The Power of Stories

The Power of Stories

Mabinogion Musings

I was lucky enough to study with Dr Gwilym Morrus on-line a year or so ago for a short course on Welsh Mythology. It was intense and very uplifting. It both gave me new knowledge about history, place and symbols, and deeper appreciation of the vast wealth of things I know next to nothing about.

As a writer and poet I have always had this feeling, or knowing that there was something mythic, mystic and "other" about writing. When I discovered Women Who Run With the Wolves in my late teens the idea of psychological and healing narratives came into my awareness.

Years later researching depression and mental illness I found this idea of personal and group (or outer) narrative as negative structure or boundary that can fracture.

 Stories (like plays) can be psychological pysho-dramas playing out our internal world outside of ourselves, so we can be seen, recognised and most importantly, transformed.

Stories shift things inside our own narratives, the stories of who we are, and move us.That movement can simply be one of recognition. "I am like that", for both good or ill, and in so seeing that insight we can choose to change.

The Mabinogion is interesting. It is interesting if you like a good story (or 20). It is interesting if you are interesting in mythic, in ancient and in Celtoid cultures. It is interesting is you are interested in stories and poetry. It is also interesting if you interested in ritual, performance and healing narratives.

I have had this feeling (not one born out by fact) that the Mabinogion is a collection or Medicine Wheel of stories, about stories. That they are tales about rituals, spaces and practices made mythic to preserve some of their knowing, maybe even as an inside joke. There these odd little nods that seem to break the fourth wall that speak to this awareness.

While predominantly for the consumption of younger men and boys (much like a mythical version of Exciting Stories for Boys my Dad still had copies of when we cleared his mother's house) full of adventure and lessons in what was "good" and culturally appropriate behaviour; women are everywhere, powerful and un-tamable.

It also hints that there maybe an equal but separate court for wives and women where they told their own stories. These, of course, were not written down. (I can only imagine how lewd, funny and depraved they would have been!)

Many of the stories, though set in familiar places (at least to those who were commissioning the writing of the books) the stories read as both psycho-drama, and ritual initiation process. While the symbols of "The Grey Man Hunting" or "King of the Otherworld" brush the hem of very ancient archetypes, they also as the guide, the Shaman, the Priest with whom you must trade places. 

A journey must be undertaken (you must go and seek and hunt), you must confront and respect the ragged stranger (who is really a King). You must follow and trade places, wear his face (a mask, a set of antlers) and lie a bed with the most beautiful Queen in the (under)World (is she Goddess, or Priestess?), but not lay a kiss on her.

 You must fight the "dark" King, but not give into frenzy or rage. 

Then you must return. Wiser, better and whole.

This is a great story, and is the basis of many many stories, but it is also the basic structure of an initiation ritual. A spirit quest. A coming-of-age quest.

The more I look at these tales (especially the core myths of the Four Branches) the more I see a series of rituals, made into narratives, mixed with humour and local places. Those who knew the rites would have a different understanding than those who did not. I wonder if they were as much for the Bards to keep their own rites and rituals alive, as they were for the audiences to learn, heal and grow.

My preferred version of the Mabinogion is one by Sioned Davies.

Bright Blessings xxx

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