Link to two videos on the Monastery of Annwn website recording beats and chants of the Heart of Annwn – ‘Slow Beat’ and ‘Hear the Heart’. These originated from my learning a healing heartbeat from Jason Smalley’s Healing Drum course at the Way of the Buzzard in 2022.
Category: Video
Creiddylad Arrives
Creiddylad arrives brings the morning.
She is here, She is here, She is here.
Creiddylad arrives brings the birdsong.
She is here, She is here, She is here.
Creiddylad arrives brings the flowers.
She is here, She is here, She is here.
A monastic chant for Creiddylad, a Brythonic Goddess of flowers and fertility, as Her presence is felt in the land again with Her arrival heralding the coming of spring.
Lyke Wake Dirge – Pagan Version for Gwyn ap Nudd
This is a ‘paganised’ version of Lyke Wake Dirge – a North Yorkshire folk song that tells of the passage of the soul. Traditionally the last line of the refrain reads ‘And Christ receive thy saule’ and the journey leads to ‘Purgatory’s fires’. Here it is rewritten and sung for my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd, a ruler of Annwn and guide of souls on Nos Galan Gaeaf when he rides with His hunt to gather the dead.
Lyke Wake Dirge
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
(Refrain:) — And He’ll receive thy saule.
When thou from hence away art past,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
To Whinny-muir thou com’st at last;
(Refrain:) — And He’ll receive thy saule.
If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
Sit thee down and put them on;
(Refrain:) —And He’ll receive thy saule.
If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
(Refrain:) —And He’ll receive thy saule.
From Whinny-muir when thou may’st pass,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
To Brig o’ Dread thou com’st at last;
(Refrain:) —And He’ll receive thy saule.
From Brig o’ Dread when thou may’st pass,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
To Annwn’s fire thou com’st at last;
(Refrain:) —And He’ll receive thy saule.
If ever thou gavest meat or drink,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
The fire sall never make thee shrink;
(Refrain:) —And He’ll receive thy saule.
If meat or drink thou ne’er gav’st nane,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
The fire will burn thee to the bare bane;
(Refrain:) —And He’ll receive thy saule.
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
(Refrain:) —Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
(Refrain:) —And He’ll receive thy saule (x2).
*This version was first sung by Nina George and my performance group Guests of the Earth at the launch of my third book, Gatherer of Souls, in 2018. I have been singing it this time every year since to aid the passage of souls.
All My Devotion
This is a devotional song for my patron God Gwyn ap Nudd. It began as an experiment in singing in trance whatever came into my mind in a monastic chant style linked with the repetition of the line ‘I bring all my devotion to you’. Slowly the verses Gwyn wanted me to sing coalesced. Hopefully this explains its misty dreamlike nature which I think fits with the meaning of His name ‘White son of Mist’.
White Son of Mist, mist-filled wanderer, Your hound haunts the cloud mountains where Your horse grazes on nothing…
…and I bring all my devotion to You…
Bull of Battle, undying warrior, Your sword parts the veil where carrion birds circle and the past unfurls…
… and I bring all my devotion to You…
Guide of Souls, gentle hunter, the graves lie open and the dead ride the storm of my soul…
… and I bring all my devotion to You…
King of Annwn, Your star shines brightly, I kneel before it at the end when silence rules…
… and I bring all my devotion to You
Building the Monastery of Annwn
My talk on ‘Building the Monastery of Annwn: A Journey in Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd’ which I gave at the Touta Galation conference in May can now be viewed on their Youtube channel.
You are Gone
A mourning song for Gwyn
Dawn arrives yet You are gone.
The birds are singing yet You are gone.
The flowers are turning their petalled heads
towards the sun yet You are gone.
Your absence is like the spinning of the Void.
You are gone to its bottommost depths
with Your castle of cold stone.
You are gone but Your haunting
is everywhere with Your promise of return.
You died but You are not dead but only sleeping.
We share a heartbeat and a breath and every one
brings us a little closer together.
I remember this when
You are gone.
