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| Mabon | |||||||
| Mabon gets its name from the Welsh God of the same name (which means "great son").His full name is Mabon ap Modron, Son, son of Mother. The first thing it tells us is that he (more likely, He) is old, so old he's the son of a Mother, rather than a Father. Mabon may be from a matrilineal culture as we know pre-Christian Wales to have been. If the Saxon connection holds up, He may be the result of a cultural fusion, indicating more borrowing between the British Celts and the Saxon invaders than has previously been assumed. And He bears many of the signs of a sacred king, losing whatever mortal name he had to become only the Mother's Son, ruling and dying in Her name alone | |||||||
| In the myth, a man named Culhwch had a curse laid on him that he would never marry unless he marry Olwen, daughter of a chief-giant. But there was one problem, her father would not let any suiters near her. But if any suiter wanted to try he had to accomplish 39 impossible tasks. Culhwch and his cousin Arthur set out to accomplish these tasks but first needed to ask the help of Mabon. They saught the most ancient of all animals, Salmon of Llyn Llew who led them to the wall of Caer Loyw where they heard somebody weaping. This person was Mabon who was incarcerated here. Culhwch and his companions helped Mabon to escape and eventually gets to marry Olwen. The myth goes that Mabon was stolen from his mother, The Earth Mother Modron, three nights after his birth. She is in such sorrow that her light and life disappears from the earth. So at the Autum Equinox the earth is slowely dying and winter comes. But when Mabon is still prisioned in his cell the animals and plants slowely start to bloom again. The marrage of Olwen and Culhwch parallel the escape of Mabon and the blossoming of the earth. |
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| Of course there are many other myths around the world that paralle this myth, such as that of Persephone and Demeter. At the equinox when Persephone is stolen by Hades, Demeter is in great sorrow so she fails to tend the earth, thus the plants and trees slowely die and the earth gets cold and dark. When Persephone returns again at the Spring Equinox Demeter is so overjoyed that life once agains returns to the earth. | |||||||