Latest / Mooney's Mythic Podcast / Wart Charming, Welsh mythology and That festival

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Wart Charming, Welsh mythology and That festival · Mooney's Mythic Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Mooney's Mythic Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mooney's Mythic Podcast is sponsored by people.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, feeling you all radiating out in the world, being there, doing your thing, getting it
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: getting it wrong,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: getting it messy,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: getting it tidy,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: really loving all of you,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: really loving,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: loving,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: loving people.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast loves people.
• 0:38
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• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast loves people who put the podcast on and then doesn't listen,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: forgets about it,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: falls asleep to the podcast,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: wakes up to the podcast.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We love you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for everyone who's recommended the podcast.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I had a really lovely and epic moment the other day when someone was asking for podcast recommendations.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, Sarah, one day you'll be on a list like that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Someone's going to say, oh, I really enjoyed Sarah's podcast.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there, Claire Mulligan had written, I am really enjoying Mooney's Mythic Podcast.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Claire.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I reached out to Claire to say thank you.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And she said that she'd been journeying to a Sundance in Spain and listening to it
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: in the car and that Ezra,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: the child in the car,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: the lovely,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: gorgeous girl,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: had asked for some of the episodes three times.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is close scrutiny.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was preparing for this podcast,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: would it bear up to the close scrutiny of three times listening?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Ezra, you can let me know that.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: If that's true.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so I just record these in one take and I don't do any editing or mucking around.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, people probably don't call it mucking around, but that's what it feels like twiddling about.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, people.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So in celebration of the people that are sponsoring this podcast,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read out a couple of really swoony reviews for you.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So this one is from Stu, and it says, Only started listening to your podcasts because I know you, obs.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Core.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're truly fantastic.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Medicine, healing, light and fun, and yet wonderfully deep.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Heart.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just great, isn't it?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where to get that tattooed,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm definitely going to put that somewhere where everyone can see it.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this one from Mikey.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Such a great podcast, Moony.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Love your chat and the way you tell that story.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Also enjoyed the image of you stood on your doorstep, waving your little bent sparkler on your tod.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations on the thousand downloads.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: See you at the 5,000 party.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah!
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Great, great.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks to everyone.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know I say it over and again,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: but everyone who says anything positive to me just kind of helps me edge a little
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: bit forward when there are places where,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's hard to...
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: No,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: it's just hard to know sometimes in those little places that don't want growth,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: that don't want creativity,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: that want to stay all tucked and squashed tight in their boxes.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Something like a podcast which can just go out into the world where I'm revealing
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: myself and my thoughts and my dreamings in different ways can feel really risky sometimes.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so thanks for making that container really safe for me, people.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for everyone who said that they would put out a sticker,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: that they had some ideas about where to stick them.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth Jane Lovely has said that she'll stick some in some books.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: She's going to a festival and she's going to stick some in some books.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for all your ideas.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have to say Claire Richards,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: who was the first person to get in touch and give me her address to send her some stickers.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got a map now so that I've got all these friends and I'm not quite sure in
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: the country or sort of whereabouts I'm such a kind of woolly person when it comes
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: to landscape.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to write out where people live so I know.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that feels really good to me just to imagine the whole world
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, these kind of acupressure points of where my dear hearted friends are.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Claire,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I excitedly got a hedgehog card out and stuck some stickers in and wrote your
