Caridwen
Also known as: Ceridwen · Role: wife and mother · First appears: TALIESIN 1
In TALIESIN 1, Caridwen was married to Tegid Voel, whose dwelling was in the midst of Lake Tegid: “his wife was called Caridwen.” She was the parent of Morvran ab Tegid, Creirwy, Avagddu, and Taliesin, whom she bore for nine months and could not bring herself to kill because of his beauty.
She employed Taliesin to stir a cauldron and Morda to kindle the fire beneath it, charging them to keep it boiling for a year and a day. Afterward, she and Taliesin became enemies: he fled in the form of a hare, while she pursued him as a greyhound; she also seized a billet of wood and struck the blind Morda, and Taliesin later described himself as having been “In the womb of the hag Ceridwen”.
Relationship record
Life events
- Caridwen begins boiling a cauldron of Inspiration and Science to give Avagddu exalted knowledge.(TALIESIN 1)
- The cauldron bursts, poisons Gwyddno Garanhir's horses, and Caridwen strikes Morda after blaming Gwion Bach.(TALIESIN 1)
- With: Morda Taliesin Gwyddno Garanhir
- “And the cauldron burst in two, because all the liquor within it except the three charm-bearing drops was poisonous, so that the horses of Gwyddno Garanhir were poisoned”
- Caridwen spares her newborn son and casts him into the sea in a leathern bag.(TALIESIN 1)
- With: Taliesin
- “when she was delivered of him, she could not find it in her heart to kill him, by reason of his beauty. So she wrapped him in a leathern bag, and cast him into the sea to the mercy of God, on the twenty-ninth day of April.”
- Taliesin reveals his supernatural origins and declares that he became Taliesin after dwelling in Ceridwen's womb.(TALIESIN 3 · 📍 court of Maelgwn)
- With: Taliesin Maelgwn Gwynedd
- “Then I was for nine months In the womb of the hag Ceridwen; I was originally little Gwion, And at length I am Taliesin.”
TALIESIN 1
- married with Tegid Voel “In times past there lived in Penllyn a man of gentle lineage, named Tegid Voel, and his dwelling was in the midst of the Lake Tegid, and his wife was called Caridwen.”
- child: Morvran ab Tegid “And there was born to him of his wife a son named Morvran ab Tegid”
- child: Creirwy “and also a daughter named Creirwy, the fairest maiden in the world was she”
- child: Avagddu “For it was in the beginning of Arthur's time and of the Round Table.”
- servant: Taliesin “And she put Gwion Bach the son of Gwreang of Llanfair in Caereinion, in Powys, to stir the cauldron”
- servant: Morda “and a blind man named Morda to kindle the fire beneath it, and she charged them that they should not suffer it to cease boiling for the space of a year and a day.”
- child: Taliesin “And, as the story says, she bore him nine months, and when she was delivered of him, she could not find it in her heart to kill him, by reason of his beauty.”
- enemies with Taliesin “And he saw her, and changed himself into a hare and fled. But she changed herself into a greyhound and turned him.”
- with Morda (Caridwen injured Morda after the cauldron was lost.) “And she seized a billet of wood and struck the blind Morda on the head until one of his eyes fell out upon his cheek.”
- with Taliesin (Caridwen assigned Gwion Bach to stir the cauldron.) “And she put Gwion Bach the son of Gwreang of Llanfair in Caereinion, in Powys, to stir the cauldron, and a blind man named Morda to kindle the fire beneath it, and she charged them that they should not suffer it to cease boiling for the space of a year and a day.”
TALIESIN 3
- with Taliesin (Taliesin claims to have been in Ceridwen's womb.) “Then I was for nine months In the womb of the hag Ceridwen;”
- child: Taliesin “Then I was for nine months In the womb of the hag Ceridwen;”
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Extracted from the original text of The Mabinogion. Made with Rho MD.