This is a gifted song that I have been singing for Gwyn at His altar in my morning and evening devotions since His death in His seasonal battle against Gwythyr on Calan Mai after which He sleeps over the summer months in His castle of cold stone. (At night I replace ‘dawn’ with ‘dusk’ and ‘towards’ with ‘from’).
This is the first time I have sung on video and I’ve only sung in public once before in a performance group. I was put off when a friend jestingly told me I ‘sing like a nun’ in the sense I am not rock ‘n’ roll enough. Well I am a nun now so I can sing like a nun!
The image on my altar is a visionary painting by Meg Falconer of Caer Ochren ‘the cold castle under the stone’ from King Arthur’s Raid on the Underworld.
In the Deep excerpt – the Boy in the Serpent Skins II
In this excerpt from my novel in progress, In the Deep, the boy (Vindos/Gwyn) continues his task of dismissing the ghosts of the dead dragons from the battlefield and claiming their bones for his kingdom. Here he has a run-in with the red winged serpents who are also scavenging the corpses.
The boy wandered on fulfilling his melancholy task. He found the corpse of the dark blue dragon who had once carried his father to the stars serrated by sword-blows with the deepest to his heart.
“My name is Tialgos,” his ghost hovered above, “I was your mother’s favourite and renowned as the wisest of my kind for I flew the extent of the Deep and learnt it was endless. Yet my wisdom did not save me from the swords of the gods. Take my jewel – I trust you will use its magic wisely.”
For every ghost who left the boy a jewel and a name he stumbled over a ghostless corpse whose identity he would never know or came upon a ghost who refused to speak or obey. In this case he was forced to prise its name from the ether and command it by the force of his will to return to the Abyss
“Never do this more than thrice between sleeps,” his mother’s ghost had warned him.
Quickly he learnt why for such demands were difficult upon his lips. Applying his will in opposition to the ghost’s rent his mind, played on his emotions, drained not only the deep well of magic within him but the strength from his limbs.
Enough, he told himself, after his third struggle, with an unwieldy yellow who had wanted forever to haunt the heights above the depths in spite of missing her severed wing. I’m tired, I’ve been out long, the winged serpents will be waking.
As he began to turn, with reluctance, from the remaining corpses, the ghost of a dragon, blinded in battle, blundered towards him with empty eyes filled with longing for the Abyss.
“Brother,” he called out with compassion, “follow my voice.”
After leading the blind dragon to return upon the abyssal winds the boy’s journey back to his cave was long. He stumbled often, went over head first after tripping on a discarded foreleg, up to his elbows in the gore of a half-rotted corpse. “Uuugh! I wonder if my sister’s life is any better in the stars.”
In spite of the heaviness and clumsiness of his limbs he pushed himself on as fast as he could for fear of the winged serpents, heart hammering in his chest, mist wrapped around him.
“It’s said he hides in the mist,” a harsh voice above him.
Glancing up through the misty ethers that hid him, a pack of reds, the most savage of the lot. Males, not long in their prime, around three times the size of him, red wings spread, tails long and lashing. Their bared teeth, in strong jaws, and sharp curved foreclaws were already dripping with blood.
The boy cursed as his worst fears were realised. I always knew it would come to this, they would find me and I would have to stand up to them.
Through the mist he saw them circling above him. “I’m having his heart.” “I’m having his jewel.” “I’m having his claws.”
He summoned courage against the fear curdling in his belly and draining the last of the strength from his limbs. They might kill me but they’re not having my remains. With his right forenail he etched the spiral of Annwn into his left upper arm. Seeing his blood well and begin to run for the first time he knew, if he survived, it would not be the last. His anger gave him teeth and claws and wings beating in fury against the red winged serpents for their desecration of the dragons and making him live in fear.
Blasting away the mist, rising from the last tendrils, he flew up, dodging their slashing claws, to high above. “I am the only one who has crawled from the Abyss and I am your king!” he shouted down. “Dare any of you challenge me?”
