Rhiannon as Midlife Queen Mother by Kelle BanDea

We tend to think of Rhiannon as the fairy maiden on the white horse who entices Pwyll, the King and her future husband, into the Otherworld. Or she is the young mother who is unfairly blamed for the death of her own child until he is restored to her. This is Rhiannon’s story as it is most well-known, and she has become a beloved figure due to it. The image of the beautiful fairy woman on the white horse has become equated, to modern neopagan folks and Goddess-women, with the ancient Celtic and Indo-European horse goddesses. Of all the women in the medieval Welsh lore that we know as the four story ‘branches’ of the Mabinogi, Rhiannon is perhaps the most beloved.

But this is only half of the story.

The story above is contained in the first story of the Mabinogi, known as the First Branch, but Rhiannon shows up again in the Third Branch, and now she is older, certainly in midlife, for the King now is her grown-up, married son. Her first husband is dead, and she is on her second. This is Rhiannon as Queen Mother.

Although like many I’ve always loved the more well-known stories of Rhiannon and seen the echoes of my ancestor’s ancient myths in them, Rhiannon has never been a face of the Divine Feminine that I particularly identify with. I can’t ride horses, her Otherworldly beauty seemed inaccessible, and the tragic tale of her separation from her infant son and the unjust way she was subsequently treated chilled me.

But now I, too, am in midlife. I am in my second marriage, have a grown-up son, and like the younger Rhiannon have survived injustice and betrayal and gone on to thrive. So when I reread the Third Branch recently, for the first time in a decade, I found myself identifying more with Rhiannon, and being drawn more into her story. As a Queen Mother negotiating her second marriage with the steadfast Manawydan, she was more down-to-earth than the porcelain-skinned, ebony-haired fairy princess on the shining white steed that we first meet her as.

This is a more human Rhiannon, maybe, although this story is also filled with Otherworldly castles, sorcerers and Wastelands. For me, struggling to navigate my early forties with the accompanying hot flushes, night sweats and identity crises now that my older children have left home, this was a Rhiannon I could get comfortable with. Confide in. For though she’s still a Queen, she no longer seems unapproachable.

In the Third Branch, the land of Dyfed magically becomes a wilderness and so Rhiannon and Manawydan, her son Pryderi and his wife Cigfa, go to England. Here, instead of living like royalty, they become self-sufficient and start to work for a living. Rhiannon makes shields, saddles and shoes. She learns to hunt. All while keeping the somewhat hot-headed Pryderi in check (he seems to want to fight everyone who insults them.)

In the earlier stories Rhiannon is less forthright. She uses trickery and her ‘feminine wiles’ to get out of an arranged marriage and get her father to agree to her marriage to Pwyll. She acquiesces to the punishment unjustly meted out on her by Pwyll. By the Third Branch, she’s owning her power. This time, when Pryderi gets captured in the Otherworld, Rhiannon goes right after him.

She’s only released when the harms she caused by the way she got out of the aforementioned arranged marriage are addressed. Rhiannon isn’t the victim in this story; instead she has to take some responsibility for her own past actions, and make right the consequences that ensued. Only then do they all get to go home to Dyfed, which has finally been restored to its former glory.

This is a more mature Rhiannon, a woman who has made her own way in the world, earned her own living and raised her children, and learned the hard lessons of accountability. She’s no longer the untouchable fairy queen, or the lamenting, wronged woman. She’s been the oppressor now, to a degree, as well as the oppressed. And while it’s never pleasant to face, none of us get through a capitalist patriarchy without taking on both roles at some point in our lives. As the mood swings of perimenopause bring up feelings of guilt and remorse as well as my own past traumas and hurts, Rhiannon’s full story grounds me.

Then there is her marriage to Manawydan. The story makes it clear that he is what we would call ‘a good man.’ He’s responsible, even-tempered and, startlingly for the time, faithful to his wife. This is a solid relationship, not the love-at-first-sight she had with Pwyll, which ended up disastrously when he banished her to the castle gates after the infant Pryderi disappeared. I think about my own second marriage, and how I’ve finally found an equal, respectful partnership, and this story makes me smile.

For Rhiannon isn’t a lone heroine in this tale. She’s a matriarch, and one half of a healthy relationship. The coming together of a Sacred Masculine and Feminine that can restore our patriarchal Wasteland. There’s a lot going on in this story, and certainly deeper mythical themes than the more prosaic parallels I’ve drawn with my own life, but if there is one thing Goddess spirituality has taught me it is that mythology and mysticism can be practical too. That any spirituality that can’t get deep into the muck and mire of normal life can’t help me.

As a Queen Mother who makes shoes, nags her grown-up son and finally allows herself to choose a decent guy, Rhiannon is a goddess I can get along with.

BIO: Kelle BanDea: Kelle BanDea is a neurodivergent mother of three with Traveller heritage. She currently lives in Warwickshire in the UK with her partner, children and a varied assortment of animals. Her first two books, ‘Modron: Meeting the Celtic Mother Goddess’ and ‘Mabon; Discovering the Celtic God of Hunt and Harp’ are forthcoming with Moon Books. She has graduate degrees in Feminist Theology and Creative Writing and you can find more of her work at kellebandea.substack.com