Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings!   For today’s post, I have decided to take a look at Nine Goddesses connected with Avalon and the lessons they can teach about Transformation.   Without further ado, let’s look at each one by one!

~MORGAN LE FAY~

~Morgana is the Great Lady of Avalon!    From the earliest literary references to Avalon, in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, she is named as the leader of the Ninefold Sisterhood, who is the most skilled among them.   As a shapeshifter, she is very literally transformational, in that even in her earliest literary appearance in Vita Merlini, she is said to be able to transform into a crow!   In Monmouth’s words, she could “fly on strange wings like Dedalus.”   Of course, she is a Goddess who is known for her tricksy nature, a la her later tales where she plotted against her brother Arthur to overthrow his Kingdom of Camelot!   This tricksy nature likewise is shown through her role as a famed tester of Knights and Kings, who need to prove their worthiness to rule, famously taking this role in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.    In that tale, she also shows her transformational ability through the use of Faery Glamour, turning Sir Bertilak into the Green Knight and herself into an old woman to watch the testing of Gawain!    She is also known as the Midwife of Priestesses and is famously a Psychopomp ferrying Arthur to Avalon after his final battle at Camlann, both of which further exemplifies her role as a Goddess of Transformation!    In my opinion, she is the Goddess who most easily helps us to transform and alchemize disparate parts of ourselves into a new whole! 

~BLODEUWEDD~

~Blodeuwedd is the Goddess born of flowers, made by the magicians Math and Gwydion to be the bride of Lleu Llaw Gyffes.   Her story contains a literal transformation from a Flower Goddess to an Owl Goddess when she is punished for attempting to take her husband’s life, an act which she did in hopes of gaining her freedom to be with the man whom she had truly fallen in love with!    Her transformational energy can teach us to more fully embrace our personal Sovereignty, to go our own way, damn what anyone else thinks!   She lost her lover, sadly, but became a more fully actualized Goddess, empowered by the razor-sharp sight and talons of the Owl.    In my opinion, she is the Goddess who can most easily help us embrace unexpected transformations within ourselves and to see them as assets rather than curses!  

~RHIANNON~

~Rhiannon is the Sovereignty Goddess who rode in on a White Horse to gain the attention of her future husband.    She teaches us lessons about perseverance in the face of injustice, with her acceptance of an unfair punishment for a crime she never committed.    Her regaining of her son, and exoneration of the crime, heralded a time of fortunate change for her.   This transformational message is one of persevering and accepting changes as they come, and in the case of Rhiannon this is a softer form of Transformation, but no less powerful.    In my opinion, she teaches great lessons about weathering the storm of transformation when it is painful!   This is also exemplified in the ability of her birds, the Adar Rhiannon to “raise the dead and lull the living to sleep” further showing the transformational aspects of her tale.

~CERRIDWEN~

~Cerridwen is always seen as a Goddess of Transformation due to the famed story of her chase of Gwion when he ingested the three drops of Awen meant for her son.    As the chase ensued both of them changed into different animals with Cerridwen not ending her pursuit, as both shapeshifted.    Finally, Gwion transformed into a stalk of wheat and Cerridwen into a hen, who ate him up.   Then she would give birth to him, as a baby again, now named Taliesin, the Great Bard of Wales!    Her shape-shifting chase is often seen as a metaphor for the spiritual journey.   In my opinion, she is the Dark Mother of Transformation, who can birth us into our newest selves!  

~BRANWEN~

~Branwen was the sister of Bran the Blessed and married off to the High King of Ireland.    She endured many pains and punishments unfairly, from being forced to work in the kitchens and being beaten every day once her husband was reminded of the insult he suffered on their wedding day to the deaths of her son and brother Bran.   Branwen finally succumbed to her pain, dying of a broken heart!    The tragedy of her tale can teach us about the power of truly embracing all of our pain and heartache.    In my opinion, she is a Transformational Goddess because emotional pain is one of the things that can truly transform us faster than anything else, as there is much power in embracing our heartache and alchemizing that pain!

