Annwn, the Other World

[Ci Celli Ddu]

These posts are my translation of the chapter Annwn, y Byd Arall (Annwn, the Other World) from the book Gair am Air by scholar and bard Gwyn Thomas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwyn_Thomas_%28poet%29) (University of Wales Press, Cardiff 2000). This chapter discusses and analyzes the Other World, Annwn, and man's relation to it, in medieval Welsh and Irish literature.

Annwn. the Other World (Gair am Air pgs 21-37)

[p21]

Stories and tales of journies are very old. In western culture Homer's Odysseia, and the wandering of the Israelites in the desert have established themselves strongly enough, until recently at least. The journey is a search for new things and new experiences. It is also a means for the traveller to come to know himself. An external journey can be an internal pilgramage. Thus, by wandering for fourty years in a desert that they should have crossed in a fraction of that time the Israelites were coming to know themselves, and coming face to face with realities about their life as a nation. One of the characteristics of what is called a recent period in history is the travelling that stretched man's comprehension of the world around him, and the different peoples that exist on its surface. Although, unfortunately, what resulted was an attempt by travellers from Europe to place their own patterns of lifestyle and belief on every people, with often lamentable results. But the journey was also used as a means to criticize "civilised" Europe in a variety of imaginary journeys in England and France most especially, and the idea of the "noble savage" was developed, who kept in his savagery values and virtues that civilised nations had lost. In our century travel has extended to Space, literally to some degrees, and to a greater degree in the imagination. Indeed, journeys to space, like a large number of other things, begin in the imagination. Over the centuries man's boundaries have stretched and stretched, but their is one boundary that remains as unknown today as it has ever been, namely that of life. Over this border there is a land of no return: 'The undiscovered country, from whose bourn/ No traveller returns' as Hamlet says (III.i.79-80). Here is the boundary where the journey to the Other World begins. Some have claimed, no doubt excessively, that this journey's tale is the most fundamental story of all stories - 'the matrix of all narratives' (Carlo Ginzburg).

[Ci Celli Ddu]

[p22]
One of the earliest of men's productions, that which is misnamed a 'Book of the Dead', namely a collection of spells and supplications and pictures that was placed, from about 1600 BC onwards, in the tombs of those in Egypt who could afford them. They were to facilitate the journey of the departed to the Other World. In our days, some psychologists came to consider this journey, the journey of the Egyptian dead, not as an external journey but as a symbolic journey, an internal journey into the unconscious. Across the ages there has been a great interest in hell and heaven, especially in hell; an enormous body of literature and portraiture has discussed the subject. The old characteristic descriptions of hell have mostly ceased now, but people's interest in the final journey still continues, the craving to know that which cannot be known as strong as ever. Fairly recently a great interest grew in 'near-death experiences' as they are called. Many books were written on the subject, some popular and some scientific, and now films on the subject have started to appear - one comparatively recent example is Flatliners.
There are patterns in these 'near-death experiences'. They are the experiences of people who came within a hair's breadth of losing their lives and were revived. The first thing that happens is that the one having the experience is either in an accident or in a hospital receiving treatment. His heart stops for a certain time. During that time the half-departed sees himself, the essential 'I' - the soul if you like - leaves the shell of his body and hovers above looking down on it. Those having the experience are able to see their own bodies objectively, and after being revived they are able to give a strangely accurate account of what was happening to them while they were unconscious. Here are the words of one man about this experience: 'I was as if hovering...and I saw myself lying there [namely, on an operation table in a hospital].' [1] Various people who claim to have had the experience say that they were as if beginning a journey for the Other World. Going through a tunnel or pipe of darkness is very common: 'Then I went into a tunnel. I felt as if I was inside a tunnel that was turning, a black tunnel. Only darkness.' [2] According to various testimonies there appears light at the other end of the tunnel or the pipe: 'At the end of the tunnel was a bright light. It looked like an orange...'[3] Here is another account: 'The world was split asunder [p23]...everything was silver...like diamonds and stars.' [4]