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: address on and posted it really enthusiastically.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I put a stamp on it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember that stage of putting a stamp on it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know what happens these days with letters that come without stamps on.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if there's any cost incurred, I'm happy to pay it or I can send you some more.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be in touch in a while's time and you can let me know if you received anything.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am loving doing these podcasts.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I adore doing these podcasts.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so, so much for being here.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can pour this nectar, this transmission for you, for the world, for us.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this experience when I finished the last podcast and it was,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: there's such huge endeavors and I think about them and they're big.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, you know, and the birthing of them, bringing them through.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then as soon as I finished, I started thinking about the next one, like as soon, like minutes after.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the image that came to me was flowers.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Flowers.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew, ah, okay, this next podcast is going to be somehow about flowers.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: What do I know about flowers?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can think, I can see you all, sense you all, sense you all.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's nice, isn't it?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can sense you all dreaming in flowers.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: thinking about the flowers that are around you or the flowers that you love or the meanings of flowers.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I was doing.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was just sensing what do I know and feel about flowers before I go and ask other
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: people or look in my books and things like that and
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it came from the end of the podcast thinking about birth and that I had
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: rose oil at my son's birth.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that it kind of helped me to spiral open rather than kind of crack open because
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: he came in four hours.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I feel vulnerable talking about being a mum.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I notice.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that women through millennia have hidden the fact that they are mothers
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: in order to kind of get ahead and get jobs.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I was listening to Lauryn Hill.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your career, they said.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lauryn, baby, use your head.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sorry to sing Lauryn Hill.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, obviously she's got such an amazing voice.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But her whole song about Zion,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: about how she was so advised not to have a child because it would ruin her career.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then the light of her life and the kind of birthright of her creativity bloomed from her.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, but I feel vulnerable, vulnerable enough to think, what was I talking about?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking about flowers, rose oil, birth, labour.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just help me to spiral open.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I often use that movement when I want to kind of get back to myself or get into myself,
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: just kind of this sort of circular spiral movement just to stop me from,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: charging forth, you know, sometimes that energy is really needed.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got a lot of that sort of like,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: head down,
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  SPEAKER_00: pushing through without really,
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  SPEAKER_00: what they say,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: smelling the roses,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: waking up and smelling the roses,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: taking the time to integrate the subtle energy's
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking about a woman who is a shaman from Ecuador,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Carmencita,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: and she was saying that death has to be floral,
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: that flowers is the only time when in their tradition they put flowers on the fire.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was saying this in another podcast and that's what sort of like bloomed this kind
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: of seed of a,
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: of a moment has kind of bloomed inside me to create this next podcast.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I, I took that image, that teaching, um, as a kind of nugget.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked my friend, um, Anna Davies, who's a wonderful homeopath and she said,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: sent me some things about the homeopathic meanings of the homeopathic provings of the rose.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And she sent me some extracts from this book by Madeline Evans, Meditative Provings.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they talk about the rose being the symbol of life and death.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they also talked about the rose being used as a symbol for the chakras instead of lotus flowers.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that, like at the base of myself, a rose blooming.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: The chakra system is an Indian system where you have these kind of center points
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: throughout your body,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: like the colors of the rainbow going up all the way through your body.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I imagined a rose at the base of my spine.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I imagined a rose at my belly button.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just feeling that delicate,
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  SPEAKER_00: fragrant,
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  SPEAKER_00: floral opening at my solar plexus,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is kind of where sternum is.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, can you hear those?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's Craig's dogs downstairs.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's got three dogs, Craig and Anna.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they're tiny.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're tiny and they're wild.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: just letting that...
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's the solar plexus that does take the hit when things come from outside or,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: you might get a barbed comment from someone.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: You might feel it in the solar plexus.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So as I'm...
