Celtic Hags 5

Cerridwen, Cariadwen (White Grain, White Goddess, White Inspiration, Crooked Woman, Bent White One) Aldan, Ogyrwen (Spiritual Beings)
(pron. Ker-id-wen, KAHR-ed-wen) Welsh triple goddess of the moon with sky blue eyes, black skin, and sun-gold hair who tends the bronze coire fhís:Cauldron of Knowledge in the Underworld as a hag. The waters have glittering shapes with threads of scarlet and the potion is called greal. The baby Gwion Bach: Little Innocent stirred the cauldron with the blind man Morda: Sea God for a year and a day, tasted the greal & gained the powers of prophecy, inspiration and shapeshifting. Cerridwen pursues Gwion as a hare in the shape of a greyhound. He turns into a fish, and she a brown otter; he is a bird and she is a hawk. He then turnes into a grain of wheat and she a black hen with ruddy claws and parting comb swallows him. After nine months [or nine nights] he is reborn from her womb. She cannot kill him because of his great beauty so she puts him in a leather bag on May Eve and throws him into the sea.
She took the form of a brown-winged bird, swallowed a piece of the sky, and flew to the mountain of her nine sisters to give birth to Agfadu. The birch: beorc is her sacred tree. The whiteness of the tree’s bark is the White Goddess. She is a birthgiver and death-bringer and can take the form of a white carrion-eating sow (crone form), horse, cat, or greyhound. She lives on an Island in Lake Tegid with her two children: the beautiful Creidwy and the ugly Agfadu: Utter Darkness, Her throne is Cadair Cerridwen: Chair of the White Goddess. Welsh Bards call themselves Cerddorion: Sons of Cerridwen after her. Wheat straws are sacred to her and the practice of drawing straws comes from her. Gwâl y FiIast: Lair of the Greyhound, Llanbendy & Glamorgan, Llech yr Ast: Greyhound Stone, Llanhamlwch, Maen yr Ast, Ffynon Maen Milgi: Greyhound’s Stone Well, Merionethshire are all named after her.
On May Day morning sacred oxen were driven to her holy island Lake Bala in Powys. Singers with ivy wreaths and carnute caps chanted Cainc yr Ychain Banawg: Song of the Cake, followed by harpists. After them came the ark or shrine on the shoulders of rneichiaid: minor priests, lead by the hierophant, a torch-bearer representing the sun, and the bard of the moon. The procession entered the temple in the center of an oakgrove. The heads of tribes surrounded the temple. Her festival is July 6th.
coirí filíochta: 3 ‘cauldrons of poetry’ within the poet/person, similar but not identical to kundalini chakras; each has 3 attitudes, giving 9 situational elements and 7 states of the poet. coire fhís: cauldron of knowledge, highest of 3 coirí filíochta, coire goir: cauldron of motion, middle of 3. coire éirme: cauldron of warming, lowest. (6, 20, 47, 74, 99, 133, 141, 165)