The House Witch: Your Complete Guide to Creating a Magical Space with Rituals and Spells for Hearth and Home - Arin Murphy-Hiscock 2018
Cauldrons in Mythology
The Magic of the Cauldron
Cauldrons have figured largely in mythology, especially Celtic mythology. As you read over the following myths, notice how the cauldron can be seen as a contained, controlled place for transformation. As a ritual vessel, the cauldron serves as a focus for transformative energies. It can represent the source or the destination. It can symbolize wisdom, change, descent into the unknown, or rebirth. It’s a wonderfully adaptive symbol.
It is very interesting to note that the cauldron dispenses both wisdom and nourishment in these mythological tales. The parallel between the two suggests that wisdom nourishes the spirit, while food nourishes the body; a balance is created between the two. Equally, the spirit must be nourished by inspiration and wisdom, just as the body is nourished by food.
The traits of the separate mythological cauldrons tend to be synthesized by virtue of their similar root symbol, and thus one can encounter references to cauldrons that heal and feed and offer knowledge, all in one. Here are some of the most famous cauldrons and their stories.
The Cauldron of Cerridwen
Cerridwen is the Welsh goddess of grain and prophecy, generally perceived as a dark crone goddess. The cauldron she guards is the cauldron of Otherworld inspiration and Divine knowledge. The most famous appearance of this cauldron is in the story of the birth of Taliesin, one of the most famous poets of the Celtic nation. Cerridwen set the boy Gwion Bach to stirring a potion she was brewing in her cauldron for a year and a day, intending the potion to bestow knowledge of all things past, present, and future upon her own son. On the final day three hot drops splashed from the cauldron onto Gwion Bach’s thumb, and he instinctively lifted it to his mouth to cool it. With this act the potion’s power transferred to him, rendering the rest of the brew useless. With the acquisition of such knowledge, Gwion Bach knew that Cerridwen would pursue him to punish him, and he fled, changing shape into first a hare, then a fish, then a grain of wheat to hide from her. Cerridwen did pursue him, changing shape to better hunt him as first a greyhound, then an otter, then a hen, swallowing the grain of wheat in triumph. Instead of consuming Gwion, however, Cerridwen found that she was pregnant, and gave birth to Gwion again. She sewed him in a leather bag and threw him into the sea, where he was found by a fisherman who named him Taliesin for his white brow.
The Cauldron of the Dagda
The Dagda is a father and fertility god of the Irish Tuatha Dé Danaan. His cauldron was known as Undry (or the Coire Anseasc) and possessed the power of producing plentiful, abundant food, capable of feeding an army without exhausting itself. A pertinent phrase often associated with the Dagda’s cauldron is “No one ever went away from it hungry,” an important concept when taken in the context of hearth and hospitality. In some versions of the Dagda’s mythology, the cauldron produces food only in proportion with a man’s merit. Some sources also attach the power of healing to the cauldron of the Dagda.
Also key to the precepts of hospitality, the Dagda’s cauldron is said to be the resting place of the fiery-hot Spear of Lugh, one of the four treasures of Tuatha Dé Danaan. This pairing demonstrates the peaceful and calming nature of the cauldron containing the dangerous and warlike spear.
The Cauldron of Medea
Greek mythology tells us that Medea was a sorceress. When Jason came to Colchis on his quest to acquire the Golden Fleece, Medea, the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, who kept the fleece, fell in love with him and promised to help him in return for his promise to marry her and take her with him when he left. Jason agreed, and with Medea’s help he passed each of the challenges. After other encounters they arrived in Iolicus, ruled by Jason’s usurping uncle Pelias. Medea brought about his death by telling his daughters that she could revive and rejuvenate people by dismembering them and plunging them into her cauldron. She demonstrated this by dismembering an old goat or sheep and throwing the pieces into the cauldron, which was filled with herbs and a magical brew. A young living kid or lamb leapt out of the cauldron. The daughters agreed to do the same for their father, but Medea prepared the cauldron differently, filling it with water and only a few simple herbs. When the daughters dismembered Pelias and threw the pieces into the cauldron, without the brew of herbs and other preparations Medea had made, their plan failed and Pelias was dead.
Medea also used her cauldron at Jason’s request to rejuvenate his father Aeson. Among other ritual activities, she combined herbs, flowers, seeds, stones, sand, frost, and parts of animals known for their vigor and long life. When the olive branch with which she was stirring the potion sprouted leaves and fruit, Medea knew the brew was ready. She cut the throat of the old man and let all his blood run out, then poured the brew into his mouth and the wound on his throat. He grew forty years younger.
