This turned into more than a typical blog post. More than most people would wish to read in a sitting, I know. Hopefully, the headings will allow you to pick out the bits that suit your interests. All photos can be enlarged by clicking.

Culhwch and Olwen
Mabon ap Modron means divine son of the divine mother. We know him from just a few references in Welsh lore. His most significant appearance is in a story called How Culhwch won Olwen, in the Mabinogi. The hero of the tale, Culhwch, is required to do a series of “impossible” tasks, before he can win the woman he loves. One central thing he needs to do is hunt a magical Irish boar called the Twrch Trwth.

It transpires that the boar can only be tracked by a special hunting dog, called Drudwyn, which can only be controlled by Mabon, who was stolen from between his mother and the wall at three days old, and “no one knows where he is, or what he is, or whether he is alive or dead. No-one can ever find Mabon, no-one will know where he is, until Eiddoel his kinsmen, the son of Aer, is found, since he will be tireless in seeking him. He is his cousin." Strangely, Eiddoel is also imprisoned at Gloucester.

There is a long sequence in the story about the seeking of Mabon, which involves asking several very old, wise animals whether they have seen Mabon. This part of the story serves to emphasise the extremely ancient nature of Mabon and his imprisonment. Finally, they speak to the salmon on Llyn Lliw – the oldest of all animals. He tells them that as he swims up the River Severn with the tide, he can hear Mabon lamenting his imprisonment from within the walls of Gloucester castle’s dungeons. Culhwch’s cousin is King Arthur, and Arthur and some of his men free Mabon. He is given a horse called Gwyn Myngddwn (white brown-mane) to ride, and with the hound Drudwyn, Mabon goes on to lead a successful hunt of the Twrch Trwth, and Culhwch gets the Olwen.

What do we learn about Mabon from this? Mabon was stolen in infancy, and imprisoned for a very long time. He might be associated with Gloucester and the Severn. He is a good huntsman and has a way with dogs. The way the story of the search for Mabon is set into the wider tale of Culhwch suggests that it may once have been a story in its own right, possibly with more detail about how he was taken from Modron, or with a pre-Arthurian version of His rescue.

Culhwch and Olwen names a dizzying array of characters, drawn fron deities, legend, history, and probably bardic imagination. Among those mentioned, is Mabon, son of Mellt, who along with a character called Gware Gwallt Euryn (synonymous with Pryderi, another divine prisoner) goes to Brittany to get a pair of hunting dogs. Mellt means lightning, and it is possible that this is an epithet of Mabon ap Modron, a hint at His supernatural nature, or even a statement about his paternity as the son of a god of lightening. It’s impossible to know which of these might be true, but as an interesting aside, there was a Celtic tribe in the Marne region of Gaul known as the Meldi, and it is possible that they had a tutelary deity called Meldius. The movements of the Meldi are poorly understood. The Marne rises at Balesmes-sur-Marne and empties into the River Seine near Paris, but the Meldi had possible territories at some time in places as widely disparate as the Lyon region, Bulgaria and Flanders. There is an inscription at Glanum, near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, which reads: To Meldius. Silanus son of Lutevus has fulfilled his vow.  

Other Welsh texts
A poem in The Black Book of Carmarthen mentions both Mabon ap Modron and Mabon son of Mellt. Pa Gur yv y Porthaur? (Who is the gate-keeper) is a dialogue between Arthur and a porter called Glewlwyd, which features two favourite Celtic motifs: a hero trying to gain admittance to a castle, and a long list of warriors. This translation is from Skene’s The Four Ancient Books of Wales:

Mabon, the son of Modron,
The servant of Uthyr Pendragon;
Cysgaint, the son of Banon;
And Gwyn Godybrion.
Terrible were my servants
Defending their rights.
Manawydan, the son of Llyr,
Deep was his counsel.
Did not Manawyd bring
Perforated shields from Trywruid?
And Mabon, the son of Mellt,
Spotted the grass with blood?

There are a few references, or possible references, to Mabon in other Welsh lore. Triad 52, in the Welsh Triads, lists Mabon as one of the three exalted prisoners of the island of Britain. This translation is by Rachel Bromwich in her Trioedd Ynys Prydein:

Llŷr Half-Speech, who was imprisoned by Euroswydd.
and the second, Mabon ap Modron,
and the third, Gweir son of Geirioedd.

The text of the triad then goes on to say that Arthur is more exalted that these three, and to describe three imprisonments of Arthur.
Another poem from The Book of Taliesin, The Spoils of Annwn, also references a prisoner called Gweir, as well as mentioning Arthur’s boat Prydwen. Gweir, Pryderi, and Mabon may, in some sense, be synonymous. The following passage is translated by Tony Conran in Welsh Verse:

Impeccable prison had Gweir in Caer Siddi,
As the story relates of Pwyll and Pryderi.
Prior to him, there went to it nobody,
To the heavy grey chain that trussed a true laddie.
Because of the spoils of Annwn he sang bitterly,
Three shiploads of Prydwen, we went on that journey.
Seven alone we returned from Caer Siddi.

Finally, we have mention of Mabon in Englynion y Beddau (Stanzas of the Graves), translated here by John K Bollard:

The grave in the upland of Nantlle,
No one knows his remarkable characteristics -
Mabon ap Mydron the Swift.

What have we learned from these? Mabon seems to continue a loose association with Arthur, and possibly gains one with Llŷr and His son, Manawydan fab Llŷr. He is seen as a divine, or exhalted, prisoner. He is also associated with the mysterious Gwier. We’ll consider both of these below.

The Mabinogi
The title of the collection of tales called the Mabinogi (or Mabinogion) would suggest a connection to the word mabon (son), or perhaps to Mabon ap Modron. There are at least two ways in which this could be true. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just look at the core of the Mabinogi: The Four Branches.

First, mothers and sons. There is much in these tales which concerns mothers and their sons, who are always destined to be kings. In the First Branch, Rhiannon, bears a son to Pwyll. Like Mabon, this lad is stolen from his mother in infancy and missing for a long time. He is at first named Gwri Gwallt Euryn 'Gwri Golden Hair', which some scholars believe bears a connection to Gweir, who is mentioned in two of the poems, above, as being imprisoned. When the boy is returned to his parents, they rename him Pryderi (worry, anxiety).

In the Second Branch, Branwen, daughter of Llŷr, gives birth to a son, Gwern, after marrying Matholwch, the king of Ireland. Branwen is mistreated, and her brother, Brân, leads a disasterous expedition to Ireland to avenge her. While Brân’s warriors are in Ireland, his half-brother, Efnisien, the son of Euroswydd, throws Branwen’s son, Gwern, into a fire, killing him. Only seven men returned alive from this campaign, one of whom is Pryderi. This story is often compared to the Spoils of Annwn, quoted above.