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: feeling the rose in my solar plexus i'm feeling the the the um in madeline evans
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: book she talks about the um the death the giving death to of the rose remedy and i
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: have felt that as i've been tuning into the rose that it's like as it sort of fills
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  SPEAKER_00: me and blooms me on the inside there are sort of
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: sharded places and broken places and dead places that are just having to fall away
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: because there's no space as the rose expands within me.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we're at.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're at the summer solstice.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're at midsummer where everything is blooming and moving,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: moving and blooming on the inside and the outside.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So then I'm going up into my heart and
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like the natural place for the rose.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling the rose opening and moving around.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then into my throat.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: The throat chakra filled with roses.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can we imagine that?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Filled with roses.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm going up into my throat chakra,
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: someone said,
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: my friend Bryony,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: she said that you only need to go up.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you concentrate going up to the throat, then the rest of the chakras will just naturally open.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: But as we just come up to the throat and the third eye,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: which is just in between your eyebrows,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: crown of roses,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: and then like a champagne bottle.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just imagine kind of confetti petals, just roses, roses, roses, roses everywhere.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: There I am.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are in the realm of the rose and rose.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder how far we are from a rose.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever we are right now, I know that there's some roses by the gates downstairs.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking about all along this street where I live, there are roses dotted around.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then from the roses, I started thinking about the wildflowers and the hedgerows.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my favorite hedgerow flowers is meadowsweet because it's kind of it's just so cute.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like candy floss.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like kind of pale yellow candy floss.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And also I.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: know that um it contains um that the um the is it something acid that is made into
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: um and you know um aspirin aspirin that's right see i'm always curious about that
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: and the mugworts out the mugworts really flowering and the mugwort for me just
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: really activates my dreams totally activates my dreams so it's like this this real
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: opening time dreaming time here we are
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: In this place.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So from this place, I know that I am travelling to Wales.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go to Wales.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've just actually returned from Wales.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Which reminds me of this story about these two magicians, Math and Gwydon, and they conjure magic.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: a maiden with broom and oak and meadow sweet.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that that's going to be my story for this podcast.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know it actually that well.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's an edge for me because I'm working on a, you know, telling a story that I don't know
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for coming on this journey with me.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: this story is from a Welsh book called The Mabinogion,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: what Lady Charlotte Guest,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: who translated it from Welsh into English,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: called it The Mabinogion because it has these four branches.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Each section is called a branch and they are the Mabinogion.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So she called them collectively, all together, the Mabinogion.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they were originally translated into Welsh, which people say, you know, what an act of...
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's that word?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: An act of defiance to write something in Welsh.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe it wasn't.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a Welsh person wanted to translate it,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: wanted to collect all these tales,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: and they wrote them in Welsh.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it did mean that they were...
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: not available to the whole world when they were in Welsh.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Lady Charlotte Guest, she was a great linguist.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: She learned so many different languages, Persian and Serbian, German and French.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, in the medieval times, people were...
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: really celebrating myths from other cultures.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she wanted to prove that the Celtic myths,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: that the Celtic stories had every bit as much magic and adventure and wonder.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she really was committed to bringing the Mabinogion to the people and to show
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: and celebrate the Celtic heritage of myth and storytelling.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what she did.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I really thank you for that.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really thank all of us who have these ideas or niggles and we follow and follow and follow them.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it took her years.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: She pursued it and she created the Mabinogion,
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: which is a translation which we work with very much from today.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there are copies of the Welsh version
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: versions the red book and the white book and the red book is in Oxford and in this
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: book there is a dragon mentioned and only once in Latin literature is a dragon
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: mentioned before this only once a dragon and I just feel like wow how alive the
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: dragons are in our dreaming in our let me look at the Welsh flag that great red
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: dragon dragons are so much part of our mythology
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to Wales and I stuff my copy of the Mabinogion into my bag on my way
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: to visit my friends in Wales.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've actually got a few copies, but the copy that I took with me was Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's a pretty faithful, not impenetrable, but maybe it's
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: directly translated without much look of the sort of overview or certainly not for a minute.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gwyn and Thomas Jones, I don't believe, were ever oral storytellers.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So off I go with my ideas of the Mabinogion and flowers and I'm going to see my
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: friends who are both keen gardeners and I'm like,