According to many of the witnesses they felt that this was a light of pure love and they could not describe it in words. Familiar faces, faces of the dead are seen where there is light: 'There were all my relatives, my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncle...They came to greet me.'[5] Then, there is a return, against the will, through the darkness again, and to the body again.
There are various correspondences between these experiences and different descriptions of the journey to the Other World, but we won't go after those specifically, nor after various explanations that are offered for these phenomena. There are manifest elements in old visions of the Other World and old tales that speak about that world with us still. They are still with us because they talk of a mystery that cannot be solved.
I have spoken of the Other World and connected it with death. That is natural for those of a Christian background. I'm sure that the ideas of many of us, even today, have been coloured by a Christian upbringing of some kind. Because of this the Other World is on the other side of death, and likely to bring heaven and hell to mind.
And as men and women are what they are, perhaps it doesn't surprise us to understand that there is a lot more talk of hell than there is talk of heaven and, over the centuries, some have quite enjoyed themselves describing the various horrors that await the souls of the lost in hell. But not everyone has had the same idea about the world beyond death and, indeed, not everyone has thought of the Other World as a place that is connected with death.
Let us take a look at the ideas of the Celts concerning death and the Other World. We will talk, to some degree, of the ideas of tribes some two thousand years ago and more, though the successors of these -Welsh, Irish, Scots etc - it seems, inherited some of these ideas, for a while at least. The traces of these ideas are found, as was suggested in the first essay, in beliefs or superstitions, some tales, and the customs of these nations. Some testimony of the beliefs of the Celts are found in works by some of the writers of Greece and Rome, but their testimony isn't testimony of the highest degree, by a long way, as there is hearsay, things misunderstood, misrepresented things and, especially, interpretations made through their own credos. Archaeological evidence [p24] is of great benefit to use with the testimony of these writers, if such evidence is available.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

After that customary warning, we'll turn to one or two classical authors, and to very familiar citations in the field. There we have Julius Caesar talking about the Celts in Gaul. Describing the druids he says this: 'They wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets, that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another...'[6] That is, the suggestion here is that a person dies and then returns in another form. Caesar added that this belief was sustenance to the Gaulish warriors: they were insanely brave for the reason that they did not believe that they would be killed forever. Another suggestion that death was not the end for the Celts is found in a piece by a Greek writer of the name Lycan; in this piece he greets the druids:
You who say that the ghosts of the dead do not go to Erebus' silent kingdom and the pale depths of Dis ,[I] but that the spirit is in a new body ruling in another world, and death is not - if we understand your hymns correctly [an important condition] but half the way through a long life...[7]
There is some confirmation for such beliefs in the custom of the Celts to bury their great men with their weapons and their chariots and with food and drink provided for the Other World. One notes that it was the important people among the Celts that were buried like this. There is also a certain amount of support for credos like this in the old tale of Taliesin and the talk in it of Taliesin changing his form from one animal to another. From following these transmigrations Alwyn and Brinley Rees made the observation that there was, amongst the Celts as among the people of India and other places, at one time a doctrine that there was one Transmigrant in the beginning. [8]
In the first essay it was suggested that the art of the Celts could be truly useful evidence because it is some form of continual present. Back in 1988 Mr John Meirion Morris won a University of wales M.Phil. degree for work on the art of the Celts. One of his important ideas is that the early art of the Celts shows life as a process with neither an end nor a beginning; it is a continuity. The fact that the circle had so much symbolic importance for them suggests something similar - a wheel has no beginning and no end.

[p25]
The circle was only one of the Celts' important symbols. One symbolic state of exceptional power in their imagination was the thing that can be called a 'between state'. Alwyn and Brinley Rees have called the state a centrepoint, or 'neither one thing nor the other'. [9] Jung calls a situation like this 'uniting the opposite'; it is an ideal psychic state that contains all kinds of possibilities.[10] The classical example of it in our Welsh tales is the one the Rees brothers refer to from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, namely the highpoint of Blodeuwedd and Gronw's plot to kill Lleu. Here's what happens to Lleu. In order to make it possible to kill him, he must be on a riverbank (afon Gynfael, in the tale). The river is an old, old symbol of death - there you have the old deep Jordan, and the Styx, for example. Thus is Lleu between life (land) and death (river), on the borderline. He has one foot on a bath (cleanliness) and one foot on the back of a billy goat (a sign of uncleanliness in the Middle Ages, and a sign of excess sexuality) - there's another between state. As he is standing on this bath and on the goat he is neither on land nor in the air; there you have another between state. There must be a cromglwyd, that is, a kind of roof above his head, so he is neither indoors (in a building) nor outdoors (he has a roof above his head), yet another between state. We see that Lleu has been placed in a series of 'between states', and because of this he can be cast into the Other World, and that is what happens.
Until now we have talked about the Other World as a place to go after death. Accepting the testimony of early Welsh literature and early Irish literature there is no need for someone to die in order to go to the Other World. What we find from the Celts of the Middle Ages is a mixture of a Celtic Other World and a World of the Dead. This is a mixture that rose under the influence of Christian descriptions of hell and the influence of Hades, world of the dead, in Greek mythology. As has already been mentioned, the Christian hell was a place of torture and horror, and Hades was a very miserable place too.