The Third Branch continues the story of Rhiannon. Pryderi has inherited his father’s kingdom and returns from Ireland, accompanied by Manawydan, brother of Brân and Branwen. Rhiannon and Manawydan marry and the group have a series of misadventures in which Pryderi and Rhiannon go missing and are imprisoned in an otherworldly fortress.

The Fourth Branch is a tale of dynastic intrigue featuring new characters. The reigning king is called Math, and he appears to have neither wife nor heirs. However, he has a niece, called Arianrhod, and two nephews, Gwydion and Gilfaethwy. Somehow, probably via trickery on Gwydion’s part, Arianrhod bears twins. One child, Dylan, runs away immediately and swims off in the sea. The other, Lleu, is raised by Gwydion and rejected by Arianrhod, with Gwydion perfoming many machinations in order to put Lleu on the throne. At one point, Gwydion starts a war in which he unfairly kills Pryderi.

Looking at the above, you might draw the conclusion that Pryderi is the mabon (son) after whom the collection of stories is named, or that it is meant to be a collection of tales about mothers and their sons.

Second, tales to instruct the sons of the nobility. The Four Branches, and indeed the other tales in the Mabinogi, offer a wealth of stories about young men making mistakes, and sometimes gaining wisdom, what good and bad leadership looks like, etc. The stories aren’t black and white “morality tales”. They require the reader/listener to think. This has led some commentators to think that their purpose is to teach the boys and young men (mabons). I agree strongly with this idea, but it’s also possible that this use was applied to stories which already existed in the culture for religious reasons.

Later Arthurian literature
The Arthurian literature of England and continental Europe drew on characters and stories from the Brythonic speaking culture of pre-Saxon Britain. (Some of this was then re-imported to Wales, where a new mix was created, as in the three Arthurian romances included in the Mabinogi.) So it’s not surprising that we find echoes of Mabon.

In Erec et Enide, the character Mabonagrain is held captive in a garden by his promise to a woman, and spends years missing from the court of Evrain. There he is forced to fight all comers until he is defeated. He overcomes and beheads many knights until he is finally defeated, much to his own relief, by Erec, and is then able to return to court.

In Lanzelet, there is a character called Mabuz, who is associated with a prison because he has one, called the Castle of the Dead, which he fills with knights who he bewitches, causing them to become cowards. In this story, Mabuz is said to be the son of a fairy queen. Modron, discussed below, is undoubtedly the basis for Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “fairy queen” character, Morgan le Fay, in his Vita Merlini, which first popularised Arthurian stories. This helps to confirm Mabuz’s literary relationship to Mabon, but there is no reason to believe that the details of the stories or characters or Mobonagrain and Mabuz reflect Brythonic traditions concerning Mabon/Maponos.

Lochmaben and the Clachmabenstane
Lochmaben is a small town in southwest Scotland, which is surrounded on three sides by three separate lochs, and on the fourth side by the River Annan. None of these lochs is currently called Loch Mabon, but it is possible that the one known as Castle Loch may have been, at some point in the past. This Loch seems to have been important during the bronze age and early iron age, as it has several possible crannog sites (Canmore 66289, 66316, and 89712) and log boat finds.

This leaves the question of why the place is called Lochmaben. It is too far from the Clachmabenstone, in my opinion, to take its name from that, or vice versa. The first inscription described in the next section, below, which may be translated as Locus Maponi (place of Maponos) lies almost equidistant between the two “Maben” locations, so perhaps it is indicative that the wider area was considered to be a kind of “Land of Mabon” during the first century. Scholars discussing the poem about Owain, quoted below, have wondered whether some of its lines indicate that there was such an area.

There is a traditional ballad, known as The Lochmaben Harper (Child Ballad No. 192), about a harper from Lochmaben who goes over the border into nearby Carlisle to steal a mare from “King Henry”, called The Wanton Brown, having first laid wagers that he could do it. He achieves this by trickery, using his own mare and foal, and by beguiling people, and sending them to sleep with his beautiful harp playing. The story is a comic one, in which the harper gets one over on everybody, making a great deal of money in the process. The ballad exists in both Scots and English language versions, the earliest known date being 1564. It is only of interest here because of the carvings on Apollo-Maponus with a harp, or lyre, on two North British altars. I’m not aware of any other folklore about a harper in the area which might have given rise to the ballad, but it’s an interesting coincidence.

At Gretna Green, about 20 miles southeast of the town of Lochmaben in a standing stone (Canmore 67441) about two metres high, and quite broad, called the Clachmabenstane (or Stone of Lochmaben). Clach is Gaelic for stone, stane is Scots for stone. This kind of repitition is common in Scottish place names and the name of the stone may only relate to Mabon, and not to the town of Lochmaben, despite the way the names rhyme and have become confused. Like the town of Lochmaben, the stone is almost surrounded by water, being sandwiched between the rivers Sark and Kirtle, where they both flow into the Esk, as it empties into the Solway Firth.

Saints and Place Names
There are several Saint Mabons (also Mabyn, Mabenna), none of whom are well documented, and it is just possible that some of their locations could relate to the earlier deity.

St Mabyn of Cornwall (frequently Saint Mabenna) was said to be one of the many legendary daughters of Brychan, a 5th century king of Brycheiniog, a kingdom in Wales, and is first mentioned in the 12th century Life of St Nectan. She has a church at St Mabon (English: St Mabyn) in Cornwall. There is a 16th century window depicting her in nearby St. Neot’s church, in Loveni. At least one source suggests that this church was actually dedicated to 6th century St Mabon the Confessor, of Y Trallwng (Welshpool). It might seem strange to include a female saint here but it is not unknown for confusion to arise in later centuries about the gender of obscure saints, and there is obvious confusion between this saint and the two male candidates.

Ruabon is the name of a town near Wrecsam, at the northern end of the English/Welsh border. Ruabon means hill, or slope, of Mabon. It has been suggested that this could refer to Saint Mabon the Confessor, or even the Cornish St Mabyn, although the parish church appears to have been dedicated to St Collen until the 13th century, when it became St Mary’s. This St Mabon is said to be the brother of St Llywelyn, both generally referred to as 6th century saints. Bonedd y Seint says they are sons of Tegonwy ap Teon but he is thought to have lived in the 9th century, which would make that relationship impossible.

Another St Mabon is the brother of the more famous St Teilo, with a church at Llanfabon, about two miles northwest of Pontypridd. There is a possibility that the church of Llanvapley, dedicated to an unlikely St Mabli (probably due to a scribal error), could also be associated with this St Mabon. Alex Gibbon writes:

…it would also be significant that a potential church of St. Mabon at Llanfapley stands in close proximity to the church of St. Teilo at neighbouring Llantilio Crossenny – since a St. Mabon site adjoins Llandaf in Cardiff where St. Teilo was said to have become bishop, and it is also suggested by P.C. Bartrum (1993) that the source of an association between St. Mabon and St. Teilo cited by the unreliable scribe Iolo Morganwg (1700’s) is the close proximity of Maenorfabon (St. Mabon) and Maenordeilo (St. Teilo) in Llandeilo Fawr on the Tywi.