~ARIANRHOD~

~Arianrhod is a Goddess whose name means Silver Wheel, thus associating her with the Moon.    She was the mother of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who was the cause of his not being able to have a wife born of the human world.    Arianrhod did not choose to be a mother and she took the insult of being forced into the role (as well as possibly deeper and darker implications of exactly how she was forced, which I will not go into in this post) as a reason to punish her son, but this punishment resulted in the birth of Blodeuwedd!    Arianrhod is a Goddess of great personal autonomy, living her life by her own rules, and her story teaches lessons of transformation by the unexpected nature of giving birth to two children (her other son, Dylan of the Waves was fully formed and took off to the Water upon birth)  when stepping over a staff, and feeling indignant rage at the betrayal of her body.    Arianrhod is a Goddess of the Cycles, making her intimately linked with the movement of time, and she can teach us that transformation is necessary, even if like for her in her story it was deeply unwanted!

~NIMUE~

~Nimue is one of the two most common names given to the Lady of the Lake, the other being Vivienne.    She was the lover of Merlin as well as a great magickal practitioner and Goddess in her own right.    When she learned all that she could from Merlin, she famously worked a great feat of magick to imprison him within either a Crystal Cave or a Hawthorn Tree!   In my opinion, the Beguiling of Merlin is where her aspect as a Transformational Goddess comes in, as she literally transformed the most powerful Mage into a man ruled only by his lusts, thus ending in his loss of power!    She can teach us to wield our own personal power of transformation prudently, since in some variations of the tale she was imprisoning Merlin to stop his unwanted sexual advances, thus protecting herself.   I love the idea of marrying the power of protection with that of transformation! 

~ISEULT~

~Iseult, or Isolde as she is also called, was a Princess of Ireland who was skilled in the herbal healing arts.   She is most famed for her love story with Tristan, which did not cease with her marriage to King Marc of Cornwall.  Her love for Tristan would cause such upheaval, sometimes ending with them being separated and Tristan marrying another woman that shared her name (but with the epithet “of the white hands” to differentiate her from the Iseult he loved).    In this version, Iseult of Ireland is sent for when Tristan is mortally wounded, to use her knowledge of healing to save him.   She agreed to help, but through the deception of Tristan’s wife, she never got the chance to heal him.    Iseult of the white hands told Tristan the color of the sails on the ship which was returning with Iseult of Ireland were of the opposite color (the one they had said they would sail if she refused to come to save him), so Tristan died having lost hope!    In my opinion, this tragic end signifies that Iseult of Ireland is a Goddess of the Transformational Power of Healing.    Healing the body can also heal the heart, and giving up hope of being healed can lead to despair which can kill us!

~GUINEVERE~

~Guinevere is the Queen of Camelot, a Faery Queen of Sovereignty, and a Goddess who embodies the power of transformation which is rooted in the Transformational Power of Love.   Her famed love with Lancelot is often at the crux of the downfall of Camelot in the most well-known tellings of the Arthuriad!    Arthur losing her love, also meant that he lost the right to rule, lost the blessings of the Goddess of Sovereignty.   After all, it was his marriage to Guinevere that cemented the union of the King to the Land, and their marriage falling apart also led to the dissolution of his Kingdom.    In this way, Guinevere’s love for Lancelot can be seen as transforming the very lay of the land around them!    In my opinion, she is the Goddess who can best teach us about how powerfully transformational love can be, and warn us to be careful with our hearts and those of others!  

~In the end, all of these Nine Goddesses can teach us that Transformation can lead to Sovereignty.    Their stories provide us with reminders that embracing change as a part of life is one of the most potent and simple magicks in the Universe!    I hope that you have enjoyed reading my thoughts on how the Goddesses of Avalon and Arthurian Legend can teach us lessons about Transformation.    Which Goddess do you feel the pull of most?    Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

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

• Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
• The Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes
• Vita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth
• The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
• The Book of Taliesin 
• The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies