The Divine Prisoner... is us?

[lorna]

As Calan Mai approaches with its many myths, one of them being Pryderi's theft from Rhiannon and the theft of Teyrnon's foal by a monstrous hand, this article has been published by Jhenah Telyndru paganbloggers.com/breathofninemaidens/blog/2017/04/20/the-divine-prisoner/

Here she gives an overview of the divine prisoner stories and then claims 'the divine prisoner is us'. We have been removed from our mothers by the patriarchy and Western culture.

I think it's an interesting argument, but it doesn't seem to take into account the agency of the Annuvian forces behind the kidnapping and their motivations, which to me remain a mystery and a fascinating one. It's my intuition at present to read these kidnappings more as initiations into Annwn than as entrapments within the alienating systems of this world.

I'd agree in some sense that the divine prisoner can be us, but that we all undergo our own initiations which may not be the same as those of the divine youths in these myths, particularly as Mabon, Pryderi, and Gweir/Graid are all male (I don't know of any kidnapped female youths...)

I'd be intrigued to hear your opinions.

[Heron]

Someone once defined a 'mythic pattern' as something that can be applied across a range of different contexts. Is this what's going on here? Certainly, as you say, "in some sense that the divine prisoner can be us", just as, at a more personal level, it can be 'me', 'you', 'him' or 'her' gaining an initiatory insight, escaping from a difficult situation or emerging from catharsis. The story, as we have it in the Mabon/Pryderi image of the child stolen away and then being released/returned does seem to be coded. But the divine child emerging from out of the darkness into the light certainly resonates at Calan Mai. If the mythic pattern containing that image has other possible connotations I would hardly be surprised. That is the way of things with myths.