otherworld beliefs
Donn: Meaning, Origin, and Cultural Significance
Orin Vale
Donn is a central figure in Irish mythology, remembered as a primordial ancestor and a ruler of the dead whose presence links kingship, ancestry, and the otherworld. Often associated with Tech Duinn, the “House of Donn,” he reveals how early Irish tradition imagined death not as an ending, but as a passage into a sacred ancestral realm.
Arianrhod: Welsh Goddess of the Moon and Stars
Orin Vale
Arianrhod is a central figure in Welsh mythology and the *Mabinogion*, where she appears as a powerful, elusive woman linked to sovereignty, fate, and the otherworld. Her name, often read as “silver wheel,” and her disputed status as goddess, heroine, or literary creation invite closer examination of how medieval Welsh tradition transformed older mythic ideas.