There is still a Maes-y-meibon (Mabon’s field) just across the River Tywi from modern day Manordeilo, although any Maenorfabon seems to have slipped from the maps.

Quite close to Manordeilo, at Llansawel, there is a local story of a giant called Mabon Gawr. This is recorded in Peniarth 118, a manuscript dated to about 1600. It contains a long list of Welsh giants and their associated place names. This is from a passage translated by Hugh Owen:

And in the land of Caerfyrddin in Llan Sawel were four giants, and these were four brothers, namely Mabon Gawr, and the place in which this giant dwelt is called to-day by the name of Castell Fabon; and the second … etc.

The passage goes on to list the other three brothers: Dinas Gawr, Chwilein Gawr, and Celgau Gawr, each of whom is given a local Caer with their name attached. This passage probably relates to a folkloric, or bardic, device for explaining the names of ancient forts. There is a “Castell” on the OS map near Llansawel, although it is unnamed.

Association with Apollo
The Romans conflated their own deities with native deities of lands they invaded and as we see from the inscriptions, above, they paired Maponos with Apollo. Apollo was central to Roman practice and had been adopted from Greek religion without changing his name, unlike most Roman deities. His attributes included athletic and youthful beauty, a connection to hunting and archery (his sister was Diana/Artemis), and a strong link with music, poetry, and dance. Musically, he was particularly connected with the lyre. He was also associated with prophecy. The Delphic oracle was his high priestess. Apollo was also connected with healing, the sun, and water. His healing abilities, however, were such that he was believed to be capable of bringing disease as well as curing it. Apollo had many lovers (not uncommon in Greek myths) but it is probably a mistake to call his a god of love.

The attributes of youthfulness and hunting fit well with what we know of Mabon ap Modron, although it’s far from a perfect fit. There is no mention of healing or disease in Mabon’s story, nor of music and poetry. His imprisonment beside the Severn links him tenuously to water, and some have suggested a link between his imprisonment and release, and the returning sun after the winter solstice. These ideas are interpretations, at best. There is also a possible link between his seeming affinity with dogs and healing, as dogs were among the symbols of healing for both Celts and Romans. Maponos in Gaul has strong ties to healing.

Apollo was also linked with a number of other Celtic deities, including Belenos and Grannus, There are six inscriptions to Apollo scattered along Hadrians wall, plus four in Scotland (two of which are on the Antonine wall), and a further three widely separated over the Midlands. In Wiltshire, not too far from Gloucester and the Severn, there is an inscription to Apollo Cunomaglos (hound lord), which is interesting considering Mabon’s exploits hunting the Twrch Trwth across the Severn in Culhwch and Olwen.

Maponos in Gaul
The best-known evidence for Maponos in Gaul is at La Source des Roches (spring of the rocks) in Chamalières, in the Auvergne region of France. An excavation of the area around the spring uncovered thousands of carved, wooden ex-voto offerings, which had been thrown into a pool there. This practice was done to request, or give thanks for, healing. Effigies of limbs, body parts, animals, and male and female figures, purchased from workshops on site, represented the person, animal, or area of the body which required healing. Other types of offerings were also found in the excavation, such as coins, fibulae, and wooden tablets – although no carving is visible on these, so perhaps they were painted. Quantities of hazlenuts were also found, apparently given as offerings.

The many dippers and pottery vessels found suggest people drinking the water, and, in fact, water from the spring was being bottled into the mid-20th century, when the spring fell into disuse. It was in 1968, during the preparation of the area for building works that the cache of some 3,500 ex-votos, as well as the other finds, were discovered, leading to a major archaeological excavation in 1970-71. The site has been dated to the last three decades BCE and 1st century CE. Recent pollen analysis has revealed that there must have been an oak grove connected to the site, which does not appear to have included significant buildings.

I beseech the very divine, the divine Maponos Arvernatis [of the Arvergni tribe] by means of this magic tablet: quicken us by the magic of the underworld spirits.

It is fair to say that this tablet is the only evidence for Maponos at the Chamalières site, but it seems reasonable that He would have been an important, if not the only, deity being invoked for healing there. This is reinforced by 11th century records of an Abbey at Savigny (Rhône), about 85 miles east of Chamalières, which records a de Mabono fonte. This would be a spring or well associated with Maponos, probably as a holy well of some kind.
 
The original site at Chamalières was eventually covered by the block of apartments whose building work originally uncovered it. Happily, due to the efforts of a private individual, the spring has been restored, a few metres from where it originally rose.  

The famous Coligny calendar also mentions Maponos on the 15th day of Riuos. This may indicate something like a feast day. Although the calendar still lacks an agreed interpretation, some importance was obviously being attached to Maponos.

Finally, at Bourbonne-les-Bains, the site of a thermal spring near the source of the Marne, a funerary inscription mentioning Maponos, as a given name, suggests that his worship was popular in the area. This site is not far from that of the temple of Matrona, mentioned below.

Association with Owain ap Urien
The Welsh texts, folklore, and genealogies, frequently put historical individuals who have achieved legendary status into seeming contact with figures who appear to be deities. This is the case with the great 6th century king, Urien of Rheged, and his son, Owain. In the 15th century manuscript known as Peniarth 50, in the triad known as Triad 70 (The Three Blessed Womb Burdens,) here translated by Rachel Bromwich, we read:

The second, Owain, son of Urien and Mor(fudd) his sister who were carried together in the womb of Modron daughter of Afallach;   

It’s an easy calculation for the reader to make, that if Owain’s mother is Modron, that makes him a half-brother to Mabon ap Modron. This is reinforced in an oft-quoted tale from the 16th century Peniarth 147, where folklore tells how Urien meets and couples with a woman washing at a ford, in a scene reminiscent of the meeting of The Dagda and The Morrigan, in The Second Battle of Moytura. The identity of Afallach, as an otherworld king, is also clarified.

        "In Denbighshire there is a parish called Llanferres and in that place there is the Rhyd y Gyfarthfa (Ford of Barking). And in ancient times the hounds of the country came together to the edge of that ford to bark. And no one would dare go to see what was there until   Urien Rheged came. And when he came to the edge of the ford he saw nothing but a girl washing. And then the hounds stopped barking and Urien Rheged seized the woman and had sex with her. 
        And then she said "God's blessing on the feet which have brought you here." 
        "Why?" he said. 
        "Because a destiny was placed on me to wash here until I begat a son by a Christian. I am the daughter to the King of Annwfn. Come here at the end of the year and you will receive the boy." And so he came and he received there a boy and a girl, namely Owein ab Urien and Morfudd ferch Urien."  

