The Celtic Path
Cerridwen
Keeper of the Cauldron of Awen — the Great Initiator
Pronounced keh-RID-wen (Welsh) — IPA: /kɛˈrɪdwɛn/ — the 'dd' is a voiced dental fricative, like the 'th' in 'the'
Domains
transformation and the initiatory dissolution of the self · inspiration — particularly the Welsh concept of Awen (divine creative spirit breathed through the poet) · the Cauldron of Knowledge — the source of all genuine poetic and prophetic gift · shapeshifting through elemental forms · the dark moon and the dark feminine creative power · death and rebirth — the swallowing and the gestation and the release · herbs and the wisdom of plants gathered at specific times for specific purposes · prophecy and the knowledge that comes from genuine dissolution of the ego · the nine-month gestation of what cannot be forced into being
Who is Cerridwen?
Cerridwen is the great cauldron-keeper of the Welsh tradition — a figure of enormous creative power, terrifying relentlessness, and paradoxical generativity whose myth is one of the most psychologically profound and spiritually instructive narratives in all of Celtic literature. She is attested primarily in the Hanes Taliesin (The History of Taliesin), a prose tale whose fullest surviving form appears in the 16th century Red Book of Hergest context but which draws on poetic and oral traditions that scholars date to the 6th through 12th centuries. The poetry attributed to the historical Taliesin — a real 6th century Welsh bard — and the poems of the legendary Taliesin in the Book of Taliesin (Llyfr Taliesin, c. 1275 CE) form the mythological context for her story. She is not found in the four Branches of the Mabinogion, which places her in a somewhat separate strand of Welsh mythological tradition. Her story belongs specifically to the Taliesin legend cycle, and through it to the Druidic and bardic tradition of the Welsh world. In modern practice, she is arguably the most important single deity of the OBOD (Order of Bards Ovates and Druids) Bardic grade, as the keeper of Awen — the flowing spirit of divine inspiration — which is the Bardic grade's central concept.
Cerridwen lives on the shores of Llyn Tegid (Lake Bala) in north Wales with her husband Tegid Foel (Bald Tegid, who gives the lake its name) and her two children: Creirwy, described as the most beautiful girl in the world, and Morfran Afagddu (Great Crow of Utter Darkness), described as the ugliest and most unfortunate boy ever born. It is for Morfran — whose disadvantage is absolute and irreversible at the level of appearance — that Cerridwen devises the Cauldron of Awen. She has studied the books of the Fferyllt, the alchemists of Caer Wydyr (the Glass Fortress), and she knows the formula: a year and a day of continuous brewing over the right herbs gathered at precisely the right times, producing three drops of perfect Awen — divine inspiration — which will give Morfran the inner brilliance that would compensate for his outer disadvantage. This is an act of maternal grief and determination, not of magic for its own sake. The cauldron is brewed out of love for an unlovable child. And the love itself is what makes it fail in the direction of success.
Awen — the word at the center of Cerridwen's mythology and of the entire Welsh Druidic tradition — derives from the Proto-Celtic *awindā, meaning 'inspiration' or 'the inspired spirit,' and represents a quality of creative genius understood as divine in origin: not the product of craft or learning alone but of something breathed through the poet from a source beyond the ego. The OBOD tradition invokes Awen in three-fold repetition ('Awen, Awen, Awen') at the opening of all ceremonies, and the concept is foundational to the entire Bardic path. Cerridwen's cauldron is the mythological source of this inspiration, making her the mother of all genuine Celtic poetry and prophecy. The profound irony at the heart of her myth — that the three drops fall not on Morfran but on the servant boy Gwion Bach, who accidents his way into the full force of divine inspiration — is not a failure of the myth but its central teaching: inspiration cannot be designed, directed, or guaranteed. The cauldron brews; the drops fall where they will; and what follows is entirely outside the control of the one who did all the work.
The Myths — cited to the sources
The Brewing of the Cauldron of Awen: A Year and a Day
Hanes Taliesin (The History of Taliesin), associated with the Book of Taliesin (Llyfr Taliesin), National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 2, c. 1275 CE; prose narrative tradition documented by Patrick K. Ford, The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales, University of California Press, 1977
Cerridwen brews the Cauldron of Awen for a year and a day, gathering specific herbs at specific lunar and seasonal times according to the books of the Fferyllt. She sets the servant boy Gwion Bach to stir the cauldron continuously. On the final day, three drops fly from the cauldron and land on Gwion's outstretched hand. He licks them instinctively. In that instant the three drops of complete Awen enter him: he knows everything that has been, is, and will be. He also knows immediately that Cerridwen will come for him with all her power. He flees. The rest of the cauldron's contents — the residue of a year's labour — curdles into poison, shatters the vessel, and runs as a toxic stream into the lake, killing Cerridwen's horses that drink from it.
