Otherworld in the context of "Celtic mythology"

The afterlife or life after death is a postulated existence in which the essential part of an individual's stream of consciousness or identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, which carries with it one's personal identity.

In some views, this continued existence takes place in a spiritual realm, while in others, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again in a process referred to as reincarnation, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism, and metaphysics.

In Welsh mythology, Arawn (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈarau̯n]) was the king of the otherworld realm of Annwn who appears prominently in the first branch of the Mabinogi, and alluded to in the fourth. In later tradition, the role of the king of Annwn was largely attributed to the Welsh psychopomp, Gwyn ap Nudd - meaning "white" (i.e. 'winter') a possible kenning for his true name. However, Arawn's memory is retained in a traditional saying found in an old Cardigan folktale:

The name Arawn is derived from that of the biblical prophet Aaron.

Gwyn ap Nudd (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈɡwɨn ap ˈnɨːð], sometimes found with the antiquated spelling Gwynn ap Nudd) is a Welsh mythological figure, the king of the Tylwyth Teg or "fair folk" and ruler of the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn, and whose name means “Gwyn, son of Nudd”. Described later on as a great warrior with a "blackened face", Gwyn is intimately associated with the otherworld in medieval Welsh literature, and is associated with the international tradition of the Wild Hunt.

Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle is a Middle English tail-rhyme romance of 660 lines, composed in about 1400.A similar story is told in a 17th-century minstrel piece found in the Percy Folio and known as The Carle of Carlisle. These are two of a number of early English poems that feature the Arthurian hero Sir Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, in his English role as a knight of the Round Table renowned for his valour and, particularly, for his courtesy.

This is taken to comic lengths when, during a hunting expedition, Sir Gawain arrives with his hunting companions Sir Kay and Bishop Baldwin, at a castle owned by the Carle of Carlisle. A carle – a variant of the Old Norse word for "free man", from which also the first name Carl is derived – was a rough, uncouth man in medieval England and to have him as the lord of a castle helps to create a sense of an entry into an Otherworld, as does the way Sir Gawain and his companions arrive. They have been pursuing a deer all afternoon, like the Irish mythological hero Fionn mac Cumhail, in a forest outside Cardiff, but arrive in the evening in the haunted Inglewood Forest, near Carlisle, in the north of England, a distance of about three hundred miles.

Láeg, or Lóeg, son of Riangabar, is the charioteer and constant companion of the hero Cú Chulainn in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. His horses are Liath Macha and Dub Sainglend.

Cú Chulainn sends Láeg to the Otherworld with Lí Ban, sister to Fand, and he brings back bountiful descriptions of the Otherworld in the tale Serglige Con Culainn (The Sickbed of Cúchulainn). In the tale of Cú Chulainn's death, he is killed by Lugaid mac Con Roí with a spear intended for Cú Chulainn.