In a poem from The Book of Taliesin, about a 6th century cattle raid involving Owain and Urien (Kychwedyl am doddyu o Galchwynydd) the name Mabon is mentioned several times, although it isn’t entirely clear whether it is Mabon the deity, or a mortal warrior with the name Mabon, who is referenced. Some genealogies give Owain a paternal uncle called Mabon ap Idno ap Merchion, in other words, Urien’s brother. Professor John Koch translates the passage like this, in The Celtic Heroic Age:

The manifestation of Mabon from the other-realm
in the battle where Owain fought for the cattle of his country,

A further passage from Koch’s translation reads:

Whoever saw Mabon on his white-flanked ardent steed.
as men mingled contending for Rheged’s cattle,
unless it were by means of wings that they flew,
only as corpses would they go from Mabon.
Of encounter, descent, and onset of battle
in the realm of Mabon, the inexorable chopper;
when Owain fought to defend his father’s cattle,
white-washed shields of waxed hawthorn burst forth.

However, it’s worth noting that a more conservative translation of those first two lines might be something like this one from Lewis and Williams’ The Book of Taliesin:

Mabon was to the fore  -  Mabon from far away,
When Owain fought  -  for his land’s stock.

Modron and Matrona
Just as Mabon seems to be a Brythonic continuation of the deity Maponos, the same can probably be said for Modron and Matrona, a goddess associated with the river Marne in east-central France. As well as the obviously cognate name, one can draw a few other connections. The region around the Marne river was the territory of the Meldi, who may relate to the possible epithet Son of Mellt, mentioned above in the section on Culhwch and Olwen.

The only mythical portrayal we have of Modron then, is her occasional mentions as the mother of Mabon, and the two interesting passages quoted above in the section on Owain. Although the Peniarth manuscripts they come from are late in date, it is more difficult to trace the origins of the myth that may lie behind them. That myth might be interpreted as Modron being a river goddess, and the daughter of the otherworldly King Afallach (relating to apples, or land of apples), also described as the king of Annwn. Like the Morrigan in Irish myth, she is found washing at the ford where she couples with a highly important king, who is seen as a great provider and defender of the land. She bears him twins, and the male child goes on to be a great hero.

As the daughter of an otherworld king in these texts, Modron became the starting point for Morgan la Fay in later Arthurian literature. Modron and Afallach are also the source of folklore traceable to at least the 16th century from Ravenglass, in Cumbria, where a Roman ruin is said to be the home of a fairy king called Eveling and his daughter, Modron. In Who Was King Eveling of Ravenglass?, W G Collingwood tends to entange himself in Arthurian literature and spurious genealogies, rather than looking for answers closer to home, but some of his explorations are intriguing, such as:

In Britain, there are many inscriptions to “the mother goddesses” in various forms, but none to a singular, otherwise unnamed mother goddess, or matrona. There are two British saints who bear names similar to Modron. Saint Madryn (also Madrun, Materiana) was the wife of Ynyr, a 5th century ruler of Gwent and the grandaughter of Vortigern. They are credited with building a nunnery at Trawsfynydd, where there is a church dedicated to St Madryn. Nearby, is a spectacularly located hill fort (Coflein 95275) known as Garn Fadryn (Madryn’s Cairn), which was built on successively from about 300 BCE until the late 12th century. While such a hill is a prime candidate for association with a mother goddess, it may well be associated with the princess/saint. St Madryn is said to have relocated to Cornwall after the death of Ynyr. In Cornwall, a church at Minster, tucked away in woodland near Kastel Boterel (English: Boscastle) is dedicated to her as St Materiana, as is the parish church at Trevena (Tintagel).

Cornwall also has the male Saint Madrun, who has been suggested by John Koch to be connected to the goddess Modron. His holy well, Madron’s Well, near Eglos Madern (English: Madron) in Cornwall, is famous for its healing power, and whether originally Christian or pre-Christian, is of great antiquity. The parish church of the town of Eglos Madern, is called St Maddern’s. It is also dedicated to St Madron, although the existence of an historical St Madron is doubtful.

Association with Áengus Óg
Áengus Óg (young Áengus) is the son of the god known as An Dagda in Irish myth. An understanding of the etymology of his name, and various versions of that name originating from a variety of Irish texts, and their English translations, will be helpful in understand why he is associated with Mabon. Paraphrasing slightly the excellent explanation given by Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, this is as follows: The name Áengus means “true vigour”. He is also known as Mac ind Óc (modern Irish Óg) but this is ungrammatical in Irish if the genitive “son of youth” was intended. It is, therefore, assumed that this may have been based on a misheard oral source, and that the correct form was either in mac óc or maccan óc, which both mean “young boy” or “young son”.

Ó hÓgáin goes on to suggest that Áengus’ association with “eternal” youth and the warping of time relates, not to the popular modern conception of eternal youth, but to the perception of the young, themselves, that time moves almost imperceptibly and that they will always be young and invincible. This might bear some relationship to the portrayal of Mabon in Culhwch and Olwen, where the seeking of Mabon via animals of great longevity emphasises his seemingly endless youth. Even though he has been imprisoned for a tremendous length of time, he is still seemingly young and vigorous.

I think it is foolish to argue whether Áengus and Mabon are the “same” deity. This is essentially a theological question that will have to remain a matter of opinion. However, their similarities and differences are worth looking at.

Nothing is known of Mabon’s father, beyond the possible reference to Mellt. The Dagda has no discernable association with lightening. However, Áengus’ mother, Boand, is an important, maternal  river goddess, like Matrona. She is the goddess of the River Boyne, an extremely significant river in Irish prehistory and myth. The Dagda, himself, flees with the newborn Áengus in order to avoid detection by Boand’s husband, Elcmar, so in that sense he is also taken from his mother in infancy, although there is no mystery as to his whereabouts, nor any mention of imprisonment.

Áengus has several stories that concern romantic love. In Aislingi Óengusai (The Dream of Áengus) he dreams nightly of a beautiful woman until he becomes dangerously lovesick, and eventually they are united, flying off as swans. In Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Étain), he goes to great lengths to obtain the beautiful Étain for his foster father, Midir. In Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (The Pursuit of Dermaid and Gráinne) he does all he can to protect the lovers as they flee from the wrath of Fionn.

There is also a supposed Scottish folk tale concerning Angus, Brìde, and Beira (ie the Cailleach), in which Brìde (portrayed as a youthful goddess of spring) is held prisoner by the Cailleach (as a hag of winter). Angus defeats the Cailleach and rescues Brìde, allowing for the onset of spring. This story comes from the work of Donald A Mackenzie, but he quotes no source for it. Such a story seems to be unknown outside of Mackenzie’s work, in spite of having made its way into popular culture via his writing. I mention this because a belief has arisen, based on this story, that Angus is a god of spring. While Mackenzie’s stories are appealing, romantic, and full of archetypes that have an air of antiquity, his work needs to be taken with grain of salt.