The Great Chase: Transformation Through All Four Elements
Hanes Taliesin (The History of Taliesin); Book of Taliesin, c. 1275 CE; Patrick K. Ford translation, 1977; Marged Haycock, Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin, CMCS Publications, 2007
Cerridwen pursues Gwion Bach through four elemental transformations in sequence. Gwion becomes a hare; Cerridwen becomes a greyhound. He becomes a fish in a river; she becomes an otter. He becomes a bird; she becomes a hawk. He becomes a grain of wheat on a barn floor; she becomes a black hen and swallows him. She becomes pregnant by this ingested grain of transformed boy. Nine months later she gives birth to a child so radiantly beautiful she cannot kill it as she had intended. She wraps him in a leather bag (or in some versions, a coracle of skin) and casts him into the sea on the eve of the first of May. The prince Elffin finds him on Samhain eve and names him Taliesin — Radiant Brow.
Taliesin Before the Court of Maelgwn Gwynedd
Hanes Taliesin; Book of Taliesin poems attributed to the legendary Taliesin, 9th–14th century; historical Taliesin poetry, c. 6th century CE; Patrick K. Ford translation, 1977
When Taliesin is brought before the court of the king Maelgwn Gwynedd to free the prince Elffin who has been imprisoned, Maelgwn's court bards find themselves unable to speak — their mouths produce only nonsense sounds when they try to begin. Taliesin steps forward and delivers extraordinary poems in which he claims identity with all of time, all of creation, all of history: 'I have been in many shapes before I attained my present form... I have been a narrow sword... I have been a tear-drop in the air... I am Taliesin.' These are the utterances of a being who has passed through death, gestation, and rebirth and now carries the memory of all his transformations. His authority before the court is absolute — not because of rank or training but because he has been through what the court bards have not.
Correspondences
Domains
transformation and the initiatory dissolution of the self · inspiration — particularly the Welsh concept of Awen (divine creative spirit breathed through the poet) · the Cauldron of Knowledge — the source of all genuine poetic and prophetic gift · shapeshifting through elemental forms · the dark moon and the dark feminine creative power · death and rebirth — the swallowing and the gestation and the release · herbs and the wisdom of plants gathered at specific times for specific purposes · prophecy and the knowledge that comes from genuine dissolution of the ego · the nine-month gestation of what cannot be forced into being
Symbols
the cauldron — the Cauldron of Awen, the defining symbol of her power and the source of all genuine inspiration in the Welsh tradition · white sow (her animal form when she swallows Gwion Bach as a grain of wheat; her primary totem) · the three drops (the three drops of Awen that fly from the cauldron and fall on Gwion's hand — the moment the inspiration refuses to go where it was directed) · herbs gathered in a bundle · the dark or new moon · grain — particularly barley, the basic ingredient of the cauldron's brew · the pursuit — the chase through elemental forms that is the process of transformation · hare, fish, bird, grain — the four elemental forms of the shapeshifting chase
Sacred Animals
white sow (her primary sacred animal — the sow that swallows and gestates the new self) · black hen (the form she takes when she swallows Gwion as grain) · greyhound (her pursuit form in the earth/hare phase of the chase) · otter (her pursuit form in the water/fish phase of the chase) · hawk (her pursuit form in the air/bird phase of the chase) · hare (Gwion Bach's first transformation, fleeing through the earth element)
Sacred Plants
vervain (one of the most sacred herbs of the Druidic tradition; required in magical brewing) · mugwort (the lunar herb of vision, dreams, and divination; a primary herb of the cauldron brew) · foxglove (the powerful threshold plant of the fairy mound; beauty and danger combined) · wormwood (the bitterest herb; the purging plant; transformation through bitterness) · yew (the tree of death and rebirth; the longest-lived tree in the British Isles; the Otherworld tree) · elder (the witch's tree; the plant of the threshold; both medicine and poison in different preparations) · mushroom and fungal growth (the wisdom of decay and transformation; what grows from what has died)
Offerings
