Inspiration in the Dark...

A remastered version of our 2024 track Awenedd is now available!

But what is an Awenydd?

The Druids and Bards were in search of enlightenment, and aimed to live a life 'between the two worlds’. Like the hedge-riders or shamans whose mind and spirit were said to be able to cross over to the Otherworld while their physical bodies remained in the Greenworld (this one!) the Bards were encouraged to enter an altered state, sometimes through sensory deprivation in darkness, to find the light.

The power they sought was known as Awen, which means ’flowing inspiration’. A seeker who found the Awen was known as an Awenydd, (or Aweneth).

To focus trainee Bards on study but also to give them a feeling of being in that between space, Bardic schools were often located away from towns and the ’mundane world’. In early times, these may have been in wooded areas with less natural light – later, large farmhouses became purpose-built schools, and some were constructed without windows, so the students lived and studied by candlelight throughout the winter months.

In this way their educational life evoked that netherworld… the place some call ‘The Mists’.

Thomas O’Sullivan, writing in 1772, and thought to be a reliable source, described Bardic qualities as ‘reading well, writing the Mother-tongue, and a strong Memory.’ The schools he observed were ‘in the solitary Recess of a Garden or within a Sept or Enclosure far out of the reach of any Noise, which an Intercourse of People might otherwise occasion... a snug low Hut… …beds in it at convenient Distances, each within a small Apartment without much Furniture of any kind, save only a Table, some Seats, and a Conveniency for Cloaths to hang upon. No Windows to let in the Day nor any Light at all us’d but that of Candles.’

For the later Irish Bards, secrecy was also necessary at times, as the occupying English sought to discourage and eradicate Celtic heritage. Bards might be trained outdoors, sitting behind a hedge, with a child acting as lookout for patrols of English soldiers. It would be reasonable to assume that these studies might also have taken place under cover of darkness.

Spiritual practitioners often focus on ‘letting the light in’ – but Bards often turned to the dark to inspire and enlighten....

Hear Awenydd on Bandcamp!