The Celtic Goddess Branwen
Branwen appears in the second branch of the Mabinogi, an ancient Welsh text that details many stories from Celtic mythology.
Branwen is the daughter of Llyr, an elusive Welsh father deity, and Penarddun, an elusive feminine deity whose name means "Chief of Beauty" perhaps alluding to the fact that she was a high chieftain. Branwen is the sister of Bran the Blessed, a giant mentioned in the Mabinogi and one of the central characters in Branwen's own story.
Throughout the study of mythology and folklore, the question often arises: is this fact or fiction? This question is nowhere more important than in the story of Branwen. While her tale includes extraordinary elements of magic, it also includes more grounded elements like political wars and arranged marriages.
This raises the question, is Branwen a Celtic goddess? Or is she an exalted chieftain that has become legendary over time?
The Story of Branwen
Branwen's story begins with a betrothal. In order to bring peace between Britain and Ireland, Matholwch, the King of Ireland, journeys to Britain to ask for Branwen's hand in marriage. He asks Bran the Blessed, her brother, if this can be arranged, so he agrees to ask Branwen. Both Bran and Branwen come from a high lineage and so the marriage of Branwen is highly sought after.
Branwen agrees to the marriage, seeing the benefits of harmony between the two Celtic nations, and they hold a celebratory feast that evening. During the feast, Branwen‘s half-brother catches wind of the engagement and flies into a rage that no one consulted him before arranging his sister‘s marriage. He mutilates the Irish horses before disappearing into the night.
Matholwch is deeply offended, and as compensation, Bran gifts him one of the treasures of Wales, a cauldron that has the power to bring men back to life after death, with the catch that they can no longer hear or speak. Branwen and Matholwch return to Ireland and the pair seem to be happy.
However, due to Matholwch's bruised ego, Branwen is then treated unfairly. After suffering at the hands of her new husband, she does give birth to an heir, Gwern, but even this is not enough to save her from her unhappy marriage.
Peering out her window she speaks to a starling, tames it, and convinces it to deliver a message to her brother. Rolling the parchment under the bird‘s wing, it flies to send Bran details of her unhappiness and how she wishes to come home to Britain.
Bran receives the message and gathers an army to rescue her from Matholwch. Upon meeting his army in Ireland, the King doesn‘t want to resort to war, and so agrees to give his kingdom to Branwen's son, Gwern, in an attempt to pacify Bran.
This angers the Irish nobles who then hide in flour bags near the Welsh camp to attack. Branwen‘s half-brother in the Welsh camp discovers the hidden nobles and kills them by crushing their heads one by one.
Later at the feast to celebrate Gwern inheriting the Irish lands, the half-brother flies into a fit of unprovoked rage and throws Gwern into the fire. This creates a chain reaction where a war between Ireland and Wales ensues, whereby the Irish use the magic cauldron to resurrect their men and thus win the war.
Branwen‘s half-brother sees what he has done towards the end of the battle and instantly regrets his actions. Disguising himself as an Irish warrior, thinking him one of their dead men, throw him into the cauldron, whereby he pushes it from four corners on the inside and destroys it, perishing in the attempt. Only Branwen, Bran, and seven Welsh warriors survive, and they set sail for Wales.
On the shores of Wales, Bran discovers a poison arrow lodged in his leg and passes there and then. Branwen, so distraught from the bloodshed and pain of her people, son, and brothers, dies of a broken heart.
Branwen is said to be buried in Angelsey under a stone circle that bears her name. Bran‘s head is said to be buried in White Mount, London.
Branwen as the Goddess of Love and Beauty
Branwen's story is a tale of heartbreak, grief, and loss. For this reason, many folklorists like to place her as a Celtic goddess of love.
The tale itself doesn't reveal any particular affinity to helping in matters of the heart, and we simply don't have any evidence that she was worshipped as a Welsh or Irish goddess of love. Evidence for pagan worship in Britain can be scanty, but we do have evidence for other goddesses such as Brigid or Aine.
Instead, the historical record gives us another clue about the real identity of Branwen.
In the 1960s archaeologist, Frances Lynch, excavated the burial circle in Angelsey, said to be where Branwen was buried. They found several urns with human remains, dating to the Bronze Age.
The Celtic Chieftain, Branwen
The findings in the 60s bring a whole new layer to the tale of Branwen. If this story is indeed a retelling of ancient events, then we can begin to look at the whole story with new eyes.
