In my attempted novel, In the Deep, I tried to imagine a story for the origins of Vindos / Gwyn, His kingdom in Annwn, and for the creation of the world. This was based on a combination of my readings of Brythonic and other Celtic and Indo-European and world myths and my personal gnosis.
I worked for a year and a half on a story that had meaning for me and I felt Gwyn wanted me to write as the awen kept on flowing. Yet it didn’t speak to many humans and, in retrospect, although coherent, contained a lot of flaws.
Looking back, I feel it was a process I needed to go through. I genuinely believe I saw faces of Gwyn, such as the Boy in the Serpent Skins, that were meaningful for me and needed to journey with Him and write those tales.
Yet there were elements of the story I could never quite make work. My personal gnosis led me to perceive parallels between Tiamat in the Enuma Elish and a ‘found’ Goddess I know as Anrhuna who takes the form of a nine-headed dragon and is Gwyn’s mother and the Mother of Annwn.
In the Deep was written as an inversion of Enuma Elish ‘When on High’ reimagining what might have been a wider Indo-European origin myth centring on the slaying of a dragon from the side of the Deep rather than the victors.
It opens with a battle between the Dragons of the Deep (Annwn) and the Children of Don wherein Lugus / Lleu slays Anrhuna, the Dragon Mother. By cutting off Her nine heads He releases the dragon children of the nine elements*. He then cuts open Her womb and tears out Kraideti / Creiddylad (the Girl who will Bring Life) and Vindos / Gwyn (the Boy who will Bring Death). Lugus takes Kraideti to the stars and flings Vindos into the Abyss. Uidianos / Gwydion steals the magical jewels from Anrhuna’s foreheads and with them commands the dragon children to create the world.
Although I’ve been able to picture the dragon slaying scene quite vividly I’ve never quite managed to see or write the creation of the world. I’ve ‘seen’ Uidianos and a circle of enchanters with their wands conjuring with the elements to form a world but can’t seem to connect it with the dragons.
The role of Gwydion as demiurge I derived from His creation of Taliesin in ‘The Battle of the Trees’ from ‘nine forms of consistency’ – ‘fruit’, ‘fruits’, ‘God’s fruit in the beginning’, ‘primroses’, ‘flowers’, ‘the blossoms of trees and shrubs’, ‘earth’ / ‘sod’, ‘nettle blossoms’, and ‘the ninth wave’s water’.
In ‘The Song of the Great World’ Taliesin is created by God from ‘seven consistencies’ – ‘fire and earth, / and water and air, / and mist and flowers, / and the fruitful wind’. Like the the microcosmic Adam** his creation may be seen to mirror the creation of the world by God in this poem. It seems possible Gwydion was earlier seen as creating Taliesin and the world.
In ‘A British Myth of Origins’ John Carey suggests the Fourth Branch of The Mabinogion might contain an origin myth with Math’s kingdom whilst He has His feet in the lap of a virgin, Goewin, representing a timeless paradisal state. Gwydion’s scheming with Gilfaethwy to bring about her rape represent a fall. Gwydion and Gilfaethwy’s transformation by Math into a deer and a pig and a wolf, and their bearing of offspring, may explain the origin of animals.
Carey also suggests the story of Taliesin shapeshifting into various animals after stealing the awen from the cauldron of Ceridwen and the animal transformations of figures such as Mongan in the Irish myths function ‘as a device to connect the present with its origins, whether the beginnings of history or the transtemporal eternity of the Otherworld.’
It’s my personal intuition that Ceridwen may be a creator Goddess. That Her crochan ‘cauldron’ or ‘womb’ could be the vessel from which the universe was born. This is another strand that I attempted to weave into my book.
If we look back beyond medieval Welsh mythology to the Roman sources we find no evidence whatsoever of a creation myth. Instead Strabo reports that the Gallic peoples (who according to Caesar derived their beliefs from the Britons) believe ‘men’s souls and the universe are imperishable’. Several authors speak of the belief that the soul is immortal. According to Caesar it ‘does not die but crosses over after death from one place to another’ showing existence in an ‘otherworld’ (potentially Annwn). Diodorus Siclus claims the Gauls ‘subscribe to the doctrine of Pythagoras that the human spirit is immortal and will enter a new body after a fixed number of years’. The key doctrine of Pythagoras is metempychosis and we find this throughout the Taliesin material wherein he speaks of his transformations.
It seems possible we don’t have a Brythonic creation myth as the universe was viewed as ‘imperishable’ and the eternal soul as shifting through different shapes, potentially crossing from this world to Annwn and back again.
