Product Code Database
Annwn, Annwfn, or Annwfyn (; Annwvn, Annwyn, Annwyfn, Annwvyn, or Annwfyn) is the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. Ruled by Arawn (or, in King Arthur literature, by Gwyn ap Nudd), it is a world of delights and eternal youth where disease is absent and food is ever-abundant.
, 1912. "In Caer Pedryvan, four its revolutions; In the first word from the cauldron when spoken, From the breath of nine maidens it was gently warmed". ]]
The similarly mythological epic poem Cad Goddeu describes a battle between Gwynedd and the forces of Annwn, led again by Arawn. It is revealed that Amaethon, nephew to Math, king of Gwynedd, stole a dog, a lapwing and a Roe deer from the Otherworld, leading to a war between the two peoples. The denizens of Annwn are depicted as bizarre and hellish creatures; these include a "wide-mawed" beast with a hundred heads and bearing a host beneath the root of its tongue and another under its neck, a hundred-clawed black-groined toad, and a "mottled ridged serpent, with a thousand souls, by their sins, tortured in the holds of its flesh". Cad Goddeu Gwydion, the Venedotian hero and magician successfully defeats Arawn's army, first by enchanting the trees to rise up and fight and then by guessing the name of the enemy hero Bran, thus winning the battle.
Preiddeu Annwfn, an early medieval poem found in the Book of Taliesin, describes a voyage led by King Arthur to the numerous otherworldy kingdoms within Annwn, either to rescue the prisoner Gweir or to retrieve the cauldron of the Head of Annwn. The narrator of the poem is possibly intended to be Taliesin himself. One line can be interpreted as implying that he received his gift of poetry or speech from a magic cauldron, as Taliesin does in other texts, and Taliesin's name is connected to a similar story in another work.Higley, note to Preiddeu Annwn, Stanza II, line 13. The speaker relates how he journeyed with King Arthur and three boatloads of men into Annwfn, but only seven returned. Annwfn is apparently referred to by several names, including "Mound Fortress," "Four-Peaked Fortress," and "Glass Fortress", though it is possible the poet intended these to be distinct places. Within the Mound Fort's walls Gweir, one of the "Three Exalted Prisoners of Britain" known from the Welsh Triads,Triad 52. Rachel Bromwich associates the Gwair of this triad with the Gweir of Preiddeu, see Trioedd Ynys Prydein pp. 146–147 and 373–374. is imprisoned in chains. The narrator then describes the cauldron of the Chief of Annwn: it is finished with pearl and will not boil a coward's food. Whatever tragedy ultimately killed all but seven of them is not clearly explained. The poem continues with an excoriation of "little men" and monks, who lack various forms of knowledge possessed by the poet.
Over time, the role of king of Annwn was transferred to Gwyn ap Nudd, a hunter and psychopomp, who may have been the Welsh personification of winter. The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. Robert Graves. Octagon Books. 1978. , The Christian Vita Collen tells of Saint Collen vanquishing Gwyn and his otherworldly court from Glastonbury Tor with the use of holy water. In Culhwch and Olwen, an early Welsh Arthurian tale, it is said that God gave Gwyn ap Nudd control over the lest "this world be destroyed." Tradition revolves around Gwyn leading his Wild Hunt, the Cŵn Annwn ("Hounds of Annwn"), on his hunt for mortal souls. Angelika Rüdiger's Doctoral Thesis, 'Y Tylwyth Teg: an analysis of a literary motif' (Bangor University, 2021) is a detailed study of supernatural characters connected with Annwn (including Gwyn ap Nudd), covering a period from the earliest sources to the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Anglo-Welsh author, poet, critic and playwright, David Jones Annwn (born 1953) adopted the name Annwn in 1975 in the same spirit that his great-uncle, the Welsh bard , had adopted the name Ap Hefin ("Son of the Summer Solstice").
Annwn is the name of a German medieval and pagan folk duo from North Rhine-Westphalia.Annwn at de.Wikipedia The name was also previously used by an unrelated Celtic Rock trio in Berkeley, California, from 1991 until the death of lead singer Leigh Ann Hussey on 16 May 2006.
Annwn is one of the deep realms of Faerie in October Daye, a 2012 urban fantasy series written by Seanan McGuire.McGuire, S. (2012). Ashes of Honor. United States: DAW.
British author Niel Bushnell's novels Sorrowline and Timesmith feature an island called Annwn in the realm of Otherworld.Niel Bushnell 2013. Sorrowline, Andersen Press,
Children's author Lloyd Alexander used the name "Annuvin", an Anglicized spelling of the variant Annwfyn, in his Chronicles of Prydain series. Annuvin is the domain of Arawn, who in these novels plays the role of a villainous dark lord.
On the British rock band The Mechanisms' 2014 album High Noon Over Camelot, a space Western retelling of the Arthurian mythos, "Annwn" is the name given to the lower levels of the space station Fort Galfridian.
One of the areas in the platform-adventure video game La-Mulana is named Annwfn.
Annwn: The Otherworld is a surreal stealth/strategy game drawing on Welsh mythic motifs.
|
|
