The Goddesses of Yule: Rhiannon, Celtic Goddess of Dreams & Rebirth
Goddess Rhiannon
Rhiannon is a Welsh Celtic Goddess, her name means White Witch or Night Queen. She is a Lunar Goddess and is associated with the Night, Prophetic Dreams, the Otherworld, Forgiveness & Rebirth. She is also a Fertility Goddess and Muse of Creative Inspiration. She was often referred to as a High Queen and so is also connected to Sovereignty.
Like Celtic Goddess Epona, Rhiannon is also a Horse Goddess and is often depicted with or riding a white mare, and also with birds. According to legend, and like Epona, she has the power to grant dreams, including her own and others. She also can use her songbirds to sing humans to sleep and to awaken souls in the underworld.
She presides over Yule, the Winter Solstice, by showing us we’re on the threshold of better and brighter times. She helps us to embrace the Underworld, the darkness, to use the night to receive prophetic dreams and to know that the darkness of night will be greeted by a bright new dawn. Even in our darkest moments, even in the darkest nights of Yule, we can still find glimmers of light, just like stars in the night sky over which she rules. Stars guide us to feel happier and inspire hope in our deepest and darkest hours. As a fertility Goddess she is also associated with Rebirth - a potent Yule theme.
RHIANNON’S MYTH
Her story appears in the Mabinogian, the first and third branches (collection of Welsh mythology from 12th-13th centuries). In the first branch story she twice avoids arranged marriages and chooses who she wants to marry (there’s that sovereignty!). Once she eventually marries her consort Pwyll (who is connected to the Underworld) she gives birth to a beautiful son, Pryderi whose golden hair pronounces him a child of Light, on the eve of Beltane.
Tragically the next day she awakens to discover he’s disappeared and her nurse-maids have smeared blood on her face - egregriously misleading the court that she had committed infanticide. She confronts the maids but she can see how fearful they are of being implicated and they won’t admit the truth that the baby was snatched. She understands their position however, without the evidence to refute their story she is forced to leave court. Disgraced and having to bear the grief of losing her child, she is also forced to perform penance for her accused crime and must live as a horse - giving lifts on her back to the castle to anyone who requests it. Over the years working her back-breaking penance she finds it in her heart to forgive the maids, holding compassion for their situation and she never gives up hope that the truth will prevail.
One day a man and a young boy make their way to the castle. Refusing a lift from her the man informs the court that one Beltane night years prior, one of his foals was snatched from his stable and replaced with an unknown newborn human baby. Once the child had grown, they heard about the missing Pryderi and so brought him to court. Rhiannon is overjoyed to be reunited with her son and is reinstated as High Queen.
The story of Rhiannon teaches us that with truth, patience, perseverance and love we can create change - no matter how bleak life may seem. Rhiannon was able to use and transform her suffering to obtain greater insight and understanding and, by the end of her story, she triumphs through endurance.
WORKING WITH RHIANNON
If you’re feeling defeated, overwhelmed or like you’re facing the bleakest of situations, you can call on Rhiannon for help. Just as she worked as a horse, carrying people up to the castle and performing her penance with dignity (especially given she was also grieving the loss of her child whilst having to do penance for a crime she was falsely accused of) she can help us find majestic reservoirs of strength we didn’t even know we had to overcome any steep challenge or adversity and eventually triumph. As a Mother Goddess, she can carry us through our worst times. She helps empower us to face unthinkable circumstances, to heal our deepest grief or face an injustice and to hold onto hope and belief that better times are ahead.
As a Goddess of Sovereignty, she encourages us to believe in ourselves and to heal the inner victim. If we’ve experienced betrayal, ill treatment or injustice at the hands of another she teaches us the power of patience, compassion and forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t require us to condone the other person’s actions but we forgive them as an act of self love and self-sovereignty, so that situation doesn’t continue to hold power over you. We may also need to forgive ourselves for getting involved in a certain situation. Rhiannon can guide us to persevere in the trust that the truth will prevail, that injustices will eventually be righted and we will be healed or restored.
There is often a hidden gift for us in these types of immense life challenges which we usually only realise with hindsight. Often experiencing a major challenge can act as a form of Shamanic initiation and create enormous spiritual growth, phoenix-style, as we go through a symbolic death and rebirth.
She can help us transition when going through endings, be it death, the end of a relationship, job or career, moving, and other significant life changes. Just as Rhiannon lost her child and was forcibly separated from her husband and stripped of her crown after her accusation, she helps us see who we are when we truly stand on our own. To see what stuff our character is made of underneath, without the people or things in our lives we were attached to such as a certain status or identity.
If we are ever feeling lost on which direction our life is taking, we can also call on her to reveal the truth of our situation in our dreams. She can bestow prophetic dreams on us and illuminate our bright way ahead. Not just a messenger Goddess though, if you call on Rhiannon in this way, be prepared that you’ll be called to release - with courage and patience - any baggage you’ve been holding onto that will weigh you down on the path of your dreams! Then she will jump on her horse and ride alongside you so that you too will have the courage to ride the path you dare to dream.
Despite her somewhat darker ‘Goddess of the Night/the Otherworld/Loss & Forgiveness’ themes, Rhiannon is also a Goddess of Fecundity - fertility of new ideas, pregnancy, new ventures, etc. So we can also call on her in this aspect to support us through the dark and interior season of Yule to fertilise new ideas, plans and creative babies (or even actual babies!😉) for the new year ahead and keep them safely incubated until they’re ready to be birthed into the world as nature starts to re-awaken.
RITUALS/WAYS TO CONNECT TO RHIANNON
Create an altar to Rhiannon around a full moon and adorn it with images of horses, birds, golden or white candles, feathers, moonstones and a bouquet of daffodils (symbolic of rebirth and a herald of spring) or pure white flowers.
As a Moon Goddess, she is the ideal Goddess to work with in magickal moon rituals - she can aid you with fertility, forgiveness, divination and self-confidence/ self-sovereignty in your direction in life. Create rituals related to starting a new cycle /fertility on the new/ waxing moon and rituals relating to closing out a cycle/releasing something/forgiving someone on the full/waning moon.
Call on her before sleep to grant you prophetic dreams or receive powerful guidance in answer to any questions or concerns you may have - particularly about your path. Write these on a piece of paper and slip it under your pillow before you go to sleep. In the morning as you’re gradually still waking up pull out a dream journal and record what guidance or dreams you received during the night.