This is not an exhaustive exploration of stories concerning Áengus but is intended to cover enough examples to give a fair overview of his attributes and associations. While Áengus has a great deal of mythology to draw on, Mabon has little that survives, and Maponos has none. Due to this situation it can always be argued that Mabon and Maponos might have myths which parallel those of Áengus.

20th century neopagan perceptions
Before we consider this, it might be useful to look briefly at the work of W J Gruffydd concerning The Mabinogi. Although these were scholarly explorations not, I think, intended to be applied to religion or spirituality, they had an influence on early 20th century Pagan and Druidical thinking.

Gruffydd’s starting point was that Welsh mythology was badly fragmented, with many tales lost, and others obscured by Medieval editors. His viewed the situation as a jigsaw with half the pieces missing, and his work attempted to reconstruct the overarching themes of that mythos. This view still informs the approach of modern polytheistic reconstructionists.

Perhaps the most influential of Gruffydd’s ideas, as far as neopagan thinking is concerned, was his theory of a divine family, consisting of a mother and father goddess (or king and queen) and their divine son, and an idea that these roles might be taken up by different deities at different times. (See below.) It is worth noting, however, that Gruffydd was critical of Sir James Frazer’s “cultural” approach to similar material, and its influence on the work of Sir John Rhŷs.

By the 1960s, Wicca and a Pagan strand of revival Druidry had emerged, drawing on a vast array of influences, and beginning to look for ways to incorporate “old gods” into their practices. In Druidry, especially the newly formed Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD), the approach was influenced by the work of Frazer and Robert Graves, but increasingly focused on Arthurian literature and a growing body of related esoteric thought surrounding it.

Where Mabon ap Modron is concerned, these ideas were thoroughly developed by Caitlin Matthews in her book Mabon and The Guardians of Celtic Britain. Her system involved an ever-rotating series of three roles:

Mabon, the Wondrous Youth, the Pendragon’s champion, who succeeds to the place of . . .
Pendragon, the King, the arbiter and ruler, who succeeds to the place of . . .
Pen Annwfn, Lord of the Underworld, the judge and sage, who succeeds to the place of . . . Mabon

Matthews’ scholarship is good, but projects the concept of archetypes begun by others, onto the texts of the Mabinogi, rather than treating Mabon, Rhiannon, etc. as deities. Instead, they become symbols for the use of those seeking to gain enlightenment.

Ross Nichols, the founder of OBOD associated a “child of light” with the winter solstice, celebrated in OBOD as Alban Arthan (The Light of Arthur) He writes:

Born is the Sun God as a dependant infant – who in some mysterious way has managed to escape the powers of darkness seeking to destroy him while he was still in the cradle of Winter.

While Nichols doesn’t mention the name Mabon in this passage, it is a clearly developed idea in later OBOD literature, that this Sun God is “The Mabon”. In a discussion of the winter solstice which later references Jesus, Newgrange, and Mithras we read:

Arthur is equated with the Sun-God who dies and is reborn as the Celtic ‘Son of Light’ – the Mabon – at the Winter Solstice. It is Arthur who will be reborn – awakening from his slumbers in a secret cave in the Welsh mountains, to return as Saviour of the British Isles.

While the Mathews’ and OBOD’s approaches no doubt have the most sincere intentions, from a 21st century perspective it is easy to get a sense that cultures are being mined for handy symbols, in an attempt to create a new, universalist sprituality, which is as unrecognisable to the people of Wales who grew up with tales from Y Mabinogi, as it would be to devotees of Maponos in the 1st century.

A more problematic, and perhaps less respectful, appropriation of Mabon occurred in the 1970s when Aiden Kelly decided to rename the neopagan celebration of the autumn equinox “Mabon”. Kelly has explained how this came about:

It offended my aesthetic sensibilities that there seemed to be no Pagan names for the summer solstice or the fall equinox equivalent to Ostara or Beltane—so I decided to supply them. … Still trying to find a name for it, I began wondering if there had been a myth similar to that of Kore in a Celtic culture. There was nothing very similar in the Gaelic literature, but there was in the Welsh, in the Mabinogion collection, the story of Mabon ap Modron (which translates as “Son of the Mother,” just as Kore simply meant “girl”), whom Gwydion rescues from the underworld, much as Theseus rescued Helen.

The thing that is probably most objectionable about these three uses of the god, or name, Mabon, to modern polytheists is the way they tend to obscure the historical or mythological identity of the deity. If cultural appropriation seems to strong a word, then insensitivity surely is not.

With the advent of neopagan polytheism, there is a small, but growing body of people honouring Mabon and Maponos through prayers, offerings, and other acts of devotion. This group usually have a good awareness of the myths and historical background associated with them, and perhaps take an interest in some of the sites which are associated with the two divine sons, and their two divine mothers.

In conclusion
Far from being obscure deities, there is good evidence that the worship of Mabon and Maponos was important and widespread in Gaul and North Britain in the first centuries BCE. A look at the map of Britain showing associated sited (above) gives a good indication of the special importance of Mabon and Maponos in northern and western Britain. The culture of Gaul and Britain suffered a great deal of stress due to Roman genocide, invasion, and colonisation, followed by several centuries of war with Germanic invaders. It is therefore not surprising that by the time the mythology embodied in The Mabinogi, was finally written down, after a thousand years of Christianisation, much was unclear. However, it is to the great credit of the Britons, especially the Welsh bards, that so much survived, including some understanding of Mabon ap Modron.

Bibliography
Baring-Gould, S. The Lives of the Saints, Volume 16. London: John C. Nimmo, 1898. p. 276.

Bartrum, Peter. A Welsh Classical Dictionary: Peope in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1998. (digital publication)

Beck, Noemie. Goddesses in Celtic Religion  Université Lyon 2, 2009. pp. 388-391.

Bollard, John K. ed. and trans., and Anthony Griffiths, photographer. Englynion y Beddau: The Stanzas of the Graves. Llanrwst: Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2015. p 58.

Bromwich, Rachel. Trioedd Ynys Prydein. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1961. pp. 40-143, 185-186, 433-436.

Collingwood, W. G, Who was King Eveling of Ravenglass?. in the journal Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society Vol 24, 1924. pp. 256-259.
 
Conran, Tony. Welsh Verse. Bridgend: Seren Books, 1967. p. 133.

Fitzpatrick-Matthews, Keith. Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography, A Reassessment (Revised 2020). Retrieved from: academia.edu/4175080 pp. 46-47, 79-81.

Gruffydd, W J. Mabon ap Modron in the journal Y Cymmrodor, Volume 42. London, 1931. pp. 140-147.

Gruffydd, W J. Rhiannon. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1953. p. 100-101.

Koch, John and Carey, John (eds.) The Celtic Heroic Age. Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2003. pp. 368-372.