The Latin poet Virgil speaks of the mouth of the classical underworld like this:
A deep cave it was opening on an enormous chasm
All [non-existant word or typo error] and under shadow
Black lake and dark bushes
Across which no winged creature flew unwounded
For there was such a venomous wind rising up
Into the air from its bituminous jaws[11]
[p26]
Hades wouldn't be the nicest place to spend Sunday. There was a not too dissimilar place in the imagination of the Irish, a dark, cold place ruled by Donn (Dwnn in Welsh, namely the Dark One). There was also, as we shall see, unpleasant enough beings in the Other World of the Welsh. But, altogether, the early literature of the Irish and the Welsh tend to think of the Other World as a pleasant place.
The Other World was not the name of the place. It had a variety of names and these denoted the different aspects of the place - as we shall shortly discuss - but the chief name given by the Welsh to this place was 'Annwn'. By now Annwn -influenced by the idea of Hell [Welsh:Uffern -CCD] has come to be a name we have used for centuries to mean Hell. But it did not mean Hell originally. 'Annwfn' is the old form of the word, the negating prefix an-, more than likely (though it is possible that it means into) and dwfn, meaning world. This is the No-world, namely somewhere that is not in This World. There have also been suggestions of it meaning a subterranean world, but the fact that Annwn is not a subterranean world makes the No-world more likely to be correct.
Ancenstors and tradition - the way things were done by custom - had an important place in the beliefs of the Celts and their way of life (the same was true for other peoples too).One scholar, Maartje Draak, went as far as to say: 'It is impossible [for them [the Celts] to explain any catastrophe as the Will of God, or Whim of God; it must be the result of some untraditional act by a human being.' He adds: 'You cannot pray, you cannoy ask for forgiveness; in the end, there is only one way to solve things - magic.'[12] This is a fairly strong opinion, certainly, what he says about magic, or sorcery, is likely to be true: at least magic has a particularly significant place in the early literature of the Welsh and the Irish. As we have already mentioned the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, we shall refer to another example from that tale.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

After Gwydion causes war between Gwynedd and Dyfed, causing killing and destruction, things come to a head near y Felen Rhyd [the Yellow Ford -CCD], not [p27] far from Maentwrog, with Gwydion and Pryderi, prince of Dyfed, fighting eachother. Here's what the tale says: 'And from force of power and passion, and magic and illusion, Gwydion overcame, and Pryderi was killed.'[13] One thing is the martial ability of Gwydion, another thing -and the extremely important thing- is the might of his magic and illusion. The likelihood is that the druids were also masters of what society would consider to be magic and illusion. That is, they were believed to have some understanding of creation's supernatural powers, some connection -if you like- with the beings that are usually called gods. They had a connection with Annwn.
We will look further to see what is said about Annwn in the Mabinogi. There is considerable talk of Annwn in the first branch, 'Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed' [Pwyll Prince of Dyfed -CCD]. One day Pwyll is out hunting and is seperated from his friends. He follows a stag, but before his own hounds can catch the stag, a strange pack of hounds catches it. Pwyll reaches the stag and drives the other pack away, and starts feeding his own pack on the stag. Now, there you have a deed that should not be done, it is contrary to good custom. Remember what Draak said about the importance of tradition, and acting according to customary rites. By breaking the custom, what Pwyll is doing himself is placing himself at the mercy of otherwordly powers. He is in a kind of between state. Then, the owner of the strange pack arrives 'on a great speckled grey stallion'. [14] It becomes then a matter of greeting. The custom was that the person of lesser status would greet the person of greater status first. The stranger refuses to greet Pwyll, and makes it clear that it is not social custom that is preventing him from doing so. He wants to make Pwyll obliged to him, and Pwyll must do something before he can gain his friendship. After ensuring this, the stranger reveals his identity, namely 'Arawn, a king of Annwn'. Note that he is not the king of Annwn - because there is another king there, namely Hafgan, who is Arawn's enemy. To gain Arawn's friendship and make good for his breach of customs Pwyll must help Arawn to defeat his enemy.
The two swap their appearances, through the magic of Arawn. Then Arawn escorts Pwyll to his court: 'He [Arawn] led him [Pwyll] until they were within sight of the court and dwellings.' There is no suggestion of going underground, but there are also no details as to geography. But it appears that Annwn is within reach of Glyn Cuch in Dyfed; within reach, perhaps, as [p28] the land of the fair folk is within reach of different places.

