Having said that, Alexander’s five Prydain novels — along with a subsequent collection of short stories, The Foundling and Other Tales from Prydain, published later — contain a veritable treasure trove of references (both large and small) to the mythology of Wales, particularly to that group of medieval stories first published in English under the title of the Mabinogion by Lady Charlotte Guest. These include people — for example, the Dynasties of Don and Llyr, lifted wholesale from the Mabinogion and dropped into the background of Alexander’s fictive world; Medwyn, Prydain’s stand-in for Nevydd Nav Neivion, a figure in Celtic mythology similar to the biblical Noah; and Arawn Death-Lord, the Welsh Master of the Underworld, set up as Prydain’s arch-villain. Alexander’s mythological sources also include places — fortresses and kingdoms such as Caer Dathyl, Cantrev Mawr, and Spiral Castle. (Robert Graves discusses the Spiral Castle and other aspects of Welsh mythology in his book The White Goddess, many which Alexander used.) He also borrowed (but rearranged) features of the landscape, such as the rivers Ystrad and Alaw. And Alexander even included things of Welsh mythology — artifacts and weapons such as the sword Dyrnwyn: in the Welsh sources, this is “the sword of Rhydderch Hael, […] one of the thirteen precious things of the Island of Britain” (Tunnell 73); in Prydain, this becomes the magical flaming sword of Lord Gwydion, Prince of Don.

Among Alexander’s wide and allusive borrowings from the Mabinogion, and from Celtic mythology more generally, I would like to single out for a closer examination the shadowy origins of Dallben connected to the witches Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch. Dallben is a central figure to the entire Cycle, playing a role in all five novels, and he represents many things: the caretaker of Caer Dallben, keeper of the prophetic Book of Three, guardian of the oracular pig Hen Wen, advisor to Lord Gwydion and the Sons of Don, and (perhaps most importantly) the teacher and protector of the Cycle’s principal protagonist Taran. He is based largely on a small character in the Welsh Tale of Kilhwch and Olwen (Tunnell 57-8, 62). The tale itself says very little about Dallben; however, Lady Guest’s notes following the tale reveal a bit more. Dadweir Dallpen, as the original character is named, is said to have indeed possessed a famous pig, Henwen, and to have employed as his swineherd Coll ab Collfrewi, one of the three most renowned swineherds in all Britain. (Readers of Alexander will, of course, also recognize both Hen Wen and Coll as fellow residents of Alexander’s village of Caer Dallben.)

Over the course of the Prydain Cycle, Dallben remains a somewhat mysterious character, but readers learn more about his shadowy origins in “The Foundling”, a story Alexander wrote some years afterwards. He is found alone, floating in a wicker basket by the three witches, Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch, in their home, the Marshes of Morva. Unsure what else to do, they take him in (showing uncharacteristic kindness). One day, the witches ask Dallben to continue stirring a bubbling witches’ brew while they’re out of the house, cautioning him against tasting any of it. He obeys, but the potion comes to a boil and some of it splashes out of the cauldron. Dallben pops his scalded fingers into his mouth without thinking, tastes the potion, and instantly acquires all the knowledge, wisdom, and magical abilities of the three witches. After that, they have to send him away, because “[y]ou can’t have that many people knowing that much all under the same roof” (Black Cauldron 105). They offer him a choice from several enchanted gifts to take with him, of which he chooses The Book of Three, a tome of great weight and prophecy. So great, in fact, that the burden of the knowledge ages him overnight into an old man — the bent and wizened figure Taran and his companions (and readers along with them) come to know and love.

The witches, Alexander tells us, “have appeared in other guises […]: the Three Norns, the Moirae, the Triple Goddess, and very likely some other transformations they decline to admit” (Author’s Note, Taran Wanderer). Though there are three of them, they have the disconcerting tendency to shift their shapes, and even shift their consciousnesses between each body. It is suggested that they “take turns being” Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch. Most of the time, they appear as decrepit old hags: Orwen recognized by a necklace of milky-white stones, Orgoch by the deep cowl hiding her face, and Orwen (the usual spokesperson for the three) by the absence of any of these distinguishing features. But some of the time, they appear as beautiful enchantresses — particularly when they believe no one is looking. It is in this guise that they appear to Taran at the conclusion of the Cycle, offering him a fateful choice.

Speaking of Fate, this indeed seems to be the role of the three witches in Prydain. Like the Greek Moirae, Alexander’s three witches are a weaver, a spinner, and a cutter of the threads of men’s lives. But their names, like so many others in the Cycle, are drawn from Celtic mythology. Orddu and her mother Orwen are mentioned in the Mabinogion, specifically (again) in the Tale of Kilhwch and Olwen. It has been suggested that the description and disturbingly omnivorous tastes of the third witch, Orgoch, reveal a connection to the Irish Morrigu, who is herself sometimes portrayed as a triple goddess (Lane 27).

It would be possible to fill many pages with a detailed exegesis of the sources for all of Alexander’s careful borrowings (and indeed, this is partly what Michael Tunnell’s book The Prydain Companion attempts), but in the interests of brevity, I will leave further explorations for the reader. Instead, I will conclude by looking at Alexander’s own words for the effect this borrowing creates: “ancient source materials became transformed into a world whose mythological roots are recognizable yet elaborated into something highly personal and qualitatively different” (Foreword, The Prydain Companion). His meticulously thought-out adaptation of mythological elements allows Alexander to frame a story for young people (of all ages). Even though young readers may not fully appreciate the depth of Alexander’s research, his personal attachment to Wales, or the larger currents of mythology running through the Cycle, this is rather beside the point. All of these things work together to provide a vivid and compelling backdrop to more effectively convey his own stories with their many lessons in morality, loyalty, sacrifice, and love. And this, in part, explains their enduring popularity.

References

• Alexander, Lloyd. The Chronicles of Prydain: The Book of Three (1964), The Black Cauldron (1965), The Castle of Llyr (1966), Taran Wanderer (1967), The High King (1968). New York: Henry Holt and Co.
• Graves, Robert. The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. New York: Noon Day Press, 1966.
• Lane, Elizabeth. “Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain and Welsh Tradition.” Orcrist 7 (1973): 25-9.
• Tunnell, Michael O. The Prydain Companion: A Reference Guide to Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles. 1989. New York: Henry Hold and Co., 2003.

In The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, two schoolchildren, Colin and Susan, get unwittingly entangled in conflict with supernatural powers. Unaware of its mythic significance, Susan wears a family heirloom, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen, around her wrist. This jewel could bring great power to the forces of evil that could turn the tide in the imminent battle of the last days. The backbone of the tale is a kind of “reverse quest” — that is, a quest not to retrieve something, but to get rid of it. Susan must deliver that artifact into the safe keeping of the wizard Cadellin. The Great Enemy, Nastrond, desperately desires the Weirdstone; at the same time, Nastrond’s minions hope to snatch it for their own use. The bulk of the novel is an exilic journey in which the protagonists’ only goal is to evade capture until they can put the Weirdstone into more capable hands and return to their normal lives.

Garner grew up and still lives in Cheshire, a county in northern England. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen includes real landmarks from Cheshire — the Wizard’s Well, Goldenstone, and Clulow Cross — as well as other familiar features of the countryside — abandoned copper mines, the old quarry, Radnor Mere, and so on. This contributes to the novel’s verisimilitude (one can actually retrace the protagonists’ steps on their journey), but more than that, Garner associates them with supernatural and mythic underpinnings. Garner has used what one literary critic called an “immense narrative and verbal power, with a feeling for landscape” in this novel to “infuse the countryside of contemporary Cheshire with ancient, furious magic” (Butler 2005). The Wizard’s Well and its inscription, for example, are given a magical explanation: there really is a wizard! The landmark is well-known to Cheshire-folk, though no one remembers the true story of the carven image and inscription. Garner, having grown up near the Wizard’s Well, must have imagined many possible stories to explain it. In The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, he offers readers his own fictive explanation, the wizard Cadellin.

The story is set in the environs of Alderley Edge, in present-day Cheshire, but its backdrop is an intricately woven tapestry of mythological influences drawn from the traditions of that region. Historically and geographically, Cheshire finds itself at something of a mythic crossroads, where Celtic, Old English, and Old Norse strands once met and mingled. Over the course of the Middle Ages, Celtic influences spread south from Scotland and northeast from Wales, while the Norse traveled southwest over the rough North Sea. Both of these converged on the native Anglo-Saxon tradition already well-established in England. The epic poems of legends of the Celtic Mabinogion, the Norse Eddas, and the English Beowulf were probably all known and appreciated in equal measure in this chilly northern county. Garner, therefore, takes pains to reflect the same admixture in his fictional representation. Let me give a few further examples of each to demonstrate how effectively Garner assimilates them into his novel.

