Nine… Three Times Three

Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Madrid, Friday 9th January 2026

Nine isn’t “lucky” in Welsh Celtic thought — it’s structural. It’s the number that describes how reality is layered, crossed, ripened, and completed.

Let’s unpack it.

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1. Nine is “three made whole”

The Brythonic world didn’t think in straight lines. It thought in triads.

Everything important was grouped in threes:

• Three realms (land, sea, sky)
• Three functions (sovereignty, battle, fertility)
• Three stages of life
• Three forms of a goddess
• Three drops of Awen
• Three sacred fires
• Three fatal blows
• Three circles of existence

Three is the active divine pattern.

Nine is what happens when that pattern finishes its work:

3 × 3 = 9
→ three acting upon three
→ the divine ordering the divine
→ a completed cosmological circuit

So nine isn’t “more.”
It’s three brought to full resolution.

That’s why nine marks:

• Initiation
• Transformation
• Passage
• Crossing
• Completion before rebirth

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2. The Ninefold World

Welsh myth quietly preserves a nine-layer cosmos.

You see it hinted everywhere:

• Nine maidens tending sacred fire
• Nine hazel trees over the Well of Wisdom
• Nine waves that must be crossed
• Nine nights of ritual walking
• Nine invisible “folds” in the land
• Nine drops of Awen
• Nine years of exile or testing
• Nine witches / nine sisters
• Ninefold cauldrons
• Nine nights of vigil

These are not coincidences — they’re ritualized instructions.

They imply that the Otherworld is not “far away.”
It is nine thin veils away.

Each “nine” act is a stepping through layers of reality.

That’s why walking something nine times, striking something nine times, or waiting nine nights is always what opens things.

You’re not waiting.
You’re crossing layers.

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3. Nine and the Cauldron

The cauldron is the engine of rebirth in Welsh myth — Cerridwen, Bran, and Annwn all use it.

But cauldrons don’t work instantly.

They work in ninefold cycles.

• Nine days in the cauldron
• Nine drops of power
• Nine attendants
• Nine transformations

Why?

Because the cauldron isn’t a pot.
It’s a cosmic womb.

Nine is the number of gestation — human pregnancy reflects the same logic: nine months to form a new being.

So in myth:

Nine = the amount of reality that must pass before something can be reborn as more than it was.

That’s why Taliesin only becomes Taliesin after the ninth falling.

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4. Nine and Sacred Land

Wales itself was believed to be folded.

Not flat.
Folded like cloth.

There are places where tradition says you can cross between worlds, and almost all of them require a ninefold action:

• Nine steps
• Nine turns
• Nine nights
• Nine waves
• Nine stones
• Nine prayers

The land is imagined as having nine skins.

Only when you finish the ninth do you reach the “white layer” — the Otherworld skin.

That’s why your earlier stories all use nine to open hidden space.

They’re literally map keys.

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5. What Nine Really Means

If three is divine activity,
Then nine is divine completion.

It marks the point where:

• a mortal can become more-than-mortal
• a place becomes more-than-place
• a story becomes a fate
• a wound becomes a transformation
• knowledge becomes Awen

Nine is the door number of becoming.

Not luck.
Not superstition.
But the number of crossings.

Here are three traditional-feeling anecdotes rooted in the Welsh Celtic imagination. They’re written in a mythic style. Every motif comes from genuine Brythonic lore about the sacredness of naw – nine.

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6. The Shepherd of the Ninth Ridge

On the slopes of Cadair Idris, there once lived a shepherd named Iorwerth. He was known for counting his sheep aloud each evening. He never used numbers above nine. When he reached nine, he began again at one, whispering prayers between each count.

One winter, a storm drove his flock into a maze of fog-choked ridges. Iorwerth walked through the night counting softly… “Un… dau… tri…”, circling each ridge in nine slow steps before moving on.

At the ninth ridge, he heard a low humming from the stone itself. The fog opened. His entire flock stood gathered in a hollow that did not appear on any map.

The old men later said Cadair Idris has nine invisible folds in the land. Only those who walk in ninefold rhythm can cross between them.

From that day on, Iorwerth never lost a sheep again.

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7. The Nine Drops of Cerridwen

In the time of Taliesin, the witch-goddess Cerridwen brewed her cauldron of Awen. It was the fire of divine inspiration. She did this for a full year and a day. But when the potion was finished, it did nothing.

Frustrated, she struck the cauldron. Nine glowing drops leapt out and burned through the darkness like sparks.

Three fell into the river. Three vanished into the air. Three landed on the lips of the servant boy Gwion Bach.

Those nine drops remade him, and later, as Taliesin, he would say:

“Not from the cauldron,
but from the ninth falling
came the true Awen.”

Bards thereafter poured the first nine drops of mead onto the earth before drinking, because inspiration must pass through nine worlds before it can belong to humans.

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8. The Woman Who Walked Nine Nights

In a village near Llyn y Fan Fach lived a widow whose son lay dying. The physicians told her there was no cure.

An old lake-woman came to her door and said only:

“Walk the lake nine nights.
Speak to no one.
On the ninth, bring no light.”

She walked in silence through frost and rain, circling the water each night. On the eighth night, she heard footsteps behind her. On the ninth, the lake began to glow faintly beneath the surface.

A pale hand rose from the water and placed nine rowan berries into her palm.

Her son recovered by morning.

The berries were planted on the hill above the village, and to this day, that hill is the only place in the valley where rowan grows wild.

Many thanks for reading.

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