Click here to listen to Wandering Aengus and Singing the Swan’s Song in the season 1 archives on buzzsprout
What is the source of creative ideas and guiding visions, and how do they come to us? How do our creative ideas change and how do we change along with them?
In this episode I share a Celtic story that offers an opportunity for meditation on these questions. The story of Aengus and Caer is based on myths that inspired the poet William Butler Yeats to write his poem “Wandering Aengus.”
Here are a few words from Yeats about the creative life:
“The greater energies of the mind seldom break forth but when the deeps are loosed. They break forth amid events too private or too sacred for public speech, or seem themselves, I know not why, to belong to hidden things.”
Creative inspiration is commonly linked to artistic and poetic endeavors and yet, it is an essential ingredient for anyone who understand that a good life is made, that it is an adventure with purpose, form, beauty, and meaning.
This is the life of the engaged imagination and fully utilized powers of perception my friends, the life of the soul.
Transcript for Wandering Aengus and Singing the Swan’s Song
Hello everyone, and welcome to Myth Matters, a bi-weekly podcast of storytelling and conversation about mythology, and why it’s important to our lives today. I’m your host and personal mythologist, Catherine Svehla. Thank you for joining me. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours you are part of this story circle,
Of all the mysteries and life questions that we invoke on this program, the strange, the sweet, and the troubling, one that engages me on a daily basis is the mystery of the creative process and the arrival of inspiration. What is the source of creative ideas and guiding visions, do you think, and how do they come to us? Through what means do we attract and court them, understand them, realize their potential—or a portion of it anyway! How do we live with them? How do our creative ideas change and how do we change along with them?
Many stories can offer a lens for reflection on questions like these. In my own process I find that it’s Celtic stories that often open the door to such considerations, so today I want to share a Celtic story that came to me recently, and offers an opportunity for a meditation on the nature of inspiration and creativity. This story, about Aengus and Caer, is based on a Celtic myth that also inspired the poet William Butler Yeats. I’ll read his poem, “Wandering Aengus,” at the end of this podcast, but I do want to start us off with these words from Yeats about the creative life. He writes,
“The greater energies of the mind seldom break forth but when the deeps are loosened. They break forth amid events too private or too sacred for public speech, or seem themselves, I know not why, to belong to hidden things.”
The “greater energies of the mind,” “the loosened depths,” and “belonging to hidden things.” Let’s suspend the busyness of the so-called rational mind then, and sink into the receptive and reflective space of the heart-mind, where creative inspiration first stirs, where dreams first meet daylight, and the images and the metaphors offered by this story can be a stimulus for reflection on these mysteries. I encourage you to take note of the detail or moment that catches your attention, as this is a portal into the story for you right now. After the story I’ll tell you a bit about what I notice, to help you move more deeply into the story.
The Celtic story of Aengus and Caer Ibormeith
There once was a young man named Aengus, who was kin to the fairies and the curvy rush of water in the River Boyne, where seekers fished for the salmon of wisdom.
His mother Boan was goddess of this river, which carried water from the well of Segais. The well of Segais was a sacred spring, surrounded by nine hazelnut trees. The nuts that fell from these trees contained all of the wisdom in the world, and they were eaten by the salmon who lived in the well. One day Boann went to the well of Segais to test the power of the spring. She lifted up the covering stone and walked counter-clockwise around the wll. Water rushed up out of it with such great force that it almost swept her away, and the River Boyne was formed in the path that Boann took as she ran away from the flood. Some say that one of the salmon of knowledge took up residence in a deep pool in this new river, but that is another story.
Boan was married to a man who didn’t care to know her very well. He tried to control what she did and where she went despite her great strength of character and heart. But no matter his efforts, Boan refused to be subdued, and one day she met the fairy hero Dagda and fell in love.
They often met on the banks of the River Boyne to walk and talk and make love. When she became pregnant with the son they would name Aegnus, Dagda stopped time for nine months and a day, so his beloved would have a safe sanctuary and their child, a gentle birth.
Thus Aengus came into the world, lit by the triple fires of love, beauty, and poetry.
One night when he was grown, a powerful dream came to Aengus while he slept in the velvet darkness of the new moon. A beautiful woman, with grey eyes and flowers in her long dark hair, came to him. She smiled and held out her hand. All night long they walked through the silent trees under glittering stars, and all night long, she sang him a sweet song.
Her song was wild, beautiful, captivating. A song like no other, an otherworldly sound.
When dawn broke, she slipped her hand from his and before he could say a word to her, she was gone. Aengus woke up. Sunlight filtered into the room. All day he thought about the woman in the dream. All day he heard her song. When night fell, he hoped and prayed that she would come again. And she did. With a smile on her lips and that same wild, sweet song. She left again at daybreak and he spent another day sunk in the memory of her.
A third night she came. There was the walk, the smile, the joy, and the song. But on the fourth, she did not. The dream woman didn’t come to him again.