The forces of evil include elements of all three mythologies. The Great Enemy is called Nastrond, and his abode is Ragnarok, both terms drawn from Old Norse mythology. But in the Old Norse, Nastrond is a place, not a person, while Ragnarok is an event, not a place. Why did Garner alter them? My suspicion is that he is trying to demonstrate the way in which mythologies erode over time. Names are remembered (usually), but their precise applications often are not — especially where disparate mythologies commingled. Tolkien demonstrated much the same kind of mythic mixture and erosion in his fiction. As another example, the svart alfar, represent the dark elves of the Old Norse tradition; here in The Weirdstone, they represent something analogous to the goblins of folklore. And where there are “dark elves,” there must also be “light elves” — and indeed the lios alfar make a quick appearance (they are more important in the sequel, The Moon of Gomrath). Later in the story, the forces of evil summon the fimbulwinter, a preternatural storm of snow, ice, and deadly cold invoked through dark magic, which also dates back to the Old Norse Eddic tradition.

The evil hoards against which Colin, Susan, and their allies find themselves pitted include a group of witches and warlocks called the morthbrood. This is clearly resurrected from Old English (morth ‘death, destruction, perdition’ + bród ‘brood’). Another part of the dark forces are the Lyblacs — a strange-sounding name for the equally strange scarecrow-like creatures it represents. But for those in the know, not so alien after all — lyblác is a kind of dark Anglo-Saxon magic. The word means ‘sorcery, witchcraft, the art of using drugs or potions for the purpose of poisoning, or for magical purposes.’ And finally, we have the Mara, great troll-like women, practically indestructible, and one of the most significant threats to our protagonists. These, too, are not mere invention on Garner’s part. The mara is a mingled Norse / English representation of the nightmare personified. The Old Norse word mara means a ‘nightmare, incubus,’ while in Old English there is the mære, mara, or mera ‘a night-mare, a monster oppressing men during sleep.’ (For more information on this mythical tradition, see Alaric Hall’s essay, cited below).

Garner’s principal witch, and the leader of the morthbrood, is called the Morrigan. This is a direct reference to a kind of sorceress archetype in Celtic mythology. One of the heroes, too, the dwarf Fenodyree, has Celtic origins. His cousin, Durathror, on the other hand, owes his name to Norse myth. But their mysterious ally, Gaberlunzie, is also a Celtic figure, as are Angharad Goldenhand and the distant realm of Prydein, to which some of the characters allude. Prydein lies outside the immediate map of the action, but it represents Northern Scotland, mythologized in the tradition of the Mabinogion (Prydain, so-spelled, also forms the mythic backdrop for Lloyd Alexander’s well-known fantasy series; however, Alexander shifted it southwest to Wales). In most cases, Garner draws little more than these distant names into his tale, like herbs and spices added to an already rich stew. But as with the examples of Nastrond and Ragnarok, Garner minds less that these remote people and places erode and evolve than that they be lost entirely.

I could easily enumerate a dozen other elements from these three major mythologies — the Weirdstone of Brisingamen itself refers to the necklace of the Norse goddess Freyja — but half the fun is in stumbling upon them for yourself. Indeed, these mythological landmarks are analogous, within the novel, to the actual landmarks of Cheshire and Alderley Edge, around which Garner built his fantasy adventure. Any walking excursion in the real, present-day countryside will reveal one ancient sight after another, and Garner wants to remind us that these landmarks have genuine stories — stories whose distant echoes in England’s early mythology can still be heard, if one stops to listen. And perhaps even a little of the magic lingers there as well.

Works Consulted

• Butler, Charles. “Alan Garner.” The Literary Encyclopedia. 6 August 2005. (Excerpt available for free online; membership required for full entry.)
• Butler, Charles. Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper. Lanham, MD: Children’s Literature Association and Scarecrow Press, 2006.
• Garner, Alan. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. New York: Ace Books, 1960.
• Hall, Alaric. “The Evidence for Maran, the Anglo-Saxon ‘Nightmares’.” Neophilologus Vol. 91, No. 2. (April 2007): 299-317. (Abstract available online.)