This post is a follow-up to the last Autumn Equinox post about a visit to Dinas Bran. In that post I told how I had been given a set of words to use to wake the spirit of Merlin at Samhain this year. I had recorded the words onto my phone and then listened back to them, searching online and book resources to match the words to current or old Welsh words.
The words that came out of that research were these:
Cryf coch
Is lau Merddin
Ail eglwys carreg.
My translation of those words is this:
Strong red
Lower Merlin’s rowan
Second stone church
An interpretation
I feel that this riddle is both a set of power words with which to awaken Merlin, but also I believe it is a set of instructions. By following the instructions as to RIGHT ENERGY, RIGHT ACTION and RIGHT PLACE I will bring the spirit of Merlin back to life. The first line describes the right energy force – a strong lower chakra energy is required. Right action is described by the lowering of a rowan branch, possibly a wand made of rowan, and finally the stone church describes the right place to be in order to perform this ceremony.
STRONG RED – I think this means that I have to collect something that is ‘strongly red’, perhaps rowan tree berries which are particularly strongly red this year. The “strong red” could also refer to a requirement to have a strong lower chakra, an energy centre which is traditionally associated with the colour red. Saying the phrase will possibly enhance that red frequency, awakening the kundalini fire that resides there.
LOWER MERLIN’S ROWAN – This is arguably the clearest of the instructions. I have to lower a branch of rowan onto Merlin’s prostrate figure in order to waken him whilst saying these words. What I have done in this respect so far is to collect a twig of rowan, which I am now drying in order to be able to smooth it, carve it and imbue it with root chakra energy in preparation for Samhain. I guess I am making a sort of wand! Never would have expected that.
SECOND STONE CHURCH – The stone church is very difficult to determine. Initially I thought it was a double stone circle, a site with two interlinking circles or two circles side by side like The Hurlers, or a re-built stone circle – one that was risen on the ruins of another, the second stone church. It could be a re-built church too, like the one at Lake Vyrnwy.
Another option is that this is not the word for stone, but instead refers to the old name for the village of Llanddeiniolen in Gwent.
From a small brook near it, which runs into the river Gwyre, it was anciently called Carog, under which appellation it formerly constituted a prebend in the collegiate church of Llandewy-Brevi (source: Genuki)
The church in this village was indeed re-built (or restored extensively) in the 1840s. The church is dedicated to St.Daniel. Interestingly, Bryn Celli Ddu – the neolithic mound on Anglesey – is in a village called Llanddaniel Fab.
“Second stone church” could refer to Dinas Emrys – the place designated as Merlin’s Castle (and Vortigern’s Tower), built upon a previous pagan sacred site which could have been a sacred temple. Vortigern’s Tower could well be seen as the second stone church. or does it refer to the idea of establishing a second stone church at Dinas Emrys?
If anyone is a native Welsh speaker and could offer a better translation of those words, or alternate similar-sounding words that might make better sense, then I would welcome a comment to that effect.
All these possibilities must be worked out yet before Hallowe’en.
Gwas.
