Gwyn ap Nudd and the Transition to the Next World
‘Gwyn is not only a guide into Annwn but also mysteriously connected with the end of a world… Gwyn may be seen as a guide into the next human world.’
- Nicolas R. Mann
I. Gwyn ap Nudd
Gwyn ap Nudd ‘White son of Mist’ is a Brythonic god of the dead and ruler of Annwn ‘the Deep’ - the Otherworld. His rulership of Annwn and containment of its spirits is hinted at in Culhwch ac Olwen (1090) where we are told God has put the fury of the ‘devils of Annwn’ in him to prevent the destruction of the world.
This heavily Christianised medieval Welsh text also hints at Gwyn’s leadership of the Wild Hunt. The hunt for Twrch Trwyth ‘King of Boars’ cannot begin until Gwyn ap Nudd is found. Twrch Trwyth is a human king who was supposedly transformed into a boar by God on account of his sins. This thinly disguises the truth that the hunt for Twrch Trwyth and his piglets is a hunt for human souls.
In Culhwch ac Olwen, Gwyn is portrayed as a sinister and demonic figure pitted against the Christian warlord, Arthur. In ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’ from The Black Book of Carmarthen (1250) we find a less Christianised representation of Gwyn as a divine warrior-huntsman and psychopomp who grants Gwyddno protection within his realm.
In this poem Gwyn’s identity is at first veiled, but is slowly revealed as the conversation progresses. It is possible to imagine the suspense and the shiver of recognition brought about in the audience and in Gwyddno himself as the wise crane-dancing warrior realises he is dead and faces his death-god.
From the beginning it is clear Gwyn is a powerful and divine figure for he is referred to as a ‘fierce bull of battle, awesome / Leader of many,’ ‘Invincible Lord’ and ‘Lord of Hosts’. When Gwyddno asks Gwyn what land he comes from he replies: ‘from many battles, many deaths’. Here he refers shroudedly to his role as a psychopomp gathering the souls of dead warriors from the battlefield.
When asked of his descent he first reveals the name of his horse, ‘Carngrwn, from battle throng’. At this moment a medieval Welsh audience familiar with Gwyn’s mythos would have grasped who he is for no other can ride, Carngrwn ‘round-hoofed’, beneath whose hooves ‘Armies fall… as swiftly as cut reeds to the ground’. Gwyn reveals his name and Gwyddno admits there is no hiding from him.
Gwyn describes battles he has attended not only in Thisworld but in the Otherworld, then recites the names of several northern British warriors (along with Arthur’s son) whose souls he has gathered from the battlefield, before speaking some of the most powerful lines in Western European literature, in which he laments his role as a psychopomp living on whilst the warriors of Britain lie dead.
‘I was there where the warriors of Britain were slain
From the east to the north;
I live on; they are in the grave.
I was there when the warriors of Britain were slain
From the east to the south;
I live on; they are dead.’
II. Gwyn as a God of Passage
These texts show that Gwyn is the Brythonic deity who guides the souls of the dead to the Otherworld. Over centuries of Christianity Gwyn’s role was obscured by his depiction, on the one hand, as a demon huntsman whose quarry was restricted to sinners and, on the other, as a fairy king. His name, in the once Brythonic-speaking regions of England and southern Scotland, was forgotten.
However, with the reawakening of pre-Christian Brythonic traditions within Druidry and Brythonic Polytheism, an increasing number of people are coming to know and to be called to Gwyn. I believe he was the presence within my life who showed me visions of the Otherworld in poetry and fantasy novels and in states of ecstatic trance when I went out dancing all night at festivals and in nightclubs.
It was only when I was 30 years old, in 2012, that Gwyn finally showed up in my life, told me his name, and showed me his face. This took place at a nadir and crisis point in my life when I realised that the fantasy novel I had spent two years writing, giving up my day job to do so, was unpublishable. I was at an utter loss, feeling that if I couldn’t write fantasy, I didn’t want to be here at all.
The call of fay bells summoned me to my local sacred site in my home town of Penwortham, Castle Hill. There I first met Gwyn at the head of the fairy funeral procession that walks in our legends down Fairy Lane. He revealed his identity and challenged me to journey with him to Annwn on the condition that I give up my desire to be a professional fantasy writer, to which I agreed several days later.
For the first time I rode with Gwyn, passing from one world to another, and since then he has taught me to quest the awen, the divine breath that kindles the cauldron of inspiration he guards in Annwn. I have become his awenydd, his ‘person inspired’, recalling and retelling his myths in stories and poetry.
