Annwn
This is the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. Ruled by Arawn (or, in Arthurian literature, by Gwyn ap Nudd), it’s a world of delights & eternal youth where disease is absent & food is ever-abundant. In both Welsh & Irish mythologies, the Otherworld was believed to be located either on an island or underneath the earth.
In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, it’s implied that Annwn is a land within Dyfed. While the context is a land within Dyfed. 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 & on Ynys Gwales in southwest Pembrokeshire.
Locations inside Annwn:
- Caer Sidi (“Revolving/Spinning Fortress”): A fortress containing the Cauldron of Annwn, the “Chair” of Taliesin, & where Gweir was imprisoned.
- Caer Wydyr (“Glass Fortress”): A fortress guarded by 6,000 men whose watchman was difficult to converse with.
- Caer Pedryvan (“Four-Cornered/Peaked Fortress”): A fortress located on the “Isle of the Strong Door”
- Caer Vedwyd (“Fortress of God’s Peak)
- Caer Rigor (“Kingly Fortress”/”Fortress of Hardness”)
- Caer Golud (“Fortress of Riches”)
In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, Prince Pwyll of Dyfed offends Arawn (the ruler of Annwn) by baiting his hunting hounds on a stag that Arawn’s dogs had brought down. In recompense, he changes places with Arawn for 1 year & defeats Arawn’s enemy, Hafgan.
During this year, Pwyll doesn’t sleep with Arawn’s wife. This earned him gratitude & eternal friendship from Arawn. On his return, Pwyll became known by the title Penn Annwn (“Head/Ruler of Annwn”).
In the 4th Branch, Annwn is mentioned but doesn’t show up. It’s revealed that he sent a gift of otherworldly pigs to Pwyll’s son & successor, Pryderi. This leads to war between Dyfed & Gwynedd.
The epic poem, Cad Gaddeu describes a battle between Gwynedd & the forces of Annwn, led again by Annwn. It’s revealed that Amaethon, nephew to Math (King of Gwynedd), stole a female dog, a lapwing (a type of bird), & a male roedeer (or a roebuck) from the Otherworld.
This led to a war between the 2 peoples. The inhabitants of Annwn are shown as bizarre & hellish creatures. These include a “wide-mawed” beast with 100 heads & bearing a host beneath the root of its tongue & another under its neck, a 100-clawed black-groined toad, & a “mottled ridged serpent, with a thousand souls, by their sins, tortured in the hold s of its flesh.”
Gwydion, the Venedotian hero & magician, successfully defeats Arawn’s army, 1st by enchanting the trees to rise up & fight & then by guessing the name of the enemy hero Bran, this winning the battle.
Priddeu Annwfn, an early medieval poem found in the Book of Taliesin, describes a voyage led by King Arthur to the numerous otherworldly kingdoms within Annwn. Either to rescue the prisoner Gweir or to retrieve the cauldron of the Head of Annwn.
Over time, the role of king of Annwn was transferred to Gwyn ap Nudd, a hunter & psychopomp, who may have the Welsh personification of winter. Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, demons, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.
The Christian Vita Collen tells of St. Colleen vanquishing Gwyn & his otherworldly court from Glastonbury Tor with the use of holy water.
In Culhwch and Olwen, an early Welsh Arthurian tale, it’s said that God gave Gwyn ap Nudd control over the demons lest “this world be destroyed.” Tradition revolves around Gwyn leading his spectral hunts, the Cwn Annwn (“Hounds of Annwn”), on his hunt for mortal souls.
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