Sophie
This one is going to sound strange, but in the realm of Faery, perhaps nothing is.
I don't sleep with my decks. I don't keep a card under my pillow or dream about them. But sometimes before going to sleep - while in bed - I'll do a quick reading - note it down thn put the deck and the notebook on my bedside table and pick up my book.
Last night I had a terrible dream. I dreamt of a dear friend of mine had committed suicide because he had forgotten himself one night with another woman, the other woman had told his wife who had left with their baby. It was an awful dream and I couldn't get out of it - I remember ringing around desperately trying to have the news denied, only to find out it was all too true. A mutual friend of ours, Tom (both of them were my flatmates for several years in London in the 90s and we had some wonderful times together and all grew very close) - broke the news, and Tom doesn't know how to lie. He was distraught.
I finally woke up. It must have been about 5 am. I switched on the light, and just by where my head had been lying I saw a faery card. I turned it over - Epona's Wild Daughter. Glinting in the night, the lady of nightmares. All the other cards were on the table, she had stayed behind (and she was not a card I drew last night - she must have been at the bottom of the pack).
There's a figure on the card - bent over, with her head resting on her legs - but she appears to be asleep. Epona's Daughter (Dorcha) - rests her arms on her. I think this is what happened to me.
I don't often have nightmares, but when I do it is about things I saw and lived through in places I worked - like Rwanda, Congo or Iraq. When I dream about my friends, it is always friendly visits. So I was - am - very disturbed. I am hoping this is just some trick of this faery, not a premonitary dream; or most likely a sign I ought to get back in touch with this friend and his wife.
I put the card back with the others and fell back to sleep. My next dream was vivid but jumbled - totally chaotic. This morning when I woke up for good, I thought - Epona's Wild Daughter has visited me with a nightmare, and left confusion behind her.
And yet - look at her: she seems so harmless and enchanting, this shining blonde faery, crowned with stars and hoofed - her mother's heritage.
I don't know that much about Celtic mythology, so I went hunting. Epona was a great horse goddess, worshipped most particularly in Gaul - and, interesting for me! - in the part of Gaul that was called Helvetia - that is, Switzerland. She seems to have been the special protector of the Gallic cavalrymen that fought against the Romans (and later, with them as auxiliary troops, once Gaul had been "pacified" by the Roman legions). Later she evolved into the Welsh Rhiannon (the full name of Epona was Epona Rigatona - Queen Epona - when Gaulish eventually evolved into old Welsh, consonants were dropped or softened).
Nightmares are the mares that visit you in the night - it's a play on words, because the etymology of "mare" as in female horse is not the same as "mare" that makes up nightmare (the latter comes from the Old English meaning incubus - which is the latin for nightmare).
I don't know what to think of all this. I will look for more traces of Epona, the horse goddess. As far as I know she had no daughters, so Dorcha is a poetic licence from Brian Froud - but of genius! Now in the light of day, I am intrigued by this visit. Horses were immensely important in Gaul - indeed, in the whole Celtic world. Like many mythological creatures and divinities, they have a dark cthonian and a light "Mother-goddess" element to them. Horses are bringers of death and of life; there are many legends of cursed horses that announce death; and equally, horses were seen as the ultimate life-force; and mares, as the model mothers.
In medieval Ireland, when a new king was crowned, he had to take part in a strange ritual. He had to mate with a white mare who was later sacrificed and her flesh boiled in a large cauldron. The new king then had to bathe in the stock made from his mare-lover.
This ritual, which seems so hideous to us (and must have seemed terrible even then) belongs to Dorcha, Epona's Wild Daughter. Terrible, mysterious - an initiation which touches the very source of the divine darkness: and yet leads to light, because the Mare represents Mother Earth, with whom a human has mated and in whom he has gestated - by which means he can bring fertility and abundance to his kingdom. When the king emerged from his dreadful bath, he was renewed, divine, fertile, bringer of joys and fruit, full of the life-force. He was one with the Horse, with the divine, with the mysteries of life and death.
There is an owl on the card - a sign of night, of course, but also of wisdom and knowledge - the light of druidic conscience in the night. Epona's Wild Daughter never comes without some means to encounter her. The owl is what helps us from loosing our minds.