grain — particularly barley or wheat, the base ingredient of the cauldron's year-long brew · milk or cream poured as a libation · herbs brewed into a tea and shared or poured out as a libation at a threshold · the work of genuine creative effort honestly completed — a poem, a song, a painting, a piece of writing; the quality of the effort matters more than the result · a black candle lit at the dark moon with a spoken acknowledgment of what you are releasing or transforming · whiskey · bread baked with herbs, particularly rosemary or mugwort, shared with others or left at a threshold · the willingness to enter the process without knowing what will emerge — this is the most authentic offering Cerridwen receives
Also Known As
Ceridwen · Cyrridfen · Cerridwen ferch Ogfran (Cerridwen daughter of Ogfran, in some versions) · The Old One · The Hag of Inspiration · The White Sow (her animal form and a title) · Keeper of the Cauldron of Awen · Tegid's Wife (wife of Tegid Foel of Lake Bala)
Day of the Week
No single day — honored at the dark moon above all, and at the beginning of any sustained creative commitment
How Cerridwen is worshipped
Cerridwen is the presiding deity of the OBOD Bardic grade and one of the most extensively engaged-with figures in modern Druidic practice. Practitioners who are poets, musicians, writers, visual artists, or anyone whose work depends on genuine inspiration — the kind that comes from somewhere beyond the practitioner's control — will find her immediately relevant. She is also deeply appropriate for shadow work: she is a dark feminine figure who is simultaneously creative and destructive, who pursues without mercy, and whose best intentions do not produce the outcomes she planned. Working seriously with Cerridwen means accepting that the creative process is not ultimately under the practitioner's control. You prepare the cauldron — you do the sustained, patient, year-long work; you gather the right herbs at the right times; you tend the fire of consistent effort. And then the drops fall where they will. The practitioner's role is preparation and presence, not direction of outcome.
The dark moon is her primary sacred time — the nights of no visible moon, when the dark feminine is at its fullest and the cauldron's contents are hidden. A Cerridwen altar might include a cauldron or heavy dark bowl at its center, herbs (particularly vervain, mugwort, and wormwood), a black candle, a white sow figure, and the tools of your creative practice — your pen, your instrument, your brushes. Offerings of herbs brewed into tea and drunk or poured, of completed creative work honestly made, and of the genuine willingness to enter the cauldron's process without predetermined outcome are the most authentic forms of devotion she receives. The Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael, 1900) does not contain material specifically on Cerridwen — she is a Welsh figure and the Carmina Gadelica is Scottish Gaelic — but its prayers around fire-tending and the sustaining of light through darkness resonate with the cauldron's year-long fire. OBOD's Bardic grade correspondence course is one of the most thorough modern engagements with her mythology available and is open to distance students worldwide. The Hanes Taliesin in Patrick Ford's translation is the essential primary text — it is short, and most of it is available in scholarly translation.
How do I start honoring Cerridwen?
Cerridwen is one of the most immediately accessible Celtic deities for anyone who practices a creative art seriously. If you write, make music, paint, cook, or work in any medium where you have experienced the particular feeling of being beyond yourself — where the work seems to do itself through you, where you look back at what you made and wonder if you actually made it — you have touched what her mythology calls Awen. That is her domain. Begin by reading the Hanes Taliesin in Patrick Ford's translation, which is not long and is freely available through university library systems. The myth is immediate and strange and vivid. Then sit with a candle or a small fire and ask yourself honestly: what is your cauldron? What long, patient, uncertain work are you tending that may or may not produce what you hope? That question is the beginning of a real relationship with Cerridwen. She does not ask for elaborate ceremony. She asks for sustained honest labor and the willingness to not control the outcome. In OBOD practice, the three-fold Awen invocation ('Awen, Awen, Awen') is the standard opening of Bardic ceremony; it can be spoken quietly each morning as a simple acknowledgment of the creative source you are serving.
A prayer to Cerridwen
Cerridwen, keeper of the cauldron,
you who brew for a year and a day without knowing where the drops will fall:
I tend my fire as carefully as I can.
I gather what I know to gather at the times I know to gather it.
I stir what needs to be stirred.
I ask only that the drops fall —
not that they fall where I plan for them to fall,
but where they need to fall.