Over the past few years, as a result of people hearing me share my story, others have reached out to tell me of their own meetings with Gwyn and how he has transformed their lives in some way. On a number of occasions he has appeared to others who have been feeling low or suicidal and offered them beauty and magic, albeit not direct consolation or solutions, the inspiration of the awen.
This matches the lore in which Gwyn is associated with individuals who become wyllt, ‘mad’ or ‘wild’, such as Cyledyr and Myrddin Wyllt. Whilst Cyledyr succumbs and becomes a rider on Gwyn’s hunt, Myrddin recovers from his battle trauma in the forest of Celyddon. There he learns the art of poetry and becomes an awenydd, an inspired one, giving voice to the powerful poems and prophecies found alongside Gwyn’s conversation with Gwyddno in The Black Book of Carmarthen.
Thus Gwyn might be seen as a god who not only guides the dead to the Otherworld but also oversees the passage of the living through trauma and madness to the healing art of the awenydd.
III. A Sadness is coming to this Land
After I first met Gwyn, when I was considering whether to dedicate myself to him as my patron god, I had an encounter with a satyr-like spirit in the woodland of my local valley, which continues to haunt me. He told me: “A sadness is coming to this land – you must become Gwyn’s apprentice.”
My apprenticeship to Gwyn is now complete and the sadness has come, in the form of the buildings and roads I have been powerless to stop locally, the escalating climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collectively humanity has reached a nadir, a crisis point, as we face this monstrous Annuvian beast. As well as taking the lives of our most vulnerable people the virus has driven many to the brink of madness as the result of loss, fear, and the restrictions that separate us from our friends and families.
I noted above that Gwyn’s role is to hold back the fury of the spirits of Annwn to prevent them from destroying the world. Since the pandemic began I have wondered why he has not held back the Beast with the Fiery Halo, who is taking our loved ones and forcing us to live in a state of separation.
Is it because he cannot or because he will not? Is he already doing all he can by guiding those whose breath has been torn from them back to the Otherworld and offering solace to those who are on the edge? Is he allowing the beast to destroy our society because our greed is destroying the world?
These are questions that, even as lifelong devotee of Gwyn, it is beyond my capacity and place to answer.
IV. Gwyn and the Next World
All I know is, that as Nicolas R. Mann states, Gwyn is ‘mysteriously connected with the end of a world’. This is suggested by his associations with the destruction of the world in Culhwch ac Olwen, where he is said to battle for his beloved, Creiddylad, against his rival, Gwythyr ap Greidol ‘Victor son of Scorcher’, until Judgement Day, and only then may one of them take the maiden.
The meaning behind this myth is that if Gwyn (Winter’s King) or Gwythyr (Summer’s King) was to take Creiddylad (a sovereignty goddess) forever, the world, plunged into eternal summer or winter, would end.
Since the dawn of Christianity, with Arthur (who appears in this story to rescue Gwythyr and Creiddylad from Gwyn’s prison in Annwn), we have sided with Gwythyr. We have shut out Gwyn and his spirits, the wild, the fay, and the dead, and since the industrial revolution sought to build an eternal summer, triumphing over the cold and darkness of winter, at the expense of wild nature.
Is it any wonder that the spirits of Annwn are furious and Gwyn, too, who is said to contain their fury not only within his realm, but within his very person, as Pen Annwn, as their Head?
COVID-19 may be seen as a monster of Annwn and this word derives from the Latin monstrum ‘revelation’. Over the past year it has revealed the terrifying truth that we have not conquered death. It has also shown that when we slow down, travel less, and consume less, our pollution of the earth heals.
With the world as we know it torn out from under our feet we stand on the brink of the abyss. Through the dark fog, the swirling mist, we can make out the forms of many possible future worlds.
After vaccination will we choose to return to the eternal summer of Gwythyr that is destroying nature or will we turn to Gwyn to lead us into another world where death and the wild are no longer shut out, but acknowledged, honoured, and given voice by the healing arts of the awenyddion?
*Photo ‘Light on door at the end of the tunnel’ by Dusan Bikanski.
Lorna Smithers
Lorna Smithers is a poet, author, awenydd, Brythonic polytheist, and devotee of Gwyn ap Nudd. She has published three books: Enchanting the Shadowlands, The Broken Cauldron, and Gatherer of Souls. Based in Penwortham, Lancashire, North West England, she volunteers with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and is learning to grow small green things and listen to the land. She blogs at ‘From Peneverdant’.