The first recorded attestation of the word occurs in
Nennius's
Historia Brittonum, a Latin text of c. 796, based in part on earlier writings by the monk,
Gildas. It occurs in the phrase
Tunc talhaern tat aguen in poemate claret [Talhaern the father of the muse was then renowned in poetry] where the
Old Welsh word
aguen (
awen) occurs in the Latin text describing poets from the sixth century. It is also recorded in its current form in
Canu Llywarch Hen () where Llywarch says 'I know by my
awen' indicating it as a source of instinctive knowledge. On connections between awen as poetic inspiration and as an infusion from the divine,
The Book of Taliesin There are fifteen occurrences of the word
awen in
The Book of Taliesin begins with the phrase and it is repeated later in the poem. The link between poetic inspiration and divination is implicit in the description of the
awenyddion [inspiration] given by
Gerald of Wales in the 12th century and the link between bardic expression and prophecy is a common feature of much early verse in Wales and elsewhere. A poem in
The Black Book of Carmarthen by an unidentified bard, but addressed to Cuhelyn Fardd (1100-1130) asks God to allow the
awen to flow so that ‘inspired song from
Ceridwen will shape diverse and well-crafted verse’. This anticipates much poetry from identified bards of the Welsh princes between ; it juggles the competing claims of the
Celtic Church as the source of
awen, with the
pair Ceridwen [the cauldron of
Ceridwen]. So
Llywarch ap Llywelyn (1173-1220) – also known as
‘Prydydd y Moch’ [Poet of Pigs] – can address his patron
Llywelyn ap Iorwerth like this: : I greet my lord, bring
awen’s great greeting : Words from Ceridwen I compose : Just like
Taliesin when he freed
Elffin.
ap Llywelyn also wrote : The Lord God grant me sweet
awen : As from the Cauldron of Ceridwen Elidr Sais (), ‘singing to Christ’, wrote : Brilliant my poetry after
Myrddin : Shining forth from the cauldron of
awen The
Bardic Grammars of the later Middle Ages identify ‘The
Holy Spirit’ as the proper source of the
awen. The 15th century bard
Siôn Cent argued that God is the only source and dismissed the “lying
awen” of bards who thought otherwise as in his dismissive lines : A claimant false this
awen is found : Born of hell’s furnace underground Such a focus on an unmediated source was picked up by the 18th century
neo-druid Iolo Morgannwg (pen name of
Edward Williams, 1747-1826) who invented the
awen symbol claiming that it was an ancient druidic sign of “the ineffable name of God, being the rays of the rising sun at the equinoxes and solstices, conveying into focus the eye of light”.
Giraldus Cambrensis referred to those inspired by the
awen collectively as
"awenyddion" in his
Description of Wales In 1694, the Welsh poet
Henry Vaughan wrote to his cousin, the
antiquarian John Aubrey, in response to a request for some information about the remnants of
Druidry in existence in
Wales at that time, saying ==Modern Druidic symbol==