Faery Places

Tír na Marbh (Land of the Dead, Cold Isle of the Dead) (Western Island of the Dead) Annwn, Annwfn (The Great Deep)

Men who do good to others will always find friends in the Land of the Living, the Land of the Dead, the Land Under the Waves, and the Land Under the Mountains. – Donald A. Mackenzie: The Princess of Land-Under-Wave

Author Heather Blakely describes taking a ride with Baba in her black swan to the Isle of the Dead to meet the Queen of the Serpents who guards the entrance to the Otherworld. She recieves a vial of Castalian Water and they drink to creativity. She descends into the Serpent Queen’s Cave to receive wisdom and reunite with the Spirit. – All Soul’s Night Greetings: Soul Food Café

(pron. ann-oo-vin) The Land of the Dead lies on a river in-between the Land Under Waves and the Land Under the Mountains a.k.a Plain of Wonder. Guarded by a little brown man; it holds the Well of Healing. Diarmuid: The Healer is advised not to set foot upon the shore or he will never be able to return, so he draws the water from the back of the little brown man.Rhiannon, daughter of Heveydd Hên of Annwn, travels with 3 magical blackbirds who make the dead waken & the living fall into a 7 year sleep. They sing on the branch of the everlasting otherworldly tree which grows in the centre of the earthly paradise. The singing entrances the listener to the Otherworld. (6)

Tyrone: Hymn rules the Western Island of the Dead with its gateway to Annwn where souls await rebirth. The entrance to the underworld is located on Glastonbury Tor, which is Tyrónoe’s womb. A portal is said to be at the mouth of the Severn River near Ynys Wair: Gweir Island-Lundy Island.

Ruled by King Arawn: Slow Sun who battles the Holly King: Hafgan in the Mabinogi: Intoxicated Tales of Youth. The White God Amaethon stole a dog, lapwing bird & a white roebuck from Arawn, leading to Cad Goddeu: Grain of the Trees, which Arawn lost to Amaethon ap Dôn: Laborer & Gwydion ap Dôn: Gooseman

‘Arawn from the Welsh word Ara meaning slow, is one of the many titles given to the Sun as old and slow when approaching the close of the solar year’

Arawn’s soul hunting white dogs with red ears known as the Cwn Annwn. He rides a grey horse with Brân: Raven of Rebirth in the form of a gray dog with yellow feet, 2 black sides, white stomach, and 2 red small ears. They ride the skies in autumn, winter, and early spring. The baying of the hounds is identified with the crying of wild geese as they migrate.

The Book of Taliesin’s Preiddeu Annwfn: The Spoils of Annwn tells of Arthur and his knights traveling through Annwn, searching for a magical re-generating cauldron, the pearl-rimmed Cauldron of Annwfn, possessed by 9 women. They guard it in Caer Sidi: a pitch-dark perpetually spinning foursquare fortress of glass manned by dumb, ghostly sentinels. Lit only by a lamp at the Uffern gate, the pearl-rimmed cauldron of poetry and inspiration, kept bubbling by the breaths of 9 British pythonesses, so that it might give forth its oracles. The Plânt Annwn: Children of the Deep live in undersea towns and in a crystal palace. They guard the sacred white cow with an endless supply of milk that will feed the world. [Worlds List] (58, 101, 133, 230, 275)