It so happened that Gwydion, son of Don, found a boy child in the chest at the foot of his bed.  He raised the boy as his own and the boy was named Lleu Llaw Gyffes by his mother, the Lady Arianrhod.  When Lleu grew up, at the court of Math son of Mathonwy, the great magician, he needed a wife.  But in her anger, his mother had sworn that he would never marry a woman that lived on the earth.

So, Gwydion went to his kinsman, Math, for help.  Math son of Mathonwy, and a great magician, created a woman made out of flowers and she was named Blodeuyn (or Blodeueydd) which means "flowers".  They made her out of the flowers of the oak, the broom and the meadow-sweet into the most beautiful woman that had ever been seen.

Blodeuyn lived with Lleu as his wife for two years, for she had no choice in the matter.  Then one day, a troop of men, huntsdmen, came by led by Gronw Berbyrm Lord of Penllyn.  Lleu had gone to visit Gwydion and Math, so Blodeuyn acted as hostess and allowed the men to spend the night at the castle.  And Blodeuyn and Gronw fell in love.

Gronw said that Lleu had to die, but no one knew how to do it.  So Blodeuyn set herself to find out how it should be done, by pretending to be worried that Lleu would die before her.  Lleu told her that the spear that would kill him must be a year in it's making, and that no one should work on it except when everyone else were at Mass on a Sunday.  Further, that he could only be killed if he were to be standing with one foot on a goat and one foot on the rim of a bath, set beside a river.  Blodeuyn got that piece of news to Gronw and he spent a year making just such a spear and just such a bath.

Finally, after the year had past, Blodeuyn persuaded Lleu to show her exactly how he would stand with one foot on a goat and one foot on the rim of a bath, set beside a river.  Lleu, being the great silly who thought that all he had to do was to have a woman created for him out of flowers and she would love him forever, did so.  And Gronw tried to kill him, but instead injured him.  Lleu turned into an eagle and flew away.

A year after finding Lleu and nursing him back to being a man, Gronw came after revenge.  When Blodeuyn knew he was near the castle, she rushed to the lake with her maidens and prepared to die.  Her maidens all drowned themselves and she was alone when Gronw came upon her.  He had decided not to kill her after all, but punished her by turning her into an owl.  So that she could never show her face by day.  He also changed her name to Blodeuyedd, or Flower Face.

I have always felt that Blodeuyn was treated unfairly -- and anyway, I rather like owls.  The story was used in "The Owl Service" by Alan Garner in a tale of teenage love and the pain of unrequited love.  I remember seeing it as a TV series in the 1960's and one of the characters in it said that Blodeuyn was to be pitied and not blamed, as she had not asked to be created and nor were her wishes considered.

Blodeuyn is, to me, a symbol of women everywhere whose life is not of their making.  Who, whatever the circumstances, have been unable to follow their own destinies and feel trapped.  She is a sister in spirit to the Lady of Shalott, Queen Guinivere, treated like a pawn in someone else's game.  Some may say that is a coward's excuse and that a woman should and must be stronger.  All I will say to that is, walk in my shoes for a day and see if you could live any different.  Whatever the rights and wrongs, I know what it is to live without power over one's own life.