Old One, White Sow, you who pursue until the self is swallowed:
brew in me what needs to be brewed.
I am willing to be the cauldron.
I am willing to be what is transformed.
Festival days
- Dark Moon of each month — the most sacred time for Cerridwen; the darkness before the new; the cauldron's brew in the unseen; the nine months of gestation
- Samhain (October 31 / November 1) — the birth of Taliesin occurs on Samhain eve in the myth (in some tellings); the initiatory death and rebirth at the year's turning; the deep cauldron
- Beltane (May 1) — Taliesin is committed to the sea on the eve of May in some versions; the completion of the nine months; the release of what has been gestated into the world
- Winter Solstice — the longest dark; the cauldron brew at its most potent; the deepest point of the transformation before the returning light
- The year-and-a-day cycle — any personal creative commitment sustained for a full year and a day mirrors the cauldron's brewing time and may be consciously dedicated to Cerridwen
What people get wrong about Cerridwen
- Cerridwen is a purely Dark Goddess figure associated primarily with destruction and the crone — she is explicitly a mother who brews the cauldron in grief and love for her unfortunate son Morfran; her darkness is purposive, motivated, and maternal, not nihilistic; she is simultaneously creative and destructive, and both are in service of transformation rather than annihilation
- The Awen is a Wiccan or New Age concept — Awen is specifically Welsh in linguistic origin (the word is attested in early Welsh poetry from the 6th century onward) and is the central concept of the medieval Welsh bardic tradition; it predates Wicca by more than a millennium and was in use as an active spiritual and creative concept long before the modern pagan revival
- Gwion Bach stole the Awen from Cerridwen — the three drops fell on him by accident, not through deliberate theft; the Hanes Taliesin is explicit on this point; the accidental nature of the gift is theologically essential — it demonstrates that genuine inspiration falls where the cauldron directs it, not where human intention directs it
- Cerridwen's cauldron and the Holy Grail are the same object — Celtic cauldron mythology (including Cerridwen's, the Dagda's Coire Ansic, and the cauldron of rebirth in the Second Branch of the Mabinogion) is a source tradition that influenced the development of Grail literature in medieval romance, but Cerridwen's specific cauldron of poetic inspiration and the various Grail vessels of Arthurian tradition have distinct mythological identities and functions
- Cerridwen is well-attested across Celtic mythology as a whole — she appears primarily in the Taliesin cycle of Welsh tradition and is not found in the four Branches of the Mabinogion or in the Irish mythological cycles; her prominence in modern Celtic practice is partly due to OBOD's centering of the Awen concept, which has amplified her importance in contemporary Druidry beyond what her textual presence alone might suggest
- Taliesin was purely legendary — there is a documented historical 6th century Welsh bard named Taliesin whose genuine poetry survives in the Book of Taliesin alongside the legendary Taliesin poems; the historical and legendary figures are distinct though related
Also on this path
Questions & Answers
Questions about Cerridwen
Tell me a myth about Cerridwen.
The Brewing of the Cauldron of Awen: A Year and a Day: Cerridwen brews the Cauldron of Awen for a year and a day, gathering specific herbs at specific lunar and seasonal times according to the books of the Fferyllt. She sets the servant boy Gwion Bach to stir the cauldron continuously. On the final day, three drops fly from the cauldron and land on Gwion's outstretched hand. He licks them instinctively. In that instant the three drops of complete Awen enter him: he knows everything that has been, is, and will be. He also knows immediately that Cerridwen will come for him with all her power. He flees. The rest of the cauldron's contents — the residue of a year's labour — curdles into poison, shatters the vessel, and runs as a toxic stream into the lake, killing Cerridwen's horses that drink from it. Spiritual lesson: The three drops of Awen are never under the control of the one who brews them. A year of grief-motivated labor, exquisitely careful preparation, and continuous tending — and the gift falls on the one who was not meant to have it, at the exact moment of completion. This is the nature of genuine inspiration: it cannot be engineered or directed. The practitioner can only prepare the cauldron and be present. What the drops do next is not theirs to control. (Source: Hanes Taliesin (The History of Taliesin), associated with the Book of Taliesin (Llyfr Taliesin), National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 2, c. 1275 CE; prose narrative tradition documented by Patrick K. Ford, The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales, University of California Press, 1977)
I feel drawn to Cerridwen. How do I begin?
