Commentary on the Charge of the Goddess 13: Arianrhod

Arianrod; 

Sources and Influences

BAM: -

Thealogy

Arianrod (or Arianrhod) is a somewhat ambivalent figure from Welsh mythology; she is actually portrayed as a rather vindictive and cruel magical figure. This account is taken from Lady Charlotte Guest's translation of her myth in Graves's White Goddess ( Robert Graves: The White Goddess (amended and enlarged edition). Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1961.), with reference to the use he makes of this myth. 

The myth features characters whom Graves treats as both humans and Gods. In the index to the book he defines Math as 'king of Gwynedd', yet the other two main characters are Arianrhod and Gwydion, whom Graves defines as Goddess and God; obviously the court of Gwynedd was populated by both mortals and the divine, since Aianrhod is the king's niece. Graves prefaces the tale by commenting that Math is pictured as a sacred king, and his power lies in his feet, which are protected when he is not in battle by being held in the lap of a priestess, the foot-holder being a powerful office in this part of Wales which survived into the Middle Ages, when it was held by a man. After an attempt to overturn his kingship, Math marries his niece Arianrhod.

Math asks Gwydion what woman he should look for, and receives the advice to seek out his niece Arianrhod, who comes to the king, and he tests whether she is the right one by bending his magic wand and telling her to step over it. Arianrhod does this, at which a yellow-haired boy appears, and she goes to the door. Another small form appears, but before anyone can see it clearly Gwydion hides it, wrapped up in a velvet scarf, in a chest at the bottom of his bed.

Math resolves to have the yellow-haired child baptised (thereby adding another level of ambivalence to this tale), which is done in the sea, in which he swims like a fish, and so is called Dylan, the son of the sea.

One morning Gwydion hears a cry from the chest at the foot of the bed, and finds inside a baby boy, which he gives to a woman to be looked after for a year. The boy grows prodigiously, appearing to be aged two after one year, and after two years, able to go to Court by himself. He remains at the Court and continues to grow quickly. Gwydion takes the boy to Arianrhod's castle, and on walking into her Court, tells her that the boy is her child. Arianrhod protests at Gwydion's dishonouring of her, and resolves that the boy will not have a name, unless he is named by her. Gwydion retorts that he would give the boy a name which would displease Arianrhod, since she is annoyed that she can no longer be considered a damsel.

The next day Gwydion takes the boy for a walk on the sea shore, where he turns some sedges and sea weed into a boat, and dry sticks into leather. He and the boy sail to the port of Arianrhod's castle, where he starts making shoes out of the leather he has created, until he realises he is overlooked by the inhabitants of the castle, and changes the appearances of himself and the boy so that they will not be recognised. Arianrhod sends a servant to find out what work they can do.

Gwydion makes two pairs of shoes for Arianrhod out of the leather; one pair is too large, and the other two small, so he asks to see her feet so that he can make shoes the right size. When Arianrhod goes to the boat, the boy shoots at a wren, killing it, and Arianrhod comments, ''With a steady hand did the lion aim at it.' Gwydion tells her that she has given the boy a name, Llew Llaw Gyffes, 'the lion with a steady hand', at which the leather and boat return to sedges and seaweed, and the true appearance of the boy is restored. Arianrhod is angry at this and tells Gwyion that doing evil to her will not benefit him, but he replies that he has not yet done her any evil. So Arianrhod decrees the boy's destiny: that he can only have arms and armour if she gives them to him.

Gwydion brings up Llew Llaw Gyffes until he is grown up, when Gwydion once again takes him to Arianrhod's castle, by horse this time, with their appearances changed to that of two young men, and they are announced at Court, as bards. Arianrhod welcomes them, gives them a feast, they regale her with stories, and she gives them a bed for the night. In the night Gwydion summons his magical power, and the castle wakes to find it is under siege from the sea. Arianrhod prepares to do battle and arms the two guests, only to find she has been tricked again. So this time she lays the fate on Llew Llaw Gyffes that he will never find a wife from those on earth. Gwydion tells her that she is a malicious woman.

Next Gwydion goes to King Math and tells him what Arianrhod has done, and they agree together to make Llew Llaw Gyffes a wife from the blossoms of the oak, the broom, and the meadow-sweet, which they shape into a woman, whom they baptise Blodeuwedd. Llew Llaw Gyffes marries Blodeuwedd, and Math gives them a castle to live in, and Llew Llaw Gyffes rules over that part of Wales.

One day, while Llew Llaw Gyffes is away visiting Math, Blodeuwedd invites a hunter, tired from hunting buck, Gronw Pebyr, into the castle. They fall in love with each other, he stays the night, and she will not let him leave the next day. They try to find a way to stay together always, and Gronw Pebyr tells Blodeuwedd to find out from Llew Llaw Gyffes how he will die. The next day she still will not let him go, despite his fear of Llew Llaw Gyffes's return, and insists he stay another day, leaving on the day Llew Llaw Gyffes does return.

