Gwyn ap Nudd
Ancient British God & Hero
Gwyn's Kingdoms (land associated with Gwyn)
Glastonbury lies in the ancient location of ‘Summerland’ now known as Somerset. This was the place where Celts came to die in the belief their souls were eternal. They were laid there to rest before their journey to the Underworld/their Afterlife when Gwyn ap Nudd would come to collect them.
The myths of the past hardly conceal that Glastonbury was once considered a hallowed graveyard. The old ones chose it as their sacred place to die in because they believed you could also be reborn from it.
Will-o’-the-wisp still effects a presence over the ‘Isle of the Dead’, one of the many names for Glastonbury. As in the title this mysterious piece of land had a deep association with not only the end of life but the concept of it being birthed again! Then known as ‘The Glass Island’ or ‘Isle de Vere’, it was more generally known as a gateway to Annwn where both Gwyn ap Nudd and his Dark Goddess reside.
Re-birth was the metaphysical enterprise of Annwn’s spiritual representation of Glastonbury Tor and was supported by the classical labyrinth design that covers it. A pattern of a great three-dimensional maze that some believe was based on the famous Kretan Labyrinth or The Moon-maze of the Goddess. Similarly the Hopi Indians used this symbol to represent the Earth Mother but even closer to home the same symbol can be found as two small engravings between the villages of Tintagel and Boscastle.
Glastonbury has continued to remain interesting from an astronomical point of view! The Tor provides a single axis and ascent way that is aligned for significant events like Beltane (1 May), Lughnassad (August 1), Samhain (October 31) and Imbolc (February 2). It measures at 518 feet above sea level and from some angles resembles a conical pyramid. Interestingly this shape has been used in sculpture and paintings to show a great woman lying on her side giving birth to the world.
Glastonbury, also once known as the Isle of the Blessed, formally lay under the sea. Geological forces raised the topography which remained untouched by the Ice Age, coming to a halt just a few miles north of the city.
As the ice began to melt around 12,000 years ago, the sea began to rise and cover the valleys. For over 5,000 years to follow, Glastonbury became a rocky isle that at high tide was detached from the mainland. A state of siege that remained until the surrounding hills slowly affected the area. First came silt via fresh water streamlets and then reed beds formed to thatch the land together. The sea retreated and is now far away.
By about 4,000 BC, Glastonbury consisted of only dead organic material but it was enough to create a thick bog that could be used in farming husbandry. As a result, large numbers of people became attracted to the South West and as late as the 14th century, monks were tilling the soil on the Tor's labyrinth.
Today there are two pathways that run to the summit of the Tor - one from the junction of Well House Lane and Chilkwell Street and the other from the top of Stone Down. They each converge at a point where the atmosphere is best experienced by dawn or sunset. There together with the views of Glastonbury’s plains there is a constant wind-belt that blows through the ruined fourteenth century tower that for some is symptomatic of climate conditions and for others, the presiding energies of a venerable host!
In Glamorgan in Wales there is a special piece of countryside that has long been associated with Gwyn. Through it runs a river called Afon Nedd, named after the goddess, Nydd or Neith, who had a possible connection with the Egyptian goddess, Nut.
Rivers were generally named after goddesses like The Don in Ireland which was named after the goddess, Danu (or Dana) and The Severn which was named after the goddess, Sabrann, also known as Sabrina. Because of this it has to be considered that Gwyn may also take his name after a goddess and not the god, Nauda, as has generally been believed.
The Vale of Neath is pronounced as it is spelt, but both Nedd and Nudd are pronounced as Neath too! Why this is the case is possibly because variation in spellings occurred through there being little ancestry movement. People generally didn’t venture far from their communities which meant that villages only a few miles apart could develop a personal dialect or own name variants, or both.
As Gwyn is associated with Death, Neath has long been acclaimed as another portal to the Otherworld. There are old festive songs which refer to this mystical association, ie:
‘O Judy is dead and the corpse is in the grave and her soul
in a wheel-barrow going towards Neath’,
Neath, like Glastonbury then, may have been another hollowed place for the dead and the dying. To be taken there then would have been in preparation for the forthcoming journey to the Underworld/their Afterlife. Today, in contrast, Neath is a modern, busy town with its own castle and abbey. However, the site of Nudd Hill, some miles to the east, may have better acclaim to be Gwyn’s other home. This sweep of green has at its feet a large standing stone and on the other side of the hill, there is a cave where just below is the source of Afon Nedd!