Cerridwen is one of the most immediately accessible Celtic deities for anyone who practices a creative art seriously. If you write, make music, paint, cook, or work in any medium where you have experienced the particular feeling of being beyond yourself — where the work seems to do itself through you, where you look back at what you made and wonder if you actually made it — you have touched what her mythology calls Awen. That is her domain. Begin by reading the Hanes Taliesin in Patrick Ford's translation, which is not long and is freely available through university library systems. The myth is immediate and strange and vivid. Then sit with a candle or a small fire and ask yourself honestly: what is your cauldron? What long, patient, uncertain work are you tending that may or may not produce what you hope? That question is the beginning of a real relationship with Cerridwen. She does not ask for elaborate ceremony. She asks for sustained honest labor and the willingness to not control the outcome. In OBOD practice, the three-fold Awen invocation ('Awen, Awen, Awen') is the standard opening of Bardic ceremony; it can be spoken quietly each morning as a simple acknowledgment of the creative source you are serving.
What values does Cerridwen hold important in worship?
The practitioner's role is preparation and presence, not direction of outcome. The dark moon is her primary sacred time — the nights of no visible moon, when the dark feminine is at its fullest and the cauldron's contents are hidden. A Cerridwen altar might include a cauldron or heavy dark bowl at its center, herbs (particularly vervain, mugwort, and wormwood), a black candle, a white sow figure, and the tools of your creative practice — your pen, your instrument, your brushes. Offerings of herbs brewed into tea and drunk or poured, of completed creative work honestly made, and of the genuine willingness to enter the cauldron's process without predetermined outcome are the most authentic forms of devotion she receives. The Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael, 1900) does not contain material specifically on Cerridwen — she is a Welsh figure and the Carmina Gadelica is Scottish Gaelic — but its prayers around fire-tending and the sustaining of light through darkness resonate with the cauldron's year-long fire. OBOD's Bardic grade correspondence course is one of the most thorough modern engagements with her mythology available and is open to distance students worldwide.
What's a common misconception about Cerridwen?
Cerridwen is a purely Dark Goddess figure associated primarily with destruction and the crone — she is explicitly a mother who brews the cauldron in grief and love for her unfortunate son Morfran; her darkness is purposive, motivated, and maternal, not nihilistic; she is simultaneously creative and destructive, and both are in service of transformation rather than annihilation The Awen is a Wiccan or New Age concept — Awen is specifically Welsh in linguistic origin (the word is attested in early Welsh poetry from the 6th century onward) and is the central concept of the medieval Welsh bardic tradition; it predates Wicca by more than a millennium and was in use as an active spiritual and creative concept long before the modern pagan revival Gwion Bach stole the Awen from Cerridwen — the three drops fell on him by accident, not through deliberate theft; the Hanes Taliesin is explicit on this point; the accidental nature of the gift is theologically essential — it demonstrates that genuine inspiration falls where the cauldron directs it, not where human intention directs it
What festivals honor Cerridwen?
Festivals associated with Cerridwen include: Dark Moon of each month — the most sacred time for Cerridwen; the darkness before the new; the cauldron's brew in the unseen; the nine months of gestation; Samhain (October 31 / November 1) — the birth of Taliesin occurs on Samhain eve in the myth (in some tellings); the initiatory death and rebirth at the year's turning; the deep cauldron; Beltane (May 1) — Taliesin is committed to the sea on the eve of May in some versions; the completion of the nine months; the release of what has been gestated into the world; Winter Solstice — the longest dark; the cauldron brew at its most potent; the deepest point of the transformation before the returning light; The year-and-a-day cycle — any personal creative commitment sustained for a full year and a day mirrors the cauldron's brewing time and may be consciously dedicated to Cerridwen.
Who is Cerridwen?
Cerridwen is the great cauldron-keeper of the Welsh tradition — a figure of enormous creative power, terrifying relentlessness, and paradoxical generativity whose myth is one of the most psychologically profound and spiritually instructive narratives in all of Celtic literature. She is attested primarily in the Hanes Taliesin (The History of Taliesin), a prose tale whose fullest surviving form appears in the 16th century Red Book of Hergest context but which draws on poetic and oral traditions that scholars date to the 6th through 12th centuries. The poetry attributed to the historical Taliesin — a real 6th century Welsh bard — and the poems of the legendary Taliesin in the Book of Taliesin (Llyfr Taliesin, c. Also known as Ceridwen, Cyrridfen, Cerridwen ferch Ogfran (Cerridwen daughter of Ogfran, in some versions). Keeper of the Cauldron of Awen — the Great Initiator.
