Awen


Awen is a Welsh, Cornish and Breton word for "inspiration". In Welsh mythology, is the inspiration of the poets, or bards; its personification, is the inspirational muse of creative artists in general. The inspired individual is an.
In current usage, is sometimes ascribed to musicians and poets. also occurs as a female given name. The word appears in the third stanza of, the national anthem of Wales.

Etymology

Awen derives from the Indo-European root *-uel, meaning 'to blow', and has the same root as the word awel meaning 'breeze' in Welsh and 'wind' or 'gale' in Cornish.

Historical attestation

The first recorded attestation of the word occurs in Nennius's Historia Brittonum, a Latin text of c. 796, based in part on earlier writings by the monk, Gildas. It occurs in the phrase Tunc talhaern tat aguen in poemate claret where the Old Welsh word aguen occurs in the Latin text describing poets from the sixth century.
It is also recorded in its current form in Canu Llywarch Hen where Llywarch says 'I know by my awen' indicating it as a source of instinctive knowledge.
On connections between awen as poetic inspiration and as an infusion from the divine, The Book of Taliesin often implies this. A particularly striking example is contained in the lines:
Perhaps more accurately “the three elements of inspiration that came, splendid, out of the cauldron”, but also implicitly “that came from God” as ‘peir’ can also mean ‘sovereign’ often meaning ‘God’. It is the “three elements” that is cleverly worked in here as awen was sometimes characterised as consisting of three sub-divisions so “the ogyrwen of triune inspiration”, perhaps suggesting the Trinity.
There are fifteen occurrences of the word awen in The Book of Taliesin as well as several equivalent words or phrases, such as ogyrven which is used both as a division of the awen as well as an alternative word for awen itself. The poem Armes Prydain|Armes Prydain begins with the phrase and it is repeated later in the poem. The link between poetic inspiration and divination is implicit in the description of the awenyddion given by Gerald of Wales in the 12th century and the link between bardic expression and prophecy is a common feature of much early verse in Wales and elsewhere.
A poem in The Black Book of Carmarthen by an unidentified bard, but addressed to Cuhelyn Fardd asks God to allow the awen to flow so that ‘inspired song from Ceridwen will shape diverse and well-crafted verse’. This anticipates much poetry from identified bards of the Welsh princes between ; it juggles the competing claims of the Celtic Church as the source of awen, with the pair Ceridwen .
So Llywarch ap Llywelyn – also known as ‘Prydydd y Moch’ – can address his patron Llywelyn ap Iorwerth like this:
ap Llywelyn also wrote
Elidr Sais, ‘singing to Christ’, wrote
Dafydd Benfras included both Myrddin and Aneirin in his backward glance:
Later in the Middle Ages the identification of the source of the awen begins to shift from Ceridwen to more orthodox Christian sources such as the Virgin Mary, the saints, or directly from God. A full discussion can be found in.
The Bardic Grammars of the later Middle Ages identify ‘The Holy Spirit’ as the proper source of the awen. The 15th century bard Siôn Cent argued that God is the only source and dismissed the “lying awen” of bards who thought otherwise as in his dismissive lines
Such a focus on an unmediated source was picked up by the 18th century neo-druid Iolo Morgannwg who invented the awen symbol claiming that it was an ancient druidic sign of “the ineffable name of God, being the rays of the rising sun at the equinoxes and solstices, conveying into focus the eye of light”.
Giraldus Cambrensis referred to those inspired by the awen collectively as "awenyddion" in his Description of Wales :
In 1694, the Welsh poet Henry Vaughan wrote to his cousin, the antiquarian John Aubrey, in response to a request for some information about the remnants of Druidry in existence in Wales at that time, saying

Modern Druidic symbol

In some forms of modern Druidism, the term is symbolized by an emblem showing three straight lines that spread apart as they move downward, drawn within a circle or a series of circles of varying thickness, often with a dot, or point, atop each line. The British Druid Order attributes the symbol to Iolo Morganwg; it has been adopted by some neo-Druids.
According to Jan Morris, Iolo Morganwg did in fact create what is now called "The Awen" as a symbol for the Gorsedd of Bards, the secret society of Welsh poets, writers, and musicians that he claimed to have rediscovered, but in fact created himself. Morganwg, whose own beliefs were, according to Marcus Tanner, "a compound of Christianity and Druidism, Philosophy and Mysticism", explained the Awen symbol as follows, "And God vocalizing His Name said and with the Word all the world sprang into being, singing in ecstasy of joy and repeating the name of the Deity."
The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids describe the three lines as rays emanating from three points of light, with those points representing the triple aspect of deity and, also, the points at which the sun rises on the equinoxes and solstices – known as the Triad of the Sunrises. The emblem as used by the OBOD is surrounded by three circles representing the three circles of creation.
Various modern Druidic groups and individuals have their own interpretation of the awen. The three lines relate to earth, sea and air; body, mind and spirit; or love, wisdom and truth. It is also said that the awen stands for not simply inspiration, but for inspiration of truth; without awen one cannot proclaim truth. The three foundations of awen are the understanding of truth, the love of truth, and the maintaining of truth.
A version of the awen was approved by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in early 2017 as an emblem for veteran headstones.

Neo-Druidic Sites

Category:Bards
Category:Iolo Morganwg
Category:Medieval Welsh literature
Category:Neo-druidism in Britain
Category:Welsh-language literature
Category:Welsh mythology
Category:Welsh poetry
Category:Words and phrases with no direct English translation