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Episode 26: Ceridwin & The Morrigan
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Welcome back Witches! This week's episode is hopping back on the deity train! We're going to take a deep dive into 2 Celtic deities in hopes that everyone learns something new. We've got history, correspondences, and so much more in this episode. So get in losers, and lets discuss Ceridwen and The Morrigan Trinity!!
We would be forever thankful if you left our podcast a 5-Star review. If you really loved the show and want more Get in Loser content, check out our Supercast & Buy Me a Coffee links below. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @GetinWitches, on TikTok @weredoingwitchcraft or email us at weredoingwitchcraft@gmail.com. You can support our show through our
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Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio- The Witch
- Johnson, Honor. The Irish Morrigan, Goddess of Death and Guardian of the Dead. (2021) https://druidry.org/resources/morrigan
- O’Hara, Keith. The Morrigan Goddess: The Phantom Queen and Celtic Goddess (An Easy to Follow Tale). (2022). The Irish Road Trip. https://www.theirishroadtrip.com/the-morrigan/
- LaFae, Rowena. (n.d.). Sisters of the Burning Branch Goddess Gallery Presents… Ceridwen. http://goddessschool.com/projects/rowenalafae/Cerridwen.html
- YouTube:The Witches’ Cauldron
Lora O’Brien
The Witches Cauldron
The Celtic Cauldron
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction & Announcements
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft in the occult, but feel lost on where to start? Then welcome to Get In, Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft, a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey. Join us as we navigate through various witchy topics and share what we have learned about the craft. So get in, witches, and let's learn about Caridoyne and the Morrigan Trinity.
00:00:36
Speaker
so
00:00:52
Speaker
So to start this episode, we wanted to give a huge shout out to Ashley who just joined our Supercast. We appreciate each and every one of you that subscribes to our podcast. And also we just wanted to say, for our Supercast members, get ready because we have some exclusive content coming soon. And one of those is going to be a full-length exclusive episode. Woo-hoo! So excited for that. Yay for our second DV episode though.
Introducing Caridwen & Importance of Deity Research
00:01:19
Speaker
I'm really excited for that.
00:01:20
Speaker
Today we are going to be discussing Caridwen and the Morgan Trinity. These are both Celtic deities that we have loved to learn about and just a brief disclaimer, we've said it many times and will say it again.
00:01:32
Speaker
Deity work is not to be taken lightly. Before you start working with deities, it's best to do your research, understand who you want to work with, and most of all, show them respect. You have to get to know the deities you want to work with. We've mentioned this before, but you wouldn't ask a stranger for help with your finances, love, protection, inspiration, et cetera. So don't be rude and assume that you can go straight into deity work without paying the appropriate respect and getting to know the deities you want to work with.
00:01:59
Speaker
And I know I've mentioned this before, but before you start any deity work, you should fully understand how to protect yourself and how to banish as well.
00:02:10
Speaker
And then also just an added FYI. I don't understand how Celtic names work. In a previous episode, I know that I think I even told you that Caradon was pronounced Saradon. Yeah. Well, everyone pronounces it Saradon for the most part. And then I guess you found out that it's not.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah, it is definitely not. It is absolutely cared when. So forgive me, dear listeners. We did warn you that we are two idiots making a podcast. I will say too, we try so hard, especially like
00:02:47
Speaker
this episode. I know we've been going back and forth so much with these pronunciations just offline, but I feel like a lot of times we'll do the research and try to learn how to pronounce it appropriately. But then from video to video or pronunciation to pronunciation, everyone says it completely different. So hopefully we've picked the correct ones. And if not, we apologize. We try. We try.
00:03:13
Speaker
We are trying to be respectful here, but you know, we don't speak Welsh and there's just some of these words, my mouth can't wrap my brain. Sometimes like we said, you were talking about this. We go and try to listen to them and they say them and I feel like it makes it worse. I'm like, what? Yeah, now I'm even more confused. Can you slow it down? Because it sounded like there was an M in there and there is no M in the name.
00:03:41
Speaker
And I can't figure out how to phonetically spell it for myself, but oh well. It is what it is. Yeah. And then the last disclaimer, if you hear my cats being wild and crazy or my precious little pupper crying, it's because my husband is on a work trip this week and I'm on single animal mom duty and they're not happy with me recording because now they're by themselves.
00:04:11
Speaker
like we need attention only for seven months. That's not here. Where are you? I told Sam I had to open my office door so I am so sorry if there's background noise but my cats were literally like kitty parkouring off the door because it was closed and there was no adult supervision outside. You're worse than children. They are. When people are like oh you have it so easy you have pets. Try me.