Days passed and all Aengus could think about was the woman in the dream, and all that he could hear was her song. All that he could feel was his unrequited love for her, because this mystery woman had also stolen his heart. Aengus wandered the hills unwashed and unfed, in a torment of delight and dread, dread that he would never see her again. His parents noticed his state and asked him what was wrong. Setting aside his reluctance and embarrassment he told them that he was heartsick for the woman in the dream. “I can think of no one and nothing else,” he told them, “and my life means little without her.”
They wanted to help. His mother searched Ireland for a year but she didn’t find the young woman. His father also searched for a year and he didn’t find her either, but Dagda had connections in the fairy world and he gave a description of the young woman to others in that realm. At last, word did come back about her identity and whereabouts.
“The young woman’s name is Caer Ibormeith, bringer of sleep, dreams, and prophecy,” the fairies said. “She spends most of time at the lake called Dragon’s Mouth, and if your son Aengus travels there, he might find her.”
Aengus went to the lake straight away and there she was, the woman of the dream, the woman with the beautiful, wild, haunting song. She was on the far side of the lake, bathing in the company of 150 handmaidens, but he knew that it was her, the one called Caer. She was taller than the rest of the women and he recognized her movements and her long dark hair, despite the distance that separated them.
In those times, and because Caer was a fairy, it was proper for Aengus to go to her father, to ask for permission to woo her. Well, her father was a fairy with many powers in that world, but when Aengus was finished speaking, he shook his head and said, “Good luck young man. Caer does what she wants and I don’t have the right to tell her where to go and with whom. She’s so self-possessed that she even changes form and lives half of her days as a swan. Every year at Samhain, that is the Celtic Halloween, when the veil between the world is very thin, Caer effects this transformation for herself and her 150 handmaidens.”
News of Caer’s power didn’t really surprise Aengus and he wasn’t going to give up so easily. “Isn’t there anything you can tell me,” he asked, “or any advice that you can give me? I am deeply in love with your daughter and not afraid of her strength.” Her father was impressed by his sincerity. “Well,” he said, “tomorrow is Samhain. Caer will turn into a swan and soon fly away over the water. Your only chance is to catch her on this day of transformation. Go back down to the shore of the lake. If you know her and call to her, then maybe she’ll come.
Aengus went back to the shore of the lake called Dragon’s Mouth. When he arrived, he saw 151 swans silently gliding in circles on the surface of the lake. “How will I recognize her now,” he wondered. He studied the sleek white birds. Then his ears caught the faintest sound. Aengus cocked his head and there it was, yes, bits and pieces of the beautiful, sweet, wild song from the dream were drifting over the water. Aengus was so moved that he closed his eyes to listen. Time stood still and without thinking he longingly called out her name, Caer, Caer, Caer.
The song ended and as the last note faded into the quiet morning, Aengus opened his eyes to see a swan gliding toward him. It came alone to the shore, and as the bird emerged from the water, the feathers dropped away. It was Caer. “Why did it take you so long to answer my call?” she asked. “I’m sorry,” said Aengus. “I was plagued by doubts and despair and I didn’t know where to begin, but I have searched all of this time and now I am here. Will you have me?”
Caer thought for a moment and said, “Yes. We can be together but on one condition, that you also transform into a swan.”
Aengus accepted these terms and for three days the lovers flew together, singing a song so wild and sweet that they soothed the hearts and fed the dreams of everyone who heard it. Then resting once again on the shore of the lake called Dragon’s Mouth, they both changed back to human form.
So Aengus and Caer Ibormeith went on together, as far as we know.
And that’s the end of the story. The image that calls to me is the swan and this notion of the swan song. Swans are universal symbols of grace and beauty and strength. Strength because they are able to fly despite their weight. In Greek mythology, the swan is associated with Aphrodite, goddess of love and also with the god Apollo, Greek god of music. In Celtic mythology, the swan belongs to Brigid, the goddess of love who supplies inspiration to writers and poets.
Swans signify to us the union of air and water, so they are connected with intuition and the evolution of the spirit, and also with inner beauty. You may remember the story of the ugly duckling. The odd bird out who grows up with a group of ducks and is laughed at and outcast because he doesn’t look right and he doesn’t the way that they do, and finally when he gets old enough he leaves in despair until he come across a flock of swans. By this time he has grown into his own beauty and they lead him to see himself as one of them. There is an evolution in that story, of his appreciation for who and what, he actually is. The swans, in this union of air and water, also symbolize the alchemical marriage of opposites, and that unique blend of completeness and wholeness that is repeated over and over again in every such marriage and yet, is always original. and unique.
Swans are also creatures of the other realms. They are otherworldly. A swan is comfortable in the air, on land, and in the water, and because they can inhabit all of these elemental realms, many people have assumed that those who cross over from one realm to another, and from other realms to this world, assume the form of a swan. In this story, Caer is a fairy, for example. In Norse mythology, the Valkyries appeared as swans. The Valkyries were a group of beautiful warrior goddesses who traveled into battle with Odin, where they chose among the fallen dead which would be go to Valhalla and live in Odin’s hall for heroes, and thus be remembered as such.