Lewis, Gwyneth and Williams, Rowan. The Book of Taliesin. London: Penguin Classics, 2019. pp. 134-136.

Mackenzie, Donald A. Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend. Glasgow: Blackie and Sons, 1917. pp. 22-32.

Matthews, Caitlin. Mabon and The Guardians of Celtic Britain. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2002. (revised from 1987) pp. 20.

Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. The Lore of Ireland. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2006. pp. 20-23.

Olding, F. The Gods of Gwent: Iron Age and Romano-British Deities in south-east
Wales The Monmouthshire Antiquary 35, 2019. p. 25-30.

Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids publication: Alban Arthan. Lewes, East Sussex, 2001. pp. 2-3.
Owen, Hugh. Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837 in the journal Y Cymmrodor, Volume 27. London: 1917.p. 133.

Skene, William F. The Four Ancient Books of Wales Volume 1. Edinburgh: Edminston and Douglas, 1868.  p. 262.

Vanbrabant, Luc. About the Meldi in Western Europe. Retrieved from: academia.edu/43871064

Waddell, John. Archaeology and Celtic Myth. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2015. pp. 18-25.

I first discovered Giles Watson's The Flight of the White Horse this winter, through his wonderful video presentation of these poems. (He has a couple of very good poems about Rhiannon on his channel, too, which are worth looking for.) When I contacted him to buy a copy of the book, he told me that it wasn’t available, but a new edition was on the way. Last week, I was finally able to order one for myself, and what with the vagaries of mail these days, I persuaded him to let me have a digital copy in the meantime, for review purposes. This is a book I really want to share!

The Uffington white horse has now reached the status of international celebrity, and a glance at the artwork here will probably be enough to connect name to shape for most readers. The Uffington Horse is chalk hill figure, cut into the landscape of what is now Oxfordshire some 3,000 years ago. Chalk hill figures must be regularly renewed, by a process known as scouring, or they will simply grass over. The scouring process requires many man hours, so it’s an amazing feat of continuity that the Uffington Horse is still with us, in all her chalky glory, described here in The White Horse Submits to a Scouring.

Standing so high, and so large, that she can only really be appreciated as a whole from the opposite side of the valley, or the air, the Uffington horse has inspired the creation of many, more recent, giant horses, which I wrote about in another post. She is also part of a wider landscape of significant ancient monuments, including the Avebury complex, the passage tomb known as Wayland’s Smithy, and several hillforts. All of this contributes to the richness of Giles Watson’s book, which he has illustrated with his own lovely artwork, done mostly in chalk and pastel.

Through the vehicle of fifteen well crafted poems, the reader is taken on a tour of the local area by the horse, herself, who has long been held in local legend to come down from her hill to drink at night. For readers who might feel daunted at the thought of so many strange British monuments, some notes are included at the back of the book, which help to explain things.

I’ve been a fan of Watson’s poetry for awhile, and love the way his viewpoint shifts with the deftness of a finely tuned lens – one moment a telescope, the next a microscope. This is evident in his frequent allusions to the tiny fossils found in the chalk from which the horse is created, as in The White Horse Drinks at the Spring Beneath the Manger.

There is certainly a whimsical aspect to this work, but I almost hesitate to use that phrase for fear of creating the impression that the poems are childish or superficial. This confident opening poem might give you an idea of how much they are not!

Whimsy and humour do get their say, though as in The White Horse Hides from Prying Eyes, when the horse risks having her absence from her customary hill spotted on a moonless night.

But the description in The White Horse High Tails it Over Avebury, combined with Giles Watson’s lovely painting, is one of my favourites, managing to combine the cosmic and the prosaic that is the British landscape with deft strokes

The Flight of the White Horse by Giles Watson is available from Lulu, at £10.53.

His most recent collection: A Glister of Leaves, was written during self-isolation during the Covid-19 outbreak, and revisits the megalithic monuments, woodlands and chalk downlands of southern Oxfordshire, recalls encounters with exquisite insects, and celebrates the gifts of solitude and quiet observation.

The Trouble with Kings is a five week course which will look at kingship, leadership, stewardship, and sovereignty figures from the many angles provided by Welsh and Irish myth, with a few folktales thrown in for good measure. The relationship between leadership and the health of the land is a frequent theme in Celtic myth, and one which certainly concerns us today.

Each session will consist of me telling (or occasionally reading) stories, followed by  moderated class discussion. I don’t plan to do formal “teaching” in these sessions, but will be offering questions for us to consider, and joining in the discussions.

There is no required reading for the classes, and no class recordings will be provided. For that reason it is important that participants have a strong commitment to attending all the sessions, and to participating in the discussions. After each session, I will send out a short document with a bibliography and links to where the stories we covered can be read. (Most of them are available online.)

A little prior knowledge of Celtic myth will prove useful to participants on this course. For those who are concerned about that I will offer a pre-course reading/video list which you should find helpful. (You are not required to read through it, it’s just there for guidance if you want it.)

Numbers are strictly limited. Please see below for dates and times.

A review of Natalia Clarke's poetry collection - Soul Land.

I was looking forward to reading this poetry collection. The book’s description: “a powerful personal account through a deep and profound connection to the land of Scotland,” could almost be talking about some of my own poems (Land Songs), I thought. I am deeply homesick for Scotland, so I believe I understand something of what the poet is experiencing. Still, her lines were so intensely and analytically focused on her own feelings that the land she was writing about felt secondary to me.

Scotland is a big place. A varied place. But many of these poems feel more like they are addressed to something generic, to an idea of Scotland, rather than the place itself.

When the poet begins to use her powers of description, I instantly feel more touched by her emotional state, because she gives me a glimpse of what she longs for, as in “When Death Comes.”

Wonderful!

Only twice does Clarke mention a specific place - Loch Tay, or the River Tay – yet there is still no real specificity. The words aren’t enough to take me to these places. In another case (“Through The Eyes of a Highlander”) I felt this vagueness bordered on the insensitive. The title says it all, really. The person in question is reduced by this moniker to a cardboard cut-out, a familiar stereotype. Not one of us.

Ouch!

I wish that I could like this little collection more. Something by a fellow exile. I suppose this book is proof that we all see things through our own eyes, and have our own vocabulary for describing what we see. 

I have just finished a writing project – a chapbook called Lugh Lleu. Having worked on it for a month or so, I no longer remember quite where it started now. I just got pulled in.      