00:04:39
Speaker
Come here. I can't go to the bathroom alone. Neither can I. Right. Yeah. But at least like with my kids, I can be like cut it out and they'll listen. Yeah. I mean, I'm like cut it out and they're like, anyways. I'm just going to do it even harder. Yeah. So I'm sorry guys. I feel like we say this every episode. I'm like, my bad. My animals are being crazy. Someone's mowing the lawn. There's jets flying overhead. We really do try to make it so that it's like as quiet in the background as possible that
00:05:08
Speaker
I don't know. The universe just feels like we need this chaos in our lives. It does. Stupid. But we persist. Make it happen every week. We just cover it with some humor. Yeah. It all works. It works. All right. So.
Caridwen's Myth & Symbolism
00:05:28
Speaker
Let's talk about Caridwen. So Caridwen, she is a Welsh goddess and she's known as a shape-shifting lunar deity. She's an herbalist. So Tiffany, this is right up your alley. Keeper of the cauldron of knowledge, inspiration and transformation.
00:05:46
Speaker
She's also known as the keeper of the cauldron in the underworld in which knowledge and inspiration are brewed, which I thought was kind of cute. I love that. She possessed the gifts of poetic wisdom, inspiration, and prophecy. And this is collectively known as Awen, which, you know what? This is the only thing in my notes that I forgot to like have the pronunciation of. So it might not even, I'm sure it's not pronounced Awen, but it's A-W-E-N.
00:06:14
Speaker
And I'd never seen this word before until doing research for this, but. Yeah. I wonder if it has like the German, like, I feel like a lot of over like Europe, they do the V instead of the W. It could be that too. Yeah. You know, I just know like looking at this word that it is definitely not pronounced as it's spelled. And this is not going to be that easy. Yeah. The only word that escaped my
00:06:42
Speaker
research of pronunciation, like Googling that I did. So, oops. I will say too, I know we're just like off the bat and I'm already finding a lot of like similarities. The poetic wisdom, you're gonna see a lot of like the poetics in the Morrigan and the cauldron too. There's a whole like section about the Trinity being like they do like carrying through the cauldron and it ties into like the circle of life, like death and rebirth, so.
00:07:10
Speaker
And you see it with this too. Yeah, it's cool to see the similarities. Obsessed. And then lastly, she's known as the moon goddess who embodies all lunar attributes and the energy of the harvest, specifically referring to grains. A lot of what we know about the Caridwen comes from Taliesin.
00:07:30
Speaker
And this is from a 13th century manuscript. And essentially the story takes place in North Wales near Balla Lake or Schlintaget. These words are going to kill us today, guys.
00:07:50
Speaker
Karen, when married, take it way out and this myth. And she has a daughter. She has two twins, a daughter named primary, which translates to beautiful light and a son.
00:08:05
Speaker
And this one, I could not figure out how to actually pronounce it. This is one of those ones where I searched it and I was listening to pronunciation. I couldn't understand what they were saying. It's felt like it would be pronounced a fog do, but I know that's not it. It's kind of pronounced among do, but I don't think, I don't think that's the correct pronunciation. That's as close as I could get. And this roughly translates to ugly slash dark, which is really sad that his name is ugly.
00:08:33
Speaker
They're like, first of all, my light and beautiful daughter and then my ugly, dark son. Right. Yeah. And so whenever I was researching it, I'm wondering if it just like, that's a really bad translation for it because possibly the, and then the myth basically her son was born with like a disability is what I'm assuming. So I think that's just a really bad translation. So maybe it's more on the, like.
00:09:03
Speaker
I forget the word I was gonna use, it popped in my head when you said it too. Like an imperfect, I don't know.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yes. Or like instead of ugly, it's like, it could be something else completely. Yeah. But that's just, I mean, we were talking before we started recording, like these, especially like the Celtic, like ancient Celtic, like languages and stuff. Like a lot of it is kind of not being tied out. So, I mean, there's some things that we don't know the correct translation to. So it could not mean that at all, but that's just what it says.
