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"I praise a prince, lord of king's country
Over shores of the world widens his sovereignty;
Impeccable prison had Gwyr of Caer Sidhe
As the story relates of Pwyll and Pridherie..."

This is just one of the translations of the famous poem "Spoils of Annwn". The tale relates how King Arthur went to the otherworld once, where he apparently met Arawn, who ruled there. In this article I'll show you information about who he is now, and who he was thought to be once upon a time.

ARAWN IN RELIGION

Although Arawn today is considered to be god of the otherworld, some consider him as the last remnant of a nature god that the hunter-gatherers would have worshipped. This is because he's sometimes called the "tiller of the fields".

His name has been found on a tablet in Gaulish script, a curse-tablet, along with the name Annwn. Arawn is in fact one of 300 deities in the Celtic pantheon, who appear in archaeological sites; more are known of but there's no evidence of them. However, his worship if it did exist is only a guess at this point. It's thought that the Celts per region worshipped a pantheon each of around 33 deities, and Arawn seems to have been one of these.

Neopagans of today see Arawn in different ways, but most agree that he is lord of the dead. Some might go on the Ride of the Wild Hunt with him on Samhain, October 31, while others simply acknowledge him by singing to him or meditating on his presence. The current idea about Arawn seems to be much the same as that of Death in the Christian Bible, riding on a "pale horse" to collect the souls of the dead.

ARAWN IN LITERATURE

He's mentioned several times in the tales about King Arthur that come out of Wales. In the Arthurian cycle of Wales, Arthur travels to the otherworld with his knights and meets Arawn who has an army of skeletons.

The name of Arawn might also be recognizable from the books regarding the "Chronicles of Prydain," by Lloyd Alexander. In these tales Alexander draws heavily on Welsh mythology, including a talking pig (who in the Mabinogian would be a white boar), and again Arawn's army of skeletal creatures. And, like Arthur, the boy in those tales eventually goes "away" with his bride, promising a return "someday."

He has appeared in the comic series "Conan the Barbarian", #135

There are also many poems and stories about Arawn and Annwn, his land, some written of late and others more ancient, like "The Spoils of Annwn".

Disney has toned down the ancient god Arawn's story and brought it into movie form, as the "Black Cauldron". But Arawn's older mythologies and practices are worth taking a look at.

http://marvunapp.com/Appendix/ celtgd.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/p reiddiau-annwfn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C eltic_nature_worship
http://www.celticwolf.co.uk/ar awn.html
http://www.absoluteastronomy.c om/topics/Annwn
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/c amelot/annwn.htm
http://www.goddessmystic.com/P athActivities/MatricentricCult ures/celtic-religion.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T he_Chronicles_of_Prydain

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