Rhiannon the Horse-Maiden
The ‘First Branch’ of the Mabinogion tells the story of Pwyll, lord of Dyfed in south-west Wales. Near his court at Llys Arberth (modern Narberth), there was a gorsedd, a magical mound. Anyone who sat on the mound was assured either of a catastrophic shock or a wondrous event.One day, Pwyll was sitting on the gorsedd when he saw a beautiful woman riding, clad in shimmering white upon a dazzling white horse. He commanded his swiftest horsemen to ride after her and stop her but, however fast they galloped, she outpaced them, even though her own mount appeared to be ambling. So Pwyll leapt on his own steed and pursued her, to no avail.
In desperation he called out to her and immediately she reined in her horse and sat waiting for him. When he caught up with her, she told him she had only been waiting for him to address her before she stopped. The horsewoman’s name was Rhiannon (‘Great Queen’). The pair fell in love and married, but at first their union appeared cursed, for no child was born to them.
After three years Rhiannon produced a son, but even then the couple’s troubles were not over: on the night of May-eve, just before the spring festival of Beltane, the baby was stolen. Rhiannon’s watch-women had fallen asleep at their post. When they woke, fearing blame, they framed the slumbering Rhiannon, killing a puppy and smearing her hands and face with its blood, so that the mother appeared to have killed – and eaten – her own son.
Pwyll neither banished not executed Rhiannon, but imposed a strange punishment: she had to crouch by the gate of the palace and carry every visitor up to the door on her back, like a beast of burden.
But there was a happy ending: the baby was found and returned to his parents. Rhiannon named him Pryderi, which means ‘care’. Rhiannon’s recurrent association with horses probably betrays her origins as a pagan horse-goddess.
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