00:09:35
Speaker
But so he's also known as Morphram, but I couldn't find a pronunciation to that at all. So Morphram or a mung do was said to be born, hideously ugly and deformed. And the daughter was born able-bodied. He didn't possess the gifts that Caridwyn thought he should have to be successful. And even though she loved her children equally, she was afraid that Morphram slash
00:10:01
Speaker
a fog do slash among do wouldn't have a good life due to his disabilities. So in order to combat this, she brewed a potion for him to gain knowledge and to help with his disabilities. And the potion was to help with knowledge and poetic inspiration. Essentially, she had the hope that he
00:10:20
Speaker
would become a talented and respected bard. So in order to do this potion, the potion was a huge undertaking. Things had to be added at just the right moment, and the potion had to be boiling continuously for one year and one day. And to brew it, yeah, like, that's a lot of stuff. There's no way. I love my kids, but you know,
00:10:39
Speaker
I throw a fit when I'm making a tincture and I'm like, Oh, I have to wait four weeks. Could you imagine one year and one day, not even it's over a year. And it gets worse too. Like with this potion, like once it's brewed
00:10:58
Speaker
And there's really only three jobs that can be used from it. So it's just a lot of work for, I mean, I guess like the payout is worth it, but I mean, it's a lot of work. But so she was a very smart goddess, this Caridwen. She got a blind man named Morta to keep the flame under the cauldron continuously throughout this year.
00:11:20
Speaker
And then she got a younger man named Guion to stir the cauldron continuously. So over the course of the year, the potion would condense down to three magical drops containing all the wisdom and knowledge of the world. And the rest would be poison. So, oops. And I guess if you drink too much, like I didn't know. Yeah. How do you know exactly which drops?
00:11:41
Speaker
Right. Or is it the dosage? You can only have three drops and more than that is poison. It has to be that. Because that's wild. Especially if you're giving it to your kid. This might make you really fucking smart, but also could kill you. I guess we'll figure it out. So on the last day while stirring the cauldron, Guillain accidentally splashed the boiling liquid
00:12:07
Speaker
And the three drops spilled and landed on his thumb and he instinctively put his thumb in his mouth to ease the pain. So as the potion touched his tongue, he was overcome with all knowledge and wisdom. And with this knowledge and wisdom, he knew that Caridwyn was going to be pissed the fuck off. So he ran away and Caridwyn, of course, was like, what the hell? And so she chased him down and
00:12:37
Speaker
Because of this potion, Gui An wasn't able to use the power that he received from the potion to turn into a hair, like he had shape-shifting capabilities. So he transformed into a hair to escape Caridwen.
00:12:52
Speaker
She then turned into a greyhound to follow him. He ended up coming up to a river and he turned into a fish and landed into the water. She then turned into an otter and then whenever he was about to get eaten by the otter, he turned into a bird. She turned into a hawk.
00:13:09
Speaker
and she caught up to him and she was able to catch him with her talons. However, Guillain transformed into a single grain of wheat and fell to the ground. Caridwen then transformed into a hen and because she's a kick-ass goddess she was able to find the grain of wheat
00:13:26
Speaker
And she's like, bye bitch. Yeah. She's like, and how about F you? Yeah. So, um, because of the potion though, we didn't die, but he took seed in her womb and she became pregnant. Now I have a little, because like, when you eat something that goes like, like, how did it like go? I mean, I know it's just a myth, but how did it go from her intestines to her uterus? And then I don't know.
00:13:52
Speaker
His little brain body just swam. He was like, let me find the right spot. Yeah. But it's like, when we talk heads, like don't eat watermelon seeds or you're going to grow a watermelon. The same thing, essentially. There was a thing I remember. This is like years and years and years ago. I remember seeing it on the news. It was like a lady, she'd like choked on an apple seed or something. Somehow it like gotten into her lungs and like she had, she went in for like chest pain or something.
00:14:22
Speaker
Like she had sport, like little apple tree babies. I don't like that. Yeah. I'll have to find them at all. Like this, I, I can't remember the full thing, but I remember seeing this on the news when I was probably like 20 or 21 or something. And then I was like terrified to choke on like, like I still to this day cut my apples up and make sure there's no seeds in the pieces that I'm eating. I'm like, I could not imagine.
00:14:47
Speaker
Absolutely terrifying. But essentially the same thing happened to Caridwen. Poor Caridwen. Poor Caridwen.
00:14:54
Speaker
So when she became pregnant, she knew that it was Guiyon and she wanted to kill him when he was born, but he was such a beautiful baby that she couldn't kill him. So what she did instead was she decided that the ocean was going to figure out his fate. So she sewed him in a leather skin bag and she threw him in the ocean and was like, bye bitch. She just needed him.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah. And the ocean can figure out what to do with you. So he didn't die though. He was rescued on a Welsh shore by a prince and he grew up to be the legendary bard that we get the story from. Taliesin. Taliesin.
00:15:35
Speaker
What a wild story. Yeah, absolutely crazy. I was reading it and I was just like, what? And it's again, here's another similarity. You're going to see, I have a whole like myth on the more again that involves her chasing someone and continually shape-shifting into different things. And are you joking with me? No, there are so many ties and similarities as you're going through this. And I'm just like, what?
00:16:05
Speaker
Well, that is crazy. And just as like a little side note for our listeners, when we picked the deities that we were going to be researching for this, like I know you knew about the Morrigan and I knew somewhat about Caridwen, although I was saying her name completely wrong.
00:16:20
Speaker
I didn't know all of these myths associated with her. And we just essentially like we were like, Oh, I want to do this one. And you're like, I want to do this one. It's not even like we knew about these similarities. No, researching this. It's crazy. Yeah. That's like every time you're saying something, I'm like, this sounds weirdly familiar.
00:16:38
Speaker
I'm obsessed with it. I love it. It's great. So her ritual pursuit of Guiyon symbolizes nature's yearly cycle of death and rebirth or the changing of the seasons. And it shows that life is in a constant state of transformation. So you embrace transformation with confidence. You should understand that transformation and change is imminent and examine what circumstances in our life no longer service. So Caridwen is a great deity to work with if you're wanting to
00:17:06
Speaker
change and have that rebirth. She teaches us that something must die so that something new can be reborn in another form and not to fear change. Focus and energy can help achieve our goals. So the goddess as well as her cauldron represent the womb of manifestation and the transformative power of magic, wisdom, rebirth, and creative inspiration.
Working with Caridwen
00:17:29
Speaker
She can shapeshift and any form she wants, but the trick here is to know that the form she takes on is not important. What is important is that you can recognize her in the form she chooses to take. So she's the master of the occult. She will always test your abilities and you will have to meet her standards in order to work with her. If you don't give her the respect and reverence she deserves, then it won't be pretty.
00:17:51
Speaker
She is the goddess of fertility, knowledge and poems, witches and of the crossroads. So this is a great deity to work with. If you are trying to get pregnant or you're just wanting to embrace your femininity, this is a great deity to work with.
00:18:07
Speaker
As far as her correspondences, she rules the moon and the phases of the moon that she's most closely associated with are the new moon and the waning moon. The color... Oh, what is it? Oh my god, I just saw you in the video and I'm like, what is it? Well, it's like half of what you've said just now. I'm like, this is in my notes too. It's so weird how similar they are. I didn't even read about the morgan whenever I was
00:18:33
Speaker
emerging because I was surprised. Same. I avoided everything about Caridwen and now I'm like, this is wild. It is wild. The color associated with her is white. I've also seen purple and black also associated with her, but the main one is white. The number associated with Caridwen is five. Trees associated with her are in the beach, birch, elm, locust, oak, rowan, spruce, and willow.
00:18:59
Speaker
The herbs associated with Caridwin are honeysuckle, ravine, or any grains, and this all represents abundance, the grains do. Animals associated with her are the cat, cattle, dogs, especially greyhounds, otters, pigs, more specifically a white sow, wolf, chicken, hawk, and salmon. So Morgan is a white heifer. A white heifer? Instead of a white sow. This is just weird. This is so weird. It is, yeah.
00:19:26
Speaker
Perfect. They must be sisters. They have to be. Watch this like the same person. But they're both like Celtic deities though, so. They just shape shift into each other and it's been this whole trick for like centuries. Yeah. And then people are listening to this and they're like, these people are idiots. Yeah. Look, two idiots making a podcast. We told you. That disclaimer is out there. It really is. We said it time and again.
00:19:56
Speaker
The powers that she's associated with are abundance, creativity, darkness, death, divination, fertility, hexes, especially like setting hexes, not like trying to break a hex FYI. Insight, inspiration, knowledge, learning, luck.
00:20:13
Speaker
magic as it relates to the crone, moon, or just magic in general, otherworld or underworld prophecies, rebirth and renewal, romance, shamanic work such as shapeshifting, transformation, and also wisdom. She's the guardian of spiritual transformation, and she's portrayed as the crone from the triple goddess triad, but she also embodies all three aspects of the maiden mother and the crone.
00:20:39
Speaker
depending on what you're looking at in the midst. So you can call on her when you want transformation, when you're wanting to let go of something, or if you're having trouble adapting to change, and when you need a boost of inspiration, ways that you can work with her. So because she is a shape-shifting goddess, working with totems of her sacred animals is one way to represent her and to call to her. Other ways include working with obstacle travel, like I mentioned, any cauldron magic,
00:21:08
Speaker
um, dreams, meditation, and trance work and protection spells are all great ways to work with Caridwen. Divination work with Caridwen is best to be done on Salun or Yule, either with tarot cards or scrying within a cauldron, which I've not tried that before, but I'm really interested. And as for crystals, agate, carnelian, and coral are all great stones that correspond with Caridwen. So.
