awenithion
[cf. Welsh awen, poetic or mantic inspiration]
The power of poetic insight, as described by Giraldus Cambrensis (12th cent. BC), although he thought it little more than soothsaying. Awenyddion might be conferred on a person in a mantic sleep. The receiver would become rapt in ecstasy, during which he or she might deliver oneself of speech that was not easily intelligible because the utterances are veiled, apparently contradictory, and highly figurative. The 18th-century figure Iolo
