aneirin

Updated: May 19, 2025

In the Welsh poem called 'Y Gododin' the poet Aneirin is represented as expressing his gratitude at being rescued by the son of Llywarch Hen from 'the cruel prison of the earth, from the abode of death, from the loveless land. The salient features, therefore, of the Celtic conceptions of the other-world are their consonance with the suggestions made by Celtic scenery to the Celtic imagination, the vagueness and variability of these conceptions in different minds and in different moods, the absence of any ethical considerations beyond the incentive given to bravery by the thought of immortality, and the remarkable development of a sense of possible inter-relations between the two worlds, whether pacific or hostile.

E. (Edward) Anwyl - Celtic Religion: in Pre-Christian Times