00:21:33
Speaker
I love all of that. And sorry, my puppy is whining. So if you can hear my bad.
Introducing Morrigan & Her Associations
00:21:41
Speaker
So now I'm going to be talking about the Morrigan and then her Trinity. Some have it just as the Morrigan and then other lore and mythology will go into an entire Trinity or sometimes a sisterhood. So it's really interesting all the different aspects of her.
00:21:57
Speaker
She's also known as the Celtic goddess of death, the Moragoo, the great queen goddess Morrigan, the Moragon, the great queen or the queen of the triple goddesses. So the Morrigan is a Celtic goddess of war and battle, of witchcraft, of fate and destiny, death and destruction, protection and retribution. And she was said to hover over the battlefield as a crow or a raven. Her primary association is with war,
00:22:25
Speaker
But some other associations for her are also birth, sexuality, fertility, and she's tied to Ireland's sovereignty, which I thought was really cool. I love that. Right. So though she is a goddess of war, she generally does not directly fight in a battle, which is like largely misunderstood by most of the people that
00:22:47
Speaker
talk about her or share information about her. So something she has ties to that I'm gonna talk about more in depth later, but it's Banshees. So it said that she would fly over the battle and she would screech like a Banshee. And some of the warriors would simply just die out of fear from the sound, which I thought was hilarious. I love it. Just imagine you just hear this screech and then you see all these people like,
00:23:13
Speaker
She was poetically used as a weapon of war. So they would write these like crazy poetic stories about her and put them out to scare their enemies, which I thought was really fucking funny. And then there were magical acts and influences within the battle that she is tied to. She lent herself to strategy, to prophecy, and sovereignty in battle. And she is known for giving sound battle advice to those that need it.
00:23:39
Speaker
She is one of the Tua Dei Denan and if I said that wrong, I'm so sorry because again, we don't speak Welsh and we're trying really hard. So they are the folk of the goddess Danu and she was said to give them advice. She's also said to be able to predict the death of warriors in battle and she would use that to influence the outcome of war.
00:24:01
Speaker
Legend states that she would deliver the message as a crow and then fly above the battle. And her appearance above would either just completely terrify those that were fighting and it would cause them to either a die, like I said earlier, or they would like flee or put down arms and not fight, or it would inspire them to just fight for their lives. Like give it all they've got because the Morrigan's here and it either means I'm gonna die or I'm gonna win, but it's like, I've got to really show it. So she's known to have a frenzied war fury.
00:24:31
Speaker
that unnerves armies and she has a deadly shriek, like I said earlier. She's also revered as the guardian of the dead and her name translates to Phantom Queen or Great Queen, which I loved both of those.
Morrigan's Historical Depictions & Powers
00:24:46
Speaker
Right. The Phantom Queen is really cool. In old Celtic belief, she's thought to be the first goddess. And she's also been referred to as being the Irish version of Kali because she, like basically she consumes life, but is also consumed and gives life.
00:25:03
Speaker
She can fly, she can shapeshift, and she can change her shape both like old and young. Like in human form she might appear as an old woman or she might be like a young beautiful woman. There was even one story that I read that she like tricked somebody because I can't remember the whole thing but basically like she turned into a little girl that she asked them a question as a
00:25:26
Speaker
her normal image and they denied her and so she came back as a little girl and they gave it to her because they didn't like recognize her form and then she came back with the item like as herself and they were like oh my god like all mad about it so but yeah.
00:25:44
Speaker
So she can go from like young to old, not just shape shifted to other forms. She's gentle and well-trained in medicine. And in Arthurian legend, she's considered Arthur's sister. Sometimes she's his soul sister and even other times is his double or his doppelganger.
00:26:00
Speaker
And she has a lot of strong ties in Arthurian legends, which is pretty cool. That is cool. I didn't know that. Yeah, she's actually tied to being Morgan Le Fay in a lot of the legends, which I thought, I don't know. I thought that was really cool. I liked it. The Morrigan can be traced back to the Copper Age, which is 3500 to 2300 BCE.
00:26:20
Speaker
as being the dominant goddess of Europe, and she was even referred to as the great goddess at the time. She's part of a trinity or a sisterhood, like I said earlier, of war goddesses that also include Thaive, which is sometimes replaced by Memen or Modran, and Modran is especially seen in Arthurian writings.
00:26:40
Speaker
And then the other is Marka, which I could be saying that wrong. It looks like Maka. Her husband was said to be Nietzsche, and he is a god of war. But other notations also tie her to the horned god, to Lu, and the dog, Da.
00:26:57
Speaker
which is considered the Celtic Allfather, while others still believe that she didn't even have a consort at all. For those that follow the belief that she was mated to the Dagda, it's said that like Samhain was their chosen time of mating.