The things that are seen in Annwn are fairly similar to any other kingdom but that the court is better than 'all the courts in the world' when it comes to food and drink and golden dishes and valuable jewels. Pwyll defeats the other king who is in Annwn, Hafgan, by striking him only once, as Arawn had directed him to do. If he had struck Hafgan a second time, Hafgan would have been restored to his full strength. This suggests that things function differently to this world in that world. As a result, Pwyll becomes known as Pwyll Pen Annwn [Pwyll the Head/Chief of Annwn -CCD] because he had spent a successful year there. He and Arawn become great friends and send gifts to one another. In the fourth branch we come to know that the son of Pwyll, Pryderi, also receives gifts from Annwn -he received swine from there, and these were animals that had 'not come to this island previously'. here we have one hint that pigs had some special connection to Annwn. Remember the special status of the pig as a cult animal amongst the Celts.
Arawn leaves the tale. But the connection between Pwyll and the Other World continues. Pwyll and his men are at his court in Arberth one day, when he and some others go to a hilltop called Gorsedd Arberth [gorsedd= throne' -CCD]. 'Gorsedd' here does not mean 'a king's seat' but 'hill, hillock', and maybe 'tomb' [as in 'burrow' -CCD]. Certainly it is some form of consacrated place. Pwyll is told:
'the nature of the gorsedd is, when any noble sits on it, he will not leave it without one of two things happening, either he will be injured, or he shall see a wonder'.[15]
Here, again, we see two opposing things, a danger or a wonder. Here again there is a between state, a state of possibilities. Pwyll ventures his fate and places himself in the between state, and he sees a wonder. He sees a lady on a 'great bright white stallion' (another great stallion, you'll note) moving at a leasurely pace. Here we have a woman from the Other World. The same logic works with her as with Hafgan; things work contrary to the nature of our world. Her horse is not seen to change its pace but it is impossible to catch up to it; and the faster she is pursued, the further away she is from her pursuer. In the end Pwyll is forced to hail her: 'Oh maiden, for the sake of the man you love most, stay for me.' Note the greeting here again: it is he who greets her. By that he is aknowledging her superiority. After the greeting she halts [p29] immediately. This is Rhiannon, a version of the old horse goddess Epona -and there are enough links between Rhiannon and horses in the Four Branches.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

I don't want to go through the Mabinogi detail by detail, but it's obvious that Rhiannon has, in the beginning, supernatural powers. She is considerably more clever than Pwyll and able to be sharp enough with the old creature. She saves him from his empty gaffs. And she has a magic bag, a sack that can never be filled. She marries the man of her choice, Pwyll, instead of the man Annwn wanted her to wed.
After marrying Pwyll Rhiannon -like many other marital partners more's the pity!- loses her magic. She doesn't have the supernatural powers anymore. Not only that, the powers of Annwn are after her. The horse-goddess Epona was a goddess of fertility: as Rhiannon is a version of her we'd expect her to be fertile. Not so. For years she fails to have a child. And when she has one, he is stolen away on the first night. There is no explanation for this in the tale. But it is connected with another event on the eve of May Day. The eve of May Day [Welsh: nos Galan Mai, 'eve of May Calends' -CCD], like Halloween [Welsh: nos Galan Gaeaf, 'eve of the Winter Calends' -CCD], is one of the nights when two things meet, winter and summer. This night is an example of a between state, a night when the border between this world and the Other World is thinnest. The 'event' here in the tale is that the newborn colts of a man called Teyrnon (the corresponding male form to the name 'Rhiannon' [Brythonic: Tigernonos 'Great Lord' and Rigantona 'Great Queen' -CCD]) are stolen every May Day Eve. The year that Rhiannon's baby is stolen, Teyrnon decides to keep a watch on his mare and the colt that she will give birth to. He even brings the mare into his house. The colt is born. Then, a terrible tumult is heard and a big claw comes through the window and grabs the colt. Teyrnon hacks off the claw and rushes outside. By the door is a baby in a silk sheet: it is Rhiannon's son.
The powers of the Otherworld try to destroy Rhiannon's family and, if possible, the new life of the creature, namely the horse, to which she has an old connection.
Annwn's vengeance does not stop here. It raises its head again in the third branch of the Mabinogi, when another attempt is made to kidnap Rhiannon's son, Pryderi, and kidnaps Rhiannon herself. By now Pwyll has died, his son has wed one bearing the unfashionable name of Cigfa ['Cigfa' is a Welshified Irish name, but in Welsh it looks and sounds like 'flesh-place' -CCD], and Rhiannon has married Manawydan.