In the tale, Branwen is actually mentioned as "one of the High Matriarchs of this Isle" and then additionally, "a daughter of the king of Island of the Mighty." So perhaps a "druid goddess" is actually a more fitting title for her.
Even though this story was recorded in the early medieval era, it is explicitly mentioned that she is a "High Matriarch" first, then a daughter of the King second.
This likely means that Branwen was actually a High Chieftain, like the real-life Chieftain Cartimandua who ruled the Brigantes tribe before the Roman invasion. Instead of being the Celtic Briton goddess Branwen, she's a high chieftain, which in my mind is more grounded in the story's reality-focused themes.
This places Branwen in a whole new light, with new importance. She was not just a high-born woman to be married off, but a ruling Chieftain of a tribe.
After some digging, it seems most logical that she ruled in Angelsey since it is said that she consummated her marriage to the Chieftain of Ireland at Aberffraw. Her legendary tomb is also located in Angelsey, so this location was indeed tied to her importance.
Ancient Politics of Arranged Marriages
While the story of Branwen touches upon mystical elements, it is also very much grounded in Celtic politics. The story of Branwen is most likely to be dated to the Bronze Age, which is interesting because at the time Ireland was struggling with a population boom and dwindling resources.
The first issue raised in Branwen's tale is maintaining harmony between Ireland and Wales. Ireland in the Bronze Age was growing rapidly, putting pressure on the land to provide the people with what they needed. It's entirely possible that an arranged marriage with Britain would be exactly what Ireland needed to gain more allies (and other resources like wood, metal, and food) to ensure their survival.
Arranged marriages were common for high-born individuals in ancient and medieval societies because they secured alliances between tribes. The marriage feast that is described in Branwen's tale is a common hallmark of rituals done in ancient societies to guarantee peace.
Since Mesolithic times and possibly even earlier, feasting was a ritual performed to strengthen bonds, especially between different tribes.
At Star Carr, large quantities of cattle and pigs were ritually killed, cooked, and consumed in a short amount of time. A high volume of meat being consumed in a short time means feasting, especially when the amounts of meat were so high sometimes that it indicated over 1000 people would have been present.
It's easy to imagine our ancestors gathering around a burning fire to celebrate a marriage, with large amounts of red deer, cattle, pigs, and even mussels.
The Truth Behind the Cauldron
Ireland throughout its history was also a huge power player as the story of Branwen suggests. In the Bronze age, the Bell Beaker culture exploded throughout Europe. In Ireland, they brought with them advanced metallurgy. The earliest known copper mine is found in County Kerry, which was used to make beautiful jewelry, as well as weapons.
During this time, large riveted bronze cauldrons were also made and commonly used -- just like the one mentioned in Branwen's tale! They weren't just used for cooking either but had a special ceremonial use or mystical connection because they have been found at the bottom of bogs (a way to make a sacrifice to the Otherworld and the old pagan gods).
“It is reasonable to see such cauldrons as aristocratic possessions that were put to periodic use. Moreover, the fact that so many have been recovered as single deposits in bogs may indicate a special ceremonial significance. ”
Magic in Ancient Ireland
Looking through the story of Branwen, The Cauldron of Rebirth is only one example of the tradition of old pagan magic mentioned in the saga. It's important to note that while the story of Branwen comes from Welsh mythology, the tale largely takes place in Ireland, which means we also have to look at Irish mythology to understand the context.
In the story, Branwen tames a starling to warn her brother, Bran the Blessed, of the terrible injustices she was suffering from.
“In the meantime, what she did was rear a starling bird on the edge of her kneading trough. She taught it speech and described her brother to the bird. And she submitted in a letter the punishments and disgrace which she was enduring. This letter was tied around the base of the bird’s wing and sent to Wales.”
In Welsh, the word for starling is “drudwen" meaning "fair, blessed, white" which mirrors the meaning of Branwen; "bran" meaning "raven" and "gwen" meaning "blessed".
Branwen's ability to teach the bird to talk, or to understand the language of birds, alludes to her "blessed" or "fair" nature -- which in Celtic society always alluded to someone with divine knowledge.
While the Branwen is sometimes said to mean "white raven" I think the etymology is actually alluding to a deeper meaning focusing on divine knowledge. In Welsh and other Celtic languages, "white" in this context means "knowledge" equating to pure knowledge from divine inspiration.
