Otherworld

A realm beyond the senses, usually a delightful place, not knowable to ordinary mortals without an invitation from a denizen; the Celtic Otherworld sometimes subsumes the Mediterranean concept of the underworld, i.e. the realm of the dead. Evidence from all areas of Celtic culture, from the ancient to all the vernaculars, demonstrates a belief in life materially surviving the expiration of the body. Hallstatt-era (1200–600 BC) graves come supplied with food and equipment to allow the deceased to begin again in the next life. Classical commentators agree that druids taught the soul's immortality as well as its transmigration or metempsychosis. Early Irish and Welsh literary traditions extend the fragmentary outline from the ancient world. Transmigration of souls gives way to the widespread motif of shape-shifting, and the happy afterlife becomes concurrent with mortal life. Both Irish and Welsh accounts are frequently ambiguous and contradictory about the place of the Otherworld. It may be unplaceable on human maps; or it may be identified with a remote island in or under the western seas. Sometimes an enterprising sailor reaching that remote island may enter the Otherworld. Or another adventurer may enter the Otherworld by travelling on land to enter mounds or dwelling-places of the divine; in Ireland these are known as sídh (sing.), sídhe (pl.), places where the defeated semi-divine Tuatha Dé Danann fled, and bruiden. Caves, especially the famous one at Cruachain, are often thought to be routes to the Otherworld in all Celtic traditions, and so are some lakes. Curiously, entry to the Otherworld, by whatever means, never seems to be a reward for virtue or exemplary behaviour. More often, a mortal male invitee is asked by a beautiful otherworldly female who is inexplicably deeply in love with him; sometimes she takes the form of a deer or fawn. In Brittany a fearful dark Otherworld is reached through the quagmire of Youdic in the dismal bog of Yeun.

A number of early Irish adventurers’ tales provide detailed descriptions of the Otherworld, which may go under different names. They include Bran mac Febail in Imram Brain [The Voyage of Bran], Connla (2) in Echtrae Conli [The Adventure of Connla], Cormac mac Airt in Echtrae Cormaic [The Adventure of Cormac], Nera in Echtra Nerai [The Adventure of Nera], and Tadg mac Céin. And despite its Latin text and Christian context, the voyage of St Brendan also carries otherworldly resonances.

Many Irish and some Welsh visions of the Otherworld are Elysian, happy places overflowing with good food and drink, sport, beautiful and submissive women, enchanted music; special features are the pig slaughtered for dinner who appears restored ready to be eaten again the next morning, the cauldron of plenty, and the prominence of the colour red. Sickness, age, and decay are banished. Mortal visitors often find the Otherworld a source of wisdom and are impressed by the order and harmony there. The rulers of the Otherworld, not always named, appear wise, generous, and peace-loving, but they may be threatened by enemies and thus require the services of the mortal visitor, notably Cúchulainn and Pwyll. When mortal visitors sojourn in the Otherworld, they inevitably find that time there seems to pass in different duration, so that one year or even one day might be the same as 100 or 300 years in the lives of mortals. Among the happier Otherworlds are Emain Ablach, Hy Brasil, Mag Dá Cheó, Mag Mell, Roca Barraidh, Tír of Thuinn, Tír na mBan, Tír na mBeó, Tír na nÓg, Tír Tairngire, and Ynys Afallon. The Welsh Annwfn, which may be known in different aspects, sometimes as the realm of the dead, often appears under other names: Caer Feddwid, Caer Siddi, Caer Wydyr, and Gwales, where Bendigeidfran's served head presides over a banquet; cf. Harlech. Anaon is a Breton counterpart of Annwfn.

Yet not every visit to the Otherworld brings happy results, particularly when mortals travel there by their own choice. The more it is seen as the place of the dead, as in Tech Duinn, the house of the unnerving Donn (1), the more it is to be dreaded. Arthur is nearly killed when he tries to retrieve the cauldron of plenty from Annwfn. This side of the Otherworld is reflected in an Irish name, Dún Scáith [fort of shadow/fear]. The Uffern, first found in the late 12th-century Latin writers Walter Map and Giraldus Cambrensis, probably reflects Christian condemnation of pagan religion; derived from the Latin infernum, it has become the Welsh word for hell. Rulers of the Otherworld are not always named, but some who are include: Arawn and his rival Hafgan, Cethern (1), Eochaid Iúil, Eógan Inbir and his wife Bé Chuma, Labraid Luathlám and Lí Ban, Manannán mac Lir and Fand, Dáire (2) and Rígru Rosclethan, and Tethra. The craft-god Goibniu hosts the otherworldly Fled Goibnenn, flowing with endléss supplies of ale.

David B. Spaan, ‘The Otherworld in Early Irish Literature’, dissertation, University of Michigan (1969); Christa Maria Löffler, The Voyage to the Otherworld Island in Early Irish Literature (2 vols., Salzburg, 1983); Alfred Nutt, ‘An Essay Upon the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth’, in Immram Brain (London, 1895–7), i. 101–331; ii. 1–305; Proinsias MacCana, ‘The Sinless Otherworld of Immram Brain’, Ériu, 27 (1976), 95–115; Patrick Sims-Williams, ‘Some Celtic Otherworld Terms’, in Ann T. E. Matonis and Daniel F. Melia (eds.), Celtic Language, Celtic Culture: A Festschrift for Eric. P. Hamp (Van Nuys, Calif., 1990), 57–81.