#afagddu

I am obsessed with Morvran Afagddu’s life story. With how he’s expected to amount to nothing to the point that his mother tries to make him talented with a potion and someone else gets it instead and he grows up to be a great bard anyway. With how no matter how great he is, what he says is doomed to be obscure forever. With how that’s contradicted by Uther Pendragon himself mentioning Afagddu while Uther is dying. With how that shatters all the timelines, since Morvran is a child at the start of Arthur’s reign and also survives Camlann. With how he survives Camlann because of his appearance, the reason why they thought he wouldn’t get anywhere in the first place. With the life he built and kept partly because of the things which people thought were wrong with him. With how he might not even be one person, might be two characters who blurred into one and in the process made a story which is one of Arthuriana’s most hopeful, a story formed from fragments and only existing on the boundaries of other people’s but existing nonetheless.

Morvran might be my favorite knight of the Round Table, and he’s not even technically a knight. A lot of Arthuriana is tragic, at least when you look at overarching narratives, and that pathos is extremely compelling, but it's also refreshing and joyful when a character can rise above it and endure against odds that seem impossible, and that's what Morvran's story is to me.

Swirling, twisting, dancing through the air, I fly on magpie’s wings, following the fall of feathers, black and brown, salted by the sea, an ocean raven on the wind. O’ Morfran, seen by few, honored by less, you call to me, a sea raven’s song upon the salty sea wind, and I fly towards what you show me– a reflection of myself.

The Alchemy of Waste (From Lorna Smithers)

“Our dark night of the soul seems endless. Yet it’s something that must be faced. It’s the duty of each of us to look into our bins, follow the garbage trucks to their destinations, behold the alchemy of waste.”

From Lorna Smithers

‘Alchemy… the medieval forerunner of chemistry, concerned with the transmutation of matter, in particular with attempts to convert base metals into gold or find a…

Chief poet to Elphin am I. My home is in the land of the angels. I was with the Lord in the heavens When Lucifer fell. I was in the ark with Noah And survived the fall of Troy. I was atop the cross of the merciful son of God. Johannes the prophet called me Merlin, But now kings call me Taliesin. I am the chief poet of the West. Now release Elphin from his chains.  

In the days when Arthur ruled over Britain, there was a nobleman of the land named Tegid Foel, who had a wife named Ceridwen who was skilled in magic, enchantment, and divination. She and Tegid had a son who was terribly ugly. They named him Morfran, the Great Crow, but also called him Afagddu, or Utter Darkness.

Ceridwen loved and pitied her son, so she determined to give him the gift of prophecy to counter his hideous looks. She discovered that by certain herbs and cunning she could make a potion that would give him this special knowledge. The mixture had to be cooked in a great cauldron of water for a year and a day. At the end of that time, three drops containing the virtue of prophecy would spring forth from the cauldron...

- Gwion Bach and the Taliesin in Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes.

I soar, on magpie’s wings above rocky cliffs and crashing waves, to the cave you dwell. In my heart, I am led to you, Afagddu, Very Black, a name forced upon you. I know your true name, Morfran, Sea Raven. And on sea-salted wings, I soar to you.

O’ Morfran, Your wings guide my way, leading me to a luminous day, over spring, over field, over mountain, over moor, you bring to to days with more. Your shade is my comfort, and your call is my song, your guidance makes me feel right, when all else is wrong.

Your breath ghosts across my lips, like the breeze of the sea, rough, yet comforting, chilling, and grounding. Black wings embrace me, a comorrant feather upon my breast, to guide me home, to your nest of outcasts.

O’ Morfran, your wings shade my heart, Sea Crow, guiding my shattered memories over the wind, letting them sail onward, to the recesses of my mind. You cup my fractured heart in your gnarled hands, and coax another beat. Beat, beat, beat.