The Mound of Wonders

The Mound of Wonders

"Whoever sits upon this mound cannot go hence
without either receiving blows or else seeing a great wonder."
   ___ Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, "The Mabinogion"

   Ascending to mounds and high places in order to look out over the land in a divinatory way was a common practice among the Celts. It was especially customary in the days leading up to Lughnasa, when the harvest was in its last week of ripening. It was a method of auguring what the year would bring, as well as an honoring of the land.
    The Mound of Wonders is a place where the veil between the worlds is thin. Prince Pwyll, decides to ascend this sacred seat of wonder in order to take an augury of his reign, and while there he sees a great wonder indeed; a woman in a golden dress riding upon a horse. He learns that she is Rhiannon, a woman from the Underworld, and that she has come thither in order to marry him. Pwyll believes himself to be in receipt of the wonders promised by the Mound, but his subsequent story has enough heavy blows in it to render his prophetic expectations low.
   Pwyll's experience on the Mound of Wonders demonstrates the double nature of seership and prophecy: the thing that is shown often bears an unsuspected barb in its tail. Our expectations of divinatory methods lead us to accept the best and to reject the worst findings of our augury, to embrace the prophesied end but to ignore the rather irksome human means to its achievement. But once we have called out in question to the otherworld, we have to bear the burden of the answer.

"Go out into the countryside and climb to a high place where you can look out over the land. Ask for an augury of the land for the coming season."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]