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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Cyhiraeth is a Goddess of Streams, she is associated with the Rive Tywi in eastern Dyfed. She is a ghostly spirit whose disembodied moaning sounds before a person's death. The cyhyraeth is said to be heard before a shipwreck, accompanied by a corpse-light. She is the wife of Afagddu.
About Cyhiraeth
Once a Goddess of streams, she later became thought of as a faery spirit who was a portent of death, seen or heard just prior to a nearby death. She later entered folklore as a spectre haunting woodland streams She is more often heard than seen, indeed one interpretation of cyhyr-aeth is 'the formless', but it is heard groaning before a death, usually at a crossroads or a stream, where she would wash her hands . It is most closely associated with certain rivers and coasts, with the area around the river Tywi in eastern Dyfed, as well as the coast of Glamorganshire. She has been described as making a doleful, disagreeable sound, like the groans and sighs of someone deathly ill, and to sound three times, growing weaker and fainter each time, as a threefold warning before the end.
The unfortunate passer-by would hear her exclaim "my husband!" or "my child!" or "my wife!"--all depending on which loved one was to die. Or, if the cries had no words, it was believed that the hearer was the intended.
Some belief she is associated to the Scottish Cailleach, for being an ancestress figure, like the bean sidhe.
