White Crow Goddess

Branwen is the Manx/Welsh Goddess of love, fertility, and beauty. Bran means crow and the suffix wen means white, together in the feminist form, Branwen, translates to White Crow. The ancient Welsh worshipped her as the daughter of sea, and as Goddess of the moon and love.

Though a symbol of love and beauty, the myth behind the White Crow is of war, grief and death. Branwen is the daughter of the sea God Llyr and Penarddun (translates to chief beauty or most fair), sister of Bran and Manawydan, and half-sister of Nisien and Efnisien, whose father was Eurowydd, who conceived the sons with Penarddun while he held Llyr captive for 3 years.

Her story begins with Matholwch of Ireland seeking her hand in marriage to create an alliance between Ireland and Wales. Her brother Bran grants this union. During the celebration feast, her half-brother, Efnisien arrives home. Furious that his half sister had been given in marriage without his consent, he mutilates all of Matholwch’s horses. Matholwch deeply insulted by this act, commanded his men to return to Ireland. In order to appease Matholwch, Bran ended up giving him the most prized possession of Wales: a magical cauldron that would restore the dead to life. Matholwch and Branwen were then wed.

They returned to Ireland and within a year she bore him a son, Gwern; however, Matholwch was still insulted by Efnisien’s act and the Irish began to complain about their foreign queen. Branwen was soon banished to the kitchen, where she was a slave and daily boxed on the ears by the butcher. Matholwch banned all ships from sailing to Wales and imprisoned any incoming Welsh crews in order to keep Branwen's situation from reaching Bran. During this time Branwen trained a starling to speak and sent it to Wales, where it told Bran of her plight. He immediately sailed to rescue her.

It was then that Matholwch was told of an unusual sighting in the sea, a forest moving towards Ireland. Branwen explained to him this was her brother’s army coming for him. Alarmed, Matholwch devised a plan to get rid of Bran and his army. He built Bran a magnificent house and from every pillar of the home he hung a sack containing an Irish warrior that during a banquet would emerge and slaughter Bran and his army. On Bran’s arrival, he was impressed with the house but Efnisien was suspicious of the sacks. Matholwch told him that they were just sacks of flour. Upon closer inspection of the bags Efnisien felt the shape of a man’s head. Efnisien squeezed the head between his thumb and forefinger until they met in the middle. He did the same for all the remaining sacks and Matholwch had to abandon his plot.

They then had the banquet in which Matholwch agrees to abdicate his throne to his son Gwern. Efnisien asks if he may caress the child and as Gwern approaches, Efnisien grabbed him and threw him into the fire. A bloody brawl immediately ensued of which the Irish soon had the upper hand because they possessed the magical cauldron that would restore the dead to life. Efnisien then sacrificed himself by hiding under a pile of Irish corpses and being thrown along with them into the cauldron. Since no living thing could be placed into the cauldron it shattered into 4 pieces killing Efnisien at the same time.

After 3 days of battle, Bran's army was victorious, but his huge army had been reduced to only 7 and a poisoned arrow fatally wounded Bran. On the Irish side only 5 pregnant women remained to repopulate the whole island. Realizing that the two kingdoms had been destroyed on her account, Branwen sailed to Aber Alaw and died of grief.

Hmmm, talk about your killjoy mythical tales.