Where Did All the Daughters Go?

Finding the missing daughters of the Mabinogion

Celtic mythology is full of mothers and sons. In the Brythonic and Welsh traditions and myths, which I’ve spent a lot of time discussing on this blog, the motif of mother and son comes up again and again in some of our most beloved tales. In the Mabinogi we have Rhiannon and Pryderi, whose tales are enduringly popular, Branwen and the tragic Gwern, and Arianhod and Lleu. In one of the most popular Welsh tales we have Cerridwen and Taliesin, Britains most famous bard. Potentially inspiring some or even all of these tales is the mother goddess Modron and her divine son Mabon, known in the Iron Age as Matrona and Maponus and worshipped across Britain and Gaul. The Christian Celts, of course, had Mary and Jesus.

But where are all the daughters? The divine mother and son motif is an ancient one, the Mabinogi likely written for young noble sons, and they were written down in patriarchal times, when being a mother to bear a nobleman sons was often the highest women could aspire to. So it’s not surprising that we hear less of the daughters of these famous mothers. But are there really no tales there, or have we just forgotten them? Or forgotten to look for them?

Of the mythological mothers mentioned above, two are recorded in the myths as having daughters. Modron and Cerridwen.

In the Triads of Britain, Modron has twins to local king, Urien of Rheged. The focus is always on the boy, Owain, who becomes a famed warrior in the poems of Taliesin, and a mythic figure in the Arthurian tales. But there is another baby, a girl called Morfydd.

Morfydd’s wider story is lost to us, but enough fragments remain to show that a story of her did exist and that she had her place in the original Brythonic mythology. She is listed in the medieval story Culhwch and Olwen (the same story in which we get a longer version of the tale of her divine brother Mabon) as a woman in Arthur’s court, whose lover is Cynon son of Clydno. Cynon is mentioned in another Arthurian tale The Lady of the Fountain, as the one who tells Owain of a powerful knight who is yet unbeaten (of course, Owain promptly rides off to challenge him.) He is also listed as one of the ‘Men in the North’ who tragically fight the Saxons in the poem Y Gododdin. His father is Clydno Eiddyn, a ruler of the North like Urien. (The Old North comprised an area of Britain that is now northern England and southern Scotland; the same area where Maponus, an Iron Age god and forerunner of Mabon, was worshipped.) Clydno also has in his keeping one of the famous Thirteen Treasures of Britain, a magic halter.

This tells us more about her lover than Morfydd herself, of course, and although she is also mentioned in the Triads, it is generally via her status as lover/wife of Cynon. However, this points to a well-known story of Morfydd and Cynon, as their enduring and passionate love for one another is repeatedly mentioned as one of the great loves in Britain. At some point their love story must have been well known, because the 14th century Welsh poet Gruffudd ap Meredith writes:

the sigh of Kynon for the love of the beauteous daughter of Urien,
Such is the sigh of the bard for the lovely object of his affections

Characters from the Welsh Arthurian tales often turn up in the later medieval and French stories, often with different names. Morgan le Fay herself for example is at least partially based on Modron as the wife of Urien and mother of Owain. In the French romance Claris and Laris, Laris falls in love with the daughter of Urien (Urianus) and sister of Owain (Yvain.) She is here called Marina and described as ‘the most accomplished of her sex’. Marina flees from Arthur’s court to a fortress in the North when the King of Denmark tries to forcibly marry her and Laris comes to her rescue, only to be imprisoned in a tower, from which he has to be rescued by Arthur’s knights (just like her brother Mabon in Culhwch and Olwen.) Eventually Laris and Marina are happily married. It’s likely that the tale of Laris and Marina is to some degree based on the original tale of Morfydd and Cynon (which itself may have older roots) but we can never be sure, or be able to tease out which parts of the story echo back to our older myths. Still, at least Morfydd is not entirely lost to us, and her love story was enough to inspire poets and storytellers.

What of Cerridwen’s daughter? Creirwy is mentioned in the story of Taliesin as being as beautiful as her twin brother Morfran is ugly, but the tale then focuses on Taliesin and Creirwy is all but forgotten. She is mentioned in the Triads as one of the three fairest women in the isle of Britain. And that appears to be it. All we know of her is that she is beautiful.

However, there is a pseudo-historical Breton St Creirwy from Wales, who some scholars have suggested may be based on the mythological figure, just as St Madryn may have links with Modron. St Creirwy has her own hagiographical tale, though whether this harks back to a lost Brythonic myth or is a later tale attributed specifically to the saint, is again impossible to know based on the information we have. It’s an interesting tale though; as a child Creirwy has her eyes gouged out by a wild goose and her brother Winwaloe magically restores them. Creirwy then becomes the patron saint of the blind.

This Creirwy has a different lineage however, and so may simply share a name with the Creirwy of the Triads, but she is worth noting as many of the Brittonic saints, when investigated, have pagan themes to their pseudo-historical stories and alleged family links to divine and mythological figures. Celtic mythology and hagiography (the mythical lives of saints) often proves to be a tangled ball, with threads intertwining with other threads in such a way that attempting to unknot them often just leaves a big, tangly mess.

St. Creirwy’s mother is listed as St. Gwen the Triple-Breasted, who was apparently blessed with a third breast as she was so fertile. This immediately brings fertility goddess myths to mind.

She is also known in Dorset and, according to the Anglo Orthodox church, another name for her is …….. Cerridwen.