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: this is what I'm going to ask them all about.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: and this, and I've sort of really feel confident that I know what the podcast is going to be about.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just never works like that.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: just these,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: whenever I have a clear,
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: really clear idea about anything,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: just never,
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: ever worked like that.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm, I'm trying to get a bit of info about flowers, um, from my friend Joan and, um,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just nothing.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we get interrupted.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: The conversation goes other ways.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm beginning to sort of kind of lose confidence in my questioning and I'm kind of
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: retreating a little bit.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I did find out that roses have got really deep roots and people think that you
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: can't move a rose in a garden.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you move a rose, it can often die.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they think that that's because it's so sensitive.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not that.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's because they've got really deep roots.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you cut their roots off, it's the roots that's really keeping them alive.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's their roots that is making them able to open and open and open and open and
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: open and emanate and emanate and emanate their scent.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: But apart from that, I get pretty distracted by seeing my friends and all that that comes with.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I did get sidetracked in a good way with some stories about charming people.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because Welsh or Wales,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: the part of Creswell Quay,
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: the part of Wales that I was in,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Pembrokeshire,
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: has got a great tradition of charming.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say charming,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean people who were famous for being able to take something away that you don't want.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about Prince Charming, about charming people.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we say charming.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are they taking away from us?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do they make everything just feel okay?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Make everything okay?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: These charming people.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there were lots of different charmers in this area.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: There was a woman called Betsy and apparently she charmed Dropsy.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there was Mary.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: She lived in Comer Park and she would charm away jaundice.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: A woman called Jackie who would staunch wounds.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Jackie had this way of
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: She used a magic wand and she would stop blood flow by waving her magic wand and reading scripture.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this mythology that when she died,
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: her magic wand disappeared with her,
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: vanished into thin air.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there was this tradition of rubbing a snail on a wart and saying,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: wart be gone on the snail's back,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: go and never more come back.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So anyone who's got a wart, if you want to try that, I'd love to know if it works.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it got me thinking about where I used to live, where I grew up.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little village called Hope Cove,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't know if they still do it,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: but they used to have a worm charming competition once.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: where everyone would have a little piece of grass and you had a certain amount of
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: time where you had to try and charm as many worms as you possibly could out of that
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: little patch.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And my friend's mum,
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: her secret recipe was to pour beer over the grass and apparently the worms loved it
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: and they would come up for a little tipple and she often won.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's what does T.S.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Eliot say?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Distracted by distraction from distraction.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to just hop back to charming in Wales.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to visit my friend Tess and she actually lives on the farm next door to
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: where Jenny,
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: the very local charmer,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: lived.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I learned that she lived.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was a female line that the charming was handed down from her grandmother to her mother, down to her.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Tess did chide me a bit when I was there.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: She's been listening to the podcast and she noticed that I missed a week when I was away on Dartmoor.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she said that she had to re-listen to one.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just flag up now that I am going to Glastonbury Festival next week.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really hoping to pop a story in the bag for you.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll see.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if anyone,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: if you're at Glastonbury Festival and you're just like,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want a podcast,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want a podcast,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: then come up with your kind of recording materials or whatever.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, come up with your gadgety phone and I will record a podcast.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see how that goes.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you where I am later.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Charming.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: what was charming for me was that I was looking up at one of Joan's bookshelves and
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: she had another copy of the Mabinogion.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: She had a copy by Shona, I think.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't got it around me.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Shona Davis.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so good.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's got these ways of writing that are very oral, this kind of repetition and the way she uses words.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: It just kind of,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: it just jumped off the page for me and gave me another sort of insight into the
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Mabinogion as I was reading it.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really grateful for that.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was listening to another recording of it and I got this movement inside me.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, it's beyond words.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I get really excited about a story.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like an ancient cog begins to move deep, deep, like deep in the earth.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: an ancient cog started to move.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just on fire with excitement about this journey.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just stepping towards with this text that's got so much mystery wrapped in it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's so old.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's so old.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: So many oral stories brought together.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a love letter to the Welsh landscape.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, oh, I was thinking about songlines and Aboriginal songlines and
