Pryderi

present within Celtic society as well as broader Indo-European culture. While describing his experience in Ireland, Gerald of Wales documents an incident in which he claims a prospective Ulster king performed an involved and disconcerting ritual with a white mare to assert his right to kingship. Despite the many protests taken to Gerald’s accuracy, this account bares some weight when compared to Vedic texts that describe similar processes. In any case for Rhiannon, who is initially spotted riding upon a “pale-white horse” (Davies, 8), the association is clear; Rhiannon is represented as a symbol for Pwyll’s realm from her first introduction. Rhiannon’s nature as sovereignty goddess becomes even more evident in the Third Branch when her son Pryderi tells his friend Manwydan, “I shall give [Rhiannon] to you, together with the authority over those seven cantrefs” (Davies, 35). At this point Pwyll is dead, but still Rhiannon is presented in tandem with his dominion. Her authoritative weight over his land comes not from her relationship to Pwyll, but by nature of her being. While it is now apparent that Rhiannon was intended to be perceived by the reader as a sovereignty goddess, her exact purpose in relation to Pwyll is still ambiguous. First and foremost this is a result of an issue that was glanced over in the above paragraph: Pwyll is already king to his land so a sovereignty goddess is not necessary for him to acquire any property. To Pwyll, Rhiannon’s position services…

He punishes her very harshly for a sin she did not commit only to find out later on that their son was being raised by a poor couple, when they returned the boy to his rightful parents. Although Rhiannon gets the peace of mind of her son being alive and well at the end of the tale, Pwyll is never reprimanded for putting his wife through very harsh and wrongful punishment. When Pryderi, their son, returns to his parents the author ends the story by glossing over the rest of the events and…

losing her child to the court, she succumbs to the loss of her powerful, radiant self. The idea of accepting her decline of hierarchy embodies the inner struggles of still existing as a woman in societal times of a xenophobic based era. Therefore, such surrender reflects the struggles that even at one point; invincible beings are still susceptible to as a result of gender-affiliated norms. In addition, there seems to still be the notion of how the other world seem to differ in how severe the…