        Having always thought of myself as a hard polytheist, someone who believes that every deity is an entirely discreet entity, I increasingly suspect that I was being a little dogmatic. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start saying “all gods are one” or “they’re just archetypes”.  No.
       I never set out to get involved with deities which belong to different branches of Celtic culture – Irish, Gaulish, Brythonic – but I also never thought that I shouldn’t. As the latest saying goes, “The gods call whom they call.” So that’s a done deal. And what with my interest in mythology, things have become deliciously complicated – and yet perfectly comfortable.
        The past couple of years, as I’ve read more and more Irish and Brythonic myths and folktales, I’ve found myself picking up odd little curiosities, popping them into my basket of findings, and continuing along the paths. While teaching the Celtic Myths and Deities course twice in quick succession, and moderating a couple of Mabinogi discussion groups in the past few months, I’ve had plenty of reasons to look more closely at some of those findings.
        Most of us accept that there is some kind of connection between Lugos, Lugh, and Lleu, but that connection is difficult to interpret, and some of us won’t see it as important. It’s increasingly important to me, because getting deeper into these mysteries seems to bring me a lot closer to both deities.
        For me, the Irish folktales about Lugh and Balor provided an important bridge – as they have similarities to both The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, and to The Fourth Branch of The Mabinogi. These connections were only tickling at the edges of my consciousness until I really looked at the tales of Lugh and Balor.

        It's not just that the stories have some similar motifs or plot devices. It goes beyond the mechanics of storytelling into the similarities between who Lugh and Lleu are in their stories, at a deep level. The way they’re both intentionally created or begotten to serve a need. In spite of their many skills, that leaves them pretty focused on doing one specific thing, and taking no prisoners. The Stanzas of the Graves tell us of Lleu “That was a man who yielded right to no one.”
        If it sounds like I’m putting a negative spin on Lugh/Lleu, I’m not. On the other hand, I’m not saying that the behaviour of deities in myths is there as a model for our own. That’s a  dangerously simplistic view of things. Lugh, who is given more scope to act in the Irish stories than Lleu is in the Mabinogi, makes a fine war leader and hero. However, in his personal life he’s, shall we say, uncompromising. Think of The Fate of the Sons of Tuireann, or that He killed Cermait for dalliance with his wife (even though it turns out Cermait was innocent). According to the Dindshenchas, that was Lugh’s undoing.
        Lleu, too, refused to allow Gronw to pay an honour price for his transgressions, and killed him outright. The Grave Stanzas also say of Lleu, “He was a man who invited attack.” What lessons should we learn from this? Perhaps, make sure that’s the hill you want to die on.
        If anything, the time I’ve spent reading and researching and writing has made me feel closer to both deities. To feel a warmth toward Lleu, especially, that I never felt before. And, yes, I definitely still see them as two deities. That part is hard to explain. It’s as if they are somehow superimposed on one another. A double exposure. The two tracks that make the nice stereo effect. Separate, but sounding as one.

Lugh Lleu is available now. It contains three prose tales and five previously unpublished poems, along with bibliographical notes for those who would like to know my sources.

I wrote this poem back in 2015. I was feeling very frustrated a being unable to return to the UK to live, at being trapped in a pretty miserable situation, so it's a pretty miserable poem - but I've always liked the rhythm of it, and so I finally did something with it. Not much has changed.

I am blessed (or cursed) with a big picture mentality. Ecology is the big picture. Ecology is survival or death. I’m not much of a biologist, so I don’t understand the finer points of ecology in the way that an ecologist would. But I was brought up to believe in justice. In ethics. In compassion for others. Sometimes these things seem to be at odds. The thing that is “just” is unkind. What feels compassionate to some is considered unethical by others. Our priorities are clouded both by our emotions and our cultural expectations.

The big picture is a blunt instrument. In the big picture the end really does justify the means. The needs of the individual are no longer paramount. Of course, it’s possible that I lack vision, or imagination. I’m not willing to go bigger than, say, Earth’s current ecosystem. I like giraffes. I want herring to thrive – and aspen groves, and black widow spiders, and all the fungi and grasses – well, you get the picture.

Like most people on the left, I have thought deeply about human rights. Poverty, racism, patriarchy, slavery (which goes by many names) are  horrible things to endure. But as the camera pans away from street level and I take a look at the landscape, I see that what one group of humans is doing to another pales on the injustice scale, when we compare it to what humans as a species are doing to other species. We are bringing about loss of habitat, starvation, and extinction on an enormous scale. If we did this to a group of our own species, we might call it genocide. We don’t have a word which describes our systematic destruction of the passenger pigeon or the northern white rhino. We just call it “too late.” “Too bad.” We don’t call it criminal.

This isn’t about changing our diet. Our constant expansion is destroying habitat by the hour. If we believe in social justice for humans, then everyone needs somewhere nice to live, right? And anyway, eight billion humans is always going to be a problem, even if we all live off grid in cob houses, we still eat and shit and take up space.

Okay. That was just the preamble.

It’s 2020 and suddenly no one cares about Brexit or the coming US elections. Whatever little gains or losses of human rights might result from these things is off the table, because some extra humans are going to die this year, and it’s not necessarily going to be those other humans who usually die, like the old, or the poor, or the refugees. This time, it could be us! The camera pans down to street level. Everyone has either gone indoors, or is working to maintain those who have gone indoors; except for the medics, who will attempt to prevent the death of those who catch the virus. Just like that. Everybody falls into step. We have to stop the enormous death threat!

The camera pans out a bit. 250 humans are born every minute on earth. It’s quite possible that 250,000 people will die of COVID 19. It will take us less than a day to replace them. If a million die, it will still take us less than a week. That’s the big picture. It hasn’t even noticeably affected our growth rate. We are in no direct danger, as a species, from this virus, or probably from any virus. As for the danger to other species from out activity, it’s higher – we just don’t know how much higher.

Estimates on species extinction rates for non-humans range from two per year to over 8,000 per year. A good indication of how disinterested we are in knowing the truth.

What if we all stayed indoors for a couple of months so a massive effort could be made to study that question? What if we were all asked to stay indoors for a couple of months in order to save giraffes from going over the extinction cliff? We all know the answer. We wouldn’t do it. So much for ethics.

And as the camera pans away, it becomes painfully obvious that when it comes to self-preservation, and self-replication, you just can’t beat a human! But when it comes to compassion, or justice, for other beings, as a species we are going to do less than nothing.

We aren’t even neutral. Oh, yes, we are so proud that air pollution has dropped while we all took a holiday from driving and flying, but when it comes to all the plastic being used by the medical industry, we are not only fine with that, we are shouting for more to be produced. Just our careless movements around the globe, and the way that animals are involuntarily moved around, is a vector for diseases which devastate plant and animal populations. Our movement is also a vector for invasive species, which do the same.

I have never seen such an obsession with a single topic over such a sustained period by so many people as I’ve seen with this virus. Human skill and motivation, when it comes to short term survival, is absolutely ruthless. We will destroy our economy to make sure that Aunt Bertha doesn’t get sick. We will close the pubs and restaurants and shops because it may allow us to avoid death. But we will hold a hotly contested referendum in order to decide whether we should charge people for a plastic bag. Plastic is killing millions. Just not millions of humans.

