elsewhere & there is much information about her, which I have included but I wanted to outline some of the information before I portray her & blog about my interpretation of her.
Many that follow the Goddess know of Rhiannon as the Queen of Fairies, a Triple Goddess, a spring-time Goddess, a Moon Goddess, a Dream Goddess but she is also a Life & Death Goddess so encompasses personal transformation as the full story of Rhiannon & Pwyll, King of the new tribes of Dyved depicts.
It was written that when Pwyll, Lord of the Summerland was out hunting one day, he saw a beautiful golden-haired maiden on a magnificent white mare & wished to know her better. So he gave chase upon his own steed but however fast he chased her, he could not catch her & his horse was tiring so in desperation he cried out to her to stop & because he asked her she did, chastising him over the state of his horse! Here she is the elusive Fairy Goddess, who shows a deep connection with the Otherworld of Fairy but also depicts the maiden in the part of the triple. They fall in love as Pwyll courts her but has to prove his worth to her by following her into the Otherworld of Fairy. Here he has to thwart other suitors and aspects of the Otherworld. When he does this Rhiannon must leave the world of Fairy so they can marry. This they do, they rule together & later have a son. One day, Rhiannon & her ladies fall into a deep, enchanted sleep & the boy is stolen away. When the ladies awake they see he has vanished and not wanting to take responsibility, fearing only for their reputations, smear puppy blood on Rhiannon & scatter the bones of that animal around her. Thus, Pwyll believes it was she that murdered their offspring and so forces her to live to like a mare, and to stand on a block outside the castle for 7 years. She was to take guests on her back after telling them what she had done, but few would ride her due to her dignified beauty. After 2 years she is reunited with her son & she was accepted as queen once again. There are many other sides to this tale but this is the aspect I want to concentrate on.
There is so much more to this story, for example Pwyll has to enter the Otherworld & Rhiannon helps him because she loves him as he does her but she knows that entering this realm is no task for the mere mortal and gives him the tools he needs to prove himself as a hero. This he does & even though he has her assistance he IS a hero. However, despite this Pwyll is is also still a human and this much is proved when he does not believe that the woman he loves, the mother of their son & a Goddess has NOT murdered their son.
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| Rhiannon - Trac Davies© |
It always strikes me that in these tales, just as in real life there is always someone willing to make someone else a scapegoat for their mistakes. When I state this, it is obvious that it isn't just these women that have the responsibility for Pwyll & Rhiannon's son but Rhiannon herself. However, because of circumstances beyond anybody's control, they all fall into this deep, enchanted sleep just before the boy is taken, so they are all equally responsible for his welfare. Yet these women wake first, instead of waking their lady and being dignified and honest in their response towards a tragedy that is really beyond anyone's control & sharing this responsibility, they lay the blame entirely on Rhiannon. Men are sometimes very brave but they can also be very stupid, just as women can be too and instead of believing the evidence of his own heart, he turns against the woman that he loves and humiliates her.
In life, as in these tales of mythical allegory, there is always at least one time in our life that we have something that happens like this. A situation occurs; it might well be one that is caused by a sum of all the people involved, it might be someone's doing but which they refuse to take the responsibility for, it might be a deep emotion that overtakes the person that is scapegoating others or it might be a genuine mistake, it could be anything. In these situations a group of people will end up pointing the finger at someone who, for some reason can't fully defend themselves or prove that they are not totally responsible for that situation. We all go through it but when we do, the best thing we can do is draw lessons from Rhiannon's humiliation.
Rhiannon is in the form of a white mare with a golden mane & tail runs under a full moon, this underlies the connection she has with the moon. In the tarot the moon underlines the secretive and shows a scene that is in black & white but with varying grey shadows. It is the grey areas which makes situations like these so hard to bear because a person that has been falsely accused of something doesn't really get to know the full story & they do not understand in total how this has come about. However, I have not made my landscape grey, just confusing like under the moon it can be. I have placed the full moon in a stormy sky underlining the fact that when these situations occur they really do cause problems for the accused and cause a stormy atmosphere whenever this set of people are involved, yet the sky around the moon itself is clearer, these times do not last forever and stormy skies do clear.
Rhiannon is in the form of a white mare because here she has been cast out by the ones she loves, forced to be as a horse & is vocally unable to defend herself or explain the situation that has happened. As a horse she is mute & especially to the human ear for people really cannot understand what a horse is truly trying to say. People do not listen when they feel they know the truth, they rarely listen to the lone voice & when accused, one might as well be a horse!
A horse is a delicate animal whilst being paradoxically very strong, often those that have been falsely accused have to be very strong to withstand the lies and slander but at the same times this is happening feel pretty vulnerable and very fragile.
The steam pours off Rhiannon because dealing with false accusations is hard work, it makes you inwardly sweat each time you are faced with an aspect of the situation which you know that you have not fully caused but are being accused of, and in addition, you don't really know the full story of what has occurred, just that somehow it is your fault.
She is running through a wilderness, again depicting that you really are out there on your own with the elements when you have been accused of something that you didn't do & people that you have always thought close believe it. Around her hooves is a tangled mess & she herself is tied up with it. These are the accusations and sometimes downright lies that has been placed at her feet, they try and trip her up as she blunders through her own personal landscape but she keeps her footing & does not falter.
Her body is that of a horse from celtic times but it is white and glows in the landscape, the truth will eventually shine out as she so clearly does, running through this massive tangled undergrowth, clearing her own way whilst still being part of it.
Her front legs & hooves are misty & appear to be fading into the background. When false accusations are laid at your door people stop seeing you. In general they only see the mess that has been caused, you become less in other people's eyes. As she runs part of her is misty, but she manages to retain both balance and composure, she does not vanish & become the mess herself.
One of her back legs is of a celtic design, underlying the celtic story of Rhiannon but the celtic design enters through her hooves & are part of the mess or accusations that she is running through. This only serves to strengthen who she is rather than weaken her, for it might appear as a brand but we make the foundations of our lives from the rocks that have been hurled at us & once we have our footing, we can do this successfully.
The undergrowth is strange, it appears to be there but not there, it is patchy. Accusations often are because they are often based on a past landscape. This depicts that sometimes a broken little-known past can have great consequences on a life that is of the now and sometimes can impact on the future.
Her eyes are a nebula & they are looking right at you. She has no fear of her accusers, she is dignified and will face you head on, she does not look where she is going, she does not look where she has been. She looks at YOU, her accuser & the truth of her being, her quiet dignity, her attempt to keep going when all else is stacked against her, shows that not only truth will out, she WILL be transformed for the better by this situation & she has not been undignified by the accusations - you the accuser have.
Further reading:
The Mabinogion. - Lady Charlotte Guest. For further explanation see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabinogion
The Ancient British Goddess. - Kathy Jones. This is an excellent book to introduce to the more serious reader many different aspects of the Goddess in Britain. There is an extensive chapter on Rhiannon, here we can learn about so many if not all of her forms. For more information; http://www.kathyjones.co.uk/the-ancient-british-goddess-2/
The White Goddess. - Robert Graves; for an overal explanation of this book see; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Goddess
http://feminismandreligion.com/2013/03/13/rhiannon-goddess-of-birds-and-horses/
http://www.mabinogion.info/rhiannon.htm
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Trac Davies - Artist
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