Llew Llaw Gyffes's return that evening is greeted with feasting, but the next day Blodeuwedd will not speak to him, and when he asks her what is wrong, tells him that she is worried that he will die before her, and so asks him how he can be killed. He tells her that he can only be killed by a weapon that has been a year in the making, and only during the sacrifice on Sundays. Blodeuwedd expresses her relief at the difficulty of the necessary circumstances to kill Llew Llaw Gyffes: a bath in a cauldron with a well-thatched roof, must be made beside a river, and a buck made to stand beside the cauldron. Llew Llaw Gyffes can only by killed when he has one foot on the buck, and the other on the edge of the cauldron.

Blodeuwedd tells Gronw Pebyr this, and he starts making the spear. A year later, when it is ready, Blodeuwedd expresses her surprise to Llew Llaw Gyffes at the circumstances necessary for his death, and asks him to show her how he could possible stand with one foot on a bath and one on a buck, if she prepares the cauldron for him. He agrees to do this. Blodeuwedd has Gronw Pebyr waiting in ambush when Llew Llaw Gyffes gets into the bath. And when Llew Llaw Gyffes stands on the edge of the cauldron with one foot on a buck, Gronw Pebyr shoots him with a poisoned arrow. Llew Llaw Gyffes gives a scream, flies up in the form of an eagle, and is never seen again. Gronw Pebyr takes over the kingship of his kingdom from him.

Gwydion seeks to find out what has happened to his nephew, since he is greatly distressed at his disappearance. He is staying at the house of a vassal that one of the sows is let out each day and not seen until it returns, and so the next day Gwydion follows the sow and he finds her beside a river feeding on putrid flesh, which has fallen to the ground after an eagle in a tree shakes itself. Gwydion recognises the eagle is Llew, and charms it down to his knee by singing to it, and when it lands on his knee, he strikes it with his magic wand, and the eagle returns to its true shape as Llew.

It is not clear from the myth in the version above that Arianrhod is a Goddess, but her inclusion here could be attributed more to Graves's interpretation of Arianrhod. He conflates her with the Greek Goddess Ariadne, and with his White Goddess, who ultimately becomes the virgin Mary. In Graves's comments on this myth the theme of syncretising myths from different ages and places appears, and after all the key thealogy of the Charge is that of a Great Mother, who is given different names by different peoples:

'Arianrhod ('Silver Wheel') ... is a leading character in the Romance of Math the Son of Mathonwy. No one familiar with the profuse variants of the same legend in every body of European myth can have doubts about her identity. She is the mother of the usual Divine Fish-Child Dylan who, after killing the usual Wren (as the New Year Robin does on St Stephen's day) becomes Llew Llaw Gyffes, ... the usual handsome and accomplished Sun-hero with the usual Heavenly Twin at his side. Arianrhod then adopts the form of Blodeuwedd, the usual Love-goddess, treacherously (as usual) destroys Llew Llaw – the story is at least as old as the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic – and is then transformed first into the usual Owl of Wisdom and then into the usual Old-Sow-who-eats-her-farrow; so feeds on Llew's dead flesh. But Llew, whose soul has taken the form of the usual eagle, is then, as usual, restored to life....'  (Ibid, pp. 97-98.)

Graves's interpretations of the mythologies he dealt with in The White Goddess have been widely criticised, but Hutton asserts that he wanted the book, despite its subject matter of the bard and poetic inspiration, to be treated not as 'a personal poetic reverie but as an authentic work of history, an accurate portrait of the Old Religion.' ( Ronald Hutton: The Triumph of the Moon. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, p. 42) The White Goddess was first published in 1948, and its possible influence on Gardner and Valiente may be indicated by the fact that Arianrhod does not appear among the Goddess names in the BAM version of the Charge. Graves's work has certainly been influential in modern Paganism, although opinions are divided as to whether to approach it poetically or historically, showing its contribution to the currents of magical transformation, the dissolution of the boundary between magic and religion or the mundane world, the presence of the divine in human life. 

This is precisely Gardner's own understanding of Arianrod. In The Meaning of Witchcraft he brings her into the central mythology of Wicca by commenting on her having a divine consort, exactly the relationship between Goddess and God in Wicca, and connects her to the witch-cult in the significance of her leaping over a magic wand, which he sees both as a phallic symbol, and connected to the traditional witches' broomstick.  (Gerald Gardner: The Meaning of Witchcraft. Weiser Books, York Beach, 2004.)