Cerridwen

Pic: will remove if asked by Disney, found here

In the tale of "Gwion Bach," Cerridwen is the wife of a nobleman in Arthur's court, and has a very ugly and untalented son named Morfan, but known as Afaggdu, "utter darkness"(Ford, 162). I think Cerridwen has two important aspects - mother and magician.

As a mother, she is concerned that Morfan won't do well at court due to being ugly and needing some other quality to make up for it in order to win the acceptance of the nobles. In order to make him special, she decides to use her magic arts to give him the gift of prophecy. She shows dedication in that she "labor[ed] long in her arts" to find out "there was a way of achieving such knowledge by the special properties of the earth's herbs and by human effort and cunning" (Ford, 163). Also, since the cauldron of water and herbs needed to be stirred and kept boiling for a year and a day, she found an old blind man to stir it and a boy to tend the fire - Gwion Bach. Additionally, Cerridwen kept the cauldron full of water and herbs herself for a year and a day, but she got tired on the last day and sat down to rest, only after she put Morfan in range of the three magic drops that the cauldron would spew to give him the gift of prophecy. I think she shows dedication as a mother, working long and hard to see that her child is able to succeed. She also demonstrates great skill as a magician in researching what spell to use, the herbs needed, how to brew it, and getting the desired result.

She also interacts as both a mother and a magician towards Gwion Bach. When she finds out that he pushed Morfan out of the way so that the magic drops fell on him instead, she chases after him. Both of them transform themselves into different animals and objects they think will help them, much like Merlin's showdown with Madam Mim in Disney's The Sword in the Stone. Finally, Gwion Bach changes into a grain of wheat in a barn, and Cerridwen became a hen and swallowed him, which, in fairytale logic, means that she became pregnant with him. She carried him for nine months, and delivered him. However, when Gwion Bach was reborn and Cerridwen saw him, she couldn't hurt him now that he was her child, and she didn't want anyone else to hurt him either. In this way she not only acted motherly towards Gwion Bach, but she actually became his mother when her intention was to kill him. After he was born, she put him in a basket and set it in a body of water of some sort (the transcriber notes that there's confusion as to whether it was the sea, a river or a lake). This is very much like the biblical tale of Moses, who was also put in a basket to save his live.

As a magician, Cerridwen shows that she is clearly very powerful, since she can brew a fantastic magic potion that makes the reciever have the gift of prophecy and magic himself, transform herself into numerous shapes, and has great knowledge of herbs and spells. As a mother, she shows herself to be extremely dedicated, loyal, and hard-working, but is also fallible. I believe this tale depicts Cerridwen in a more positive light than is usually percieved of women who are powerful and skilled in magic. Unlike the evil queens in Disney movies, Cerridwen uses her magic to benefit her child, and spares Gwion Bach once he is her own child.