Awen: Powys/Mercia, Offa's Dyke, Canu Heledd, 793-796 AD

by Susan Mayse

Awen is a tightly woven novel of suspense, intrigue, love, and warfare set on the border between the Welsh kingdom of Powys and the English kingdom of Mercia at the end of the eighth century. The result of years of devoted research, the novel centers on an ancient and enigmatic poetry cycle, Canu Heledd. Battles and kidnappings, blood feuds and political murders entangle the poet Cynfarch, as Brochfael of Powys struggles to protect his people's culture and sovereignty from the growing might of Offa of Mercia. From the harsh mountain valleys of North Wales to the quiet streams of western England, from the vanished court of Mathrafal to Charlemagne's throne, a bloody apocalypse looms as Cynfarch pursues both Meirwen's heart and his own quest for reinstatement as bard to the king of Powys.

Genres: Historical Fiction

408 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

This author also writes as S.W. Mayse

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's taken me nearly a year to write a review, but I wanted to do justice to this novel if I could. This is one of my absolutely favorite books of all time! The title plus subtitle says it all: a story of two post-Roman/early medieval warring kingdoms: Powys [Welsh] and Mercia [English], separated by Offa's Dyke. To this day, if I'm right, Offa's Dyke marks the border between England and Wales. Today it is a grassy gully.

"Awen" is Welsh for "poetic inspiration", one of those words from another language not completely translatable into English. The protagonist, Cynfarch/Brys, poet, harpist, and would-be bard, is caught in the enmity between these two realms. He sympathizes with and fights for Powys, while pursuing his dream of becoming a full-fledged bard--pencerdd.

There is something for everyone here: war, love, deceit, espionage, betrayal, blood feuds... "Canu Heledd" [To Sing of Heledd] is a cycle of poems: a woman's lament over incidents of death and destruction from a few years before the story takes place, and the subjects of the poems float through the story. That cycle really exists and you can find the text here: http://www.kmatthews.org.uk/history/c...
Texts here are in Old Welsh with English translation.
Some knowledge of the cycle adds to a deeper understanding of some of the occurrences in the story.

The writing is brilliant, very vivid. I could visualize the characters and the setting very clearly. The author did give extensive explanatory material, including a guide to Welsh pronunciation. I do wonder why she did not include the text of the poem cycle itself.

This novel is most highly recommended!!

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little slow for my taste but set in a time and place that isn't written about enough.

[James Bielli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to make of this book for about the first ~50 pages. I almost stopped reading it. I'm glad I didn't.

This incredibly well researched book gets into very in-depth detail about the setting and the characters. At the beginning, it seems very disjointed, almost to the point of not making sense, but the author later successfully brings together many different storylines, taking place in a world very foreign to most of us. This book is dense.. this is not something that can be read casually with lots of distractions around.

There's something for everyone here. War. Brutal depictions of bloody battles. Political intrigue. History. Geography. A bit of medieval humor. Romance. It honestly reminds me a bit of Game of Thrones with its medieval European setting, shifting alliances, and love triangles.. only this involves real events and quite a few real historical figures, around whom the author has filled in well-developed, realistic characters of her own creation. This is a thorough attempt to depict all aspects of life in early medieval Wales in an honest way, and it succeeds in doing that.

[Mael Brigde · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating immersion into ancient Wales.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wales has always been a place of fascination for me, having read some wonderful historical fiction by Edith Pargeter (better known as Ellis Peters, author of the Cadfael mysteries) set there.

I recently stumbled across Awen on my library's used book sale shelf, and bought it, hoping it would capture some of the same feel as the Edith Pargeter books.

I'm happy to say that it did. Set around 795, the book tells the of

[Rod Hillen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing piece of literature. It's well written, well researched, well paced. It has action, romance, drama.
Based around "Canu Heledd", it tells the story of Brys, a Welsh bard in training and his journey during the time of Charlemagne. It is a complicated story of shifting alliances and treachery in royal houses.

[Cindy May · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good -- Nice background for upcoming trip to Wales.

[Michael Alan Grapin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cynfarch, nicknamed Brys, is the main character of this historical novel set in 8th century Wales. He is, at turns, a political hostage, slave, student, poet and bard, adviser to kings, political exile, diplomat, hero and lord of the realm. With all that he still finds time to engage lovers of both sexes. It took me a long time to wade through the story because I had a great deal of difficulty with the Welsh names and locations and never quite found the author's writing style comfortable. I even set it aside for a while to read something else, but i did finish it and found much of the story enjoyable when I managed to get through it.

[Jasmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is okay, though I might have enjoyed it better if I hadn't been put off by the rape scene within the first 20 pages. While I get that scene was important to the overall story, the way it was handled left me a little cold to the book as a whole.