HOME | DD

Description
Rhiannon is a Welsh Goddess known from the Mabinogion, a medieval-era collection of tales; though the stories are told through a Christian lens, it's clear that many of the characters within are actually Deities.

Rhiannon is one such. In Her tale, Rhiannon is a faery-woman riding a fine white horse, dressed in cloth of gold; a man named Pwyll sees Her, and tries to catch Her on his own horse. But he can't, though he tries day after day; finally he simply asks Her to stop, which She does, remarking that it would have been easier on his horse if he'd just done that in the first place.

Rhiannon and Pwyll are then married, and in time have a son; but the night of his birth he is stolen from his mother by a mysterious apparition. The serving-women, fearing they will be blamed, then frame Rhiannon by smearing Her with the blood of a puppy. When She wakes they claim She has killed, and eaten, Her own child.

No one believes Rhiannon when She protests Her innocence; and as punishment She is made to sit by a horse-mounting block each day and offer all who come to carry them on Her back into the castle.

After some years Her son is found and returned to Her, and Her punishment ended.

Rhiannon is taken to be a horse Goddess; Her name means 'High Queen' and she is likely related to Epona, the Continental Celtic horse Goddess of earlier times, Who shares the epithet of Queen.

I have shown Her here in Her faery dress of gold, the stylization of Her face after Celtic horse depictions. She holds one of Her magical birds, said to have the power to wake the dead or lull the living to sleep.

Description
Rhiannon is a Welsh Goddess known from the Mabinogion, a medieval-era collection of tales; though the stories are told through a Christian lens, it's clear that many of the characters within are actually Deities.

Rhiannon is one such. In Her tale, Rhiannon is a faery-woman riding a fine white horse, dressed in cloth of gold; a man named Pwyll sees Her, and tries to catch Her on his own horse. But he can't, though he tries day after day; finally he simply asks Her to stop, which She does, remarking that it would have been easier on his horse if he'd just done that in the first place.

Rhiannon and Pwyll are then married, and in time have a son; but the night of his birth he is stolen from his mother by a mysterious apparition. The serving-women, fearing they will be blamed, then frame Rhiannon by smearing Her with the blood of a puppy. When She wakes they claim She has killed, and eaten, Her own child.

No one believes Rhiannon when She protests Her innocence; and as punishment She is made to sit by a horse-mounting block each day and offer all who come to carry them on Her back into the castle.

After some years Her son is found and returned to Her, and Her punishment ended.

Rhiannon is taken to be a horse Goddess; Her name means 'High Queen' and she is likely related to Epona, the Continental Celtic horse Goddess of earlier times, Who shares the epithet of Queen.

I have shown Her here in Her faery dress of gold, the stylization of Her face after Celtic horse depictions. She holds one of Her magical birds, said to have the power to wake the dead or lull the living to sleep.