"On the bank of the river he saw a tall tree: from roots
to crown one half was aflame, and the other green with leaves."
--from "Peredur, Son of Evrawg"
to crown one half was aflame, and the other green with leaves."
--from "Peredur, Son of Evrawg"
The Mabinogion is a forest of widening spells, a book of dream-songs, a spoken map to a territory comprising both the seen and the unseen. It consists of eleven medieval Welsh stories that were carried in the voices of storytellers for many generations. These stories bring alive a world in which humans exist in perpetual relationship to the Otherworld, and in which human and non-human forces must nourish each other if both are to flourish.
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So you're just hurrying through the forest as usual when the collision of a white stag and some dogs slips you into new relationship with the King of the Unseen, and though you've got some stuff to do it turns out he needs some things from you and hey, where do you think you live anyway? It turns out there's nothing better than to spend a year living as someone else, which is what you're heart's quiet shadow probably wanted all along.
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Come take your place at the feast presided over by the otherworld queen Lady Rhiannon, where the spells of hunger and contentment send you out the door clutching a bag of limitless hunger which will teach you what true nourishment is. A Welsh tale for the uncatchable Queen within all of us!
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When a king from the Otherworld travels across the sea to marry Branwen, Daughter of Llyr, what can possibly go wrong? The answer, of course, is everything—in this Welsh tale of spectacular disaster centered on the mysteries of a cauldron able to bring the dead back to life.
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What happens when we don't get we want? This episode focuses on the wild music of desire and inspiration, exploring the Welsh myth of Taliesin as a map to the new worlds which open up for us whenever our well-made plans fall beautifully apart.
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