Gorsedd Arberth plays a part here once again with [p30] the beginning of the interference. When these and others are on the gorsedd there comes a tumult and a mist, and only they four are left. Everyone else in Dyfed had dissappeared, along with their livestock.
This is but the beginning. One day Pryderi and Manawydan are out hunting, in Arberth again. Some of the hounds go into a bush and a pure-white boar rises out of it. Here we have a sign that the powers of Annwn are at work [the hounds of Arawn were also pure-white -CCD]. The boar leads the hounds and Pryderi and Manawydan to a fort, in a place where no fort was ever seen before. Pryderi, wild, insists on going into the fort, grasps a golden jug there and becomes stuck fast [as if frozen or petrified -CCD]. Wise Manawydan does not venture inside. After a long wait outside the fort he returns to Rhiannon to tell her the news. This is a woman who has already lost her son once before. Chastising Manawydan for being a poor friend she rushes out and into the fort where she grasps the jug. Both her and her son are stuck fast, and the fort dissappears. The powers of Annwn have won.
Not wholy, because this tale has a rather cunning character, namely Manawydan. In the last scene of this struggle with the powers of Annwn, only Manawydan and Cigfa are left, and Manawydan has grown fields of corn, but a plague of mice are destroying the corn. He watches and catches one of them. He decides to hang the mouse as a thief. Hang a mouse! Cigfa, who's a bit of a snob, does not approve of such a thing -a man of Manawydan's honour going to do something so uncustomary as hanging a mouse. You see that the point is made quite clear: by hanging a mouse Manawydan would be commiting an act that is contrary to custom - an act not too dissimilar from that of Pwyll driving away the hounds of Arawn from the stag. But Manawydan knows what he is doing: he is challenging Annwn. He is placing himself in the between state.
The powers of Annwn take the bait. As Manawydan builds a gallows for the mouse on Gorsedd Arberth who comes by but a cleric. At this point, Manawydan has not seen a living soul [other than his three companions -CCD] for seven years! Who greets whom first? The cleric. Manawydan has the advantage. The cleric, like Cigfa, tries to persuade him not to perform such a base act. He offers a payment to Manawydan not to perform an act so beneath his status, but Manawydan refuses. The same happens with a passing priest. Then, a bishop and his retinue pass by. This time Manawydan is the first to greet, but note what he says: 'Lord bishop...thy blessing.'[16] The bishop must give his blessing, and [p31] by doing so places Manawydan in an affirmative position.

If anyone wants a lesson on how to draw up a contract they should study the part of the story that follows, where Manawydan puts the powers of Annwn in such a corner that they cannot move without losing everything.
Then, it is explained to us that a woman in the form of a mouse is the one that Manawydan wishes to hang, the wife of Llwyd fab Cil Coed, the one who is in the form of a bishop. He is the one that has enchanted Dyfed. Why? To avenge Gwawl fab Clud, the man from Annwn that Rhiannon was to wed in the first branch. The powers of Annwn stay angry for a long time. The third branch shows how human wisdom and prudence, and not rushing into things, can defeat the forces of Annwn. Does this hint at a Christian scribe?
But where is Annwn? Pwyll goes there from Glyn Cuch; Gorsedd Arberth has some secret connection with the place; the spectral fortress where the white boar went has some connection with Annwn too. Annwn is a place but not in any place. If the word 'dimension' had existed in Middle Welsh the storyteller could have said that Annwn is another dimension. But that dimension has it would seem a close connection with some places - Gorsedd Arberth, for example - and with certain times of the year -the eve of May Day, for example. What other places have a connection with Annwn? We have the hill above the sea at Harlech, near where the castle stands today. Those that have read the tale of Branwen the daughter of Llyr will remember that her brother, Bendigeidfran, and the army of Britain crossed to Ireland to save her honour, and that a devastating battle took place there. Branwen, seven men from Britain, and the miraculous head of Bendigeidfran were the only ones to return from Ireland; and Branwen dies on Anglesey. The seven men and the head come to Harlech and feast there, for seven years:
And there came three birds, and began singing unto them a certain song, and all the songs they had ever heard were unpleasant compared thereto; and the birds seemed to them to be at a great distance from them over the sea, yet they appeared as distinct as if they were close by'
[17]
these are the Birds of Rhiannon [Welsh: Adar Rhiannon -CCD], and as is noted earlier in the tale, they are birds of the Other World. Those seven years are a time of happiness [p32] for them, despite the massacre that had been. Here is a more benign aspect of Annwn that we do not see in the first and third branches of the Mabinogi.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Ireland can give us some guidance as to the gorseddau, these hills with a connection to the Other World. According to the mythological tales of Ireland, there came a people called the Milesians there, and when they arrived the people that were already living on the island, the Tuatha De Danann (people of the goddess Danann) retreated into a subterranean territory. One name they were given was 'aes sidhe', 'people of the hills or the cairns - people of the gorseddau'. So, there was an Other World under the earth. The 'aes sidhe' became a people of magic and illusion and, before long, the fair folk in folklore. The story of the seven years in Harlech reminds one strongly of folk tales about people entering fairy rings, and thinking tht they had been there for a quarter hour, say, when they have in reality been there for years.

