Altar of Rhiannon

This poem and image were created without the full knowledge of the story that so eloquently fits it.  While creating Deliverance, I felt the need to draw an image that came back to me from my earlier years.  I understood the feeling of being so lonely in the world and wanting to be delivered of all my sorrows.  Through the Goddess I saw the white horse, a shining image of purity and radiance of my childhood.  Though it is magical and solitary, the beast so delicate and fragile only came to the maiden who could see what inner beauty it truly possesses and harnesses from the veils of its eternal forests.  The horse is a sacred animal intimately linked to the feminine that men in Celtic myth often found hard to capture.  The horse Goddess Rhiannon is one such example of a woman on horseback who could not be caught, no matter how hard her pursuers rode.  Because the horse is linked to the darker reaches of the Otherworld and of the mother aspect of the Goddess, it is also linked with blood.  These journeys are often a gift given in recognition of one's efforts to find the source for all creation.  The woman, barren of all clothes, defiled yet radiant in her own way, through the miracle of life that grows within her can ride the white horse because of her inner flight to freedom.  In that way she has gained the wings of angels, become a goddess to all women who face the trials put upon them.  Rhiannon is dear to me for these reasons and more.  As I came back from college and began to fall into a cycle of old memories, I asked to be delivered once again into happiness though my inner truths.  I found the similarities of my drawing and the Goddess quite striking and so it becomes Rhiannon's image that comforts me through my trials.  

Rhiannon's Song

Sketch& Poem by Autumn J. Laird

"I should be delivered of my care if that were true.

Deliver Me

To my home

the place where my spirit can soar

and be the bird

whose wings are free

yet there are no feathers for me

only a limitless mind

to call my sea

and deliver me

to the place where my spirit can ride

and be the horse

whose legs can carry me far & wide

yet there are no hoofs for me

only a limitless heart

to call my fields

and deliver me

to the place where my spirit can run

and be the wolf

whose nose can smell the way back home

yet there is no fur to keep me warm

only my intuition

to guide me back where I belong

And Deliver me

to the place where my spirit can roam

and be the bear

whose children are filled with motherly love

yet there is no den for me

only my arms 

to hug my family I dearly love

and deliver me 

to the place where my spirit can swim

and be the salmon

whose lungs can breath in opposition

yet there are no scales for me

only my lungs

to give me breath to breath

and deliver me

to the place where my spirit can burn

and be the phoenix

whose feathers are filled with colorful passion

yet there are no fiery feathers for me

only my soul

to rise up from the ashes.

The story of Rhiannon:

She is featured in the Pwyll and Manawydan, in the branches of the Mabinogi.  Rhiannon was the daughter of Hyfidd Hen, and through his arrangements became betrothed to Pwyll, prince of Dyfed.  Naturally he was dazzled by seeing her riding on a white horse.  At their wedding feast, Pwyll recklessly grants her favor to another man, causing Rhiannon to be betrothed to Gwawl, son of the goddess Clud and his rival in romance.  In a year's time Pwyll returns with a cleaver and deadly trick.  The game of badger-in-the-bag, killing Gwawl.  When the newly married Rhiannon arrives at Arberth, Pwyll's palace, she dispenses precious gifts, evoking her divine origin as a bountiful goddess.  

After a few years of marriage, Rhiannon bears a son.  He is stolen on May eve, the night he is born.  Falsely accused of the infant's murder, Rhiannon is forced to do public penance for seven years by sitting at the horse-block outside the palace gate, offering visitors a ride on her back.  Then Teyrnon, Pwyll's retainer, realizes that the child he has been fostering is royal, and returns him.  Rhiannon calls the child Pryderi (care) following her remark, "I should be delivered of my care if that were true."

In the third branch of the book. many years have passed, Pwyll has died, and Pryderi as ruler promises his mother as a wife to his comrade in arms Manawydan.  Soon disasters befall the country and the family.  A magical mist ravages Dyfed, leaving only Pryderi, his wife, Rhiannon, and Manawydan still living.  Then Pryderi and Rhiannon are held captive in Annwfn, to be freed by Manawydan.  The deadly mist is revealed to be the work of Llwyd the enchanter, a friend of Gwawl (also supposed culprit of the theft of her son), seeking redress for the loss of Rhiannon to Pwyll.  Manawydan then forces Llwyd to restore Dyfed to its former stature.

The three birds of Rhiannon are mentioned in the Mabinogi as well, said to sing over the sea at Harlech.  In Culhwch ac Olwen they can wake the dead and lull the living to sleep.  Some link her persona to the Artherian Ninian (The Lady of the Lake), though she also has links to the horse goddess Epona, Macha the equine Irish figure, and the British Rigantona. 

