Celtic Fae Witchcraft: Myth

Celtic Fae Witchcraft: 

Myth

A myth is a story. A mix of early and unknown histories. In modern terms they get a bad rap; as being a fabrication, an over simplification of unknown natural forces. Yet a myth is important not because it is true, but because it contains a truth. Maybe more than one. Myths are narrative heirlooms, worn smooth with the hands that used them over thousands of years. Sometimes lost, forgotten or broken only to be mended and re-used when the need arose. 

Myths are full of symbols and are waking dreams. Chock full of archetypes and ideas. 

Myths work, and still work because of a longing for something we can not quite name.

King Arthur.

If you want to look at the endurance of a myth this one is one of the best. King Arthur it's self is a re-telling of a much older myth about a God-King. His name was Bendigeidfran, or Bran. He too went on a journey to the other-land. Took a famous Bard-wizard with him (Taliesin was this figure in both of the earliest written accounts) and came home dead but not dead and brought the Ravens as a symbol of sovereignty and protection with him and he will "rise again" in a time of great need. In fact in the early accounts he is more "King Arthur" than King Arthur himself in the earlier versions. Another tale speaks of a Roman Emperor who had a dream of a woman from Britain who was so beautiful he sent ships and men all the way from Rome to find her, and find her he did. He came and met his bride and married her and "ruled the land wisely". His name was not Arthur. It is interesting how these stories have merged and blended.   

There are many things missing from the earlier versions. There is no trouble at home, his wife is a good and regal queen. Who holds her own female court. The Arthurian adventures are not his own but are tales of his daring noble knights instead. 

This makes sense because through the Mabinogion (one of the earliest British texts) the themes of instruction for young men or boys repeats. In fact some translations of the Mabinogion's name are just the stories for boys. It is not a book for kings on how to rule but for nobles on how to be noble.

It is difficult to know how old these stories were before they were written down. Yet some scholars believe they came into being some time around the 6th century AD. 

The women in these stories are both interesting and complex. They are smart and tough and often trouble!

While there are clear attempts to marginalize and down play the power held by women in the past as the myths became Christianized, the echoes of their power still exist. 

Many of the heroes and knights are even rescued by women as often as they are lead astray!

Of course the myth of King Arthur did not become fixed and solid. It continued to grow and adapt and change. It gain popularity again as a French retelling added more lust and longing in the 14th century. It was used as the ideal of courtly Kingship by Henry 8th. In fact any time there is struggle and strife, not long after King Arthur emerges to soothe the social fabric. Women became the seducers and corrupters, weak and poisonous. The childless queen was no longer noble but a dangerous liability shirking her God-given responsibility. A warning. 

Over and over again the stories of King Arthur are used to white wash and ennoble violence under courtly manners. A fantasy spinning further and further from his God-King beginnings and it's lessons of what it meant to be Kingly and noble.

There was once a good and noble king. A god-king. A giant of a man. He and his sister ruled the Might Isle. One day ships came, a king came from over the water and asked for his sister's hand in marriage.

He greeted them warmly. He was the best host. His sister agreed and on the sacred mountain they were wed. Her gifts to him were sows. Her gifts to him were horses.

Her other brothers were enraged. They were slighted. The disfigured the horses, they insulted this man they saw as unworthy.

Yet the noble king replaced the horses with his own. The noble king soothed and made peace.

So the sister sailed away, over the deep water to the land of her husband. At first he was kind and she bore a son. Then his men stoked his pride and his hate. He had been insulted and so the sister was punished a little more every year, made less every year until she was made to wash their feet and cook in the ashes. 

She found a small bird, a starling, black and white. She whispered her sorrows to it. It drank her tears. Off it flew, across the starry sky, across the deep sea to her brother's shoulder.

The good king wept when he heard his sister's plight and he gathered his army and his ships that night. All her brothers dressed in black and red face the dark bitter sea to rescue her. Taliesin came, the great bard came and his soft low song made a mist and fog and they went unseen.

The war band raged and pushed deeper and deeper into the land. The king of the land ran and ran back to his castle across a deep river. He burned all the bridges and beat his wife as his son looked on.

The good king reached the river and the army halted, his sister's brother howled like wild wolves. So he being a giant lay down, his fingers on one side, his feet on another. "A leader is a bridge" he said and he bid his men to walk on his body to retrieve his sister. They burst into the castle and found their sister chained near the fire. Holding her son in her arms. Her other brothers rushed and grabbed him and threw him into the great fire. Her screams echoing the sound of the ravens. The god king was injured and he asked to be taken home. Into the boats, across the sea and into a mist, into a dream. Only Taliesin saw it was a dream and woke the others who were lost in their sorrow. They took the still speaking god king's head to bury it in London. He would rise again, protect again, rise again should there ever be a great need. So long as the ravens stayed, so long as the ravens remained, he could rise again.

Many of the army, and his sister bereft simply could not live without him and withered and turned into birds. All save Taliesin. All save the bard who remembered and wept, who remembered and saved their names, and their memories for ever.