The Island of the Otherworld

Apart from cairns and less specific places, the Celts have connected the Other World with one place in particular, namely the island, or more correctlty, perhaps, islands - islands towards the west almost without exception. 'Yonder over the wave' is this island, and perhaps we should keep in mind that water is the most common symbol for the unconscious. There is an example of the island in the Mabinogi, again in the tale of Branwen. After seven years in Harlech the seven men move, as they were commanded, with the head to Gwales ['Grassholm' is its Norse derived English name -CCD] in Pembrokeshire.
'And there they found a fair and regal spot overlooking the ocean; and a spacious hall was therein. And they went into the hall, and two of its doors were open, but the third door was closed, that which looked towards Cornwall.'[18]
Here is the door that should not be opened; and the door that is opened in the end.
How were things during their stay on the island of Gwales? Like this:
'And of all they had seen of food laid before them, and of all they had heard of, they remembered nothing; neither of that, nor of any sorrow whatsoever.'

This is then Paradise, and it is not far away. It is the Grassholm islet, according to Ifor Williams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifor_Williams). Sioned Davies refers to the report of a Captain John Evans at the end of the last century which talks of [I]'a large tract of land covered with a beautiful green meadow...a few feet below the water'[19] next to Grassholm. Sioned Davies also talked of the belief in the region of Milford Haven (1831) concerning: 'green Fairy islands...a short distance from the land; and the general belief was that they were densely populated with fairies'. Sir John Rhys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rhys) refers to the old tale in Dyfed that there was once a place between Cemes in Pembrokeshire and Aberdaron on the Lleyn peninsula, called 'Gwlad Rhys Dwfn' ['The Land of Rhys the Deep' -CCD], that is a land of little people, incredibly beautiful, the Fair Folk.[20] 'Plant Rhys Ddwfn' they were called ['Children of Rhys the Deep' -CCD]. It has been suggested that they are the children of the Is Ddwfn ['Lower World', dwfn means 'deep' but is also an archaic word for 'world' -CCD], or the Isfyd ['Underworld' -CCD], that or children of Rhi yr Is Ddwfn, 'King of the Underworld' or Annwn. And here we have a similar idea to the one we find in Ireland, with the old Welsh supernatural beings becoming fairies.
Let us turn for a moment at these otherworldly islands. There are many tales or scraps of tales concerning otherworldly islands in the early literature of Ireland, some of them bearing the title of 'Immram', that is 'voyage', and others the title of 'Echtra', 'adventure', and others bearing a variety of titles. We'll take a quick look as parts from some of these.
We have, firstly, Immram Brain mac Febel ('The Voyage of Bran son of Febel')[21]. There is a copy of this story dating to the 11th century. In this story, a woman from 'lands of many wonders' comes and sings a song to a character called Bran. The song inspires him to search for the wonderful land where she comes from, namely the Land of Women -and the title gives us some inkling of what ideas people had about Paradise! Here are a few bits from the song:

There is an island far away/ And mares of the sea glisten around it;/ A seajourney away over the whiteheaded waves,/ And four columns there are to support it...
There shine a myriad of colours from every dawn/ Along the familiar and smooth meadows;/ There is joy eternal, and music/ On the plain to the South of Arcatnel...

No grieving, no sadness, no death/ No diseases, no wasting from wounds:/ [p34] There, there is the sign of Emain/ Not often are equal wonders found.[22]
[Alternative translation (http://www.lamp.ac.uk/celtic/BranEng.htm) -CCD]

This is a land not unlike Gwales in the Mabinogi, and this is one of the old dreams of humanity. And it is a dream that we still have; remember the accounts by those who have had near-death experiences that I quoted.
Onwards with Bran and his crew. After being on the sea for two days and dtwo nights a man approaches them on a cgariot across the depths. This is Manannan the son of Ler, King of Paradise [Manannan, the Irish sea deity, is the Irish incarnation of the Welsh Manawydan son of Llyr. Both are connected to travelling, but Manawydan seems to be a 'land-lubber' -CCD]. He too sings a song to the sailors, and says this of the sea:

Though (but) one chariot-rider is seen
In the Pleasant Field of many flowers,
There are many steeds on its surface,
Though them thou seest not.[23]


The Pleasant Field is the sea and on it are beings that mortals cannot see. Who are they? Manannan describes them thus:

We are from the beginning of creation
Without old age, without consummation of earth,
Hence we expect not that there should be frailty;
Sin has not come to us.[24]

