The Cauldron of Plenty

A Celtic Treasure. Imbas Dispatch #9

The Three Witches from Macbeth (Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne; Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; Anne Seymour Damer) by Daniel Gardner, 1775

Hello lovelies,

What bubbles up for you when you invite the image of the cauldron into your awareness? We only have to think of Macbeth’s three witches chanting their, ‘Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble’, to conjure up what has become a popular culture invocation of the cauldron.

Yet, the cauldron is much more diverse than this image alone. It is ancient and it is sacred, domestic and divine. The cauldron warrants about ten of these posts but sure we’ll start today by exploring the cauldron as a holy treasure of our supernatural ancestors, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and write more on this topic in the future…

In this Imbas Dispatch, we travel now to the third of the islands where the Tuatha Dé Danann trained in the arts of magic and acquired each of their four treasures. To the island of Muirias, which contains the root word for the sea in Old Irish, ‘muir’ where my own name Murchú, ‘Murphy’ (meaning ‘Hound of the Sea’) comes from, and where the deities were gifted a magical vessel that can hold sacred waters and liquids—the Cauldron of Plenty or the ‘cauldron that was never dry’ (Coire Ansic). 

The famous Gundestrup Cauldron with its horned god likely Cernunnos and other artwork echoing the Dagda, the Irish horned god, keeper of the sacred cauldron.

This cauldron belonged to the Dagda, the ‘Father of All’ of the Tuatha Dé Danann, also called the ‘Horned Man’ (Fer Benn). As well as being the father to the tribe, he is the father of Brigid, the triple goddess of poetic destiny, smithcraft and leechcraft; and Óengus, the god of love, the music of the harp, and the dreaming time. Óengus’s mother (and potentially Brigid’s) is Bóinn, the River Boyne who takes the Dagda as a lover. An early Irish wisdom tract about the cauldron describes Bóinn as, ‘...the womb in which the basis of all good knowledge is boiled.’ In the kinship of these deities and the qualities they exude, we can see a correlation between water and the womb as the origin of all life, and the cauldron as the vessel from which our ancestors believed the poetry of life flowed.

‘Seven doors had Mac Da Thó’s hostel, and seven entrances and seven hearths and seven cauldrons.’

‘It is he [Da Derga] who built the hostel. Since he became a hospitaller, the entrances to the hostel have never been closed, save in the direction from which the wind blows; since he became a hospitaller, his cauldron has never gone from the fire, and it boils food for the men of Ériu.’

Descriptions of the cauldron in the enchanted hostels and banqueting halls of Irish mythology. 

The Dagda’s cauldron is a symbol of the abundance of the Otherworld for it is said that from it, ‘a company never went away unsatisfied’. This cauldron filled you up with the broth of life, you could not take from its contents and not feel wildly nourished. In this way, like other cauldrons in the Welsh tradition, the Cauldron of Plenty fuels our lifeforce, it rebirths and regenerates us time again. 

The Dagda himself is an expression of integrated masculine and feminine qualities. He is associated with kingship, the allocation of tribal territories, and the arts of the warrior, while also nurturing his people through his cauldron, by shaping the land with his wizardry, and calling in the changing of the four seasons of Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasa with his magical harp. 

‘The symbolism of the vessel has pagan roots in the “magic cauldron” of Celtic mythology. Dagda, one of the benevolent gods of ancient Ireland, possesses such a cauldron, which supplies everybody with food according to his needs or merits.’ 

Carl G. Jung, Collected Works, Volume 6

The cauldron aligns with the cups in the tarot, which often speak to the watery realm of our feelings and emotions. This in turn can be linked to the feeling function in Jungian psychology. In today’s world, our thinking flies by first class whereas our feelings are in steerage. We are so often encouraged to navigate our lives through rational thought alone, to be all lightning swords of the mind with no brothy cauldrons of the body.

Our feelings are crucial teachers in our lives as they help us to understand what we value. We may think we want something and desperately work for it in the external world but when we get it, we feel empty. The feeling sensation to match the thought is just not there. The cauldron has run dry. 

The Celtic cauldron reminds us that the true broth of life is found in our relationship with the Otherworld, the divine, the Universe, Source, the Godhead, etc. the breath of life that blows all of nature into being including us. If we choose to nourish ourselves from it, it will never run dry. In a world that glorifies the accumulation of ‘stuff’ as abundance, we must remind ourselves of the eternal sources of abundance available if we look inside of ourselves and to our ancestors and nature. Our feelings and the body can be excellent way-showers here.

Journal Prompt

Draw a cauldron or get a small vessel. Look into your cauldron and ask yourself:

Body—what feeling or feelings do I desire to embody this week?

Write the feeling state in your cauldron or on a piece of paper that you tear and then drop into the vessel. Then ask yourself:

What ingredients do I need to brew to nourish these feeling states this week?

Whatever bubbles up for you, write it in your cauldron or on pieces of paper to drop into your vessel. For example, perhaps you want to feel more at peace this week. The brew that you need could include 1-3 of the following: a social media sabbatical, time in nature, a breathwork or mindfulness practice, space to create, a gratitude list, more hours of sleep, a life-affirming book, nourishing food, etc.

Add these ingredients by writing them in your cauldron or on pieces of paper to place in your vessel.

Once you’ve added all your ingredients, take a moment to visualise your brew simmering, infusing you with the feelings and nourishment you seek for the week ahead.

I’d love to hear what brew you conjure up! ❤️‍🔥

A gentle reminder we have our Full Moon Fairytale Céilí tomorrow evening Irish time. You can learn more and how to join here.

Croí isteach,

Jen x

If you haven’t yet caught up on the other treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, you’ll find them here:

Sources:

Sharon Paice MacLeod, Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld.

Liam Breatnach, The Caldron of Poesy, Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 32 (1981).

Jeffrey Gantz, Early Irish Myths and Sagas.

Carl G. Jung, Collected Works, Volume 6: Psychological Types, par. 401, note: 149.