Mabinogi

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.