Then, Manannan goes on to talk of the coming of Christ and the coming of his own son Fiachna. Then Bran and his crew reach the Land of Women and spend a blessed time there -a sofa for each couple, and food that never lessens. They stay there for years, though they believe it to have been but a single year.
We can see that what we have here are Celtic pagan imaginings of the Other World, of Annwn, but that they have been coloured here and there by Christian influences -such as the mention of the coming of Christ.
Here we have a mixture of influences. We can note them as having four elements:
Firstly, old Celtic notions of an Otherworldly island
Secondly, Christian influences
Thirdly, real sea voyages
Fourthly, talk of wonders

[Ci Celli Ddu]

[p35]
Looking at the work known as The Voyage of Saint Brendan[25] shows us what this means. A man called Barrind comes to Brendan in his monastery, Clonfert, and says that he has found the Pleasant Island. Brendan and a crew decide to search for it, the island that they now call the Promised Isle of the Saints. On the great sea they see a variety of islands, for example the Island of the Smiths. The smiths that live on this island are evil, because they throw burning lumps at Brendan and his crew. The smiths are likely to be an old part of the Celtic world where smiths had great importance. But from seeing them, Brendan says this: 'Soldiers of Christ...we are on the borders of hell'.[26] An old Celtic idea, element number one above, has been influenced by element number two, Christian beliefs.
In another place Brendan and his crew come to a pillar of crystal. They decide to measure the pillar: 'The measurements from each of the four corners of the pillar all the same, seven hundred yards'.[27] We see what is here, an iceberg, described with a bit of imagination. That is to say, there are traces of a real sea voyage in this tale, element number three. It should be added that a number of scholars and craqnks have tried to recognise real places from the descriptions found in this voyage. Some have suggested that Brendan, or someone, reached the West Indies or even America.
There is one element left, number four: wonders. Through the ages travellers have returned with tales of wonder. It is easy to understand this. Imagine if you were to go on a journey seven hundred years ago and saw a camel or a giraffe and then went home and tried to describe it! Both would turn into wonders. There are things not unlike this on Brendan's voyage. Here is one. Brendan and his crew land on an island and light a fire there: 'But when they put wood on the fire, and when the pot was bioling, the island began to move like a wave.'[28] The brothers then rush to the boat: 'Then the island began to move out to sea. They could see the fire two miles away.' Then Brendan sees it and explains things:

My brothers, fear not. During the night God showed to me, in a vision, the secret of this matter. The place where we were was not an island, but a fish -the greatest of all things swimming in the ocean...Its name is Jasconius.

[p36]
As it happens, there is a part of the Star Wars trilogy, namely in The Empire Strikes Back, which as a corresponding wonder. Han Solo and his fellows escape their enemies by hiding in the enormous caverns of an asteroid. they soon realise that they are in the stomach of an enormous monster.[29]
That was a look at the Other World as an island in the lierature of Ireland. But we, the Welsh, have the most famous Otherworldly island of all, Afallon [Avalon -CCD]. In the Four Branches we have Gwales. We also have an old Welsh poem called 'Preiddiau Annwn' ('The Spoils of Annwn')[30]. It is a poem attributed to Taliesin -the fictional Taliesin as we shall see [There are two Taliesins, the historical 6th century bard and the fictional one of legend -CCD]. It is a very difficult poem to understand and the meanings of some words are uninterpretable. But some things in the poem are fairly clear, namely that parts of it tell of Arthur going to Annwn. A number of warriors go with Arthur on his ship Prydwen -and so Annwn is an island. The poem refers to differen t things which, as far as can be seen, are to be found in Annwn and the poem states that only seven returned from there:

Bar seven none returned from Caer Siddi

These words occur six times in the poem. 'Caer Siddi' is the name for Annwn given in this line. Here are the other names, or other descriptions found in the body of the poem; names and descriptions of Annwn it would seem:

caer vedwit: the fort of the feast of mead, or the fort of drunkeness
caer rigor: possibly meaning the fort of difficulty
caer wydyr: the fort of glass
caer golud: the fort of riches or the fort of obstacle or the fort of guts
caer fandwy/fanddwy: possibly the fort of shelter
caer ochren: possibly the fort of the side

The poem speaks of some of the wonders of Annwn, such as the Pair Pen Annwfn ['The Cauldron of the Head/Chief of Annwn' -CCD]. It was a cauldron that was dark in colour with pearls on it. It was lit by the breath of nine maidens, and it would not boil food for a coward. Caer Siddi also seems to have held a prisoner, namely Gweir. Who was he? At the end of Manawydan's story in the Mabinogi it is said that the tale of the imprisonment of Rhiannon and Pryderi in Annwn [p37] is called 'Mabinogi Mynweir a Mynordd' This poem suggests that this is the title of the story of Gweir's imprisonment. This led W.J. Gruffudd to suggest that Pryderi (under his other name, Gwri Wallt Euryn ['Gwri Golden Hair' -CCD]) and Gweir are one and the same.[31]