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: the way that it uses landscape,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: which I'm nowhere near,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing at all when I retell it,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: but the way that it uses landscape and brings alive mountains and streams and
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: rivers and villages,
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: it's just obscene the way that it just pours magic and aliveness in.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: into the landscape it goes to France and Cornwall but the sections I've read about
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wales have really been brought alive to me and then I was I just opened a book I
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: was looking for some books to take to the festival in case I fancy reading and I
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: just opened this book it's called Woman in Nature The Roaring Insider by Susan
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Griffin and I've never it's been on my shelf for ages and I haven't read it before
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I read this paragraph that just felt so poignant and a concise expression of what I was feeling.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I have to have a disclaimer here because I read this to my son and I got like
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: four lines in and he just walked out of the room.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, was that boring?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, really, really boring, mum.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So hang in there, guys.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: OK, it's like 20 lines.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so much, but hang in there or go and put the kettle on.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's up to you.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I found it really moving and I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the book.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Naming.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Behind naming, beneath words, is something else.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: An existence named, unnamed and unnameable.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: We give the grass a name and earth a name.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: We say grass and earth are separate.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: We know this because we can pull the grass free of the earth and see its separate roots.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: But when the grass is free, it dies.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: We say the inarticulate have no souls.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: We say the cow's eye has no existence outside ourselves,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: that the red wing of the blackbird has no thought,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: the roe of the salmon no feeling,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: because we cannot name these.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yet for our own lives,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: we grieve all that cannot be spoken,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: all that there is no name for,
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: repeating for ourselves the names of things which surround what cannot be named.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: We say heron and loon,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: coot and killdeer,
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: snipe and sandpiper,
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: gull and hawk,
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: eagle and osprey,
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: pigeon and dove,
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: oriole,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: meadowlark,
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: sparrow.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: We say Red Admiral and Painted Lady,
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Morning Cloak and Question Mark,
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Baltimore and Checkerspot,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Buckeye,
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Monarch,
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Viceroy,
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Mayfly,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Stonefly,
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Cicada,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Leafhopper and Earwig.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you're still with me, you've come way further than Noah did.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Back to the text.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: We say sea urchin and sand dollar, starfish and sand worm.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: We say mucus membrane,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: uterus,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: cervix,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: ligament,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: vagina and hymen,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: labia,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: orifice,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: artery,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: vessel,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: spine and heart.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: we say skin blood breast nipple taste nostril green eye hair we say vulva hood
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: clitoris belly foot and knee elbow pit nail thumb we say tongue teeth toe ear we
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: say ear and voice and touch and taste and we say love
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: breast and beautiful vulva saying clitoris saying belly saying toes and soft saying
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: ear saying ear saying ear ear ear and hood and hood and green and all that we say
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: we are saying around that which cannot be said cannot be spoken but in a moment
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: that which is behind naming makes itself known hand and breast know each one to the
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: other
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wood in the table knows clay in the bowl.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Air knows grass knows water knows mud knows beetle knows frost knows sunlight knows
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: the shape of the earth knows death knows not dying and all this knowledge is in the
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: souls of everything behind naming before speaking beneath words.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And to speak after these words feels trite.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe that these ancient stories, we go back, back, back as far as we can
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: They contain so much that we've lost and that we can, as academics, can pour over them.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: But actually,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: we tell them and tell them and tell them and tell them and they activate memory
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: deep in our cells.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I hope.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: to do or trust that I'm doing when I'm telling stories is activating something very
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: deep within all of us.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm feeling like the pot's been stirred enough and this story's coming forth.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the story begins with Math, who is a magician.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this magician, it doesn't actually begin right there, but that's where it's evoking for me.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's got this kind of quirk where if he's not at war, he has to have his feet in the lap of a virgin.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll talk at the end of the story,
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk about my kind of first proving,
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: my first thinkings and linkings about this story.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: But he loses his virgin, the virgin that he is using the lap of.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's this great plot to get him to go away because there's another man that's in love
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: with her and actually he rapes her whilst math is away and when math comes back and
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: she's no longer a virgin he marries her and so he's looking for another virgin and
