A Heroine's Journey:A short essay of the influence of Celtic Mythology  in Song of the White Swan, a novel by Aleta Boudreaux

Tales of gods and goddesses and men and women on heroic quests are seeds for any writer’s fertile imagination. And the fiction novel is perfect ground for an epic adventure to spring to life.

Legends born from these Celtic lands, from ancient Gaul to medieval Britain and France are woven with the fascinating threads of fantasy, mystery and magic.

As a young child romantic stories of heroic knights and chivalrous deeds and the virtuous ideals of brave men and women filled my dreams and the pages of my notebooks. Yet it was only when I began to write my own account of a young woman's spiritual quest, that I began to uncover the rich tradition of Celtic mythology. As a result many of these allegories served to inspire not only plot line but also basic characteristics of the men and women in my novel Song of the White Swan.

There are many legends in the Celtic tradition and it would be nearly impossible for me to say exactly where, over the many years of my research and reading, I found the particular thread that led me to write a passage or scene. So here I will consider only the central issues and leave the reader to enjoy further research on their own.

Throughout Celtic folklore the subject of the hero's journey prevails. Whether the hero is striving for a spiritual awakening, as does Pwyll, Lord of Dyved, in The Mabinogian, or the heroine is seeking revenge as did Boadicea, Warrior queen of the Iceni, the hero or heroine's journey always begins with a quest.

In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell refers to this beginning as "the call to adventure", when destiny has summoned the hero and upsets his normal spiritual balance. Thus the hero is thrust into a set of circumstances where he will experience both great rewards and face great dangers. He or she will then go forward to complete their goal, though not always finding what they were seeking but instead what fate or the gods had intended.

Another theme in Celtic myth is the lost child. In Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of The Mabinogian, we learn of Taliesin who was wrapped in a leather bag and thrown into the sea. Among others is the legend of the Welsh heroine, Rhiannon, whose child is stolen from her at birth. These stories are later reflected in the writings of Chrétien de Troyes’, Arthurian Romances and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

Central to Celtic lore is the motif is that women hold the destiny of men in their hands. In their book, Ladies of the Lake, Caitlin and John Matthews discuss the fact that in the Arthurian stories all of the Grail Knights are supported and empowered by women. Though this refrain may not be continuous throughout the Celtic legends, there are women of great strength and stamina, compassion and reasoning. In the Ulster Cycle sagas, Emer, the wife of the great hero Cuchulain, is his greatest strength. She rules her own household, often advising her husband. Emer supports Cuchulain even as he strays into the world of the Sidhe with Emer’s ethereal rival, Fand. Emer knows her husband will always return to her side. Even past his death she refuses to leave him, climbing into his grave, sharing her strength with his as he passes into the Other World.

Secret societies are still a reality as well as being portrayed in myth and legend. There being no Celtic literature from the Roman period we are forced to rely on the narratives of the invaders of Gaul and Britain. Julius Caesar in the sixth book of his Gallic War, (c. 52 B.C.) first writes of the Druids as being "concerned with divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, public and private, and the interpretation of ritual questions." The writings of the Roman geographer, Pomponius Mela, (c. 43 A.D.) as well as the geographer, Strabo, reported a society of women who lived on the Isle of Sein off the rugged coast of Brittany. These women were possessed of amazing powers, able to beckon the wind and sea to do their bidding, shape shift into any animal, cure serious illnesses and know the future.

The last theme that I will discuss is the idea that the hero must come to the realization of his or her full potential by their own means and not by those boons given to them by the gods or by magic. This I call the ‘true’ initiation.

For example there is the story of Llew Skilful Hand, the son of Arianrod. He earns his name through his skill at hunting and later reclaims his land and title by killing his wife’s lover with the throw of his spear. Llew could have accepted the magical assistance of his foster father to avenge his honor but refused.

In Song of the White Swan, the heroine Antoinette Charboneau, is a young woman who was taken from her mother at an early age and raised by her grandmother, Ursule, a Druid priestess and counselor to the Duke of Brittany.

As a companion to the young duchess, Anne de Bretagne, Antoinette becomes a competent advisor and at the same time is instructed by her grandmother in the ways of the Goddess. (Both Ursule’s and Antoinette’s relationships to their rulers can be compared to the role of Merlin to Uther Pendragon and later to Arthur.) Antoinette is the strength behind the duchess Anne, who rules Brittany and will eventually become Queen of France.

Yet in order to fulfill her destiny Antoinette must begin her own quest, to rediscover her faith in the Goddess. She is thrust into this adventure not only because of her duty to her country but also because of her vows to protect her order, the Sisterhood of the Moon, the Druid priestesses who dwell on the Isle du Sein.

Through her journey, across an uncharted ocean and into an unknown world, Antoinette learns to rely on her own inner strength to overcome the physical and spiritual obstacles set before her. She is challenged by the magic of an evil sorceress yet is overcomes her fear by her own volition. She becomes involved in a Knights Templar secret mission and is tasked to protect and empower the man she loves.

Though Antoinette’s personal quest is eventually accomplished, she nevertheless must remain ever watchful for the next challenge on her heroine’s journey.

Aleta Boudreaux

Author of Song of the White Swan

Laughing Owl Publishing

ISBN 0-9659701-6-7

Read the First Chapter of Song of the White Swan

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References and books for further reading:

Caldecott Moyra, Women in Celtic Myth: Tales of Extraordinary Women from the Ancient Celtic Tradition, (Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, 1992)

Campbell Joesph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, (Mythos: Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology, Vol. 17)

ISBN 0-691-01784-0

Campbell Joseph, The Masks of God: 4 Volumes – sited here:

Occidental Mythology, Vol. 3, ISBN 014019441 (Arkana, 1991) and Primitive Mythology, Vol. 1, ISBN 0140194436 (Arkana, 1991)

Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico 6, 13-18, Translation by H.J Edwards, Loeb Classical Library. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press)

Ellis, Peter Berresford, The Druids, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998) ISBN 0802841589

Gantz, Jeffrey, translation of The Mabinogian, (Penguin Classics, 1976) ISBN 0-14-044322-3

Guest, Lady Charlotte, translation of The Mabinogian, (Dover Publishing, 1997) ISBN 0486295419

Malory, Sir Thomas, Le Morte d'Arthur, (Modern Library, 1999)

ISBN 0375753222

Matthews, Caitlan and John, Ladies of the Lake, (The Aquarian Press, 1992) ISBN 1-855-38045-5

Ward Rutherford, The Druids: Magicians of the West, (The Aquarian Press, 1978) ISBN 085830346X

de Troyes, Chrétien, Arthurian Romances, trans. D.D.R. Owen (Everyman Paperback Classics) ISBN 046087389X

Walker, Barbara, The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, (Harper San Francisco, 1983) ISBN 006250925X

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