Yet both men wrote with ignorance and hatred of British affairs. Their accounts of British events, persons and customs must therefore be considered in light of their bigotry. Similarly, our record of the shift from indigenous religion to Christianity in Britain comes entirely from Christian writers with a personal interest in exaggerating the universality of conversion and the extinction of earlier beliefs. Increasingly, our keener investigation of early literature, folk survivals and archaeology gives us a broader and more complex view. Searching for the places and people mentioned in Awen can be arduous.
Few landmarks survive.
Mathrafal, which may have been a Powys court as early as the eighth century, is a grassy hummock today. Aberffraw lies beneath streets and houses. Rhiwaedog is still a working farm, well-known in Penllyn as a former seat of power, but its oldest building dates from centuries after the time of Cyngen Powys. Our oldest manuscript containing Canu Heledd dates from the fourteenth century. The lettering which Cynfarch drew for Elisedd's memorial cross has all but worn away.