Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure. Among Celts in close contact with Ancient Rome, s...
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Cerridwen’s themes are fertility, creativity, harvest, inspiration, knowledge and luck. Her symbols are the cauldron, pigs and grain. The Welsh mother Goddess, Cerridwin also embodies all lunar attributes and the energy of the harvest, specifically grains. In Celtic mythology, Cerriwin owned a cauldron of inexhaustible elixir that endowed creativity and knowledge. At the halfway point of the year, Her inspiration comes along as motivation to ‘keep on keepin’ on.’ Her symbol is a pig, an animal that often represents good fortune and riches, including spiritual enrichment.
Seen by many as a Mother Crone, Cerridwen is driven in the Welsh tales by a desire for her son's success in life. Also the mother of a beautiful young daughter named Creirwy with Tegid Foel, her boy Morfran is known for his immense physical hideousness. Gaining him a promising future means counteracting this ugliness, so she does so by using her advanced magic to brew him a concoction of mental and spiritual intellect. The owner of a magical cauldron is called Awen, directly translated as "inspiration". Cerridwen decides to create a brew that would give her outwardly unlucky son brilliance beyond all measure. It is a very particular potion, however, and has to boil for a year and a day for the drinker to achieve its full effects. To protect her secret and the potion, Cerridwen ensures its fire is tended only by a blind man and that it is stirred only by a young boy named Gwion Bach. Gwion, as many myths of such peculiar circumstances would have it, turns out to be the potion's ultimate undoing.
The Crone of Wisdom
In Welsh legend, Cerridwen represents the crone, which is the darker aspect of the goddess. She has powers of prophecy, and is the keeper of the cauldron of knowledge and inspiration in the Underworld. As typical of Celtic goddesses, she has two children: daughter Crearwy is fair and light, but son Afagddu (also called Morfran) is dark, ugly and malevolent.
The Legend of Gwion
In stirring the cauldron one day, Gwion accidentally splashes three drops on his thumb. Burning with the heat of the liquid, Gwion sucks on his thumb to ease the pain, inadvertently sipping the potion. Unknown to him, the potion is only good for those first three drops—the rest of the potion immediately becomes a deadly poison. Nonetheless, Gwion realizes his mistake when he suddenly becomes wise, and he flees the scene in an attempt to escape Cerridwen's wrath. But the enchantress cannot be fooled.
Cerridwen chases Gwion across all forms of land and in all shapes of being. Gwion, now possessing the powers of immense wisdom, innately knows how to transform himself and first tries to escape the witch as a hare. Cerridwen immediately counters by becoming a greyhound. Gwion next becomes a fish, but Cerridwen knows that's an otter's favorite meal. Then he changes into a bird, but hawks, of course, are much faster and more aggressive. At last, Gwion becomes a solitary piece of corn, easily discovered and devoured by a witch in the form of a hen.
