{"id":1574,"date":"2023-07-09T11:11:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-09T16:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/?p=1574"},"modified":"2023-07-09T11:34:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T16:34:37","slug":"a-woman-clothed-in-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/a-woman-clothed-in-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"A Woman Clothed in Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"1574\" class=\"elementor elementor-1574\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-88a2ae3 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"88a2ae3\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-2ad1fb0\" data-id=\"2ad1fb0\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-5745ce6 elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"5745ce6\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.18.0 - 08-12-2023 *\/\n.elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=\".svg\"]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figure class=\"wp-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"404\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/rhiannonbyikg.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-1576\" alt=\"The Goddess Rhiannon.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/rhiannonbyikg.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/rhiannonbyikg-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"widget-image-caption wp-caption-text\">\"Rhiannon,\" by IKG.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-3ba8f01 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"3ba8f01\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-767395c\" data-id=\"767395c\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-771a322 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"771a322\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.18.0 - 08-12-2023 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p>Lately, I\u2019ve been doing a great deal of research and study on the Welsh Goddesses. Like so much of what I do, this is largely personal work for me, for my own personal spiritual practice. I want to learn as much about Rhiannon, especially, as I possibly can for my work with her at this time, because even though I\u2019ve always felt I shared a special bond with her, simply because my birthday falls on her usually given Feast Day (March 4), it\u2019s still been quite a while now since I\u2019ve been in touch with her.<\/p><p>But these past few weeks, I\u2019ve been digging deep into Rhiannon\u2019s history and myth, re-familiarizing myself with it and actually uncovering new elements to it, of which I was never before aware.<\/p><p>The first thing I discovered, of course, is that like so much of what is on Internet, there is an inordinate amount of pure bunk out there about Rhiannon. New Pagans, particularly, often do a limited bit of cursory reading, usually in badly researched, documented, and written Wicca 101 books, then post all the erroneous information they\u2019ve read to their blogs, groups, Mystery Schools, the Internet, and elsewhere \u2014 thus perpetuating the same mistaken beliefs and conclusions over and over again.<\/p><p>Here\u2019s one such piece of information about Rhiannon:<\/p><blockquote><p>\u201cThe Celtic Moon Goddess Rhiannon was born at the first Moon Rise and is known as the Divine Queen of Faeries. She is the Goddess of fertility, rebirth, wisdom, magick, transformation, beauty, artistic inspiration and poetry.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><p>This quote appears, unattributed, on numerous websites all over the Internet. As nearly as I can determine through attempting to track it back to its actual origin, it may come from a website and\/or a 70-page, self-published Kindle book, <em>The Celtic Moon Goddess<\/em>, both the website and the book by Eliseo Mauas Pinto, who is an Argentinian musician and poet &#8212; not a Celtic scholar. Further, despite diligent searching, I have been unable to find his own source and\/or inspiration for this information.<\/p><p>Because I happen to belong to a seriously scholarly and erudite Celtic group on Facebook, I also asked there. None of my fellows equally dedicated to the ancient Celts and their historical texts had a clue, either. To the contrary, like me, all who responded (and there were more than seventy likes and comments; my question actually sparked quite a lively discussion!) were in agreement that nothing like this quote is to be found in any of the ancient Welsh or other Brythonic tales, and that this is decidedly not, in fact, how Rhiannon is portrayed in <em>The Mabinogi<\/em>, which is the primary source for her.<\/p><p>Indeed, Stevie Nicks notwithstanding, virtually everything we know about Rhiannon points to her being a Sun Goddess, not a Moon, Night, and\/or Wind Goddess at all, and although she may have been a Faery Queen, she is for several reasons equally as likely to have been a Giantess.<\/p><p>So, the first thing we need to do when digging deep is to let the sun shine in to illuminate our sources. Are they primary, secondary, or tertiary? If you don\u2019t know what any of that means, a good explanation can be found here: <a href=\"https:\/\/odyssey.lib.vt.edu\/files\/original\/657260b510765575bbcb7674d7e783a1862c3244.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources: A Guide from University Libraries<\/a>.<\/p><p>Next, we need to ask ourselves just exactly how accurate and trustworthy our sources really are. Any field of study can have bad works in it, and Wicca, for example, is absolutely rife with poorly researched, documented, and written books. Some popular Wiccan authors, for example, are well known to have made numerous egregious errors about the Celts in their work, and also appear on \u00c1r nDra\u00edocht F\u00e9in\u2019s (\u201cOur Own Druidry\u201d) \u201cNot Recommended\u201d list. Yet they are routinely cited and recommended by countless Wiccans who apparently don\u2019t know any better.<\/p><p>So we need to learn how to read critically, analytically, and with intelligence, thought, and discernment.<\/p><p>One of the things to look for, for instance, are full quotes in context. That means the author didn\u2019t just give you the only snippet of a quote that supported his\/her position, and that, further, s\/he presented the quote in its proper original context, complete with attribution. Thus, if the subject is Rhiannon\u2019s horse, then the author has provided you with a quote that originally actually appeared in regard to Rhiannon\u2019s horse and not Maeve\u2019s bull (unless, of course, some legitimate comparison is being drawn between the two, and that is made clear to you). In addition, the author has told you the source of the quote, down to the page number, if available. So it\u2019s generally wise to double check quotes in a new-to-you author\u2019s work until you are certain s\/he can be trusted.