This poem then contains very old Celtic elements. But, here again, there is some Christian material. In the middle of this paganism what do we find but:

And before the gates of hell the lanterns burn

Annwn and Hell are being seen as the same place in this poem.
In Preiddiau Annwn there is some kind of connection between Arthur and the Island of the Other World. Various other tales of Arthur were developed. One of them was that he would never die, and that he would return to save his nation. He is not the only one to figure in such a story, by the way, a fact that says much about the mindset of the Welsh -they prefer to look to the past rather than to the future for a hero. If Arthur is to return, then it is logical to suppose that he has not died; he has no grave. On the one hand, we have a story of Arthur and an otherworldly island. On the other hand, we have a belief that he is not dead and that he will return. These are two things that were certainly in the imagination of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He called the island Insula Pomorum (Island of Apples)[34] -as apples have an old connection with the Other World; these are the fruits of the Silver Branch, the fruit of the Hesperides, that would open the doors of paradise, the fruit of the goddess Freja and symbol of immortality. The apple was the tree of Apollo and was connected with health and immortality. Insula Pomorum gives us Ynys Afallach and Ynys Afallon [Welsh: ynys 'island', afalau 'apples' -CCD]. And afterwards, afterwards Afallon possessed the world's imagination. Annwn, Afallon, in some form are still with us because they are not outside in any place but inside of us: they are part of our continuous journey to try and know ourselves.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Well that's that. Im a bit too lazy to post the footnotes, unless anyone wants any specific footnotes in particular.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

The bit I found particularly relevant to magic is the "between state".

[Kuroyagi]

Btw CCD Im pretty interested in this subject...will c/p and print it some time soon. Thanks for translating.

edit: how is Annwn pronounced? Like [Unwin]?

[Talkingfox]

Awesome stuff CCD...thanks!

[Kuroyagi]

Yes some good info there. The inbetween state reminded me of Taoism, the position of the tao into that the adept tries to enter, and also of what m1thr0s wrote about "man" (jen/ren)....and of various other things like the high receptivity for magic in states of between (like between dream and awake etc.), also good stuff on the (word) cunning and trickery..I esp. liked that episode where the guy "tricks" the bishop into blessing him...its somehow a very often encountered "theme" of the netherworld that all things are upside down or actions have opposite effects to the normal world...

edit: many other things too, like the "going against custom" (and pointed useage of that) makes one think of satanism, reality hacking, deconditioning etc, inspirational as I said!

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Yeah it raises some quite interesting points, especially as the author is not an occultist. This "between state" in the Celtic tradition is often described as 'paradox' by New Agey types, but "between state" is a much better description. For those like myself who are familiar with the Mabinogi, these points such as the 'between state' and greeting rituals throw a lot of light on what is going on in these tales, which otherwise are pretty hard to fathom. I remember the first time I read the Mabinogi, which begins with the tale of Pwyll and Arawn, and thinking "Heh?". It's also why I'd much rather read what scholars on medieval literature have to say than the imaginings of New Agey authors.

[Oblio]

Heh, awesome work CCD - the between state was one of the only things of value in the otherwise laughable 21 Lessons of Merlin.

The most potent times for magic I've found are just these states; I remember once hiking in the mountains, and there's a trail that winds through fallen slabs of rock from an old landslide. I was there at about 6 am, the sun had yet to penetrate the thick fog. All I could see was grey mistiness beyond about 10 meters, and I performed a ritual on a house-sized chunk of ruck. Good times :D

However, I was just thinking, how potent is one's interpretation of the situation to the power of between states? I mean, any moment of the day you can identify a moment of transition between one state and another. All is flux right? Then again, the collective perception of such obvious transitional periods as dawn, dusk, solstice etc may give some inherent weight to certain periods...

[Kuroyagi]

So will you translate the whole book, CCD?- or was that just a service for us here- I'd be interested in it at least.

Gwyn Thomas? Yeah no occultist maybe but hes a poet I heard (though I dont know if hes good) but even a mediocre poet is wiser than most occultists ;)...no Id also love to read the Mabinogion some day soon...I still remember the reference to it in one of R. Graves essays, to the Red Book of Herghest (?), on what characterizes a poet:
Hmm--..maybe something like:
1) myths
2) poetic ability (creativity)
3) a profound repertiore of olde verse

those things are very applicable to the magical arts (and all arts) as well, Im looking forward to reading that...

[Ci Celli Ddu]

So will you translate the whole book, CCD?- or was that just a service for us here- I'd be interested in it at least.

No, the book is a collection of different essays on aspects of Welsh literature, not a book on Welsh mythology or the Mabinogion in particular. The Mabinogion itself you can read at the Sacred Texts site.