Not Your Ordinary Loving Mother

Arianrhod tells me that she is rather amused that many books and websites refer to her as a Mother Goddess.

The reasoning for this is likely that She gives birth to Dylan and Llew Law Gyffes. Except that as a mother, She wasn't much of one. Dylan immediately skipped off into the waves, and She variously abandoned Llew or he was stolen from her by her brother Gwydion. Even "worse," the traditional explanation of her central myth from the Mabinogion suggests that her treatment of Llew wasn't exactly kind. I'll address that in a later post.

Some sites refer to her as a Triple Goddess. And since most Celtic Godesses are in some manner Triple Goddesses, there is a bit to that. In triplicity, the goddesses she is connected with are Blodeuwedd and Cerridwen, both of whom are mentioned in the Mabinogion in relationship with her myth.

I found at least one site which suggests the Morrigan, rather than Cerridwen. The problem with this is that the Morrigan is a British/Irish goddess, not Welsh.

Although she may at times appear as a beautiful young woman (After all, Goddesses are ageless, and may certainly appear so.) Arianrhod informs me that she is in fact a Crone. This makes sense considering her association with death/rebirth as well as trials and testing.