Cymidei Cymeinfoll

Cymidei Cymeinfoll

Greaterwell-documentedMedieval Welsh narrative (Mabinogi)IrelandWales
Origin

In the Second Branch of the Mabinogi Cymidei Cymeinfoll is presented as an Irish giantess who, with her husband Llasar Llaes Gyfnewid, lived under a lake in Ireland. They are brought into the court of Matholwch as guests at the wedding of Branwen; Matholwch later orders an iron building heated from the outside in which most of their household dies, but Cymidei and Llasar escape to Wales with the Cauldron of Regeneration and present it to Bendigeidfran as a peace offering.

Appearance

Medieval sources provide only limited physical description. Cymidei is called a giantess (an Irish giantess in modern summaries) and is said to be smaller than her husband Llasar. Beyond size, the tale emphasizes her prodigious fertility — she gives birth to a fully formed armed warrior at regular intervals — and her dwelling under a lake; no detailed features, dress, or color imagery are recorded in the supplied sources.

Abilities

The principal supernatural ability recorded in the tale is that Cymidei "gave birth to one fully formed and armed warrior every six weeks." Together with her husband she is custodian of the Cauldron of Regeneration: dead warriors are thrown into the cauldron and come back to life mute. In the narrative these powers make them strategically valuable and dangerous to human rulers, and they are central to plot events involving hospitality, attempted murder, escape, and the transfer of the cauldron to Bendigeidfran.

Weaknesses & Wards

Weaknesses

  • condition
    narrative attempted destruction by confinement and external heat

Wards

  • other
    hospitality/guest-right (narrative diplomatic acceptance)
More from Celtic

Abandinus

Abandinus is a locally attested Romano‑Celtic theonym known from a single inscribed bronze feather (votive object) dedicated at Godmanchester (the Roman fort Durovigutum) in Cambridgeshire. Scholars interpret him as a local god or male spirit tied to a specific place and possibly associated with a nearby spring or stream; this association is tentative and based on etymological readings of the name.

Abarta (Ábartach)

Abarta (also Ábartach) is a figure of Irish myth who, in surviving accounts, tricks Fionn mac Cumhaill's warriors by giving them a supernatural grey horse that bears them into the Otherworld. Sources variably identify him as a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann or as a Fomorian; after the incident he is compelled to release the captured warriors and is refused entry to the Fianna.

Abcán (Abhcán)

Abcán (modern spelling Abhcán) is a named dwarf poet and musician of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish myth. He appears in a small number of narratives as a musician whose art has soporific power and as the ferryman who brings the goddess Ruad from the Otherworld to the human world.

Abhean

Abhean is a named poet of the Tuatha Dé Danann in medieval Irish literature, described as a poet in particular of Lugh and recorded as having been killed by Óengus before Midir in a poem by Fland Mainistreach preserved in the Lebor Gabála Érenn.

Abnoba

Abnoba is a Gaulish theonym and toponym attested in Roman-era sources and inscriptions: a localized deity associated with woods, springs and the sources of rivers (notably the Danube) and simultaneously the name applied to a mountain or mountain range in the Black Forest/Baar/Odenwald region. Roman altars equate her with Diana, reflecting syncretic cult practice in frontier provinces.

Accolon

Accolon is a mortal knight of the Arthurian court, presented in the Post-Vulgate Merlin tradition and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as Morgan le Fay's paramour and instrument in a plot to supplant King Arthur; his tale centers on enchanted weapons (Excalibur and its scabbard), love-manipulation, and a tragic duel with Arthur.

Achall

Achall is an eponymous mortal woman in the Ulster Cycle of early Irish literature whose grief-induced death is given as the origin of the hill-name Achall (identified with the modern Hill of Skryne). She appears as a genealogical and etiological figure tied to Tara and later legendary events at the hill, rather than as a recurring supernatural agent.

Achtland

Achtland is a figure from Irish tradition who, according to the surviving account, was a mortal woman famed for rejecting mortal suitors who married a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann and crossed into the síde to become immortal as his wife.

Adar Llwch Gwin

Legendary large, intelligent birds from Welsh tradition said to understand human speech and obey their master's commands; best known for tearing their master Drudwas ap Tryffin to pieces when bound by a literal order in an Arthurian battle narrative. The term later came to be applied to raptors and metaphorically to brave men in medieval Welsh poetry.

Adar Rhiannon

Adar Rhiannon ('birds of Rhiannon') are a set of three magical birds in medieval Welsh narrative (the Mabinogi) whose song can 'wake the dead and lull the living to sleep.' They appear as otherworldly song‑beings tied to the figure Rhiannon and function within tales as providers of enchanted music that sustains and consoles characters.

Aderyn y Corff

Aderyn y Corff (literally 'bird of the corpse') is a bird-like death-porter in Welsh folklore said to call outside the door of a person about to die. Described as an avian portent that may lack feathers or wings and as existing on another plane when not manifesting, it is treated in Welsh ghost lore and sometimes naturalized as a screech owl in modern accounts.

Adhene

A class of Manx fairies (Cloan ny moyrn) described in Isle of Man tradition as a social people of beings said to be "fallen angels cast from heaven but too good for hell," who interact with human livelihoods and families, sometimes benevolent but often mischievous.

Community Record

Sources
  1. [1]
    Cymidei Cymeinfoll (Wikipedia). Wikipedia: Cymidei Cymeinfollwiki
  2. [2]
    The Story of Branwen, the Second Tale of the Mabinogi. Watkins, translation/summary of the Second Branch of the Mabinogiliterary
  3. [3]
    The Goddesses of the Insular Celts (Prionsias Mac Cana, excerpt). Prionsias Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology - 'The Goddesses of the Insular Celts' (referenced excerpt)academic
  4. [4]
    Giants (Welsh folklore) (Wikipedia). Wikipedia: Giants (Welsh folklore)wiki
  5. [5]
    Goddess Cymidei Cymeinfoll - Goddesses and Gods (blog). Modern devotional/summary entry on Cymidei Cymeinfollfolk
  6. [6]
    Goddess afoot!: practicing magic with Celtic & Norse goddesses (archive). Modern practical/neo-pagan work referencing Celtic goddess figuresother
well-documented