The Phrase "Taken By The Wind" In Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon"

Cafe Society
1

In this context, what do you think “taken” means? I’m seeing four possibilities.

  1. “Enamored with,” as in “My tween daughter sure is taken by those One Direction boys.”
  2. Literally taken - as in, the wind abducted her (or she went voluntarily).
  3. Something to do with Opal.
  4. Sexually, as in “The groom had taken his share of ladies before he finally settled down with his bride.”

Thoughts?

2

I like #2, the literal meaning, most. However, I find the song very evocative and wouldn’t want to study the lyrics too hard.

3

I always figured it was # 4, myself.

4

This has been my interpretation, too; not so much that the wind abducted her, but that she voluntarily became one with the wind.

5

I think Rhiannon is supposed to be either a witch or some kind of force of Nature.

I think we’re supposed to see her riding the wind, magically, up to the heavens.

6

Since the lyrics also include;

Takes to the sky like a bird in flight

She rules her life like a fine skylark

She rules her life like a bird in flight
So this is a woman in flight, whichever way she wants to go, whichever way the wind takes her.

7

I’ll also go with #2. Even before I ever saw Ms. Nick’s airy faery twirly squirrely dancing or heard her intro to the live version (“this song is about a Welsh witch”), I thought it was about a witchy type woman. Who could fly. Not saying I pictured her straddling a broomstick or anything, just that she’s a creature of the night / heavens.

8

You know… a flake. :slight_smile:

9

I also though of witch flying with the wind. No broomstick.

10

Combination of 2 and 4, she’s* intimate* with the forces of nature.

11

Rhiannon in Welsh mythology isn’t really a witch, she’s more like a divine queen, a horse goddess with an affinity for birds. Cognate with Rigatona and Epona.

12

Yep, this.

As for the song:

2. Literally taken - as in, the wind abducted her (or she went voluntarily).

13

Slight aside: I just read a fascinating book called Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics, and a lot of it is about how most of us think of phonemes as (roughly) equivalent to “consonants” and “vowels,” when in fact intonation and stress can be equally phonemic, even in English.

The example of this that first came to my mind was the line in Rhiannon which I could never understand, no matter how many times I heard it – and later discovered that this was because Fleetwood Mac so egregiously violated phonemic stress: “when the rain wa-SHEZZ you clean…”

14

I always thought it meant she was something of a free spirit. But 2 does make sense…

15

In context, it is a question:

All your life you’ve never seen
woman, taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?

To me: there is this whole world Rhiannon can show you, that you have never seen/can’t imagine, if you choose to go with her. It’s so wonderful, why would you stay if she promised you all that?

I’ve seen lyrics both with and without the comma after woman. With it, the person being sung to is the “woman” (geeze, woman!), without it is “have you ever seen (a) woman taken by the wind?”.

16

In The Mabinogi, the prince Pwyll spends the night on a hollow mound and sees Rhiannon, riding on a white horse in the morning. He falls in love with her and chases her but can’t catch up to her. She goes so fast it is as if she’s “taken by the wind.” Day after day, he chases her. Finally he calls out, “Lady, in the name of the man you love best, stop.” She stops her horse, turns around and says, “Gladly. And it would have been much better for your horse had you asked much sooner.”
[Based on Patrick Ford’s translation.]