00:27:12
Speaker
Isn't it for everyone? Look. The Morrigan has also been referred to as being a transporter between life and death. She's a goddess of birth and of death in that she moves the soul through these different cycles. And she's also known as a bird goddess, an earth goddess. And it's said that her breasts not only nourish the living, but that they regenerate the dead as well.
00:27:39
Speaker
Could you imagine having that? Right? I hate that. There's a hilarious, well, hilarious to me probably sucked for her story like later, that I'm gonna tell. It made me laugh really hard though.
00:27:56
Speaker
Early Celtic depictions of her are of a bird's head, which is often a crow, raven, or vulture, and just her breasts. And then her breasts are believed to form the hills of the county carry called the Chichen Anh.
00:28:11
Speaker
And they're also known as the Pops of Anu. Vessels that depict the Morrigan often have a symbol of the number three. So sometimes it'll just be like three lines that are connected. And this is a way to show the triple energy that flows from her body as she's the giver and sustainer of life. And very early, she is understood to be a triple goddess, a shapeshifter, and a three-part person.
00:28:35
Speaker
So some actual historical presence of the morgan, you can see these like all over the place, which I thought was really cool. Like it wasn't something that you just saw in Ireland. There are stone stelle, which are just slabs basically of the morgan in Castelluccio de Sarri in Italy. And these date back to the copper age 3000 BCE, some having only just like her breast and her necklace as a marker.
00:29:01
Speaker
And then in Spain, France, Portugal, and England, there's statues, men here, and stone slabs that frequently display her eyes, her beak, and sometimes her vulva. So it's one of her associations, which we'll get into later. It's like a what? Yeah, because she's tied to like, she's tied to fertility and sexuality and the woman's body. So the vulva is one of her associations.
00:29:27
Speaker
Well, that's cool, I guess. Yeah, I know. At first, I was like, that's weird. And then I learned why later. So I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Much of what is written about the Morrigan after the American invasions is said to have been written through the eyes of scared men who basically portrayed her as less powerful and not like the great goddess that she is, which fucking rude. That is also on par. Yeah, it really is men. Yeah.
00:29:55
Speaker
Other ties that you can find with the Morrigan are in Arthurian times, which I mentioned a little bit earlier. In Arthurian writings, the Morrigan is seen as a healer, a protector of the land, and the person that brings Arthur into power. Many Celtic scholars trace this version of the Morrigan and her two goddess sisters here, called Marka and Modran, to Morgan Le Fay, who was considered the most beautiful of nine sisters,
00:30:22
Speaker
living on the Isle of Avalon, and she was also known as the Fatah Morgana. In a depiction in the Arthurian Book of Days, the Morgan is a villainous and she uses illusion to try to destroy Arthur, but fails. And on the 30th of December, according to the same source, King Arthur awoke from his long sleep filled with fever dreams. He was enclosed within Avalon and the green landscape stretched out on all sides,
00:30:49
Speaker
with sweet apple trees by the banks of a shallow stream, and they all had white blossoms on them. Even though the season should have been winter, the air was balmy and soft, and above in the sky, the sun and the moon shone forth together along with stars. Because of this, Arthur knew that he was an Avalon,
00:31:08
Speaker
which was considered the region of the summer stars. And this is like an area where rain and snow didn't fall. So smiling, he stretches his muscles and sets off on a walk by the stream, listening for the murmur that basically tells him that the round table would meet again amid the trees.
00:31:23
Speaker
So what this is saying, essentially, or what it's showing is that though she sought to destroy Arthur to give the power to Akalon of Gaul, she transports him back to Avalon and his life cycle begins anew, repeating itself at the original call to the round table and leaning into the belief that she follows the circle of life from death to renewal, which like this is a cycle that we see as a common theme across all pantheons and their own deities.
00:31:48
Speaker
This is something, you know, we talked about it in our last 80 episode with the horned god and the triple goddess. So her associations, she's seen as a shapeshifter. She appears in various forms that include a beautiful woman, a hag, a crow, or sometimes it's called a raven. Other times it's been said she's mistaken as a raven, but she's a crow. So she has ties to both, but I think it's more appropriate as the crow, if that makes sense.
00:32:13
Speaker
She can shapeshift into a deer, both as a doe and a stag, a white heifer with red ears and no horns, a black eel that's long enough to coil three times around the legs of Kukalon, which I'll talk more about him later, but essentially he's either a giant, a demigod, or just a hero. It depends on who's telling the story on how they depict him. So as a shapeshifter, she's basically capable of shifting into anything, but these are her more known.
