Arianrhod- Celtic GodDeity"Silver Wheel"

The Test of Virginity

Math fab Mathonwy, lord of Gwynedd, had a singular requirement: whenever he was not leading his armies in war, he had to rest his feet in the lap of a virgin or he would die. His foot-holder Goewin had been raped by Gilfaethwy while Math was away at war, and Math had punished both Gilfaethwy and his brother Gwydion by transforming them into mated pairs of animals for three years. Now he needed a new virgin.

Gwydion, restored to human form, suggested his sister Arianrhod. Math asked whether she was a maiden. She said that as far as she knew, she was. Math told her to step over his magic wand. As she did, a fully formed yellow-haired boy dropped from her and cried out. Before anyone could react, a second small form fell. Gwydion snatched it up and hid it in a chest at the foot of his bed. Arianrhod fled toward the sea, her claim to virginity shattered before the entire household of Gwynedd.

Dylan Eil Ton

The yellow-haired boy was named Dylan. Math baptised him, and the moment water touched the child, he made for the sea. He entered the waves and took on the nature of the ocean itself, swimming as naturally as any fish. No wave ever broke beneath him. He became Dylan Eil Ton, Dylan Son of the Wave.

His uncle Gofannon the smith struck him dead, an act the Welsh Triads count among the Three Unfortunate Blows of the Island of Britain. The waves mourned him. The sound of the sea crashing between Caernarfon and Anglesey was the water's grief, and the wave that rolls up the mouth of the River Conwy was called Dylan's death-groan.

The Three Fates

The second form that Gwydion had hidden grew at twice the natural pace. By four years old the boy was the size of an eight-year-old. Gwydion brought him to Caer Arianrhod to present him to his mother.

Arianrhod, confronted with this living evidence of her humiliation, placed three tyngedau upon the child: he would have no name unless she herself gave him one, he would bear no arms unless she herself armed him, and he would have no wife from any race then living on the earth.

The Winning of a Name

Gwydion disguised himself and the boy as cordwainers and set up a stall on the shore beneath Caer Arianrhod. He used magic to make their leather appear dyed in extraordinary colors that drew attention from the castle. When Arianrhod came down to have shoes fitted, she noticed the boy throw a stone at a wren perched on the deck of a ship. The stone struck the tiny bird precisely between the tendon and the bone of its leg. Arianrhod exclaimed, "The fair one has a skilful hand!" In Welsh: Lleu Llaw Gyffes. Gwydion threw off his disguise and declared she had just named the boy with her own lips.

Arianrhod swore bitterly that the boy would never bear arms unless she herself gave them to him.

The Winning of Arms

Gwydion appeared next at Caer Arianrhod with Lleu, both disguised as bards from Morgannwg. Arianrhod received them hospitably. They feasted and told stories into the night. Before dawn, Gwydion conjured the illusion of a massive fleet attacking the castle from the sea: ships filling the strait, warriors wading ashore, fires burning on the beach. In the chaos, Arianrhod armed every available defender, including the young man at her side whom she did not recognize. She buckled a sword belt around his waist and placed a shield in his hands.

Gwydion dispelled the illusion. The fleet vanished. The sea was empty and calm. Arianrhod saw Lleu standing before her in the arms she herself had given him. Twice outwitted by her own brother, she swore the third fate: Lleu would never have a wife of any woman of any race on earth.

The Flower Wife

Gwydion went to Math, and together they worked an enchantment no one had attempted before. They gathered the flowers of oak, broom, and meadowsweet, and from these blossoms conjured a woman. They named her Blodeuwedd, Flower Face. Because she had never been born of any race on earth, she could be Lleu's wife without violating the letter of Arianrhod's fate.

The solution was flawed. Blodeuwedd fell in love with another man, conspired to murder Lleu, and very nearly succeeded. Lleu survived only because Gwydion tracked him across Gwynedd and restored him. Blodeuwedd was transformed into an owl.

Caer Arianrhod

In the sky, Caer Arianrhod was the constellation Corona Borealis, the circling crown of stars that never sets below the horizon at northern latitudes. Welsh star-lore placed the homes of her family across the firmament: Caer Gwydion was the Milky Way, and Llys Dôn, their mother's hall, was Cassiopeia.

On earth, a submerged reef between Dinas Dinlle and Abermenai Point in the Menai Strait was known as the ruins of Arianrhod's drowned castle. The stones are visible only at the lowest tides. Fishermen avoided the spot. Dinas Dinlle itself was connected to Lleu: the son's fortress standing on the shore near the mother's drowned one, the two of them separated by water even in the landscape of Gwynedd.