The Feast of Rhiannon:

March 4th honors the sacred Welsh horse, moon, and ancestor Goddess Rhiannon.  It is celebrated with horse imager, lunar rites, and the honoring of your foremothers.  The horse also symbolizes the ability to move at will between the worlds, making this feast day a prime time to shamanically travel in otherworlds with the help of a horse animal guide.  Rhiannon shares many similarities with two other horse Goddesses:Epona and Mare.  Mare is the bringer of dreams and Epona a Goddess of transformative power.  Libations offered to these women may bring them into your dreams and serve as a new gateway into studies that have been previously overlooked or not accessible.  An old folk custom from western Ireland says that if you light fires just before dawn at each corner of a perfectly oriented crossroad (one that runs directly east, west, north, and south), then sit down quietly at its side, you can see Epona  ride by, fleeing west from the approaching sunrise.

Other Horse Deities:

Aife (Irish, Scottish) A Goddess/queen/warrior who commanded a legion of fierce and expert horsewomen on the Isle of Shadow (sometimes said to be in the Hebrides).  She and her sister, Scathach, ran a school in which they trained male warriors in battle skills.

Cartimandua: (Anglo-Celtic) A warrior queen of the Brigantes tribe who fought against the Roman invaders.  Her name is sometimes translated as "silken pony," which links her to the archetype of the horse goddess.

Epona/The Eponae: (Pan-Celtic) This horse Goddess was so powerful an image she was adopted by invading Roman forces in Celtic Gaul.  She is seen as a intermediary between this world and the Otherworld, as a bringer of nightmares, and as potent feminine archetype.  Epona is also a Goddess of fertility, sex, and wealth.

Macha: (Irish) One of the Morrigan, a Triple Goddess of death, battle, and destruction.  Also a horse diety who caused the male Red Branch warriors to suffer nine days of birth pangs when Ulster needed them the most.  The famous Ulster fortress, Emain Macha, is named for her.

Magog: (Anglo-Celtic) The female half of a divine team of mountain deities, depicted as a four -breasted woman astride a horse.  Probably once an earth, fertility, and/or mother Goddess.  In patriarchal times she became England's St. Margaret.

Mare: (Irish) A horse Goddess; the bringer of dreams, especially nightmares.

Caer Ibormeith: (Irish) A Goddess of sleep, dreams, and love.  She frequently took the form of a swan adorned in necklaces of silver and gold.

Edain/Etain: (Irish) Edain's triple form is a personification of reincarnation.  She lived as a mortal and as a faery queen.

Franconian-di-Drud: (Irish) A Druid whose name is sometimes linked with that of the horse Goddess Mare, the bringer of dreams, making her a possible Goddess of prophetic dreams.  

Lady Godiva: (Anglo-Celtic) A sovereign deity whose legends became attached to those of a human woman who rode naked through the streets of Coventry until her corrupt husband agreed to lower taxes.

Divine Horse

Each represents the Goddess, the land, and travel.  The sacred white horses of Uffington, Oxforshire, and other gateways lead us to discover the hidden realms inside.  Mare's peas (bog-bean), horsetail, and horse-shoe-vetch can lead us to these places and were once bestowed the honor of having the horse animal as its vegetative qualities.  Each calls us to journey, manifesting itself as a desire to travel in the physical world, or drawn to voyage in the inner realms.  She brings us energy, and speed as a patroness of the complete life-cycle of birth, death, the afterlife and rebirth.  By working with the spirit of the horse, we grow to feel comfortable with every aspect of the life-cycle, knowing that the goddess protects and guides us through each of its stages.  If however you fail to recognize the land spirit, it may appear to ask us to look at the roots of our restlessness.  If we have difficulty settling down, staying in one place or completing tasks, it may be that we have not fully excepted the flow of the life-cycle and our part within it.  Attuning to the spirit of the horse connects us with our sense of place in the world- with the spirit of the land beneath us and the sky above us.

Two horse drew the chariot of the Ulster hero Cu-Chulainn.  Grey Sea- a clairvoyant who foresaw her master's death weeping tears of blood, and Black Seagull .  Cu-Chulainn rode into battle in a wood & wicker chariot long after the tradition had been abandoned elsewhere.  His mastery combined with the Celtic custom of headhunting in battle made the man appear terrifying to his opponents.  But in most of pre-Roman Gaul and Britain the horses were small and pony-like, used for hauling and hunting as well as battle.  In Gaul they were also used a source of food, used as symbols of wealth and ritual.  Often the teeth and bones of a horse buried in a home's mortar was supposed to bring good luck.  The tradition follows through today with the horseshoe above doorways.  As a symbol for passage and luck, it has been a natural superstition that harkens back to the early days where the horse played a central role in the life of the commoners and wealthy alike.  Since the horse is sacred and brings good fortune, it has to be protected from the evil eye with horse brasses.  The Druids, and later country folk, would bless a horse by leading it sunwise three times around a cairn, which would be known as Cairn Nan Each.  To protect a horse from theft by witches, carters would hang "hag-stones", a naturally holed flint stone  around the horses' neck.  

