The Book: The Mabinogion
The Author: Various bards of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This text: etext of a 1906 translation by Lady Charlotte Guest
Price: $2.48 (Dover Thrift Editions, but there's also a free version at Project Gutenberg)
The first story in the Mabinogeon is full of fairy tale imagery and dream logic. Pwyll is a noble Prince of a fine land, just and heroic and just bright enough to get himself in trouble.
Part the First: Pwyll, Chief of Annwvyn
So Prince Pwyll is out hunting, and he comes across a stag that is being attacked by dogs. He kicks them off so he can set his own hounds on it. Turns out that this is a tremendous breach of monarchical hunting etiquette and Arawn, the king who owns the pack, is bloody furious.
This is where Pwyll differs from pretty much every ruler in history or myth: he admits that he's in the wrong and asks if there's any way he can make amends.
Turns out Arawn has exactly the sort of problem that Pwyll can solve: he asks Pwyll to rule his kingdom, Annwvyn, for a year, and at the end of it kill his direst enemy. After being reassured that Arawn will govern Dyved in his stead, Pwyll agrees.
"My wife's pretty hot, by the way. You'll like her."Oh, yeah: Arawn's kingdom is in Hell.
"...uh. Ok?"
Still, it's a nice enough place, and Pwyll rules it well, happily partaking of hunting, mistrelsy, feasting and diversions. When the year is up, he follows the strange and restrictive ritual to kill Arawn's rival, and heads home.
"Ok, so you've got to hit him really hard, but then when he asks you to kill him you can't, because I did that last time and he came back good as ever, and you have to do it on this exact day, because he'll be expecting it, and then come back and we'll swap back. Got it?"Arawn, it turns out, has ruled Dyved fairly and justly and perectly disguised as Pwyll, so that nobody knows any different. Except for all the wisdom and justice, which has been pretty remarkable, apparently.
"Got it."
"Good."
Despite the fact that noone in either kingdom knew that their rulers had switched places, Pwyll is widely lauded for unifying Annwyvn and leading Dyved into prosperity, and is granted the title Chieftain of Annwvyn. This leads to an eternal friendship between the monarchs, even though Arawn got none of the credit. Humans, huh?
Part the Second: Bride of Pwyll
Prince Pwyll is told that if he stands on a particular hill, he won't be able to leave it without either recieving massive injury or seeing a wonder. Prince Pwyll opts to stand on that particular hill. Happily, it turns out to be the wonder: the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and he spent a year pretending to be a Faerie Queen's husband. He sends a page out to speak to her, but even at his fastest he can't catch up to her mild amble. So the next day they set out again, this time with a faster horse. Once again, the page can't catch up with the lady's gentle pace. On the third day, Pwyll himself rides out, and again can't catch up - until he has the brainwave of asking her to stop.
"Well, why didn't you say so?" she says.
Her name is Rhiannon, and it turns out she'd just been waiting for him to ask, because she's on the run from an arranged marriage and wants no-one but Pwyll. This suits Pwyll down to the ground, so he agrees to her terms: he's to wait a year and then come with a hundred knights to ask for her hand.
At the wedding feast, a churl comes up to Pwyll and asks a boon. Pwyll is feeling generous and also kinda drunk so he generously agrees to provide anything this man might ask.
Which his bride tells him was pretty fucking stupid.
Gwawl, son of Clud, demands his boon: Pwyll's bride for his own, on account of they had an arrangement previously. Rhiannon sighs and says, "Fine, whatever, come back in a year," but she has a plan. At the next wedding feast, Pwyll is to ask for a boon. Rather than simply asking for his bride back - this sort of thing could go on forever - he's to ask Gwawl, son of Clud, to fill a bag that she happens to have on her.
So a year later, at the wedding feast, Pwyll asks his boon: to have his magic bag filled with food and stuff. But the bag isn't easily filled. In fact, Pwyll says, what it really needs is for someone rich and landed to stomp down the food in it. Rolling his eyes, Gwawl, son of Clud agrees to stomp down the food in the bag, and is absolutely astonished when Pwyll pulls it up over his head and ties it off.
The assembled revellers take up the quaint Welsh pasttime known as "badger-in-the-bag", which is played with a bag, some heavy sticks, and a badger. Gwawl, son of Clud, plays the part of the badger, until Rhiannon's dad points out that, actually, killing the groom on his wedding night is somewhat undignified. You know, for a noble. Rhiannon points out Pwyll's superior bargaining position, and recommends that he ask for his bride back, oh, and also that the son of Clud swear off revenge for the entire episode, and that they shouldn't have to wait another year. Gwawl unsurprisingly agrees as long as he no longer has to be the badger, and they all live happily and non-vengefully ever after.
Part the Third: The Return of the Son of the Bride of Pwyll
Pwyll and Rhiannon are happily married, but after a couple of years the court starts to notice a worrying lack of maternal fertility. Give me another year, says Rhiannon, and sure enough a son is born within that very same year.
Except that the baby disappears from the nursery.
The ladies in waiting, not wanting to be blamed for losing the royal offspring, decide that the best thing they can do is kill some puppies and use the blood and bones to frame Rhiannon for killing and eating her baby.
Pwyll, no expert in anatomy, reluctantly sentences his wife to public humilation: she is to wait by the horse block at the outskirts of town every morning and tell passersby her crime, and if they ask she's to piggy-back them to court.
Not many people take her up on this offer.
On the other hand, Pwyll refuses to divorce her: the only grounds that the courtiers maight have are if she doesn't produce a child, and she has. Technically true is the best kind of true.
Meanwhile, though, Teirnyon Twryv Vliant, the best man in the world and a former vassal of Pwyll's, is having horse problems. Specifically, every time his prize mare foals, the offspring is gone by morning. No more, he says, and stakes out the stables. Sure enough, shortly after the foal is born, a giant claw comes through the window. Teirnyon cuts the thing off at the elbow, causing the spirit monster to retreat. Teirnyon follows, yelling at the beastie to stay the heck out of his stables. On the doorstep, he finds that the monster has dropped something: a silk-swaddled baby.
Teirnyon's wife tells everyone that she's been pregnant, and they name the child Gwri Wallt Euryn, apparently because he's blond. He's a strong and seemly kid, but he grows faster than an alien baby in a Star Trek episode, and in a couple of years they have a strapping young man who, they can't help but notice, bears an uncanny resemblance to Teirnyon's former boss.
Making enquiries, Teirnyon discovers the story of Rhiannon's crime and punishment. Teirnyon is no slouch in the adding-two-and-two-together department, and, besides, people are beginning to talk. Teirnyon and his wife make a gift of the horse that was saved on the same day the boy was found, and take him off to Dyved.
At the Dyved horse-block, they meet Rhiannon, who tells them how she killed and ate her suspiciously puppy-shaped offspring, and offers them a lift. They decline, and she accompanies them to the palace to meet Pwyll. At this point, Teirnyon says, "Hey, about that killed-and-eaten thing, funny story..." and introduces the boy. Gwri is renamed Pryderi, "Anxiety", and taken into his family, Teirnyon and his wife are fulsomely rewarded and everyone laughs at the silly little misunderstanding.
And thus ends this portion of the Mabinogion.
Next: Branwen and her brothers.
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