There is also a dance piece trying to emerge from me on the Welsh tale of Rhiannon. She is a Queen married to Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, but she is condemned to carry people on her back like a beast of burden. Rhiannon is considered to be a version of Epona, the horse goddess, and the whole story is redolent with horse imagery, even though it is about an apparently human woman.  Even though I am not a horsey person, I resonate on so many levels with this tale.

Rhiannon

All I see are my feet, as I slip and stumble on the mud-caked cobbles.

My burden is heavy. I never look up.

The hem of my queenly robe is soaked and heavy with mud.

I don’t try to lift it up.

I deserve to be here, a beast of burden.

I, who once stepped through the mists between worlds,

Reining my King into myself,

Leading him by the rope of my own majesty,

To do my bidding.

The ground shifts under me and all is changed.

How did I give myself away so easily?

Taken and possessed, I am broken.

My swift feet no longer fly effortlessly

Ahead of all who would have me,

I am yoked to earth, and mud, and mocking laughter.

I killed my own gift that I birthed from out of myself.

I taste the blood of my spirit-child on my lips.

I am cursed.

But I will hunt for my stolen child.

I will track him down.

And when I face the afanc that snatched him from me,

In a spell of drowsy unawareness,

I will face it.   I will stare into its eyes,

And see myself looking back.

And the chains will drop away.

And I will fly free.