Cerridwen
Ceridwen
Welsh enchantress whose cauldron brewed the gift of poetic inspiration; modern pagans honor her as a goddess.
In the Tale of Taliesin, Cerridwen boils a cauldron of inspiration and knowledge for a year and a day, for her ugly son Afagddu. Three drops spring onto the finger of the boy Gwion Bach, set to stir it; he puts it in his mouth and gains all knowledge. She chases him through a series of shapeshifts until, as a black hen, she swallows him as a grain of wheat. Nine months later she bears him and casts him into the sea in a leather bag; Elphin finds him in a fish-weir and names him Taliesin.
Symbols
In the ancient sources
Welsh tales and poems
- Tale of Taliesin Wife of Tegid Foel, she boils a cauldron of inspiration and knowledge for a year and a day for her son Afagddu.
- Tale of Taliesin Three scalding drops spring onto Gwion Bach's finger; he puts it in his mouth, gains all knowledge, and the cauldron bursts.
- Tale of Taliesin She chases him as greyhound, otter and hawk, then as a black hen swallows him as a grain of wheat.
- Book of Taliesin XVI A poem called 'The Chair of Cerridwen' ends: 'My chair, my cauldron and my laws.'
The tale survives first in a 16th-century manuscript, where she is an enchantress. Medieval court poets treat her as the keeper of poetic inspiration; calling her a goddess is mostly modern.
Cross-checked against these texts and records, in public-domain or freely available versions where they exist. Line, section and chapter numbers follow the standard editions, so a particular translation may differ slightly.
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These mix ancient attributes with modern associations from contemporary pagan and magical practice; the modern ones weren't part of her original worship.