This is a re-telling of an old Welsh tale captured in the 12th century text The Mabinogion. Its not usually told quiet like this. I see Elen as an expression of the Sovereignty Goddess who is so prevalent in Celtic myth. She is the abundance of the land and recognizes the need to be in partnership with humans for everything to flourish.

To me this story speaks of the human-nature relationship but it also addresses the relationship between the masculine and feminine - both between two people and within all of us.

The story too touches on the theme of the dreaming of the land which skirts around the edges of The Dream Makers story I told in Episode 3. It's quite magical, I hope you enjoy listening as much I as enjoy telling it.

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This is the third and final part of this telling of Merlin's story. This is the part you may be more familiar with and has taken many different forms over the years as the story traveled around Britain between the North and what is now Wales.

This story speaks of Merlin as a great prophet implying that he has found some opening to the Otherworld through which knowledge, unbound by time and space, comes through him. You may recognize a parallel here with the Thomas the Rhymer story from Episode 1. The gift of prophesy is a common theme in the tradition of the Britons.

In both these stories, it is time out alone in the natural world that precipitates the coming of the prophetic ability. in other old Welsh poems Merlin is in conversation with an apple tree and a pig, suggesting his animistic worldview and respect for intelligence beyond the human.

I'd love to know what you hear in this part of Merlin's tale.

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This is the second part of Merlin's story, please listen to Part 1 first as it will give you some context for the battle that is about to happen and Merlin's grief

The battle happened in a field, by a river, in a place that now lies on the Western section of the English-Scottish Border. In the old texts the battle is recorded happening in the year 573 and is labeled one of the Three Futile Battles of Britain. We don't know why it was fought and some suggest it was futile because it pitted Briton against Briton when their fighting power would have been better directed at the invading Angles.

The short written record also states that this was the battle in which "Merlin became mad".

His madness became to focus of my telling of this story. Having experienced the madness of traumatic grief and spent multiple stretches of three days and nights fasting out in wilderness I drew on these experiences to imagine his initiation.

https://www.kathoughton.com/

Subscribe to the free email course on Working with Archetypes here: https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes

I consider the experience of grief to be an initiatory experience. This post explains how I arrived at the understanding the grief carried medicine to help us unfold in to a more expanded version of ourself.

https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com/p/grief-as-an-initiation-part-1-of