Annwn — the one true spelling, and the forms that fail it
Evidence dossier 025 — Annwn. Every exhibit catalogued, every ruling stated with its grounds.
At a Glance
- Canonical form: Annwn
- Original script: —
- Pantheon: Celtic
- Convention: the tradition’s own scholarly transliteration standard
- False forms on record: 0
- Contested forms: none attested
- Series: The Canonical Register, No. 25 of 397
The Evidence
Exhibit 1 — the attestation. The tradition's record preserves this name in its romanized scholarly form: Annwn — no older script survives to transcribe, so the canonical content is the exactness of the spelling itself.
Exhibit 2 — the flattened form. The plain form annwn differs from the canonical Annwn only by convention of display — case, not content. It is acceptable everywhere: in legacy systems, in plain-text citation, in the DNS itself. What is not acceptable is what follows in the register: respellings that change the letters, not just their case.
Exhibit 3 — the physical record. Annwn is a wholly textual realm: no inscription invokes it, and the Romano-British epigraphy of Wales is silent on the Otherworld by name. Its manuscript witnesses, however, are exact. The Mabinogi survives complete in the White Book of Rhydderch (c. 1350) and the Red Book of Hergest (c. 1400), the two great codices of medieval Welsh prose; Preiddeu Annwfn is preserved uniquely in the Book of Taliesin (National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 2, early fourteenth century); and Culhwch ac Olwen comes down in a White Book fragment and the full Red Book text. The one site the tradition ties to Annwn is Glastonbury Tor, Gwyn ap Nudd's seat in Buchedd Collen: excavations on the Tor in the 1960s found sub-Roman and early medieval occupation beneath the ruins of St Michael's church — real archaeology on the hill, though none of it speaks to the Otherworld, whose only true location is the text.
Exhibit 4 — the continuing record. Preiddeu Annwfn stands at the head of the Arthurian tradition: the raid on the Otherworld fortresses is older than every romance of the Grail, and scholars from Loomis onward have read the quest for the Head of Annwn's cauldron — a vessel of plenty that tests the worthy — as the Grail story's deepest Welsh root. The name kept working in Welsh: Annwn remains the living word for the Otherworld, and the white red-eared hounds became the Cŵn Annwn of later Welsh folklore, the pack whose crying in the night sky foretells a death.
The Convention's Own History
Every tradition in this register has its own scholarly transliteration standard, built by its own specialists over decades or centuries, and the register follows each on its own terms: the tradition’s own standard. The principle that unifies them is the one the whole project stands on: a name is evidence, and evidence is not negotiable — not for keyboards, not for convenience, not for anyone.
The Protocol's Position
Can the canonical form live in the address bar? Almost always, yes. IDNA 2008 admits every mark this register defends — the DNS stores them as `xn--` punycode and modern browsers render them natively. The real frictions are practical, not legal: some registrars stock only part of the IDN space, so a theoretically valid name can be temporarily unbuyable; and stacked combinations (an acute riding a macron) remain awkward to type on mobile keyboards even where the protocol accepts them.
The project's answer is a ranked ladder, not a compromise: the full restoration first, then attested fallbacks in descending order of completeness. The ladder's lowest rung, plain ASCII, is a vehicle for legacy systems — sanctioned, but never presented as the scholarly form.
The Verdict
Case closed on Annwn: canonical, cited, and defended. The keyboard form annwn is the same name in another register of display — always acceptable. The register's files remain open: if a source surfaces that changes any line of this entry, the entry changes. Until then, the temple at /sites/annwn/ holds the canonical form.
The docket for this ruling: no false forms on the docket; no contested forms attested; the attestation rests on 6 cited sources — Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed (First Branch of the Mabinogi) — the meeting at Glyn Cuch, the year's exchange, the defeat of Hafgan, the title Pen Annwn; ed. Ifor Williams, Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi (1930); trans. Sioned Davies, The Mabinogion (2007), Preiddeu Annwfn (The Spoils of Annwfn), Book of Taliesin — Arthur's voyage in Prydwen, the fortresses, the cauldron of the Head of Annwfn, 'except seven, none returned'; ed. and trans. Marged Haycock, Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin (2007), Culhwch ac Olwen — Gwyn ap Nudd set over the demons of Annwn; the May Day fight with Gwythyr for Creiddylad; ed. Rachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans (1992).
The Register Continues
This is one of 397 entries in the Canonical Register — the authoritative reference for every flagship temple. The temple's founding dispatch tells the name's story; its Restoration File details the marks; its Resonance File reads the archetype into the industries. The blog index holds the whole archive, and the Rulebook states the convention this register enforces.
Continue the register — previous entry: ꜥnḫ (read it) · next entry: Anû (read it).
The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.