Medea was the granddaughter of Helios, the god of the sun, as well as the niece of the sorceress Circe. Perhaps most importantly, she was a priestess of Hecate, a goddess of the Underworld, and it was primarily from her that she drew her power. The cauldron is a critical element of Medea’s rejuvenation magic, which suggests that it belongs to the tradition of cauldrons that restore life.
The Cauldron of Bran
From the annals of Welsh mythology comes the cauldron of Bran the Blessed, known as the Cauldron of Rebirth. Bran the Blessed gave it as a conciliatory gift to his new brother-in-law Matholwch, the king of Ireland, who married Bran’s sister Branwen and whose horses were mutilated in anger by Bran’s half-brother Efnisien. The cauldron was considered part of Branwen’s dowry and was taken back to Ireland when the two returned.
Bran’s cauldron has the ability to resurrect the dead. Immersing a man in the cauldron renders him alive and in peak physical condition by the next day, but those who are resurrected cannot talk. This is because they have been to the land of the dead and may not speak of what they saw there to the living. Unfortunately for Bran, the cauldron was used against him and his men when they later found themselves at war with the Irish: the king of Ireland repeatedly resurrected his slain warriors and returned them to battle. Bran’s half-brother eventually broke the cauldron, sacrificing himself to do so.
The cauldron was said to have origins in Ireland under a lake. This further reinforces the rebirthing tradition, for the cauldron, like the lake, is a point of connection or interaction between the world of humans and the Otherworld.
The Cauldron of Annwn
The quest for the cauldron of Annwn is chronicled in the Welsh poem “Preiddeu Annwn” (“The Spoils of Annwn”), from the Book of Taliesin, which dates from somewhere between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Annwn is the Welsh Otherworld. One of the functions of the Celtic Otherworld is as a land of the dead. King Arthur and his companions travel to Caer Sidi, a fortress on an island ruled by the Lord of Annwn, and therefore they are essentially traveling to the land of the dead on this quest to obtain the cauldron belonging to the Lord of Death. The cauldron is enameled with flowers and studded with pearls or diamonds, cooled by the pure breath of nine maidens who protect it. One of the magical properties of this cauldron is that it will not boil the food of a coward or one who is forsworn. It is so well protected that only Arthur and six other men return from this quest. They secure the cauldron, but at great cost.
A cauldron belonging to the Lord of Death can be assumed to be a cauldron like that of Bran the Blessed, one that rejuvenates or restores life.
The Cauldron of Brigid
The Irish goddess Brigid (paralleled by Brid in Scotland and Brigantia in Britain, among others) is sometimes said to possess or carry a cauldron. This is a logical development from the extant Brigid myths, for Brigid is not only a goddess of inspiration; she is also a goddess of healing, associated with wells and water, and a goddess of fire and smithcraft. The cauldron is a water symbol and is closely associated with fire for its connection to hearth and home, and also smithcraft, the method by which cauldrons are made.
Brigid is a goddess of three aspects, meaning there are three separate goddesses each called Brigid governing the realms of healing, poetry, and smithcraft. The smith aspect is known as Begoibne, which means “woman of the smithy.” Begoibne was said to have a smithy under Croghan Hill in Ireland, where, among other things, she forged cauldrons wherein the future was stored.
Odrerir, the Norse Cauldron of Inspiration
In Norse mythology, Odhinn drank magical blood from a cauldron to obtain wisdom. He transformed himself into a serpent to drink all the poets’ mead in the cauldron Odrerir. Odrerir is sometimes interpreted as the cauldron itself, as well as the mead of poetry inside it. The Prose Edda describes the blood of the god Kvasir, who was originally created from the saliva of all the gods, being blended with honey in the cauldron Odrerir by dwarfs. The resulting liquid was the mead drunk to transform the man drinking it into a skald, or scholar-poet. After bargaining for it by exchange of work and being denied his fair payment, Odhinn tricked the keepers of this cauldron using guile and disguise, and with three swallows he drained the cauldron of the magical brew. In this way he became the god who dispenses inspiration to poets, in a sense liberating the cauldron from the giant Suttungr, who jealously guarded it. This mead was also used by the Valkyries to restore life to the slain warriors who were taken to Valhalla.