<\/p><p>Etymology (the study of word origins and the way in which their meanings have changed through history) is another good clue to the accuracy of your sources. If a book or a website tells you that Rhiannon\u2019s name, for instance, means \u201cMoon Maiden\u201d or \u201cNight Queen\u201d or \u201cWhite Witch,\u201d etc. (all of which I have seen, by the way), that\u2019s a huge red flag waving a warning to you about the text\u2019s incorrectness. In reality, most Celtic scholars are agreed that Rhiannon\u2019s name is most likely to derive from the reconstructed Brittonic form <em>*R\u012bganton\u0101<\/em> (\u201cDivine or Great Queen\u201d). So if an author routinely mistranslates names and other words, pay heed, and look for another source that actually understands the language(s) they\u2019re working with.<\/p><p>Some of the Celtic languages, for example, had a tendency to become increasingly difficult with time. If you\u2019ve ever paid any attention to how I write Samain instead of Samhain, Lugnasad instead of Lughnasadh, etc., then you\u2019ll know that, these days, I routinely leave the h\u2019s out of such words. That\u2019s because Old Irish, which I much prefer, was simpler and didn\u2019t have them, and Samain and Lugnasad are the Old Irish forms. Samhain and Lughnasadh are the Middle Irish forms (Samain and L\u00fanasa are the Modern Irish forms). In addition, you\u2019ll often see references to Samhuinn, which is the Scottish Gaelic form, while Sauin is Manx, and Samonios is Gaulish.<\/p><p>Authors who are writing about such things should know and understand them. If your sources don\u2019t, then it\u2019s time to find new ones. Other signs of good sources are extremely detailed footnotes, as well as bibliographies that reference many other respected works, rather than just the Internet and\/or sources you already know to be suspect.<\/p><p>How else can you learn to tell good sources from bad ones? One of the best ways is simply to shift out of the Wicca 101 mode. When I first began to seek training at various places, I already possessed a great deal of knowledge about Celtic spirituality. But believe it or not, I didn\u2019t get it from popular books about Wicca. Rather, I got it from scholarly books about the ancient Celts. My personal bookshelves are filled with hundreds of such books, by authors like Rachel Bromwich, Barry Cunliffe, Miranda Green, and John Koch, just to mention a few highly respected Celtic scholars.<\/p><p>I first learned about Rhiannon, for example, not from current Llewellyn books about Celtic Goddesses, but from the Four Branches of the <em>Mabinogi<\/em>, which are the earliest prose stories of the literature of Britain, compiled in Middle Welsh during the 12th\u201313th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are wonderful translations of these and many other such texts, if only you search for them. You can read Lady Charlotte Guest\u2019s nineteenth-century translation (to be taken with a grain of salt) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sacred-texts.com\/neu\/celt\/mab\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Mabinogion<\/a> for free online at places like Sacred Texts, order a copy of Patrick K. Ford\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mabinogi-Other-Medieval-Welsh-Tales\/dp\/0520309588\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2CCRXNU0G062E&amp;keywords=the+mabinogi&amp;qid=1688918772&amp;sprefix=the+mabinogi%2Caps%2C138&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Mabinogi and Other Welsh Tales<\/a> and\/or Sioned Davies\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mabinogion-Oxford-Worlds-Classics\/dp\/0199218781\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1BLXBMOEOT0D9&amp;keywords=the+mabinogion&amp;qid=1688918825&amp;sprefix=the+mabinogion%2Caps%2C110&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Mabinogion<\/a> &#8212; both excellent translations, or if you\u2019re really serious about the Welsh texts, spring for Will Parker\u2019s invaluable translation and analysis, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Four-Branches-Mabinogi-Medieval-Reality\/dp\/0974566756\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2MB6AY1I331ME&amp;keywords=the+mabinogi+will+parker&amp;qid=1688918867&amp;sprefix=the+mabinogi+will+parker%2Caps%2C104&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Four Branches of the Mabinogi: Celtic Myth and Medieval Reality<\/a>.<\/p><p>Reading texts like these is how I know, for instance, that Rhiannon\u2019s birth is nowhere described in the ancient Welsh tales &#8212; least of all that she was \u201cborn at the first Moon Rise&#8230;\u201d To the contrary, in fact, when we are first ever introduced to Rhiannon, she is a fully grown adult woman mounted upon a powerful white horse and \u201cdressed in gold silk brocade\u201d or \u201cwith a garment of shining gold around her,\u201d depending upon which translation you read. Regardless, in reality, she could legitimately be said to be \u201ca woman clothed in sun,\u201d and this is but the first of the many indications that she is indeed a Sun Goddess and has little or nothing whatsoever to do with the Moon.<\/p><p>What are your own thoughts about the Welsh Goddesses&#8230;especially Rhiannon? Do you, too, see her as &#8220;a woman clothed in sun&#8221;?<\/p><p>Blessings!<br \/>APs Rhianwen Bendigaid<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lately, I\u2019ve been doing a great deal of research and study on the Welsh Goddesses. Like so much of what I do, this is largely personal work for me, for my own personal spiritual practice. I want to learn as much about Rhiannon, especially, as I possibly can for my work with her at this time, because even though I\u2019ve always felt I shared a special bond with her, simply because my birthday falls on her usually given Feast Day (March 4), it\u2019s still been quite a while now since I\u2019ve been in touch with her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,46],"tags":[47,151,150],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1589,"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions\/1589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fethfiada.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}