One of the things that has stood out to me whilst returning to the Taliesin material is that rather than telling of creation as given he instead poses riddles. ‘How is the sun put into position? / Where does the roofing of the Earth come from?’ ‘Where do the day and the night come from?’ He mocks Christian scribes for not knowing ‘how the darkness and light divide, / (nor) the wind’s course’.
Taliesin seems to be claiming to know yet he leaves the answers a mystery. Could it be that our Brythonic ancestors treated these issues as mysteries rather than having clear cut myths and stories and explanations?
If so could my failure to create a myth that works be based on the fact there have never been any direct answers and these things should be left mysterious?
If so it seems this book idea has played itself out for what it is but can go no further. I fulfilled my promise to Gwyn to write Him an origin story (something He didn’t ask for but that I did as an act of devotion to Him). It just didn’t turn out to be a novel sellable to humans. Which is ok.
Where to go from here I’m not sure. I still want to write, I still need to write, in service to my Gods and to give voice to the awen from Annwn and within. To provide content for my patrons who continue to support me. But it might be that now I’ve become a nun of Annwn, Sister Patience, what I write will change.
It seems possible I will be taking a more meditative approach with a focus on mystery, which feels fitting for a nun dedicated to a God of the Deep.
*Stone, earth, water, ice, mist, wind, air, fire, magma.
**In her notes to ‘The Battle of the Trees’ Marged Haycock adds some references to medieval Christian texts where Adam is said to be created from ‘eight consistencies’ – ‘land, sea, earth, clouds of the firmament, wind, stones, the Holy Spirit and the light of the world’ or ‘earth (flesh), fire (red, hot blood), wind (breath), cloud (instability of mind), grace (understanding and thought) blossoms (variety of his eyes), dew (sweat), salt (tears).’
The Sanctuary of Vindos 
As I have commented before, Lorna, the time you spent writing the creation myth was not wasted, as you know. You honoured that journey. You honoured Gwyn in doing so. Perhaps new that you have exhausted that writing thread a new and more authentic voice as Sister Patience can now emerge. New challenges will emerge. New wonders discovered. New forms of expression manifest. Walk this part of your journey in what my preaching professor in seminary called: Holy Boldness. Journey well and bravely. I await what will yet emerge from your pen.
Thank you for your encouragement 🙂
From all that you say here it is evident that you did invaluable work in the course of this project, and discovered many important things. The fact that it did not issue in a novel certainly in no way renders it less successful, as the novel is itself a complicated and, especially in its modern practice, an essentially problematic form of writing that may not even be appropriate for cosmogony, being too linear, for one thing, to sustain the fractal character of cosmogonic thought without distortion. It may well be the case, as you suggest here, that the original character of the tradition in which you are working preferred texts of an elliptical or riddling character, precisely because these textual forms are closer to the way in which the cosmos itself is formed.
Thank you for stopping by with words of encouragement. Coincidentally I’ve just been reading your analyses of cosmogonic myths in ‘Way of the Gods’ and helped me think some of this through. I’m just about to post the review!
Its seems to me, from reading here, perhaps religion back in pre-christian times didn’t attempt to provide an all-encompassing view of reality as does the Judaic religions, or abrahamic or whatever they call them – its like christianity was attempting to override science – or alchemic tradition or whatever that was called back then – perhaps that was why Taliesin was having a dig at this new supplanted style of doing religion
I think that could be part of it. He definitely seems to claim some deeper and alternative knowledge.
It sure is very interesting!
If you should ever change your mind it would be a novel I’d like to read.
I am curious about where Nodens/Nudd fits into the genealogy in your myth.
Good to hear from you and thanks for asking. Nodens is the son of Bel (one of the fire giants whose burning eyes are the stars – his becomes the sun) and Don (the Goddess of the Starry Seas). He is King of the Gods and orders the constellations. Then He tires of war and dreams of Anrhuna. Uidianos casts Him out. He falls to Annwn and falls in love with Anrhuna. They mate and that’s how Vindos and Kraideti are conceived. Nodens fights on the side of Annwn against the Children of Don (contra the Second Battle of Moytura). Lugus cuts off His right arm and His skilful hand replaces the hand of Nodens as king.
Interesting–sounds like a reevaluation of dragon/serpent myth among other things.
I am partial to some of the children of Don but would enjoy reading this very different take. I will email. Thanks.
PS If you want to read the book I can email you the PDF if you email at lornasmithers81@gmail.com
Sometimes the writing of a book is more about the journey of the writer than of the characters, or reader. To paraphrase the old saying, you can’t write the same book twice – the second time you’re not the same writer, and it’s not the same story. We learn through working with our hands and minds – the tools we use when we write.
As one of my favourite writers says: we don’t write to have an audience, we write to have a voice.