Prydwen plays a part in the early Welsh poem Preiddeu Annwfn as King Arthur's ship, which bears him to the Celtic otherworld Annwn, while in Culhwch and Olwen he sails in it on expeditions to Ireland.
Iolo Morganwg (1747–1826), antiquarian and forger, listed seven of the ships belonging to King Arthur which "conveyed the saints to Ynys Enlli".
[10][11] In other sources the ship Gwennan Gorn, wrecked on Caswennan, is said to have belonged not to King Arthur but to prince Madog ab Owain Gwynedd.
[12] John Masefield's poem "The Sailing of Hell Race", in his Midsummer Night and Other Tales in Verse (1928), tells a story based on Preiddeu Annwfn, though Arthur's ship is here called Britain.
[15] Susan Cooper's Silver on the Tree (1977), the last of her five Arthurian novels for children, ends with King Arthur sailing into the beyond in his ship Pridwen.
In the Arthurian historical-fiction novel The Retreat to Avalon by Sean Poage, Arthur's ship is a Late-Roman galley called Prydwen.