Arawn: Welsh God of Trickery, Vengeance, and Winter
Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:33 am
Hello all! I've been debating making this thread for a little while. My patron deity is Arawn, and while my time working with him so far has been short, it's been very powerful for me personally. I wanted to share here what I've found and experienced about him, as resources on him seem to be few and far between.
Arawn is traditionally a Welsh god of Revenge, Justice, War, and Death. He is introduced in "The Mabinogion", which is a series of stories not unlike epic tales such as King Arthur or the Odyssey. In the First Branch, he is found making a deal with Pwyll after the lordling kills his hunting quarry, wherein they will switch places (Arawn lording over Pwyll's land, and Pwyll taking Arawn's place in the underworld) for a year and a day in order to defeat one of Arawn's long time enemies. I bring this up because we'll come back to this in just a second, if you're interested in the story at all I recommend giving it, and the rest of The Mabinogion a read.
In later years, the idea of the king of the Otherworld and king of the fae changed to an entity called Gwyn ap Nudd, who adopted the role of the god of Death and associations with the Wild Hunt. Mentions of Arawn faded in many texts that I have found in recent years outside of translations/dissections of the Mabinogion.
In my experience, Arawn is a god of Vengeance, Trickery, and Winter. The characterization of him prizing justice and punishing those who have wronged you have been very strong in our interactions (and I can share how he reached out to me in another post as this one is getting long haha). What seems to surprise most people that I speak with is that I consider him a god of trickery. I do not believe that he evolved into Gwyn ap Nudd. I believe that they changed places. In many of the original stories about Arawn, his playfulness and grey nature has always stood out to me. In my experience, I believe he was initially tasked with watching the Otherworld, but upon the rise of the fae king, managed to get the hell out of dodge and give that responsibility to someone else. Finally, it's been often said that Arawn is mostly active through the seasons of Fall and Winter. While I don't know what he is up to right now (hopefully vacationing somewhere warm with the Cwn Annwn!), this also seems to be true in my experience with him. His energy and strength of contact has dropped off since the beginning of spring.
I hope that this may help some people, and this is more of a summary of my experiences with Arawn rather than an end all be all. Please feel free to ask me any questions about my experiences with him, any confusions you may have, or anything else you'd like to know! I will try my best to answer.
Arawn is traditionally a Welsh god of Revenge, Justice, War, and Death. He is introduced in "The Mabinogion", which is a series of stories not unlike epic tales such as King Arthur or the Odyssey. In the First Branch, he is found making a deal with Pwyll after the lordling kills his hunting quarry, wherein they will switch places (Arawn lording over Pwyll's land, and Pwyll taking Arawn's place in the underworld) for a year and a day in order to defeat one of Arawn's long time enemies. I bring this up because we'll come back to this in just a second, if you're interested in the story at all I recommend giving it, and the rest of The Mabinogion a read.
In later years, the idea of the king of the Otherworld and king of the fae changed to an entity called Gwyn ap Nudd, who adopted the role of the god of Death and associations with the Wild Hunt. Mentions of Arawn faded in many texts that I have found in recent years outside of translations/dissections of the Mabinogion.
In my experience, Arawn is a god of Vengeance, Trickery, and Winter. The characterization of him prizing justice and punishing those who have wronged you have been very strong in our interactions (and I can share how he reached out to me in another post as this one is getting long haha). What seems to surprise most people that I speak with is that I consider him a god of trickery. I do not believe that he evolved into Gwyn ap Nudd. I believe that they changed places. In many of the original stories about Arawn, his playfulness and grey nature has always stood out to me. In my experience, I believe he was initially tasked with watching the Otherworld, but upon the rise of the fae king, managed to get the hell out of dodge and give that responsibility to someone else. Finally, it's been often said that Arawn is mostly active through the seasons of Fall and Winter. While I don't know what he is up to right now (hopefully vacationing somewhere warm with the Cwn Annwn!), this also seems to be true in my experience with him. His energy and strength of contact has dropped off since the beginning of spring.
I hope that this may help some people, and this is more of a summary of my experiences with Arawn rather than an end all be all. Please feel free to ask me any questions about my experiences with him, any confusions you may have, or anything else you'd like to know! I will try my best to answer.