In prehistoric Ireland and Wales, ancient magic was wielded by the druids to advise the chiefs on everyday matters as well as matters of war. However, the chiefs themselves could also have a special connection to the divine. Boudica, the Iceni chief, called on the power of Andraste, the hare goddess spirit, to assist them in overpowering the Romans.
It's not that the druids were expected in Celtic society to be the sole "knowers" of magic in society, but on the contrary, they were there to keep the powers from the material and mystical world in check.
The Historical Evidence for Branwen
In terms of the story of Branwen, what evidence exists?
As I mentioned previously, the story of Branwen can be dated to the Bronze Age due to the findings of Frances Lynch in the 1960s.
To recap, Lynch excavated Bedd Branwen, a stone circle in Angelsey, which is where Branwen was said by legend to be buried. He found several urns containing human remains that could be carbon dated to the Bronze Age.
Bedd Branwen was found to be a Bronze Age funerary mound near the Alaw river. Eight Bronze Age urns were recovered, with fragments of three others, in addition to that recovered in 1813. Four were incorporated into the cairn ring and the remainder were found in the inner court, with one crammed into a small cist. Other items that were found included a string of jet and amber beads.
Since the site was able to be carbon-dated, archeologists found the contents of the site dated to 1274-1403 BC. It seems likely that if the story of Branwen was true, the Bronze Age would be the era to place the story. This makes sense given the special importance given to cauldrons -- which were an important part of Celtic culture at the time.
The situation of the urns near a river also makes sense, when you consider in the story that Branwen and the rest of the survivors were on a boat sailing back into British waters at Aber Alaw when Branwen herself dies. It makes sense that Branwen's final burial site should be near a river.
In the last part of the tale, Bran's head was said to be severed from his body and taken to London, where it is buried under White Mount. Today, this is under the Tower of London which begs the question; if excavated, would we also find the skull of Bran? Who knows what Bronze Age treasures lie buried beneath the tower.
The lineage in Irish DNA
One last spicy piece of evidence can be found in living Irish DNA.
According to the mythology, the Irish population is massacred during the war except for five pregnant women who live in the wilderness of Ireland.
“In Ireland, there was no person left alive, except five pregnant women in a cave in the wilderness of Ireland. And to those five women, after the same amount of time, were born five sons. They raised those five boys until they were fully-grown youths, and they thought about women and desired to take them.”
The women are said to have repopulated the island and consequently formed the modern-day 5 provinces of Ireland itself.
Genetic evidence has recently found that modern-day Irish DNA comes from a narrow gene pool originating in the Bronze Age. Essentially, scientists have found that all living Irish people today originate from this genetic landscape coming directly from the Irish Bronze Age.
Given that we know that the story of Branwen makes sense to be placed in the Bronze Age, could it be that the mythology is telling us a kernel of truth.
Scientists conducted more genetic studies into the Irish and found another piece of ancient evidence. Sometime in our Bronze Age past, there was what scientists describe as an "ancient Irish genocide" around 2,500BC. Exactly in the midst of the Irish Bronze Age.
From DNA alone, experts were able to see that Ireland itself had a thriving culture, then ran into some difficulties, and their culture was wiped out by an invasion. This sounds exactly like the landscape of Bronze Age Ireland, backed up by other research into deforestation and the spreading of new cultural ideas like cauldrons and beaker designs.
So where does this leave us?
It means that the stories of our oral tradition can be used as pointers for further investigation. That the events told to us in the story of Branwen likely did happen, even if the tale is written more fancifully than we would like. It also helps dispel the idea that our ancestors simply made up the stories that have been passed down to us.
The Celtic Goddess Branwen: a potential Brythonic queen
The past is abundant in stories of all kinds, many of which sound like they have the capacity to be true. The nature of archaeology means we can‘t always find the evidence our mind needs to prove a whole mythology story, but in some cases, we can find small breadcrumbs of truth in the archeological record to prove certain parts of the mythological story.
I think the astounding partial amounts of evidence that are linked to this story help verify the likelihood of a past great woman leader like Branwen. In history, women's voices and stories are often lost, so it's nice to see that perhaps we have reason to believe that Branwen isn't just an elemental natural goddess, but could have been a real Chief.
By looking at the past with an open mind, we can begin to see the truth of a folktale, even if only in part.