Jenny Dolfen

Blodeuwedd

Added 2016-10-14 10:30:14 +0000 UTC

This is a piece I've wanted to draw for years, even started it twice and scrapped it all - and now I'm finding that locating the right ref photos and incorporating them makes for such a natural and easy process.

"Blodeuwedd" (Blood-die-weth) is Welsh for "owl". Literally, it means "flower face". In the Mabinogion, the connection is explained like this:

Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the later king of Gwynedd, was cursed by his mother never to take a human woman. Lleu's uncle, the magician Gwydion, then formed a woman out of oak flowers, broom, and meadowsweet, which he enchanted to come alive. He named her Blodeuwedd, and she went on to marry Lleu.

But she falls in love in another man, the hunter Gronw. Together, the lovers plot to kill Lleu (which, because this is a Welsh legend, is incredibly complicated). They succeed, but Lleu is transformed into an eagle and flies away, badly wounded. Gwydion finds him and nurses him back to health, but not before hunting down Blodeuwedd and turning her into an owl, so that she must shun the light of day and be hated by all creatures.

Today, in Pagan tradition, Blodeuwedd is seen as a sympathetic figure rather than a mean one. Formed of healing herbs and oak flowers, she represents Lleu's marriage to the land, and the governing and healing powers of a prince. It is through her treachery, his death and subsequent healing, that he attains kingship and transformation.