Math fab Mathonwy- Celtic GodDeity"Lord of Gwynedd"

The Footholder and the All-Hearing King

Math fab Mathonwy was lord of Gwynedd, an ancient magician-king bound by an unusual geas: he could not survive unless his feet rested in the lap of a virgin, except when the tumult of war occupied him. His footholder was Goewin, a woman of good family who served this ritual function. He also possessed the ability to hear any sound carried by the wind, making him nearly impossible to deceive. Yet his nephews Gwydion and Gilfaethwy managed it by engineering a war with Pryderi of Dyfed over the pigs of Annwn, the one circumstance that drew Math from his chamber and distracted his supernatural hearing.

The Crime and Punishment

While Math was at war, Gilfaethwy raped Goewin with Gwydion's assistance, violating the most sacred trust of the court. Upon learning the truth, Math married Goewin to restore her honour and grant her queenly status. Then he turned to his nephews. For three years he turned them into mated pairs of animals: stag and hind in the first year, boar and sow in the second, wolf and she-wolf in the third. Each was forced to bear offspring in animal form. The children born from these unions were made human and fostered at court. Only after enduring three years of bestial existence were Gwydion and Gilfaethwy restored to human shape and forgiven.

Arianrhod's Test and the Creation of Blodeuwedd

Math needed a new footholder after Goewin's marriage. Gwydion suggested his sister Arianrhod, and Math tested her virginity by having her step over his magic wand. She failed the test, dropping two infants: one became the sea-creature Dylan, and the other was seized by Gwydion and would become Lleu Llaw Gyffes. Arianrhod's humiliation drove her to curse the child three times, and the final curse, that Lleu would never have a wife of any mortal race, required Math's greatest feat of magic to overcome. Working with Gwydion, Math drew upon the blossoms of oak, broom, and meadowsweet to conjure Blodeuwedd, a woman of surpassing beauty who could marry Lleu without breaking the prohibition.