tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post6753179609158334578..comments2023-08-12T12:42:41.871+01:00Comments on GORSEDD ARBERTH: ANNWN - Otherworld or Netherworld?Heronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02055792516386371373noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-11993807129665182582013-06-13T23:31:07.741+01:002013-06-13T23:31:07.741+01:00Well actually the celts were and some still are ca...Well actually the celts were and some still are capable of seeing the logic of respecting two polar opposite opinions together.A Heron's Viewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06563706152609630696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-85311524074954270272013-05-03T07:05:42.295+01:002013-05-03T07:05:42.295+01:00Yes, in the mabinogi the Otherworld seems more lik...Yes, in the mabinogi the Otherworld seems more like a magical mirror of ours. In 'How Culwch won Olwen' and 'The Book of Taliesin' Annwn and Uffern become more like hell. But I don't think there is any mention of the dead residing there. <br /><br />I guess it's through a combination of pagan Roman (Hades) and Saxon (Helheim) influences, two centuries of Christianity plus the syncretic anthropology and New Age trends of the 20th century that the 'Celtic' Otherworld has come to be seen as a land of ancestral deities, faeries and the dead. And the divisions between these beings are pretty blurry. <br /><br />I think this is also down to the Celtic Twilight (although off the top of my head I can't think of anywhere Yeats and Mcleod equate the sidhe and the dead). The popularity of core shamanism and it's influence on people doing Celtic Shamanism such as Matthews, R.J.Stewart and Tom Cowan also seems to be a major contributor. <br /><br />What a muddle!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762231675941279883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-37311158586625014952013-05-02T10:39:28.367+01:002013-05-02T10:39:28.367+01:00It's difficult to say for sure Lorna, but my p...It's difficult to say for sure Lorna, but my personal intuition about this is that the Land of the Dead and the Otherworld were seen as different places. Certainly in the Irish material this seems to be the case. It seems likely to me that the two came to be confused when the Brythonic celts began to interact with the Roman world so that the Otherworld eventually became the abode of 'fairies'. But even in medieval stories such as those in the Mabinogi, inhabitants of either world visit the other and there is no association with Hell, though there is in other medieval references to Annwn. So I think the distinctions just got blurred.<br /><br />As far as Ancestors are concerned I think this gets even more confused as different traditions overlap and their abode in the Land of the Dead and the idea that their spirits continue to inhabit the land run in parallel with new ideas about the location and nature of the Land[s] of the Dead. Heronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02055792516386371373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-53525668141150821522013-05-02T08:04:46.676+01:002013-05-02T08:04:46.676+01:00That's an interesting point. Most of there ref...That's an interesting point. Most of there references I've come across do refer to it as a land of the living. Yet when I've journeyed there I've met people who I believe to be ancestors who have died in this world. However they seem very much alive in the Otherworld and their presence, I think, can be felt here too. And this contrasts with Hades and hell as lands of the dead / places where souls seem trapped. Is this the kind of distinction you think the Celts experienced? Or don't you think they connected the dead with the Otherworld at all? I always thought burial with grave goods suggested that the Celts believed the soul journeyed to the Otherworld after death. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762231675941279883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-18120462541453241402013-04-27T23:32:15.194+01:002013-04-27T23:32:15.194+01:00I think the usual distinction, Lorna, is between a...I think the usual distinction, Lorna, is between a place imagined as a blissful parallel world inhabited by beings that are like us, or some sort of faerie domain, and one which is a place inhabited by the souls of the dead who once lived in our world such as the one described in a pagan context in Virgil's Aeneid, and in a christian context by Dante.<br /><br />Certainly the authors of the article do seem to be suggesting the diversity you describe. But the usual Celtic Otherworld is not usually thought of as a land of the dead. <br />Heronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02055792516386371373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-71011397180594949362013-04-27T15:00:59.023+01:002013-04-27T15:00:59.023+01:00Could it not be possible that the Celtic Otherworl...Could it not be possible that the Celtic Otherworld has always been as contrary and diverse as our world? Like here there are places of light and joy, as well as of darkness and terror. And that's possibly why the Graeco-Roman conceptions of Elysium and Hades seemed to fit with the Summerlands and Annwn? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762231675941279883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-85579211870554973062013-04-27T15:00:11.554+01:002013-04-27T15:00:11.554+01:00Could it not be possible that the Celtic Otherworl...Could it not be possible that the Celtic Otherworld has always been as contrary and diverse as our world? Like here there are places of light and joy, as well as of darkness and terror. And that's possibly why the Graeco-Roman conceptions of Elysium and Hades seemed to fit with the Summerlands and Annwn? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762231675941279883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6777969075081429511.post-89434039079479998672013-03-16T09:05:59.856+00:002013-03-16T09:05:59.856+00:00Not seem the article yet but it sounds rather cont...Not seem the article yet but it sounds rather contorted! Thanks for this discussion---very useful indeed and I'll check the article out.Bohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10333815636018847583noreply@blogger.com