Afallach was a Celtic king of North Wales and some believe the true Gwyn ap Nudd! There are few tales about him but Ynys Afallach was named after him and possibly 'Avalon' originated from his name. It remains supposition as the name Afallach is similar to the word 'afal', which means apple, but a similarity is all it may be. Out of it, however, may have been born some rather tenuous links! Giraldus Cambrensis and William of Malmesbury make reference to apples, ie a place of apples as "Ynys" is Welsh for 'isle'. From that may have been born the idea of an "Isle of Apples" with its then later bridged associations with Glastonbury/Avalon as a place where apples were grown. But both Cambrensis and Malmesbury present Afallach as a man and a king and his kingdoms were not isles but what became Gwynedd and Powys in North Wales.
Today there is a hill fort known as Moel Y Gaer originally called Caer Afallach. Old maps referred to this location as Caerfallwch and it can be found close to the western slopes of the mound of the river Dee. Afallach has been placed at living close to 45 BC and legend depicts him as the son of Lludd Llaw Ereint (of the Silver Hand) who is also identified as Nudd or Nodens. This is also the same association Gwyn ap Nudd has which draws parallels between an ancient Welsh King and an ancient British god. In Welsh mythology Llud is the son of Beli Mawr (a Celtic sun god) and Dôn (a Celtic mother goddess), again similar to Gwyn but Afallach is supposed to have had nine daughters who were all healers, the most gifted being Modron (a Celtic mother goddess, later Christianized into St. Madrun and who may have been capitalised on to create Morgan La Fey).
There is a debate as to whether a "Sisterhood of Avalon" ever existed, but if it did it may be because people purposely made their way there to be cured of ills that if they did not recover from necessitated their burial. This would explain the association of Avalon with the mysteries and with death and why Glastonbury has inherited that particular and most sacred of associations. Archaeological digs, however, in the western side of the mound of the River Dee, and where Afallach's hill fort is, have uncovered remains of people who were once buried there. Folk tradition expands that the ancient Celts regarded the same region as the Land of the Dead. There a hospital may have served the living and been a station for those who died and required the Sacred Acts to pass over. They would already have been on sacred ground (being between the two worlds) and in a sense this would have made the journey for the dead shorter and the grieving for those left behind easier.
But as a man Afallach would have died, although his associations with spirituality may have increased in importance as Celtic spirituality developed. He may have begun as a Chieftain or a King, but he became an Otherworld god of Annwn like Gwyn. According to his legends his land was divided between his sons - Owain became the King of Gwynedd and Euddolen, the King of Powys. And so as Afallach may have grown in myth to become Gwyn ap Nudd it may have fed their shared associations with Samhain and the Dead. It may also have been born from observing the night sky. The constellation we now know as Orion may have been formerly known as Gwyn ap Nudd and become an honoured title that Afallach inherited. There is a hill fort in Gwynedd known as Caer Drewyn (Gwyn's Fort) which can be found by the banks of the River Dee near Corwen, though more inland and several miles further away from Afallach's hill and other claims to Gwyn ap Nudd being associated in Gwynedd are the Berwyn Mountains (which originates from Gwyn's name) and Nant Gwyn which translates as Gwyn's Valley. And whilst it may have been here that St Collen tried to banish 'paganism' from Britain and not on Glastonbury Tor after all, Afallach wasn't banished but became known as Avalloc, or the Fisher King in the Grail Romances. He was the guardian of the Holy Grail as was Gwyn the Guardian of the Underworld.
St Nectan's Glen (or Nethan's Gorge)
Between Tintagel and Boscastle in Cornwall there is the beautiful wooded valley of St Nectan's Glen. Whilst it is virtually hidden from view and is only accessible by foot, to find it is to discover its dramatic 40ft waterfall. Other than being located near Rocky Valley, where there are two ancient wall labyrinths, this area is depicted as being one of the 10 most important spiritual sites in the country. St Nectan is supposed to have lived here and his remains are believed to be still buried under the stones basin.
The connection of the Glen with Gwyn is that as Gwyn's father's name is Nudd and is pronounced as Neath, the Latin name of Nathanus is a variant of the ancient British name 'Neath' and in Cornish another derivative is 'Nectan'.
Going into this in more depth, Yuri Leitch shares his own 'startling discovery' about Nectan's Glen in his book, 'Gwyn, Ancient god of Glastonbury and key to the Glastonbury Zodiac'. He describes the Glen as being 'exactly the same description as the Vale of Neath', explaining that the clues to Gwyn's Kingdoms are not only to be found in translations, but in ancient folk stories. For instance, in the tale of St Nectan's origins and how he reportedly came to Cornwall, it is out of the lands of the Brecon Beacons that he not only ventured, but from 'where lies the Vale of Neath!'
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