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: arianne rod who is the goddess of the sky she says i'll be your next virgin and he
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: says well are you and he puts his
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: magic wand down and asks her to step over it and as she steps over it a fully
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: formed young boy drops out and so she kind of makes for the door and then as she's
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: making for the door a tiny offering
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: comes forth from her.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Gwydion,
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: her brother,
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: he takes this offering,
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: this pulsing life,
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: and he puts it in a box at the end of his bed.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows until there's a tapping in the box.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he opens the box and there's a baby and a fully grown baby.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, it's already kind of climbing out and speaking.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Gwydion, he loves this child.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, by the time it's eight,
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: By the time it's four, it looks like it's about eight and it can do extraordinary things.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: So Gwydion takes the child to Caer Arianrhod, where Arianrhod is creating a new life for herself.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he's there and she says, oh, hey, Gwydion, nice to see you.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Who's your mate?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, don't you recognise him?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's your child.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she's totally shocked and she's like,
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: she doesn't want to be seen with her child and this new life that she's created for
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: herself where she's flourishing and
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Gwydion says, that's disgusting.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's really judgmental towards her that she isn't able to embrace her child.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, get away.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: She says, I'm not going to name him.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is my curse upon you.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I am not going to name him.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: They have this big row.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Gwydion is like, we will see about that.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So he takes the boy down to the river, down to the sea.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the waves are lapping up.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And as the waves lap up, they bring dulse and other seaweeds towards him.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he summons and conjures with that seaweed a great boat.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they step on the boat and they sail towards Kaer Arianrod.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they summon the seaweed that they have on the boat into golden leather.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they pretend that they're shoemakers and they start to make shoes.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the gold and the other sparkles in the light of the sound on the boat as they
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: dock in to care Ariane the rodent.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she sees them out of the window and she's like, what are they doing over there?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: And her people come back and they say, oh, they're two shoemakers.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're making me shoes.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're so golden.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: She says, oh, get them to make me a pair.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: So they measure her feet and they take the measurements down to these two
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: shoemakers who Gwydion and the boy have changed their appearance.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: They've got a glamour on so they're not recognised.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they make these shoes.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they make them too big.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: So they bring them back to Ariane Rod and she's like, they're too big.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Tell them to make them smaller.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the people go down again and they make these ones and they're too small.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: She says, tell them they're too small.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'll go down myself.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: They can measure my feet exactly.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: So she goes down and she steps onto the boat and Gudion says, let me see your feet.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And she's getting her foot out and she's placing her foot in front of Gudion.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And she sees this boy.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this boy, first of all, the light is attracting his kind of fair hair.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he watches him as he gets this pebble and he throws it.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it hits a wren, stone drop down.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: She says, look at you.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you a clue cloud, Guffin?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they look at him.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he sort of shivers.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as he shivers, he turns back into his own form.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so Gwydion turns back into his own form.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole boat kind of melts away and just becomes seaweed all around them.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he's smiling and he says, Ha!
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: You've given him his name.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Chlauchru Coffin.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: that's what we'll call him that's what we'll always call him he has a name and
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: arion rod is furious first of all she's like drenched in this disgusting seaweed
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: all around her and secondly she's been tricked but she doesn't like and so she just
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: goes into defense and she's like well you he will never carry arms he will never be
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: able to defend himself i curse him with that
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Gwydion's like, well, we'll see about that.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he has this other idea where they need to get back into care,
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ariane Rod,
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: and they need to be as welcomed as absolutely possible.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they disguise themselves as poets.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the doors are flung open for them.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Gwydion says,
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: starts to tell stories and,
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: engrosses everyone and completely,
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: he's glamoured up again so Ariana doesn't recognise him and he's telling these
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: stories and they're all completely enraptured.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And just when they're at the moment,
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: the quiet moment of a story,
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: just when they're up,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: it's like the moment where Scheherazade
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: who is telling stories for her life in Arabian Nights.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: She tells a story before she goes to be killed, to be executed.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then just as day breaks, she just stops on this cliffhanger.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then she's allowed to stay alive for another night.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just from one of those moments in a story where it's a pin drop moment.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's holding their breath.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's all this noise from outside.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's this anger and shouting.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: They look out of the windows and there's a great army coming towards the castle.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Ariadne is terrified.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And Gwydion says, fear not.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, but what a shame.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: We are great fighters, but we have no arms.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she says, oh, I've got arms.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: And she calls the servants and they're bringing,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: great clattering irons and swords and,