I'll make very sure I don't sleep next to Epona's Wild Daughter again, however!
I don't sleep with my decks. I don't keep a card under my pillow or dream about them. But sometimes before going to sleep - while in bed - I'll do a quick reading - note it down thn put the deck and the notebook on my bedside table and pick up my book.
Last night I had a terrible dream. I dreamt of a dear friend of mine had committed suicide because he had forgotten himself one night with another woman, the other woman had told his wife who had left with their baby. It was an awful dream and I couldn't get out of it - I remember ringing around desperately trying to have the news denied, only to find out it was all too true. A mutual friend of ours, Tom (both of them were my flatmates for several years in London in the 90s and we had some wonderful times together and all grew very close) - broke the news, and Tom doesn't know how to lie. He was distraught.
I finally woke up. It must have been about 5 am. I switched on the light, and just by where my head had been lying I saw a faery card. I turned it over - Epona's Wild Daughter. Glinting in the night, the lady of nightmares. All the other cards were on the table, she had stayed behind (and she was not a card I drew last night - she must have been at the bottom of the pack).
There's a figure on the card - bent over, with her head resting on her legs - but she appears to be asleep. Epona's Daughter (Dorcha) - rests her arms on her. I think this is what happened to me.
I don't often have nightmares, but when I do it is about things I saw and lived through in places I worked - like Rwanda, Congo or Iraq. When I dream about my friends, it is always friendly visits. So I was - am - very disturbed. I am hoping this is just some trick of this faery, not a premonitary dream; or most likely a sign I ought to get back in touch with this friend and his wife.
I put the card back with the others and fell back to sleep. My next dream was vivid but jumbled - totally chaotic. This morning when I woke up for good, I thought - Epona's Wild Daughter has visited me with a nightmare, and left confusion behind her.
And yet - look at her: she seems so harmless and enchanting, this shining blonde faery, crowned with stars and hoofed - her mother's heritage.
I don't know that much about Celtic mythology, so I went hunting. Epona was a great horse goddess, worshipped most particularly in Gaul - and, interesting for me! - in the part of Gaul that was called Helvetia - that is, Switzerland. She seems to have been the special protector of the Gallic cavalrymen that fought against the Romans (and later, with them as auxiliary troops, once Gaul had been "pacified" by the Roman legions). Later she evolved into the Welsh Rhiannon (the full name of Epona was Epona Rigatona - Queen Epona - when Gaulish eventually evolved into old Welsh, consonants were dropped or softened).
Nightmares are the mares that visit you in the night - it's a play on words, because the etymology of "mare" as in female horse is not the same as "mare" that makes up nightmare (the latter comes from the Old English meaning incubus - which is the latin for nightmare).
I don't know what to think of all this. I will look for more traces of Epona, the horse goddess. As far as I know she had no daughters, so Dorcha is a poetic licence from Brian Froud - but of genius! Now in the light of day, I am intrigued by this visit. Horses were immensely important in Gaul - indeed, in the whole Celtic world. Like many mythological creatures and divinities, they have a dark cthonian and a light "Mother-goddess" element to them. Horses are bringers of death and of life; there are many legends of cursed horses that announce death; and equally, horses were seen as the ultimate life-force; and mares, as the model mothers.
In medieval Ireland, when a new king was crowned, he had to take part in a strange ritual. He had to mate with a white mare who was later sacrificed and her flesh boiled in a large cauldron. The new king then had to bathe in the stock made from his mare-lover.
This ritual, which seems so hideous to us (and must have seemed terrible even then) belongs to Dorcha, Epona's Wild Daughter. Terrible, mysterious - an initiation which touches the very source of the divine darkness: and yet leads to light, because the Mare represents Mother Earth, with whom a human has mated and in whom he has gestated - by which means he can bring fertility and abundance to his kingdom. When the king emerged from his dreadful bath, he was renewed, divine, fertile, bringer of joys and fruit, full of the life-force. He was one with the Horse, with the divine, with the mysteries of life and death.
There is an owl on the card - a sign of night, of course, but also of wisdom and knowledge - the light of druidic conscience in the night. Epona's Wild Daughter never comes without some means to encounter her. The owl is what helps us from loosing our minds.
I'll make very sure I don't sleep next to Epona's Wild Daughter again, however!