Festivals associated with Gwyn

 

 

Samhain (the Celtic New Year)

Beltain (the Spring Fertility Feast and first day of summer)

 

Celebrative festivals and feasts were born out of ritual and story combined.  As each event is remembered as a social engagement, the physical performance involved can awaken the spirit and our sense of awareness.   

 

Samhain (1 November or closest full moon)

 

This was known as the Returning of the Dead as when at the end of October, Gwyn became the Lord of Shadows.

 

The Wild Hunt is an interpretation of Gwyn guiding the dead to their Afterlife. Our ancestors believed that this was a time for unification before the time of Rebirth.  Aside from the symbolic explanation is another which may describe how an historical Gwyn may have died, that in representing the God of Death a hero may have been killed to initiate heroism in others.  In this respect the means of death may have been a manhunt as hunting was a common method used for removing anointed kings.    

 

Samhain, pronounced by the Celts as “SOW-en” was one of the ancient sabbats.  Other than it having been a festival that marked the beginning and end of the year, it was traditionally believed there was a veil of existence hanging between the world known and that unknown, the Other World. 

 

On the first hours of the 1 November (or the first full moon in Scorpio) the veil was thought to be most thin, enabling the two worlds to merge as one. The spirited dream world could unite with the living one, allowing the recent dead and our ancestors to be remembered.

 

Analysing the time of Samhain more closely it is evident that there are running themes. The veil lifted between the Two Worlds represents timelessness (or freedom).  Another is that  our ancestors  were welcomed into the lives of the living again.  By leaving doors and windows open and setting a spare place at the table, the gestures were symbolic of invitation and reconciliation.  Soul cakes (or pice rhanna in South Wales) were made to represent the flesh of dead relatives and were left for the cenhadon y meirw (messengers of the Dead) to collect.

 

Another two themes appear to run in conjunction.  Both are related to fire and have a similar role in sanctity but whilst one is to do with sacrifice the other is do with renewal. In respect of the first, before corn dolls and straw effigies, men or animals were ritually sacrificed (or purified) by flames that today in Britain is similarly re-enacted when a 'Guy' (dummy) is burned.  in respect of the renewal theme, in Ireland the bonfire ritual was the Feast of Tara which represented the strength and stability of the High King.  It would be lit in Tlachtga, a few miles North West of Tara, the night before the ritual was to be enacted.  As a consequence, all household fires had to be put out so that the most sacred of all could receive focus.  And then from it tribes would take a light and use it to relight their own house fire.  They considered this a new flame to represent a new approach to a whole year ahead of new ideas, new hopes and possibly new loves!  Here is also a probable connection with today’s kept up tradition of New Year Resolutions - the intention of keeping a promise underlies the hope for a new change.

 

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Beltain (1 May or closest full moon)

 

Bel-Tene meant a ‘goodly fire’ and was the time of the month when fires were built to last more than one day. Many of these fires were lit upon hill tops and anywhere that showed presence for miles around.  They were kindled to invoke fertility but they had additional purification purposes due to the Beltain and Samhain months being polarised on the Celtic Calendar.  For the Celts this meant such dates were significant for ‘renewal’.  Cattle were driven through low flames to secure their good health for the months to come and couples ‘jumped the fire’ to make vows of marriage before their community.  Even the pregnant leapt the flames to ensure a positive outcome.

 

For purification purposes the Bel Fires had many uses.  Other than symbolically casting illnesses and diseases into the flames, the Bel Fire purified tools both general and magical.

 

Other associations with Beltain can be drawn from the Apple and the Hawthorn.  The latter probably came to be due to Irish Celtic influences that had a Hawthorn Giant minder, who would issue a painful consequence to any trying to rob him.  Hence, Hawthorns were considered bad luck in the home and if they were cut for their beautiful flowers, it had to be on the night before Beltain when their phallic symbolism was observed as a ritual accessory.

 

A further two plants that have special meaning at Beltain are the Marigold and the Rowan.  Marsh-Marigolds were strewn across floorings to draw luck into the home and likewise the rowan was arranged around doorways and windows to keep bad luck out. 

 

As explained Sexuality in Symbols, this was also the time of the year young couples ran about the woods and fields.  Innocent pleasure was sensually explored to invoke life’s most beloved of rituals ... the result creating more life.  These couples, who would have traditionally stayed up all night to have watched a new dawn summer sun rise from the Earth (Mother/Goddess) to join with the Sky (Father/God).  Even when Christianity became the officiating religion, enactments continued in the symbolic representation of Maypoles and mummery's. The Beltain Battle  was re-enacted by two young rivals for the May Queen, epitomising Gwyn and Gwythyr's combat over Creiddylad.

 

Cosmic Twins are depicted in many mythologies.  Wall engravings and cave drawings prove that many thousands of years ago man was in a similar frame of mind wherever he was on the planet.  How this was and what united him may be the shared practice and study of hallucinogenic plant life and dreams.  In a defocused state of mind, Man can have experiences that he has been better able to explain in picture.  As a result, it is theoretically possible that the twin serpents accompanying many ancient art works were in fact man’s experience of his own inner knowledge.  That the snakes and ladders passed to us through legends, biblical stories and board games are a symbolic awareness of our own DNA.

 

The DNA double helix is four chemical compounds, A, G, C and T that together form the genetic code of all living things.  Under a microscope the spools of DNA look much like double headed serpents or twisting threaded ladders and bear a strong resemblance to the records of our ancient ones.  It is therefore not inconceivable that within us we have always known of our own origins.  That in fact we have always used a vast volume of mythological expressions to explain the same themes to our existence.