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: those kind of maces and all kinds of things.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, you give them to the boy, to Ariana.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll get what I need.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: So she starts giving Phil lots of different weapons.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's silence.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: And she looks around, she says, I think they've gone away.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, aha, no, no, it was me and you have armed your son.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: And she's furious and she says,
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: no way,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: that's,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: I tell you what,
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: he will never fall in love,
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: not with a woman walking on this planet.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so the gauntlet has been thrown down.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Gwydion, he's not sure what to do with this, so he goes to Math.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Math and Gwydion,
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: the two great magicians together,
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: they come up with the idea of conjuring a woman out of flowers.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: So they use broom and oak and meadow sweet.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they call her Bledoweth.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Hu falls in love with Badaweth immediately.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so they marry and Arianne Rod has been thwarted a third time.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: But Bledoeth, she's made of wildflowers.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's made of the strong oak and the witch's broom.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: She is made of meadow sweet.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she doesn't want to be in a castle.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't want to be cooped up.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Clu is always away.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so she begins to feel her wild, beating heart kind of almost bursting out of her.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: And she starts to
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: range around and look around for some kind of wildness around.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she sees
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Out of her window, a man who is hunting.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: And he's hunting deer and he's full of the wild stag.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he's full of this kind of hunting, adrenal, red blood energy.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: And she is really attracted by him.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so she...
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: she says to her people um oh look he's obviously exhausted from the hunt and and we
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: wouldn't be uh really I'm sure my husband you know he would really want to invite
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: him in so we really should invite him in and so she invites him in and they totally
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: fall in love and um what to be done she's married so they decide that they will
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: plot against Chloe and they will kill him
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: But Bledoweth knows there's magic afoot and all around him.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: So she knows that he's not going to be able to be killed easily.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when he comes back, she says to him, oh, I've missed you so much.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was so afraid that you had died.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was so afraid that you had died.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, oh, no need to worry about that, my dear darling.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not very easy to kill me.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, she said with her sweet voice and her batting eyelashes.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, a man would have to make a sword every Sunday over a year.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that would be the only sword that would ever kill me.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So straight away she goes back to her lover and he begins to make this sword.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then when he's almost made it, she says, oh, husband, husband, I'm so worried about you dying.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've no need to worry.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: I told you about the sword, didn't I?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, yes, but someone could make, there could be a sword.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Sundays are a good day to do a little bit of blacksmithing.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: He says, oh, it's not as simple as that.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have to have one leg on the back of a donkey and one leg on a boat with a thatched roof.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: So she gets herself thinking.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: She makes a boat with a thatched roof.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: She finds a donkey.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then when a year has passed, she says to him, I'm so worried about you dying.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Will you just show me?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: Will you just show me what it's,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: if you were just to put one foot on,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: oh look,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: there's a boat with a thatched roof and there's a donkey.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you were just to put,
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: show me what it would look like so I know I can,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can,
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: see how ridiculous it is and never worry about it again.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he does that and of course the sword that has been made every Sunday over a year
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: comes flying towards him and before it hits him he sees it and he turns into an
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: eagle and he flies away.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Math is furious and Gwydion's furious and they in the end they do find him and they
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: nursing back to life.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: But Bledoeth's curse is that they turn her into an owl.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons that I knew that this story was the right story to tell
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: today was that I was driving around Wales and I saw an owl in the daytime.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Huge white thing and it was such an extraordinary sight and it just glared right at me.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that was when I knew that this was the right story for today.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just tracking through the story, see if there's anything I want to say about it.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, it's just full of initiations.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: The magic wand,
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: the stepping over the magic wand,
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: the box at the end of the bed where something gestates and grows,
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: the three times,
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: the three...
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: curses that are broken,
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: all the spells,
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: all the magic,
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the more I tell this story,
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: the more I can manage to include from the original version,
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: this story's going to offer jewels and jewels and jewels.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think about Arianne Rod and how...