00:32:43
Speaker
choices, I guess. When it comes to birds, crows, ravens, vultures, and owls are often associated with her because these birds will often eat the dead and that basically transforms their dead bodies into a life force through food and the morgan is tied to that life cycle of death to rebirth and back again.
00:33:01
Speaker
She's associated with vulvas, fish, the female body, spirals, lunar circles, and snake coils, and then the trinity altogether basically. The Morrigan and her sisters are all shapeshifters or transporters through the cauldron, and they take one from life to death in association to
00:33:20
Speaker
rose, stomachs, human intestines, the act of going under the ground, madness, and degenerative change, and then from death to life in association with the midwife, the corn goddess, the earth, and the waxing and waning of the moon. Her correspondences would be the zodiac is in Aries, the planet is Pluto. I knew you would like that.
00:33:43
Speaker
The planet is Pluto. Her moon phases are the new and the waning moon. Celebrations are New Year's Day, Mabon, and Samhain. Her colors are black and red. Trees are the aspen, cherry, juniper, locust, oak, and willow trees.
00:33:59
Speaker
Plants include honeysuckle, henbane, and reeds. Crystals and minerals are red agate, bloodstone, obsidian, onyx, and ruby. Metals are iron and steel. Animals include black dogs, cattle, horses, and wolves. Magical ties are to the fairies and the fae. Her magic and her intent include action, banishing, war in battlefields, courage, death, deceit, defiance, or defense.
00:34:27
Speaker
Destiny, destruction, empowerment, favors, fear, hexes, influence, general magic, but also specifically, crone magic, night magic, and sex magic. Her messages and omens are through nightmares, power, prophecy, protection, revenge, sex, and sexuality, shamanic work, strength, witches, and witchcraft, which again, a lot of that was yours as well.
How to Work with Morrigan
00:34:52
Speaker
I swear the whole time you're like, did we do the same research?
00:34:56
Speaker
How to work with Morgan. So, again, you should never just jump straight into data work, but like, make sure you understand protection and vanishing. Make sure you do your research and know who you want to work with. But once you've done all that and you're ready to start working with her, know her stories and research her history as well as her
00:35:15
Speaker
like historical battles that she is tied to in Ireland, and then build a firsthand relationship with her lore and history so that you fully understand her. You want it to be a firsthand account of learning it versus just listening to this podcast and then going straight into it or just finding one video on YouTube. Because again, as we said, even just with the pronunciations or some of the history that has come up, it's not always the same as what the other person says or
00:35:41
Speaker
we don't know which one's accurate. So it's good to know a full scope of everything and build that relationship. Make sure you understand what you're getting into. You can create an altar space for her with her correspondence that I just went through. But some things that you could consider would be like black feathers. Since black is one of her colors, she's tied to birds. Specifically, she's tied to crows and ravens. So black feathers would be a good option. Knifes have said to be a good option because of her sharp wit.
00:36:11
Speaker
and then ties to her shapeshifter aspects. So things like wings, birds, eel, deer, just like even just imagery of any of that would be a good option. A Morrigan statue, black or red candles, those types of things. And then, you know, just creating that one-on-one relationship with her.
00:36:28
Speaker
The Morgan is said to prefer those that will give her daily devotionals of recognition, people that will show up constantly and consistently for her, and then people that also study her lore, light candles for her, make noise, prayers, poetry, and prophetic work. And then here's just a few extras that I found really interesting going through a lot of my research for her.
00:36:49
Speaker
So there's two versions about the hero or demigod or giant, whatever he was, but his name is Kukulin and he was considered a mighty warrior. So the first version basically states that she appears to him in battle and he rejects her because he failed to recognize her. And she went on her way, but when he died because she knew he was going to die,
00:37:14
Speaker
She sat on his shoulder as a crow until he took his last breath and then the second states that she fell in love with him and she tried to just like seduce him one day before he entered battle, but he denied her and she was outraged so she used her ability to shape shift from a woman into an eel.
00:37:33
Speaker
And this allowed her to swim up to Kukulain as he made his way through the fjord and trip him. And that's what I was talking about earlier when I was talking about her shapeshifting. The eel was said to have been long enough to wrap around his legs three times to just fucking take him out, which I thought was hilarious. So basically she trips him and he gets mad. He punches the eel and he temporarily injures her and
00:37:57
Speaker
So the eel then transforms into a large wolf and it goes into this herd of cattle and drives the herd of cattle at him like to just like take him out you know while he's doing his thing and he uses a slingshot and hits the wolf in the eye temporarily blinding her and so then she transforms into a cow and goes into the stampede and riles up all the cows trying to get them basically to just like
00:38:23
Speaker
stampede Kuku Lane, and he shoots her again with his slingshot and stone, but it breaks her leg and it forces her to accept defeat. So after the battle, Kuku Lane encounters this old woman, and though he didn't realize it, the old woman had an injured leg and was blind in one eye. She gave him a drink and he blessed her, which healed the Morrigan to her full strength.
