In the medieval Welsh story Lludd ac Llefelys the island of Britain is beset by three plagues. The second is a scream which is ‘heard every May eve… It pierced people’s hearts and terrified them so much that men lost their colour and strength, and women miscarried, and young men and maidens lost their senses, and all animals and the earth and the waters were left barren.’ (1)

Lludd finds out from Llefelys the plague ‘is a dragon, and a dragon of another foreign people is fighting it and trying to overthrow it, and because of that… your dragon gives out a horrible scream.’ (2) It is likely the ‘foreign people’ are ‘the Coraniaid’, the Romans, who are the cause of the first plague.

Following the advice of Llefelys, Lludd digs a pit in the centre of Britain and fills it with mead. After the dragons have stopped fighting, firstly as dragons, then in the shapes of ‘monstrous animals’ and finally ‘two little pigs’, they fall into the vat, drink the mead and sleep. Lludd wraps them in ‘a sheet of brocaded silk’, puts them in a stone chest, and buries them at Dinas Emrys. (3)

The dragons battle again during the invasions of the Anglo-Saxons. At this time Vortigern attempts to build a tower at Dinas Emrys and it will not stand. Merlin tells Vortigern this is because there is a pond beneath the foundations and when the pond is drained two dragons will be found in hollow stones. 

Whilst Vortigern is sitting on the bank, the two dragons, one red, one white, begin a ‘terrible fight’ casting ‘forth fire with their breath’. The white wins. Merlin says this predicts the defeat of ‘the British nation’ by ‘the Saxons’. (4)

The scream of the red dragon and the battle between the red and white dragons takes place at times of war and potentially during other periods of upheavel. I believe it is connected with the diasbad uwch Annwfn ‘scream over Annwn’ or ‘cry over the abyss’ which is found in several of the Welsh law texts including The Laws of Hywel Dda. It is uttered by a claimant who is threatened by the loss of their claim to ancestral land. (5) It perhaps has its origins as an invocation of the spirits of Annwn, those who were held back by the King of Annwn, Gwyn ap Nudd, to prevent their destruction of the world. These spirits may well include the dragons who Gwyn’s father, Nudd / Lludd subdued.

According to the National Library of Wales The Laws of Hywel Dda features an illustration of a two-headed dragon. (6) I couldn’t find this image but did find two of the red dragon, from f.21.r and f.51.r, which are in the public domain. 

*

I’m returning to this lore after a journey circle with the Way of the Buzzard wherein we discussed the connection between dragons and voice and journeyed to the underworld to ask a dragon for guidance around personal power.

I met a black dragon who instructed me to ‘put on my dragon skin’. I shapeshifted into a dragon and we flew over the volcanoes with the smoke cleansing my skin. I was then taken to an iron grate with forms behind it. I was told I ‘must learn to release the prisoners’. The black dragon’s final message was: ‘Those who are denied are needed.’ I’m not sure if they are parts of myself who I have shut away, people, or spirits, or perhaps might be all.

Other participants reported visions of a dragon’s golden eye and dragon’s heart. This really struck me as it fit with the black dragon who I met, who I suspect to be Gwyn, the King of Annwn, in dragon form, His heart the Heart of Annwn. Several years ago my aunt sent me a birthday card with a golden dragon eye on it and it watches over me here in my monastic cell. 

My vision of a black dragon fits with the legends of the red and white dragons because white, red and black are the colours of the Otherworld.

I later received the gnosis that the iron grate is ‘the Dragon’s Gate’. I believe behind it lie the spirits of Annwn who Gwyn keeps shut up until the end of the world because of their furious and nature which can harm or possess us.

That these spirits, ‘who are denied are needed’, feels like a big revelation although not an entirely unexpected one. The story of Lludd and Llefelys and the scream over Annwn teach us that occassionally these spirits need to be released.

I’m going to be talking with Gwyn further about safe ways of releasing these spirits with His guidance and how this might relate to my personal power.

(1) Davies, S. (transl.), The Mabinogion, (Oxford University Press, 2007), p112
(2) Ibid. p113
(3) Ibid. p113 – 4
(4) Thompson, A. (transl.) Monmouth, G. History of the Kings of Britain, (In Parentheses Publications, 1999),p110 – 133
(5) https://awenydd.weebly.com/the-scream-over-annwfn.html
(6) https://www.library.wales/discover-learn/digital-exhibitions/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/laws-of-hywel-dda