9/18/2019 Annwn - Wikipedia

Annwn
Annwn, Annwfn, or Annwfy n (in Middle Welsh, /ˈænuːn/ Annwvn, Annwyn, Annwyfn, Annwvyn, or Annwfyn) is the Otherworld in Welsh my thology . Ruled by Arawn (or, in Arthurian literature,
Annwn
by Gwy n ap Nudd), it was essentially a world of delights and eternal y outh where disease was absent and food was ev er-abundant. It became identified with the Christian afterlife in paradise (or heav en).
Welsh mythology location
Information

Contents Type Otherworld

Notable Arawn, Gwyn ap
Name and etymology
characters Nudd, Hafgan
Mythical locations
Appearances in Welsh literature
Annwn in modern culture
See also
Notes
Sources

Name and etymology

Middle Welsh sources suggest that the term was recognised as meaning "v ery deep" in mediev al times. [1 ] The appearance of a form antumnos on an ancient Gaulish curse tablet which means an (other) tumnos (world), howev er, suggests that
the original term may hav e been *ande-dubnos, a common Gallo-Brittonic word that literally meant "underworld". [2 ] The pronunciation of Modern Welsh Annwn is [ˈanuːn].

Mythical locations
In both Welsh and Irish my thologies, the Otherworld was believ ed to be located either on an island or underneath the earth. In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, it is implied that Annwn is a land within Dy fed, while the context of the Arthurian
poem Preiddeu Annwfn suggests an island location. Two other otherworldly feasts that occur in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi are located in Harlech in northwest Wales and on Y ny s Gwales in southwest Pembrokeshire.

Appearances in Welsh literature

Annwn play s a reasonably prominent role in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, a set of four interlinked my thological tales dating from the early mediev al period. In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, entitled Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, the
epony mous prince offends Arawn, ruler of Annwn, by baiting his hunting hounds on a stag that Arawn's dogs had brought down. In recompense he exchanges places with Arawn for a y ear and defeats Arawn's enemy Hafgan, while Arawn rules
in his stead in Dy fed. During this y ear, Pwy ll abstains from sleeping with Arawn's wife, earning himself gratitude and eternal friendship from Arawn. On his return, Pwy ll becomes known by the title Penn Annwn, "Head (or Ruler) of Annwn." In
the Fourth Branch, Arawn is mentioned but does not appear; it is rev ealed that he sent a gift of otherworldly pigs to Pwy ll's son and successor, Pry deri, which ultimately leads to war between Dy fed and Gwy nedd.

The similarly my thological epic poem Cad Goddeu describes a battle between Gwy nedd and the forces of Annwn, led again by Arawn. It is rev ealed that Amaethon, nephew to Math, king of Gwy nedd,
stole a bitch, a lapwing and a roebuck 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". [3 ] Gwy dion, 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 mediev al poem found in the Book of Taliesin, describes a v oy age led by King Arthur to the numerous otherworldy kingdoms within Annwn, either to rescue the prisoner
Gweir or to retriev e 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 imply ing that he receiv ed 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. [4 ] The speaker relates how he journey ed with Arthur and three
boatloads of men into Annwfn, but only sev en returned. Annwfn is apparently referred to by sev eral 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, [5 ] 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. Whatev er tragedy ultimately killed all but sev en of them is not clearly explained.
The poem continues with an excoriation of "little men" and monks, who lack v arious forms of knowledge possessed by the poet.

Ov er time, the role of king of Annwn was transferred to Gwy n ap Nudd, a hunter and psy chopomp, who may hav e been the Welsh personification of winter. [6 ] The Christian Vita Collen tells of Saint
Collen v anquishing Gwy n 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 gav e Gwy n ap Nudd
control ov er the demons lest "this world be destroy ed." Tradition rev olv es around Gwy n leading his spectral hunts, the Cŵn Annwn ("Hounds of Annwn"), on his hunt for mortal souls.

Annwn in modern culture Image by Ernest Wallcousins, 1912.

"In Caer Pedryvan, four its
The Dark, a 2005 film directed by John Fawcett and based on the nov el Sheep by Simon Maginn, inv olv es the legend, though set in contemporary times. revolutions; In the first word from the
cauldron when spoken, From the
Annwn is the name of a German mediev al and pagan folk duo from North Rhine-Westphalia. [7 ] The name was also prev iously used by an unrelated Celtic Rock trio in Berkeley , California, from 1991 breath of nine maidens it was gently
until the death of lead singer Leigh Ann Hussey on 16 May 2006. [8 ] warmed".