00:38:46
Speaker
So he was later mortally wounded after seeing a bad omen, which is said to be believed to have been hurt as a young woman washing bloodied battle armor in the river. And apparently this is a bad omen if you see this when you're going into battle. So he sees it and just keeps going. He's like, whatever, no big deal. And he gets mortally wounded.
00:39:08
Speaker
And then that's when she comes to him as the crow and she sits on his shoulder until he takes his final breath. But in this second version, it's said that like basically she gets the last laugh. She's not like helping him pass into it. It's like he rejected her. He treated her like crap. She tricks them into blessing her and healing her. And then as he's dying, she's like, you dummy.
00:39:29
Speaker
But you should have accepted me. So I thought both of those were really funny depictions. Some beliefs depict the Morrigan as one of the Banshee or the Beni. So this is what I was saying I was going to talk about later. She has a lot of ties to Banshees. There's a lot of references. And then obviously the whole she goes over the battles and she makes the loud screeches, which is a Banshee thing.
00:39:57
Speaker
Um, so there's this saying among the Irish and Highland Scots that a woman who dies in childbirth better not leave the laundry unfinished, or she'll have to come back and wash it until the day of her natural
Cultural Anecdotes & Episode Conclusion
00:40:10
Speaker
death. So basically it's like, don't, you know, don't go have a baby until you've washed the laundry, because if you don't, you'll have to keep coming back and washing the laundry until like your soul passes on, essentially is what I understood. Right?
00:40:23
Speaker
That is hell. First of all, that is my worst nightmare. And so basically these women would go down and make sure their laundry was done and they would wash it. You know, they had like their little washboards and stuff and they would wash it down in the river. Well, it was said that if when you were down there and you saw a Banshee or the Ben Nee while washing your laundry at the fjord, it's like someone next or someone close to you will die soon.
00:40:50
Speaker
And the Ben Nee is said to, this is such a hilarious description, Ben Nee is said to dress in green, has red webbed feet, which they consider like in a lot of the lore, it's attributed to bird feet. So they attribute the bird aspect of this to the Morrigan being the Banshee or the Ben Nee. She has one nostril, one tooth, and a set of very prominent long breasts that fall from her chest. If you
00:41:16
Speaker
You can grab and suck one of her breasts. You'll be granted any wish. You can ask her three questions and she'll answer, but you must answer three questions from her as well. And if you lie, it's said to be bad for you, but I couldn't find out like what the bad was. Does it mean you die? Does it mean like, I don't know, just like something generally bad, but also I just imagine like these women washing their laundry and they're like, oh fuck, they've been knee grabbing boobs and like trying to suck.
00:41:45
Speaker
I was dying laughing reading this, but also like how awful for her. Yeah. And the last little extra tidbit I have is that some legends actually depict her as a mermaid, which I thought was precious. That is cute.
00:42:00
Speaker
There are some ties to her with Crossroads and another where she has like, I didn't fully understand this one and it's why I didn't fully like, I was like, I'm not gonna try and explain it, but basically she has one foot in the water, one foot on the land and it's like the cycle of life and bringing everything together. But again, my brain couldn't wrap around all of it. So I was like, we're not doing the full detail of that.
00:42:28
Speaker
So in those ones, a lot of times she is tied to a mermaid as well. That's really cool. I have this like memory, this core memory of watching. We used to have these like, it was like a series of VHSs and it was like a
00:42:43
Speaker
life. I don't think it was lifetime. I can't remember. It'll come to me like way later, but one of them was on banshees. And that was one of the ones they showed was like, I've always known this. Like if you see a woman washing like bloody clothes in the, like you're either you're in dire, somebody near you, like close to you. And so whenever you mentioned that at first, it's like, Oh my God.
00:43:06
Speaker
I've seen that. That's one of my core memories. I mean, I haven't seen it, obviously, in person, but I saw it in the video. Well, maybe Cuckoo Lane should have watched that video because he was like, who cares? And then he gets mortally wounded. Yeah.
00:43:27
Speaker
That's it for this episode of Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. You can find our source material for this episode linked in the show notes. If you love this episode, we would be forever thankful if you leave us a five-star review on wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you really love the show and want more Get In Loser content, check out our Supercast link provided in the show notes or search the Supercast website for Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft.
00:43:50
Speaker
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