Dream of Blodeudd?

[aluokaloo]

Did I spell that right? Last night I had partly a weird dream in that a beautiful, blonde haired woman, with fair skin, and pale blue eyes was coming to visit, there was a man I didn't know who was very excited, I was also with my daughter in a strange house, and then it would blank out like a tv screen getting shut off, and I saw the woman, who said she was the sun, and moon, and then I would hear the man cry out "Bloduedd!". She was wearing a long, sleek white dress, and her hair was cascading down her back. I don't know hardly anything about celtic or welsh mythology, since I was never interetsed in the celtic/welsh mythology or the celtic/welsh pantheon overmuch. But I thought that Bloduedd was a woman made for Llew Llaw Gyfffes (did I spell that right?) made of different sorts of plants and flowers to be his wife, and I don't think she ever had any association with the moon and the sun.

[MariThorn]

If I recall the story correctly, then she was a Goddess who was made of nine kinds of flowers and woods for Llew Llaw Gyffes. The reason was because Llew's mother, Arianrhod, had set down as a requirement for him to become a man that he'd marry a woman who was not born of Woman's womb. Like most Goddesses she chose her own lover . . . ie Gronw, and had her consort killed. It was this that condemned her to be an Owl.

There are those who see as a form of May Queen who has her lover sacrificed eventually. She may also be simply another form of a Chthonic Goddess like Ishtar or Cybele. The story about her was recorded by Christian Monks . . . and there is a long standing arguement that the Mabonigon [sic] was not as it is now. That the Goddesses were all tainted by the Christian Monks because of their independent natures and their loose morals.

I, personally see her as the Spring Goddess, who weds at Beltaine her lover and then has him killed to continue the Cycles. I'm not one who works with the Welsh pantheon, but I've worked with her once . . . Another thing to think about is that the owl is not seen as a bad thing by witches. It is the symbol of the Goddess and Wisdom. She was a maiden, she took a consort, she had the consort killed after choosing a new one, and then became an owl . . . the Crone. As for the sun and moon . . . no I've never heard of any associations there, but if she is revealing herself to you, then perhaps she's letting you in on a lost secret?

MariThorn

[KEishin]

The proper spelling is Blodeuwedd. (Blow-due-weth)
She's my matron, so I know her pretty well. And yes, she DOES like to wear white; every time I see her she's wearing that color. :)

As far as the Moon goes, I've considered her to have loose associations with it because of being doomed to wander the night, alone, as an owl. I'd not say she's a 'Moon Goddess' per say however.

[MoonDragn]

OMG! that describes the woman in my dreams back in my twenties! I dreamed I was scottish and had just married this woman who fits your description wearing a long white chemise. I never did get her name but there was a child in the same room with us on that night who's name was Bridget.

[aluokaloo]

I do remember the man being tall, with a brown beard, and wearing brown clothes. He kept telling me to make sure the house was clean, and the room, was like a modern house, with a wooden floor and a sliding glass door, and behind me was a room with a white bed. The sunlight was slanting in. Other then that, it was pretty much bare, there were no book cases no modern appliances, it was just the room, the sliding glass door, and the bed. The way the man acted it was like he was being visited by a queen, and I was also excited and happy to meet her too, even my dauighter seemed excited. It was weird. I can see the association with the moon now, because I didn't know she had been condemned as an owl. Still wondering about the sun though.

[aluokaloo]

The proper spelling is Blodeuwedd. (Blow-due-weth)
She's my matron, so I know her pretty well. And yes, she DOES like to wear white; every time I see her she's wearing that color. :)

As far as the Moon goes, I've considered her to have loose associations with it because of being doomed to wander the night, alone, as an owl. I'd not say she's a 'Moon Goddess' per say however.



Thank you for correcting me on the spelling, welsh names are hard! Is that blow as in blow dart? Or is it like the way you start to pronouce blouse? Or blah? Sorry, I have a difficult time sometimes saying names and words correctly, if I don't hear them.

[aluokaloo]

I looked up a bit into Blodeuwedd, D.J. Conway says that She is a Goddess of flowers, wisdom, lunar mysteries, and initiation. I don't know, I don't always agree with that particular author, because I am a hard poyltheist and and sometimes she sticks the exact or almost exact associations from one deity to another, so I get confused and frustrated. It is also says that Lleu Llaw Gyffes is associated with the sun. Could that be what was meant? I really don't know anything about the welsh pantheon.It makes some sense because of how sunny the room was before everything went black and she appeared.

[KEishin]

Well I'm not a native Welsh speaker, and there are different dialects which complicate things. For exmaple, last time I was in Wales, I was in a town called Betws-y-Coed and my B&B owner, the pub owner down the street and the petrol clerk in the next town all pronounced it different! I just started calling it 'Betsy the Coed.' :D

But anyway, I've always pronounced her name as above. Blow, as in blow dart would be correct. Double-d's are always a 'th' sound, and the vowels tend to be elongated ('a' as in 'can', 'e' as in 'hen').

Maybe Ffred is around the board and can correct me, but that's how I've always said it.

[yavanna]

What an interesting dream! You might buy or borrow a copy of the Mabonigon and read about her myths in it. There's also a copy of it on the interenet for free at www.sacred-texts.org. Since this is the original source (though likely edited by the monks that commited the myths to writing) you'll get the clearest view of Blodeuwedds mythical form. I'm not overfond of Connyway myself either...

Llew is associated with the Sun and the spring and summer and Goronwy is associated with darkness the fall and winter. There are several articles out there that link the way Llew was slain with the time of the fall equinox.

Here's a snip, full article found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos052.htm

"So if births are associated with the solstices, when do the symbolic deaths occur? When does Goronwy slay Llew and when does Llew, in his turn, slay Goronwy? When does darkness conquer light or light conquer darkness? Obviously (to me, at least), it must be at the two equinoxes. At the autumnal equinox, the hours of light in the day are eclipsed by the hours of darkness. At the vernal equinox, the process is reversed. Also, the autumnal equinox, called 'Harvest Home', is already associated with sacrifice, principally that of the spirit of grain or vegetation. In this case, the god of light would be identical.

In Welsh mythology in particular, there is a startling vindication of the seasonal placement of the sun god's death, the significance of which occurred to me in a recent dream, and which I haven't seen elsewhere. Llew is the Welsh god of light, and his name means 'lion'. (The lion is often the symbol of a sun god.) He is betrayed by his 'virgin' wife Blodeuwedd, into standing with one foot on the rim of a cauldron and the other on the back of a goat. It is only in this way that Llew can be killed, and Blodeuwedd's lover, Goronwy, Llew's dark self, is hiding nearby with a spear at the ready. But as Llew is struck with it, he is not killed. He is instead transformed into an eagle."

[Agaliha]

Check out Yahoo's search results-- HERE (http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv1-dyc&p=Blodeuwedd+goddess)-- for tons of info :)
Those should help you out with learning more, just look though a variety of them to get a wider scope of things.

[aluokaloo]

thanks you guys for the help, the pronunciations, the links and the info. It says She is a Goddess of flowers and plants and spring, as well as betrayal, well that does make sense because plants can both kill and heal. if one doesn't know what they are doing

[ancestral_lee]

pronounciation - made a litte more difficult because the spelling does vary from source to source...

Blodeuwedd: blod - ay - wedd

'blod' as in rhymes with 'plod'
'ay' as in 'hay'
'wedd' as in the 'weath' in weather

hope this is useful.


lee

[aluokaloo]

yes it does thanks Lee!