There’s an essential difference between this story and more traditional swan maiden tales. A difference that I believe, based on my experience of the creative process, is very important. In the more common swan maiden fairy tale, the woman, the swan, has taken off her robe of feathers for one reason or another and is seen by a man in her human form. He’s smitten by her, by her mystery, and wildness, and beauty, and power, and steals her feathers, thereby forcing her to stay with him and become his wife.
This is an uneasy union of course, because she is there against her will and he’s done nothing to earn the love of such a powerful wife. They have a child and this may ease the pain of the swan maiden somewhat, and yet it is the child in these stories who finds the feather robe that has been hidden away by the man, and intuiting that this robe belongs to the mother, returns it to her. Mom puts on her feathers and despite her love for her child, flies away to live free again, as a wild, magical creature.
In our story of Aengus and Caer, he doesn’t try to trick her or compel her with anything other than his love, and he accepts the transformation that she offers. He joins her in her world and thus gets a taste of her reality and her full being. Aengus cannot merely use her or skate by with superficial knowledge. He can’t take fifteen minutes and figure out what she’s all about. She demands an intimacy and he risks all that he knows to enter into it.
To speak of “other worlds” often means to speak of death on this plane. Death of the body, of personality, of spirit, and the phrase “swan song” means “last song.” It means the final appearance, the last creative act before death. Now, swans don’t sing. They whistle. They trumpet. There’s a swan called the “mute swan” which apparently only hisses and snorts. Whichever swan we’re talking about, they are not particularly musical. But according to ancient legends, the swan does sing one beautiful song in its life. It announces and embraces its death by singing.
What might a guiding vision, a piercing inspiration, a dream so profound as the one held by Aengus—what might a dream like that ask of us? Could the demand be transformation? A death of some aspect of ourselves? Some inspirations and creative possibilities my friends, require nothing less. To insist that these settle down and behave, that they conform to the current contours of your life or fulfill the agenda that you have for them, is to lose them altogether. That inspiration will find another, even if it came to you with conviction, even if it came to you with love.
I keep returning to the moment that Aegnus agrees to assume the form of a swan. He says “yes” to the transformation, not knowing what was on the other side. Can you imagine that, to be a winged creature of such grace and beauty and strength, gliding over the water, flying through the air, soaring over the countryside, in the intimate company of your beloved. A beloved who is also the inspiration and source of the sweet, haunting song that you sing, a song like no other, a song that brought you into life.
Aegnus could not be the same man after such an experience. He could not see with the same eyes or think the same thoughts. According to the story, Caer stayed with Aegnus then and they lived on in human forms, the embodiment of this story that I’ve told you that’s spinning yet, the life informed by the singing of their swan song, a story beyond the confines of this narrative.
Inspiration. To receive a guide like Aengus received, in the form of image, sound, dream, feeling is a profound experience. This feels important even when the vision is quite personal and remains private. Inspiration is the instigator of all making; the catalyst for everything that we shape, fashion, or bring forth in some way. Yes, the inspiration that I’m talking about is commonly linked to artistic and poetic endeavors and yet, it is an essential ingredient for anyone who makes a life. For anyone who understand that living itself is a type of making and creative expression, an adventure with purpose, form, beauty, and meaning, not merely a collection of habits that form in response to random events, given structures, and obligations.
Loving your life is consciously making your life, and to live in conversation with the mystery, well, this connects the most mundane circumstance to the poetic. This is the life of the engaged imagination and fully utilized powers of perception my friends, the life of the soul.
Now, I mentioned that Yeats wrote a poem inspired by the Celtic myths of Caer and Aengus and it’s called “the Song of Wandering Aengus.” It goes like this:
“I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread,
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow hands and hilly lands
I will find out where she’s gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon
The golden apples of the sun.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). The Wind Among the Reeds. 1899.
That’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about today’s program. If you are new to Myth Matters, I invite you head over to the Mythic Mojo website where you’ll find information about the podcast and a variety of ways to subscribe to this podcast, to listen from various platform, like Itunes. That’s also where I post transcripts of each episode.
Feel free to share this podcast with family and friends who might enjoy it. This is how our story circle grows. On that note, I have a couple of brief messages from other high desert podcasters to share with you today; Desert Lady Diaries and Simultaneous Times are both produced by people who live here in the high desert. Stay tuned until the end of this program to catch those announcements.
Myth Matters is listener supported and I am very grateful to those of you who join the community on bandcamp and send some dollars my way. This week I want to give a shout out to longtime supporters Mark Brady and Rags Rosenberg. These gentlemen were among the first to join the community on bandcamp and make a monthly pledge, back in the early days when this podcast was still called Myth in the Mojave. Thank you Mark! Thank you Rags!
Thank you so much for listening! Please tune in next time, and until then, happy myth making and keep the mystery in your life alive.
