Macha's Children

Macha's Children Ring is designed for Pagans who are involved with horses, worship horse Deities, and/or wish to speak out against horse slaughter, abuse, and production of Premarin.  It is named for the Goddess Macha whose story is below, it could as easily be Rhiannon's Children...for both these Mare Goddesses have stories of tragedy and pain related to the birth of Their Children.

You do not NEED to have a horse page, but it would be wonderful if you did have something on your site about your horse and/or educating visitors about Premarin/PMU, horse slaughter, and other horse related issues.  You do not need to be a Pagan or have Paganism on your site either...just realize that visitors through the ring might assume that you are Pagan. You simply must love horses, Mare Goddesses and/or want to help the thousands that die every year due to overpopulation and the ignorance or uncaring of most of the world.  

Hate sites of any kind will not be allowed, whether the hatred is animal related or not. Sites promoting animal abuse, of course, will not be considered (this does not include the humane raising of animals, including food animals ....especially if you are raising them so that you know your food is humanely raised).  And I really hope no one even tries to submit a porn site, ESPECIALLY if it's animal related.   This is a PG rated ring........so language may be a factor in getting in too.  

IMPORTANT:  many of us are very sensitive to graphic pictures of abuse and slaughter.  These pictures can be great educational tools, but for those overly sensitive who already know the issue it may be too much. If you have such educational pictures on your site, PLEASE do NOT put the code or point the ring to THAT page.  Please put it on a page that is not so graphic and have any pages with such pictures clearly marked. Please remember that for the "converted" it may be too much.

To join is simple...first you submit your information on the form  If you do not intend to put the code on the same page as the ring points to you MUST put the page your code is on in the space given!  I prefer it to be the same page, but not everyone likes this.  Please do make sure that your webring page is easy to find if you do not do this.  If your code page is not included on the form I will not put you in the ring.

Second, past the HTML code onto your page.....you should receive code for your site in your email, but if that doesn't work for you (some systems it doesn't work with), you can cut and past the code  and make the needed changes. The email code doesn't come through via AOL, but if AOL members go to the AOL website and sign in for their email via the web, they will find it works there! You have three weeks to put this up before being deleted from the queue.

Grab this graphic....it MUST be on your own system, do not link to it here as that will slow both of our pages and is just plain wrong to do.

Once you got the code and images on your website email me with the following information.  If you do not email me, I will not check the site on my own and you will be timed out of the queue.

1) Site ID#
2) Site URL
3) Site Name
4) Your Email

Please do not email me until you got the code set up....and you've double checked the links. Unless of course, you need help, in which case please do email me and I'll see what I can do.

Sites that do not have the code on their pages in 3 weeks and email me to let me know shall be removed automatically.

Members

If you are already a ring member and would like to edit your webring information you may use this form:

Excerpt from The Horse Amongst the Celts Native to Britain the Welsh Rhiannon also has a horse association, as She is first seen by her future husband Pwyll riding a horse that, while it never appears to go faster than a walk, can not be caught. After nearly killing his own mount he finally asks that She stop for him. Later when her son Pryderi is born a colt is born at the same time. Every year when a colt was born to this mare it would disappear, on the night of Pryderi's birth he is also abducted and then when the creature goes to take the colt it is confronted by the farmer; it not only fails to take this foal but leaves the boy.  Meanwhile, the nurse had killed a puppy and smeared the blood on Rhiannon's mouth and left the bones near Her, making Pwyll believe that the mother killed Her own child.  Rhiannon is punished for this alleged infanticide by having to sit at the gates, tell her tale to all guests and carry them, like a mare, on Her back until Her son becomes one of these guests and She is absolved. (Gantz, trans. The Mabinogion) Macha further is known as a Mare Goddess, a sister to Epona and Rhiannon and like the latter betrayed regarding birth.  She heard the lonely prayers of an Ulster farmer named Crunnchu or Crunn and came to him offering to be his wife.  Like all Goddesses and other supernatural women who make this agreement, there were stipulations and in this case it was that She never be mentioned to anyone. Especially the powers She so obviously held.  At the Lughnasadh horse races however he could not contain himself and he bragged that his wife could beat the king's horses, which won all races.  This was of course overheard and King Conchobhar demanded She be brought forth and prove Her unwise husband's boasts.  She ran and, though pregnant and about to give birth, she won the race, only to drop down in labor at the finish. She gave birth to twins (one translation of Eamhain Mhacha is "The Twins of Macha") and either died or picked Them up and returned to the Otherworld. But not before cursing the Ulstermen, who were so callous as to force a pregnant woman to race, with labor pain of 5 days and 4 nights for nine generations anytime Ulster was in danger.  (Gantz, trans "The Labour Pains of the Ulaid and the Twins of Macha" Early Irish Myths and Sagas) copyright © 2000 Kym ní Dhoireann

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Ring Graphic and back ground from Triple horses created by George Bain based on the Inverurie 4 (horse stone) found on EponaWorks
Header bar from Clipart Castle
Line from Celtic Web Art