Having watched this new world roll out before the panning camera, I can’t help but wonder: What if we told people that it could be deadly to have babies for the next couple of years? Well, I’m sure there’d be a ruckus, but I suspect most would comply – you know – to avoid risking death. But that’s a ridiculous thought experiment. Or is it?

What happened to this blog? Where is the spiritual angle? Okay –

The bad news is that there isn’t some overarching “Mother Nature” figure, some sentient “Universe” who is just waiting to teach the silly humans a lesson. We hear that one every time there’s a bit of rough weather or a volcano erupts. This is no different. Do you seriously think, that if any beneficent being had the power to “teach humans a lesson” that they would have waited until we got so far with wrecking things?

If your kid is careless and spills paint on the carpet, you tell them off. If they burn a hole in the carpet, they are probably in big trouble. You don’t wait until the whole damn neighourhood is on fire. Unless you actually are powerless to stop them.

As for what I think my gods and goddesses are saying to me, they’re invested in the ecosystem we know, not the rocks under it. Some of them tell me not to give up yet. Fight to save what we understand as the natural world. That’s why I’m writing this.

I've been working fairly intensely with a body of stories about Manannán mac Lir which are sometimes called O'Donnell's Kern. More folklore than mythology, this kind of story about Manannán has always fascinated me. People call them "trickster tales", but that category has always felt a bit too offhand for my liking. I might call them teaching tales, because there is surely a lesson in them, and that lesson is an important one in Celtic culture: that of hospitality.

You can read the stories for yourself. They are in Lady Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men under the heading "Manannán at Play", and in Standish O'Grady's Silva Gadelica as "O'Donnell's Kern". A wonderful, and quite different version from Islay turns up in J. F. Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands as "The Slim, Swarthy Champion." As if that isn't enough, I'm currently working on a retelling of them on my YouTube channel. [Update: Here's the video.]

As usual, I have fallen in love with my subject, and as sometimes happens, that led to a poem. It's full of obscure references to the tales, but I will leave you to hunt them down for yourself. You don't even need to leave the comfort of your seat. All those books I mentioned, above, are in the public domain and kicking around on the internet.

Perhaps I should offer a prize to anyone who would care to unravel it all in the comments. Couple of free chapbooks, anyone?

Old gods like Bel, or Belenos, who may or may not be Beli Mawr, have no story left at all. It sounds like a good bet to honour Him at Beltane, but that is only a guess. Like Don, and Lir, and Anu, there is nothing remaining of their stories. They are merely the first in lists. A distant point of origin. So how is it that we can still sometimes feel them?

Lugh, who was once Lugos in Gaul and Iberia, but it is in Ireland that His story is so rich. Hero, foster-son. Son of both the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorians. Lugh, who killed his own grandfather in battle. The many-skilled one, leader of a skilled people. He returned to father Cú Chulainn in a dream, and returned again to confirm the sovereignty of Conn of the Hundred Battles. Or so they say. He may somehow be Lleu. Their stories are different but nothing is impossible here.

Nothing is impossible and nothing is forgotten, as they say. It’s just a bit kaleidoscopic. Fragmenting and re-forming into beautiful, light shattered images, which your soul immediately recognises, while your mind rebels at the strangeness, and you reach out for something solid to hold onto.

These were the first deities I knew, and they were hard to know, partly because I had no point of reference. No sense of how or where to read their stories or not-stories, I went forward, mostly blindly, for years. It’s a wonder I didn’t lose interest completely, but even the thread of their names, an occasional sense of their presence was something.

They are woven gently through the landscape of their homelands. Don’t only look for them in the stone circles and under dolmens – you can find them all over. Go to any path that follows running water. Between two hills with beautiful curves, or in a hazel copse. Tread the same path repeatedly, and the very energy raised by your footsteps will awaken them. Or so it was for me.
 
These are the gods who went into the hollow hills. They receded into the very atoms of the hollows of nature. They are in the here-not-here. They are right beside you.

And their stories are a thread along which they travel. Along which so much is communicated, is transmitted.  A thread along which they feel their way toward us – into our time, and along which we find our way through the dark to Them. When we speak their names and tell their stories – when we think about them, they glow a little brighter, become more solidly here. They have more agency in our world again.

I began to find their stories. Mostly the tangled web of Irish stories, and from this emerged Manannán mac Lir, the beautiful, wise, generous god of the sea. He may be named for the Isle of Man or the island may be named for Him. He must, somehow, be one with Manawydan fab Llyr – son of Beli Mawr, second husband of Rhiannon. It’s just that we don’t know how they are one.

Do not enter the realm of the Celtic gods if you want black and white answers. There are no certainties here. They are mist. They are sunbeams. They will not get their stories straight in order to reassure you. It’s all hide and seek through a maze of texts, manuscripts, and recensions. Genealogies that go in circles, and cognates that don’t quite work. Ducks that don’t walk like ducks, and swans that may be princesses.

Don’t get me wrong. Scholarship is rewarding here. Just temper it with patience, and with mysticism. Allow imagination. Give it all time. You can’t know it quickly, no matter how high an achiever you think you are.

The next I encountered was Epona. Having been shepherded along for years by the three or four I’ve mentioned, I was playing it pretty casual. Epona began to show up, letting me know this was real. Glorious Epona, horse goddess.

When I was pointed to Rhiannon, I knew they were not the same. Rhiannon, who they say, linguistically, might once have been Rigantona, if there ever was a Rigantona. And Teyron – who may have been Tigernonos. But Rhiannon and Teyrnon are enough, surely? But, oh, the Mabinogi! I have learned so much, keeping that under my pillow – a copy in every room of my house.

So much makes sense now. I can almost lay the cards out straight sometimes. Almost. I think back to that encounter I had with Mabon. I get in touch with Maponos. “Divine sons of divine mothers,” they say to me in slightly out-of-synch stereo. I’m fine with that. I’ve been under the earth, seen the prison. I understand the healing there, and the importance of setting it free.

I hear from Macha. Macha of the many Machas. Queens, warrior women, land goddesses – swift, shining ones. Macha of the triple Morrigan (although exactly which three of the four …). Macha, horse goddess, who is not Rhiannon, who is not Epona. I see them travelling together more and more, these days. Herd mothers. Mare mothers. Horse queens.

Macha is looking over my shoulder. Reminding me that we have things to do. Mabon wants us to unblock the healing springs. To unblock the dammed up door to the gods. The door of myth. There is help, and healing, and wisdom behind that door!

There is always more. Ogmios. Who, they say, linguistically, cannot quite have become Ogma. God of poetry and eloquence. God of strength and writing, and a sunny countenance. He leads his followers by silver chains from his golden tongue to their enchanted ears. They follow him willingly, as I follow this misty path – preferring beauty to logic, every time.

I've been kicking this idea around for a month or two, and the more I thought about it the more excited I felt about doing it. Everything you need to know about the course is over on the Celtic Myths and Deities page. The course starts on November 24th. Come join me!