Arianrhod; Postnatal Trauma and the Rejecting of Patriarchy by Kelle BanDea

Mothers and sons. The stories that make up the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, a Welsh medieval collection of Celtic legends, are in large part about mothers and sons. Mostly about their separation. Mabon is stolen from Modron. Rhiannon’s son Pryderi is twice captured. Branwen’s baby is murdered. In Arianrhod’s tale, the Fourth Branch, it is she, the mother, who rejects her son.

Arianrhod is forced to prove her virginity by King Math and her magician brother Gwydion, and fails the test by giving birth to Dylan, son of the sea, and Lleu llaw Gyffes. Dylan becomes a sea creature, and Arianrhod, not knowing Lleu is alive, flees in shame. Gwydion raises him and later brings him to Arianrhod for her to name him. She refuses; in fact, she curses him to bear no name, then that he shall never bear arms, and then that he shall never marry. Gwydion gets around all this by trickery and Lleu becomes king, and seemingly a good one, but ultimately dies alone and unreconciled with his mother.

I’ve always struggled with this story. No matter how many mythic and archetypal interpretations depict Arianrhod as an initiator, a representation of the Sovereignty goddess, and her rejection as in fact being a test of Lleu’s manhood and right to rule, I could never get past the cruelty of her refusing to acknowledge or even name her son. Arianrhod is the one female figure in the Mabinogi that I just couldn’t find any spark of divinity in, until I looked at her through very human eyes.

For, seen as not neopagan goddess or archetype or allegory, but as woman and mother, Arianrhod spoke to me not of cruelty, or initiatory testing, but of trauma. Faced with a son she had no idea even existed, kept from her by her brother’s scheming, can we really be so surprised at her reaction? Especially when we dig a little deeper into her story and the circumstances of Lleu’s birth.

King Math is described as testing Arianrhod’s virginity with his ‘staff’ or ‘wand,’ a metaphor many scholars have interpreted as Math raping or sexually assaulting Arianrhod. Others believe her brother Gwydion is Lleu’s father; earlier in this story Gwydion is punished by Math for raping Goewin, often seen as an aspect of Arianrhod herself. Whichever the original version the inference is clear; Arianrhod is violated, has a traumatic birth, and is publicly shamed for it. This sort of deep trauma can affect the mother-child attachment bond in lasting and tragic ways, and that is what I see happening in this story. By the time Arianrhod even learns her son is alive he is a young man, brought up and shaped by her rapist trickster brother. Her rejection and cursing of him seems more understandable. To my mind, it is not just Lleu she curses, but masculinity itself; the importance of titles, of weapons, and of heirs to carry on the male line and name. These are the trappings of patriarchy. No wonder Arianrhod refuses to continue them. Perhaps in cursing Lleu, she is trying to save him from them.

For Lleu himself is innocent of wrongdoing and throughout the story is continually wronged against; kept from his mother, manipulated by his uncle, cheated on by his wife and murdered by her lover. The circumstances of his conception and birth haunt him his whole life. He is an example of how ‘good men’ or at least, not evil men, are also wounded by patriarchy. How titles and weapons and arranged marriages crumble to nothing; his crown does not stop him dying alone and ultimately defeated. He carries the wound of the motherless child, and Arianrhod is not a rejecting mother so much as a traumatized one; their bond is severed by violence.

When I view this tale in these terms, it also helps me to look at it through an ecological lens; the Sovereignty Goddess either weds or mothers the king and gives him his right to rule in exchange for his promise to safeguard the land and its people. In this tale this ancient contract has been reneged on via patriarchal violence; just as in the Arthurian tale of the well maidens their violation causes the land to become a Wasteland. This motif runs all through Brythonic Celtic myth, and so to read these tales as hero tales or initiatory tales seems to me to wholly miss the point.

In popular culture Arianrhod is often described as a beautiful and benevolent moon and star goddess, a goddess of reincarnation spinning her silver wheel in her castle of Caer Arianrhod. She is beloved by neopagans, poets, and Celtic practitioners alike. And maybe she is all of these things, but I see her original tale as a darker one.

One which needs to be retold, because it has never stopped happening.

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