British author Niel Bushnell's nov els Sorrowline and Timesmith feature an island called Annwn in the realm of Otherworld. [9 ]

The Anglo-Welsh author, poet, critic and play wright, Dav id Jones Annwn (born 1953) adopted the name Annwn in 197 5 in the same spirit that his great-uncle, the Welsh bard Henry Lloy d (ap Hefin), had adopted the name Ap Hefin ("Son of the
Summer Solstice").

The Gaulish term Antumnos and the otherworld features heav ily in Swiss folk metal band Eluv eitie's 2014 release Origins, Specifically their song "King".

Using the v ariant spelling Annwy n, it is an otherworldly location in the MMORPG Vindictus. Vindictus is loosely based on Celtic my thology , and known as Mabinogi: Heroes in Asia.

Annwy n, Beneath the Wav es is the second album by American gothic rock/dark wav e band Faith and the Muse.

Children's author Lloy d Alexander used the name "Annuv in", an Anglicized spelling of the v ariant Annwfyn, in his Chronicles of Prydain series. Annuv in is the domain of Arawn, who in these nov els play s the role of Ev il Ov erlord.

American av ant-garde composer Mick Barr, under his pseudony m Ocrilim, released an album titled Annwn in 2008, consisting of compositions for three guitars. A sequel Annwn 2 was released in 2012 and solo-guitar v ersions of both albums
in 2015 called Cruinn Annwn.

Australian abstract artist Estelle Asmodelle painted works entitled "Journey in Annwn" and "The Otherworld of Annwn".

One of the areas in the a platform-adv enture v ideo game La-Mulana 2 is named Annwfn. [1 0 ]

Annwn: The Otherworld (http://annwngame.uk) is a surreal stealth/strategy game drawing on Welsh my thic motifs.

J. R. R. Tolkien used in his "Middle-Earth" my thology the word "annún" as a term in the elv ish language Sindarin (phonologically inspired by Welsh) meaning "west" or "sunset" (corresponding to the Queny a "Andúnë"), often referring figurativ ely
to the "True West", i.e. the blessed land of Aman bey ond the Sea, the Lonely Island "Tol Eressëa", or, (in the later mannish usage to the drowned island of Númenor. This is an example of Tolkien's habit of "explaining the true meaning" of v arious
real-world words by asigning them an alternativ e "elv ish" ety mology .

See also
Avalon
Caer Sidi
Tír na nÓg
Tol Eressëa

Notes
1. Sims-Williams 1990 4. Higley, note to Preiddeu Annwn, Stanza II, line 13. (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/ 7. de:Annwn (Band) at de.wikipedia
2. Lambert 2003 CAMELOT/annwn.htm) 8. [1] (http://www.motogrrl.org/Bands/annwn/)
3. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110302085244/http://www.celtne 5. Triad 52. Rachel Bromwich associates the Gwair of this triad with the Gweir of 9. Bushnell, N. 2013. Sorrowline, Andersen Press, ISBN 9781849395236
t.org.uk/texts/llyfr_taliesin/cad_goddeu_eng.html). Archived from the original (htt Preiddeu, see Trioedd Ynys Prydein pp. 146–147 and 373–374.
10. https://gameranx.com/features/id/157906/article/la-mulana-2-walkthrough-
p://www.celtnet.org.uk/texts/llyfr_taliesin/cad_goddeu_eng.html) on 2 March 6. The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. Robert Graves. annwfn-annwfn-guardian-part-3/
2011. Retrieved 2011-03-20. Cad Goddeu Octagon Books. 1978. ISBN 0-374-93239-5, ISBN 978-0-374-93239-8

Sources
Lambert, Pierre-Yves. (2003). La langue gauloise: description linguistique, commentaire d’inscriptions choisies. Paris: Errance. 2nd ed.
Sims-Williams, Patrick. (1990). "Some Celtic otherworld terms". Celtic Language, Celtic Culture: a Festschrift for Eric P. Hamp, ed. Ann T. E. Matonis and Daniel F. Mela, pp. 57–84. Van Nuys, Ca.: Ford & Bailie.
Davies, Sioned. (2007). The Mabinogion – a new translation. (Oxford World's Classics.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annwn 1/2
9/18/2019 Annwn - Wikipedia
Mac Cana, Proinsias. (1983). Celtic Mythology (Library of the World's Myths and Legends). Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.
Lindahl, C. A. (2000–2002). Medieval Folk lore. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Matthews, John. (1996). Sources of the Grail. Edinburgh: Floris Books ISBN 0-86315-233-3.
Dixon-Kennedy, Mike. (1996). Celtic Myth & Legend. London: Blandford and Cassel Imprint ISBN 0-7137-2571-0.

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