That was my question, and the parallel with their arch-enemies

😂 brilliant!

Whenever I camp near the Tor, I hope to be kidnapped to rejoin my kind! 😂 x

I touched on this question with Dr. Gwilym Morus-Baird in the “Otherworld” episode of my podcast! If you’d like a more in-depth answer, look for that episode! But as a shorter answer…both are Kings of Annwfn but in different contexts. On a mythical lens we could see them as just two distinct rulers of the same territory. Arawn’s primary story and the Mabinogi in general indicates to us that there was no “one and only king of the Otherworld”. There were many kings, and likely Kingdoms, just like Wales itself was historically divided into various kingdoms and ruled by various kings. On a more “esoteric” lens we could, perhaps, interpret Arawn and Gwyn as being two expressions of the same archetypal being (not my personal way of viewing them). And then beyond that, on a more humanist level, they represent two expressions of the King of the Otherworld perceived via two different classes. Arawn is King of Annwfn in the Mabinogi. The Mabinogi was most certainly literature devised for the higher classes, nobility, royalty. So he is the literary King of the Otherworld. Whereas Gwyn ap Nudd shows up more frequently as King of the Otherworld or of fairies in folklore. Folklore was not the lore of nobility but the lore of the common people. So Gwyn is the King of fairy to the folkloric streams known by the common people.