Encyclopedia > Cerridwen

  Article Content

Ceridwen

Redirected from Cerridwen

In Celtic mythology, Ceridwen was a magician, mother of Taliesin, Morfran, and a beautiful daughter.

Morfran was hideously ugly, so she sought to make him wise. Ceridwen had a magical cauldron that could make a potion granting wisdom. The mixture had to be cooked for a year and a day. Morda, a blind man, tended the fire beneath the cauldron, while Gwion, a young boy, stirred the concoction.

The first three drops of liquid from this cauldron gave wisdom; the rest was a fatal poison. Three hot drops spilled onto Gwion's hand as he stirred, burning him. He instinctively put his hand in his mouth, and instantly gained great wisdom and knowlede.

Ceridwen chased Gwion. He turned himself into a rabbit. She became a dog. He became a fish and jumped into a river. She turned into an otter. He turned into a bird; she became a hawk. Finally, he turned into a single grain of corn. She became a hen and ate him,

When Ceridwen became pregnant, she knew it was Gwion and resolved to kill the child when he was born. However, when he was born, he was so beautiful that she couldn't do it. She threw him in the ocean instead.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Shinnecock Hills, New York

... Native American, 0.97% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 2.17% from other races, and 1.66% from two or more races. 10.41% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 66.1 ms