Listening To The Birds of Rhiannon
- Tir Natur
- May 4
- 3 min read
By Elen Robert
On Dawn Chorus Day, a celebration of birdsong, what can the ancient Welsh tale of the Adar Rhiannon teach us?
Three birds whose magical song has the power to wake the dead and lull the living to sleep; these are Adar Rhiannon (The Birds of Rhiannon).
In the story of Culhwch and Olwen, the frightening giant, Ysbaddaden Bencawr, sets Culhwch a series of impossible tasks to complete before he will give his only daughter, beautiful Olwen, to Culhwch as a bride. One of those tasks is to bring him the Birds of Rhiannon, to soothe him on the wedding night of Culhwch and Olwen. For the giant knows his fate: to die on Olwen’s wedding night.
In the second branch of the Mabinogi, the tale of Branwen, the seven men who returned to Wales alive after the bloodbath in Ireland spend seven years feasting at Harlech. There they are sung to by the Birds of Rhiannon. It is said that the birds sing so beautifully that all songs the men had previously heard were harsh by comparison. They sing far out to sea, and yet their song is so clear it is as if they’re singing right next to them. Throughout the seven years at Harlech, the seven men forget the passage of time and all their woes, including the inevitable death of their friend and leader, another giant, Bendigeidfran.
That is all we know from the old manuscripts about Adar Rhiannon*. And yet, they’ve left a deep impression.
As do songbirds to this day. Who hasn’t experienced their worries evaporating as they listen to birdsong, feeling the tension lose its grip by some miracle from hearing the mellifluous sound waves through the trees? In the language of today’s bureaucracy, the Birds of Rhiannon would surely be pigeonholed under ‘wellbeing’. One of the ways nature provides us with ecosystem services, by bringing us wellbeing benefits.
But the birds are of a different world. They have their own territory. As we see in Branwen’s tale, the men hear the birds as if they were close by, but they are far out to sea. They are there, and yet not. In their own world, interwoven with ours, and yet separate. It’s possible to pass between our world and Annwn, the otherworld in Celtic mythology. But Annwn exists on its own terms. And Adar Rhiannon sing on their own terms. Perhaps that helps explain the connection with Rhiannon (there isn’t an explicit connection in the tales that have been passed down to us), the magical and independent queen who determines her own fate: to leave her home in Annwn and to take her own choice of husband from this world.
And songbirds today still sing on their own terms, in their own territory, and not for our sakes. Not to create ‘value’ but for life and for community. We live in the same world, and yet live so apart. Their song, always heard by our ears from afar and yet seemingly nearby, permeates through our bodies, having a physical effect, and has the power to change our perception of time and space; soothing our cares and gifting us inspiration. On their own terms.
* It is also often said that Adar Rhiannon are mentioned in the Trioedd Ynys Prydein (The Triads of Britain), but it seems likely that this was one of Iolo Morgannwg’s fabrications. See the work of Elaine S. Eichner:
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