What are the primary source texts for Cerridwen?
Key source texts for Cerridwen include: Hanes Taliesin (The History of Taliesin), prose tale; associated with the Book of Taliesin, National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 2, c. 1275 CE; Book of Taliesin (Llyfr Taliesin), National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 2, c. 1275 CE — poetry attributed to the historical and legendary Taliesin; contains the Awen-related poems; Patrick K. Ford, The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales, University of California Press, 1977 — standard English translation of Hanes Taliesin; Marged Haycock, Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin, CMCS (Celtic and Medieval Celtic Studies) Publications, 2007 — full scholarly edition with apparatus; OBOD (Order of Bards Ovates and Druids) Bardic Grade Correspondence Course — extensive modern engagement with Cerridwen and the Awen tradition as living practice.
What offerings please Cerridwen?
Traditional offerings to Cerridwen include grain — particularly barley or wheat, the base ingredient of the cauldron's year-long brew, milk or cream poured as a libation, herbs brewed into a tea and shared or poured out as a libation at a threshold, the work of genuine creative effort honestly completed — a poem, a song, a painting, a piece of writing; the quality of the effort matters more than the result, a black candle lit at the dark moon with a spoken acknowledgment of what you are releasing or transforming, whiskey, bread baked with herbs, particularly rosemary or mugwort, shared with others or left at a threshold, the willingness to enter the process without knowing what will emerge — this is the most authentic offering Cerridwen receives. Offer with sincerity and reverence.
What offerings does Cerridwen prefer?
Traditional offerings for Cerridwen include: grain — particularly barley or wheat, the base ingredient of the cauldron's year-long brew, milk or cream poured as a libation, herbs brewed into a tea and shared or poured out as a libation at a threshold, the work of genuine creative effort honestly completed — a poem, a song, a painting, a piece of writing; the quality of the effort matters more than the result, a black candle lit at the dark moon with a spoken acknowledgment of what you are releasing or transforming, whiskey, bread baked with herbs, particularly rosemary or mugwort, shared with others or left at a threshold, the willingness to enter the process without knowing what will emerge — this is the most authentic offering Cerridwen receives.
What symbols represent Cerridwen?
The primary symbols of Cerridwen include: the cauldron — the Cauldron of Awen, the defining symbol of her power and the source of all genuine inspiration in the Welsh tradition, white sow (her animal form when she swallows Gwion Bach as a grain of wheat; her primary totem), the three drops (the three drops of Awen that fly from the cauldron and fall on Gwion's hand — the moment the inspiration refuses to go where it was directed), herbs gathered in a bundle, the dark or new moon, grain — particularly barley, the basic ingredient of the cauldron's brew, the pursuit — the chase through elemental forms that is the process of transformation, hare, fish, bird, grain — the four elemental forms of the shapeshifting chase.
What symbols are associated with Cerridwen?
Cerridwen's sacred symbols include the cauldron — the Cauldron of Awen, the defining symbol of her power and the source of all genuine inspiration in the Welsh tradition, white sow (her animal form when she swallows Gwion Bach as a grain of wheat; her primary totem), the three drops (the three drops of Awen that fly from the cauldron and fall on Gwion's hand — the moment the inspiration refuses to go where it was directed), herbs gathered in a bundle, the dark or new moon, grain — particularly barley, the basic ingredient of the cauldron's brew, the pursuit — the chase through elemental forms that is the process of transformation, hare, fish, bird, grain — the four elemental forms of the shapeshifting chase.
Share a prayer to Cerridwen.
Cerridwen, keeper of the cauldron, you who brew for a year and a day without knowing where the drops will fall: I tend my fire as carefully as I can. I gather what I know to gather at the times I know to gather it. I stir what needs to be stirred. I ask only that the drops fall — not that they fall where I plan for them to fall, but where they need to fall. Old One, White Sow, you who pursue until the self is swallowed: brew in me what needs to be brewed. I am willing to be the cauldron. I am willing to be what is transformed. (Source: Modern Celtic Reconstructionist and OBOD Bardic practice prayer drawing on the Hanes Taliesin cauldron mythology and the concept of Awen)