Propositions and Questions about Maponos and Poetic Inspiration

If – as is attested – Mabon Son of Modron is Maponos Son of Matrona, the divine Son of the divine Mother, and if also – as is attested – he is the spirit of Poetic Inspiration such as is embodied in the inspired [literally*] possession of the Awenyddion as mentioned by Gerald of Wales, and therefore he is the inspired source of their prophecies, and if, cognate with this, The Spirit of Poetry mentioned in Cormac’s Glossary as inspiring the young lad who engages in a rhyming competition with the female poet and may be linked – as is attested – to Aeongus Óg, and if this same inspired possession is the source of  Henry Vaughan's account of the poetic spirit actually entering the young shepherd in the form of a hawk carried by a “a beautifull young man with a garland of green leafs upon his head, & an hawk upon his fist: with a quiver full of arrows att his back”

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Then is there a link between the God of Youth and the Spirit of Poetry which survives in the fragments of story making their own way through the world as episodes in a medieval tale, accounts of poetic & prophetic inspiration and illustrative glosses on words in an exegetical grammar?

But if (as argued by Robert Graves) the source of that inspiration is a goddess rather than a god, whether as Muse or, in the native tradition, the Queen of Faëry as embodied in ballads such as those about Thomas of Ercildoune or  Thomas the Rhymer Who also features in native faërie lore, or in poems such as La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats which are also making their own independent ways through the world,

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Then should we, as Graves suggests, perceive a transfer of power from feminine to masculine deities as the source of inspiration as evinced by Apollo’s inspiration of the priestess at Delphi?

And if so, does the release of Mabon (who was snatched from his mother when three days old) from a dungeon below Caer Loyw in Culhwch and Olwen signify a release of that prophetic and youthful power into the world by the warrior Arthur and how are we to compare this to the adoption of prophetic power by Taliesin from a brew prepared by Ceridwen whose own cauldron of Inspiration – like that retrieved from the Otherworld by Arthur – became a source of male rather than female power?

Or should gender not be an issue here?

• ‘Inspiration’ – from ‘inspirare’, to breathe in.

Mabon, Son of Modron

As a follow-up to my last post, I should perhaps explain a few things. The source of the story of Mabon in the medieval Welsh tale Culhwch and Olwen appears to preserve a mythological deposit about the Brythonic god Maponus. It has always struck me as a suggestive parallel to the Greek myth of Persephone, confined to the Underworld for the Winter half of the year and emerging from the darkness of Hades in Spring to bring life when new light comes to the land. But Maponus is male. Does this make him a vegetation god? Whatever his origins he seems more complex than that by the Roman period from which the only records of his worship exist. He was at that time equated with Apollo. Modern commentaries interpret 'Mabon Son of Modron' as 'Divine Son of Divine Mother'.

Posting on Easter Sunday, following posts on other fora about the meaning of Easter and, in particular, a reference to a posting on an evangelical christian site denying the origins of Easter as a pagan festival, I was moved to re-publish this poem . Whatever the balance of probabilities between the festival of Y Pasg, as Welsh has it along with other languages using terms linked to 'paschal', and Easter in English which apparently links to the Saxon goddess Eostre; however appropriate the associations of eggs and bunnies to the natural cycle; this seemed to me a good way to make my own statement about the festival as one of both natural and spiritual renewal. So, after an initial false start, I titled the post 'Atgyfodiad Maponus' (the Resurrection of Mabon). But of course he is resurrected into the world rather than from it. With Mabon, or Angus Og or the divine spark of youth in the world, magical possibilities abound. And will follow.

Atgyfodiad Maponus

The Search for Mabon
Son of Modron

(The Oldest Animals)

The Ousel of Cilgwri did not know
Though she had pecked at an anvil each day
She had lived and over the years
Had worn it away so long was her life.

So she took them to the Stag of Redynfre
Who did not know though he had watched
An oak grow from a sapling which now
Was a withered stump, so he took them to

The Owl of Cwm Cowlyd, who would tell if she knew
But though she had watched three forests
Rise and fall and her wings were stumps
She did not know, but she took them to

The Eagle of Gwernabwy who was so old
That the rock from which he once pecked the stars
Was now less than the height of a man
But he had not heard tell of Mabon

Once, though, he had caught the Salmon of Llyn Llyw
Who dragged him under the water
And would have drowned him, but they made a truce.
So they went to the Salmon of Llyn Llyw

The Salmon was so old that he remembered
The dungeon of Mabon at Caer Loyw
So Arthur besieged it and rescued Mabon
Son of Modron from out of the darkness into the light.