Looking up at the thing, part boy, part dragon, with its bloody sigil, the red winged serpents gawped, taken aback.“The King from the Abyss.” “The Mark of Annwn upon him.”
“That’s right,” he asserted, “so which of you will fight me?”
They glanced at one another, their fiery eyes darting evasively beneath darker brows and not a single one of their gazes met. “You fight him.” “No you fight him.” They began to bicker amongst themselves, pushing, shoving, ushering each other forth. “Randalos is biggest.” “Ranthos is strongest.” “Ranthalos has the sharpest claws and is quickest on the wing.”
When not a single red winged serpent came forward the boy laughed down. “If none of you dare to fight me you will return to your kindred and tell them hunting me is futile because the power of dragons lies within me and my bones belong to the Deep.”
He Will Guide The Dead Back Home
For Gwyn ap Nudd
There’s a sea behind a river,
behind a brook, behind a stream,
and when the stars within it gather
He will guide the dead back home.
There’s an ocean in the cauldron
where the stars began to burn
and as our candlelight grows dimmer
He will guide the dead back home.
His is an infinite vocation
in those dark and starry seas
and when the stars depart their stations
He will guide the dead back home.
When the seas are black and bloody
and the stars are but black holes
all souls to Him He’ll gather –
He will guide the dead back home.
When the cauldron’s but a memory,
seas and stars are but a dream,
all souls in Him He’ll gather –
He will guide the dead back home.
This poem appears in the later part of my book-in-progress ‘In the Deep’ and was written by Maponos/Mabon for Vindos/Gwyn ap Nudd.
It felt fitting I share it tonight, on Nos Galan Gaeaf, as a way of honouring Gwyn as He rides out with His hunt to gather the souls of the dead.
In the background are my doorway to Annwn and photographs of my ancestors.
‘In the Deep’ – first excerpt ‘In the Beginning’
In the Beginning
was the breath,
the in-breath and the out-breath
of Old Mother Universe.
In the vastness of the Void she slept,
and in her sleep, in her dreams
she stirred Her cauldron.
And in her cauldron
she saw Her face in the Deep
and she saw it was surrounded by stars
and each star was the eye of a giant
and each was a fiery warrior.
By the light of the stars
She saw a nine-headed dragon
and knew her for the Mother of Annwn.
She saw the birth of the Gods
and the death of dragons
and the battles that would form worlds:
everything from the beginning
until the end of time.
Her vision was so sad and so beautiful
her cauldron burst and the stars poured forth.
Thus was the beginning –
the first breaking of the cauldron.
Thus from a big bang the universe was born.
This poem is the first of a series of excerpts from my book in progress ‘In the Deep’ and is called ‘In the Beginning’.
The title ‘In the Deep’ refers to Annwn, ‘the Deep’, the Otherworld in medieval Welsh mythology. The book is about the gods and goddesses of Annwn and their conflicts with the Children of Don. Most of these deities are found as euhemerised characters in the Welsh myths and were worshipped as gods in ancient Britain.
This opening poem, ‘In the Beginning’ was born from my long-standing fascination with creation myths. This began with the Bible where, in Genesis, we find the lines:
‘1. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.
2. And the Earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ (1)
This shows that, in the Biblical tradition, the deep existed before the Creator God.
In medieval Welsh literature God comes to replace Ceridwen, the Goddess of the crochan the cauldron or womb from which inspiration originates and, I believe, the universe was born.
This role is hinted at in medieval Welsh poems such as ‘The Childhood Deeds of Taliesin’:
‘I entreat my Lord
that I may consider inspiration:
what brought forth that necessity
before Ceridwen
at the beginning, in the world
which was in need?’ (2)
In my poem, ‘In the beginning,’ Ceridwen, Old Mother Universe, takes the place of the Biblical creator God.
The universe is born from the shattering of Her cauldron, a recurring motif in the Welsh myths. This mirrors ‘the shattering of the vessels’ in the Kabbalistic tradition.
- Marged Haycock (ed), Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin, (CMCS, 2007), p 242
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=KJV
The Cell of Sister Patience 