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: how it might have been in the time of these stories where these children have come
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: from different fathers,
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: perhaps,
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: or,
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: and how that was to be an unmarried woman with children in her time.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think about the flowers that they choose to conjure bladoeth with,
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: a broom,
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: which is a,
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: if you look at it,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: it looks like a broom and it is what people made brooms with in the past.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's got this magic of sweeping away,
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: this magic of clearing and tidying,
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: this magic of,
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: the witch's magic of the broom.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's made of oak.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: She's made of oak, like the strength and the magic in oak.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a big tree in Druidic lore.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think Druid, the beginning of Druid, I think means oak.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Medusweet, which, like I said, has got this kind of aspirin quality to it.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're not making a flimsy flower maiden.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're making a strong, magical woman.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that speaks to me again of initiation.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then she finds this woman.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: this wild hunt character,
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: and in that there's this glimmer,
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: there's this curtain pulled back of the older myths of Gwyneth and all these other things.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling you my initial,
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: like off the top of the bat,
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: juice that I'm getting from this story.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to it.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for allowing me to go on this journey.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like we're on it together now, guys.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're on this horse together.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know when I'll do more stories from the Mabinogion, but I will.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems a great time to start this midsummer.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: So yesterday was the solstice and today is the full moon.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was on the
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Pilton site,
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: that's what we call Glastonbury Festival in Glastonbury,
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: because if you say,
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: are you going to Glastonbury,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: you come into Glastonbury,
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: it gets really confusing.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we call that world that's being created over there, Pilton and Glastonbury remains Glastonbury.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I was on the Pilton site.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: yesterday feeling very, very blessed to be there.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: I camp in the teepee field.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Come and see me.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I camp in the teepee field.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: I have a, it's not a teepee, it's like a swooping white witch's hat and it has a golden mushroom on top.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I camp not by the main fire, but it's called the children's fire.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not a fire for children.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the children's fire because it's
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we we work with it in awareness that all that we do in our lives and around
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: that fire in that week is for future generations,
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: is for our future generations,
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: is for the children that come after us and after us and after us and the children
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: within us,
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: which we're healing all the time.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I will be there telling stories at two o'clock and four o'clock every day except Sunday.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll also be telling stories, special moments by the fire.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll also be doing my special storicaling.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, storicaling is when people ask me questions and I answer in rhyme.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this was an old Bardic tradition.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a way of accessing, I believe, kind of liminal magic.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got a question or something that you want to some kind of landscape of perspicacity,
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: that's quite a big sentence,
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: isn't it?
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: landscape of perspicacity so perspex you know like that you see through so you want
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: to like a bigger a bigger perspective on something you want to see more about come
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: and ask me a question i'll answer in rhyme and we'll unpick it we'll we'll make
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: stories with it whatever but it'll definitely be there at two o'clock and four
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: o'clock and come and pick up some stickers stick them everywhere um come and say
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: hello
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was coming off of the site last night,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: feeling very grateful with my life,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: feeling there was this huge milky moon.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my goodness.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Full moon of the solstice.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: Daylight hours, the most daylight hours.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: I saw a hare, like an actual real hare.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Blessing, blessing, blessing.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've hardly, I think, had three times in my life.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in nature quite a lot.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen three hares.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a hare in front of my car.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then it stood.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: It stood under the moon.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: It stood still under the moon for a while.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: I like to think for me, but I'm sure it had much more important things on its mind.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you to that hare.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a blessing.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I am going to leave you with a Hafiz poem.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I've chosen this because we're talking about flowers at the beginning and also
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: because Lady Charlotte Guest,
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: who translated the Mabinogion from Welsh into English,
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: she spoke Persian.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Hafiz was a Persian poet from the 13th century, so for sure she would have read.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: She would have read his poems in Persian.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: That just thrills me.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: How did the rose ever open its heart to give the world all its beauty?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: It felt the encouragement of light against its being.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we all remain too frightened.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Midsummer to you.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Solstice.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: May we feel the light upon us,
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: the longest amount of time of light these next days and may it warm and tend to the
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: places in us that have been a little bit too frightened to reveal themselves.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: I will catch up with you at the next podcast.