Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings!   For this week’s Femme Fatale Friday, I have decided to discuss one of my favorite Welsh Celtic Goddesses, Blodeuwedd.   In particular, I want to explore her transformational qualities and her relationship with Gronw sparking the transition from Flower Goddess to Owl Goddess!    

The heart of Blodeuwedd’s tale is her conspiracy with Gronw, her lover to kill her husband, Lleu, so that they can be together and rule over Lleu and Blodeuwedd’s lands.    While she is often seen as a wicked woman, truly a Femme Fatale, due to her desire to kill her husband, her marriage was not a happy one.   She was literally made from flowers (either three or nine blooms depending on the telling) by the magicians Math and Gwydion to be the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes.    While she is relatively happy in her marriage at first, it is not long before Lleu began to leave Blodeuwedd home alone with just her maidens while he traveled far and wide.    This bred much loneliness in Blodeuwedd and discontent with her marriage.    

When Gronw, a noble from a neighboring land, intruded on Blodeuwedd’s lands when her husband was away, she did the hospitable thing (hospitality being a huge thing in Celtic culture) and invited him to a feast at her castle.   It was not long before Blodeuwedd and Gronw were lusting after each other during the feast!   That lust turned into three nights of sexual ecstasy.   In Welsh Celtic culture, bedding someone three nights in a row is as good as marrying them!   After the third night, Blodeuwedd and Gronw realized that they truly loved one another, and set about developing a plan to make sure they could be together.   That plan was to find a way to kill Lleu and for Blodeuwedd to marry Gronw, the two ruling over Lleu and Blodeuwedd’s lands together!    While this is an extreme and seemingly over-the-top choice, rather than divorce, it does show that Blodeuwedd was tired of being just the wife of Lleu, often at home and nearly forgotten about.   It is the love of Gronw that showed her that she could be more than just a wife to the man whom she was literally made to marry!

It is this time of love and choice that cements Blodeuwedd as a Sovereignty Goddess, she is no longer just the literal Flower Bride made by magicians to circumvent Arianrhod’s decree that Lleu shall never marry a woman born of a human mother.   She had become a Goddess within her true power, a woman who wanted to be valued enough to be given the opportunity to make her own choices.   Blodeuwedd went on to use Lleu’s trust in her to gain the information about how he can die, for it was only under very specific circumstances, but the most important being only with a spear crafted during Mass on Sunday over the course of a year!   Blodeuwedd gave the information to Gronw, who went about crafting the special spear.   After the year had gone by and the spear was ready, Blodeuwedd got to work preparing for the perfect circumstance to kill Lleu.   She then asked him to show her the way he would need to stand in order to die, and trusting her he did.   That is when Gronw, who had been hiding out of sight, threw the spear, piercing Lleu in the side.   Lleu transformed into a golden eagle and flew away, in some variants he truly died, but most often it was just a very close call.   The magicians Math and Gwydion found him and healed him, before setting forth to enact punishment on Blodeuwedd and Gronw.    They killed Gronw but cursed Blodeuwedd to become an Owl.   As an Owl, she was now a night bird, who would hunt her prey and be nocturnal.   It was the feeling that since she was a Goddess born of flowers that keeping her from the light of the sun, which all flowers need to survive and thrive, would be the ultimate punishment!

In truth, in becoming the Owl, she was allowed to fully embrace her Sovereignty and use the wisdom that she had gained.   Owls are fierce birds of prey, as well as birds of immense wisdom!   Her transformation began when she fell in love for the first time, with Gronw’s love fortifying her to the realization that she was not content being used.   Her reason for being was not as simple as to allow Lleu to cement his kingship through having a wife, she deserved a real relationship.   She also came to the wisdom that she was her own sovereign individual, with her own innate power!    All of this led to Blodeuwedd becoming truly self-possessed and confident.   It is that confidence that allowed her to help Gronw in a plot to free her from a marriage she had never wanted but had been forced into.   Ultimately, she would lose the man she truly loved, after a short time getting to rule with him when they believed Lleu to be dead.   This is a painful loss and she was cursed, but that curse can teach us about the true power of ultimate transformation.   She went from being a Goddess made of flowers to a Goddess in Owl form, two vastly different states of being, but this allowed Blodeuwedd to come fully into her own personal power, not allowing anyone else to make choices for her!

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my thoughts on the power of transformation found within Blodeuwedd’s story.   How do you feel about Blodeuwedd’s tale?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a lovely artwork of an owl.   I found the image on https://fineartamerica.com/featured/white-owl-april-moen.html?product=poster.

Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services!    I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon!  Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/

Further Reading

• The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies
• Blodeuwedd: Welsh Goddess of Seasonal Sovereignty by Jhenah Telyndru
• The Avalonian Oracle by Jhenah Telyndru