The horse-goddess Epona, was so popular that her cult spread to Britain and as far east as Bulgaria, and she became the only Celtic deity to be worshiped in Rome, with a feast day of December 18th.  To cavalrymen the horse-goddess was a protector, but to civilians she was a mother-goddess who presided over the life-cycle.  In images of bounty and fertility she holds a key which unlocks the gateways to the Underworld or Otherworld.  Shapeshifting into the form of a horse, she would carry the souls of the dead to the Summerlands or to Hy Breaisil, the Irish paradise in the west, which some believe gave its name to Brazil.  As horse of the dead, she is sometimes seen as a phantom creature or the provoker of nightmares.  In Scotland the kelpie or Each Uisge haunts lochs and appears like a sleek pony, offering its back to travelers to help them cross the water.  But beware, once the victim is astride, it becomes a terrifying creature with huge teeth and long wild hair, and it plunges deep into the loch carrying its rider to their death.  In Skye, it is said that unicorns live within certain lochs, and an eel horse with twelve legs swims in Loch Awe.  

In Druid tradition at the Beltane fires, we see the gateway revealed.  May itself representing a gateway for the soul  to enter the world, and the time of Samhuinn, of death, at the other side of the year in November, symbolizes the gateway for the soul to leave the world.  Birth and death, gateways that act as fundamental points in the life-cycle.  The horse-goddess opens the gates of life at Beltane, allowing in a great flood of ebullient energy which makes men feel like stallions and makes women refer to them as "studs."  On the other point, we see clearly an a time of fertility welcomed with the spring rites, for which must come in order for life to prosper and bring fruit until we close the gates at Samhain.  At that time when the Goddess carries the soul to the afterlife, those souls that have re-entered the Summerlands will be renewed again in the spring.  The association of the horse-goddess with the life-cycle of birth, death, afterlife and rebirth is confirmed when we discover the ritual use of "Hobby Horses" ridden at either Samhain or Beltane.  The Padstow and Minehead Hobby Horses bring in the May, while the Hodden Horse of Kent, the Wild Horses of Cheshire and Shropshire and the Mari Lwyd of Whales usher in the winter.  Being associated with the life-cycle and sexuality, the horse represents not only human fertility, but the power and fertility of the land itself.  In Ireland certain kings undertook a symbolic marriage to a white mare to ally their own sovereignty with the power of the land.  And as to reinforce the potency of the horse to the Celtic culture, we see the white horses image imbued on the chalk carvings on the hillsides of Britain.  As well as being close to the land, the horse also drew close affinity with the sun. The chariot of the heavens being carried across the sky by the fire horses, make it a solar animal.  It was not only sacred to the Goddess but also the sun and sky god.  The horse providing us the power and ability to journey and cross great expanses must have been an awesome power to harness when walking was the only other form of travel.  With the horse's image providing the means for travel to the Otherworld and back, we also see its shoes providing further speed to our journey.  Horse-shoeing was first developed in the Celtic world, and the smith was considered an important figure.  In old Welsh laws it was he who took the first drink at any feast, the bards blessing the next.  Protection and the ability to carry out long distance warfare on horseback with the aid of shoes became the vehicle to the future.  In Ireland the smith god Goibhniu was host at a feast which rendered his guests immortal.  By taking us to Hy Breasil and back, the horse does indeed provide us with the means to transcend the limitations of mortality and our own personal boundaries.  It is these qualities that are imbued upon the horse-goddesses which make their image so provoking and profound.  Bestowing upon someone the gift of horses not only brings wealth and luck but also the means for blessing those we love with a gift of greatness.  In many cultures the heroes of old worlds were often featured with the white horses of their personified power.  Wherever horses were, there was a means to travel quickly ahead of marching armies and escape the gravity of danger that tried to pull us off.  Once we are able to ride the horses back and see the power of the land that is underfoot then we can truly sense our destiny and the passage that needs to be crossed. Each, the mare calls us to this road, divining the dreams set before us.

Please do your part to protect these wonderful creatures, there are many animals out there who need good homes and loving spirits.  Today horses are a symbol of high fashion at racetracks, but many also suffer from their ability to race with the sun.  The wind that frees their spirit is also broken by our whips.  Not only does the land need our attention, but the horses that are the divine image of our own fortune.  Protect them all if it is in your power to do so, and the journey shall be kind unto your faith in return.

One horse was lithe and swift-leaping, high-arched and powerful, long-bodied and with great hooves.  The other flowing-maned and shining, slight and slender in hoof and heel.

-"The Cattle Raid of Cooley"