The Old Women Who Gather (16)

Rhiannon

The medicine story I offer to you today comes from the deeper layers of the Brythonic Celtic culture, the people who are my ancestors and once stewarded most of the island of Briton. They are known as the Britons and continue on as the Welsh. This story was re-discovered in the modern era in a Old Welsh text known as The Mabinogi that we think was written in the 1200s. Many scholars and most storytellers understand the stories in this text to be much older, having been carried in the oral tradition for generations previously. The story of Rhiannon is a continuation of the story of Pwyll and Arawn (my telling here [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/p/becoming-wisdom-pwyll-and-arawn]) and Rhiannon and Pwyll (my telling here [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/p/13-rhiannon-and-pwyll]) completing the First Branch of the Mabinogi. It’s not an easy story. I’ve resisted telling it for some time. But that is often the way of medicine stories, they take some swallowing down, some digesting, before they give up their secrets. I told this story recently at the monthly women’s story and song circle [https://ancestralconnection.earth/womens-circle] I hold with Jennifer Armstrong (Honey for Your Heart on Substack [https://jenniferarmstrong9.substack.com/]) and the reflections from the other women opened it up even deeper for me. We leant into the wisdom of surrendering into the mystery of life, of not needing to know or be seen to be right, to simply let life show the way. I’m curious to know what this tale brings forth in you. Learn more about me here: https://www.ancestralconnection.earth To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] Thanks for reading Adventures in the Otherworld! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Adventures in the Otherworld at adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Tatterhood

This is one of my favorite tales. It calls to the wild part of me, the one that longs to sleep on the earth and find moss in my hair. The story follows the thread of the balance between the wild and the domesticated It warns us of the lack of fertility that seeps into life when we live too far from the earth. It strikes me that this is not a modern problem. This story was first written down in Norway in the mid 1800s and shares many themes with Celtic tales. I’m curious what medicine it might carry for you. To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] Get full access to Adventures in the Otherworld at adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Merlin: Prophesy from the Forest

This one again. This story won’t leave me alone. This is a re-telling of Merlin’s story as it comes through me often. We have little on record of this battle, the battle of Arfderydd recorded in the year 573. It’s location is thought to have been in what is now an old field just north of the Scottish- English border. And it is recorded as one of the three futile battles of Britain. It is also recorded that this is the battle in which merlin went mad and spend 3 days and 3 nights without food, drink or sleep in the wildwood. In this telling the story of the battle and what happened after is my imagining - having spend time up there on that land and time fasting out in the woods. the prophesy at the end of this telling has been recorded in multiple ways in multiple texts. I recommend you give yourself some space to listen to this one. It’s not good driving material. It might require you to dig into your own loss, and what we’ve lost collectively. And from that the seeds of knowing push through the dark soil bringing new life. I invite you to reflect on what it might mean to turn yourself into soil. To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] Get full access to Adventures in the Otherworld at adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Old Women Who Gather (16)

This story captured my heart when I first heard it. It comes from the Irish Travelers tradition and is recorded in a beautiful book called "Why the Moon Travels" by Oein BeBhairduin. These tales stand out to me as distinct from most other Celtic tales that I have come across, they explain the origins of things in a way I am used to coming across in Native American stories but not Celtic ones. This story carries a world wide theme of women who work to spin and weave in addition to plant lore and magical instruction. All in a short little folktale! I offer this as an honoring to all those who work for benefit of others and the ancestors who got us here. I highly recommend Oein's book, there's a link here [https://skeinpress.com/product/why-the-moon-travels-by-oein-debhairduin-copy/] to purchase a copy. Enjoy.To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] Get full access to Adventures in the Otherworld at adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Song of the Selkie

Stories of the seal people are prevalent all along the west coast of Ireland and Scotland and up into the Faroe Islands. if you’ve spend any time wandering the shorelines of those places you’ll know why - the seals are very present, you can hear them breathing and see their big, brown eyes watching you as they hover on that threshold between sky and water. And if you’r lucky you might see them on that other threshold between water and land. There’s a whole genre of folktales about the seal folk that were carried for countless generations by tellers in clans that claimed to be descended from them. This is one take that has found it’s way around many storytelling circles and I read the bones of it in Sharon Blackie’s book, If Women Rose Rooted. It’s full of mythic themes of transformation and the power of experiencing loss, and what happens when we refuse to experience loss, which I won’t attempt to explain but instead let the story do it’s work with you. To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] Get full access to Adventures in the Otherworld at adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]