Awen

Long after Arthur lay in a rain-washed grave, long after the legends faded from memory, a new generation defended an old border.

     White town in the breast of the wood,

     this forever is its wealth:

     blood on the face of the grass.

In a dangerous era, an enigmatic poem portrayed a war fugitive wandering her ruined kingdom; an earthen wall transformed enemies into uneasy allies; and a man with a famous name wrote an ambiguous inscription on a memorial stone. All three survived twelve centuries as fragments of a nearly forgotten world.

Awen imagines the origins of the ninth-century Welsh poetry cycle Canu Heledd and restores the breath of life to a brilliant poet in a dark time.