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Lleu Llaw Gyffes

It was essential that King Math of Gwynedd kept his feet in the lap of a virgin, otherwise he would die. This mutual contact could only be broken without consequence in times of war. Math’s nephew, Gilaethwy became infatuated with Goewin, the virgin foot holder, and so his brother Gwydion engineered a conflicted between the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Dyfed, in order to separate King and virgin. The strategy worked, and while Math was away on a campaign against Dyfed, Gilaethway forced his way into Goewin’s chamber and raped her. Math punished his two nephews with magic, causing them to undergo a series of animal transformations over a three year period.

Arianrhod, the sister of Gwydion and Gilaethwy, came to Gwynedd as a replacement for Goewin, and presented herself before the King. She is rejected, however, after Math tests her maidenhood by asking her to step over his staff and she instantaneously gives birth to twin boys. Gwydion snatched up one of the boys and hid him in a chest, while the other was taken to the sea to be baptised, receiving the name Dylan, ‘son of the wave’. Dylan took to the water like a fish, until he is tragically slain by his uncle Gofannon, with the “third stroke of his spear”. While Gwydion was mourning for the loss of his nephew Dylan, he heard a cry from within the chest, and opening it, he saw a small boy with his arms outstretched. The boy grew at twice the rate of a normal child, and at the age of four, Gwydion took him to the castle of Arianrhod to meet his mother. Gwydion told Arianrhod that the boy was her child but she was greatly upset, and laid three curses upon him: 1) he would receive no name unless she herself named him; 2) he would receive no arms unless she armed him, and 3) he would never have a human wife. Gwydion countered the first two curses by means of illusory magic, tricking Arianrhod into both arming him, and naming him, Lleu Llaw Gyffes ‘the lion with a steady hand’. To overcome the final curse, both Gwydion and King Math created a bride for Lleu from various kinds of blossom, and named her Blodeuwedd ‘flower aspect’. King Math provided them with a castle and land, and they lived happily, loved by all.

The bliss was broken, however, when Blodeuwedd met and fell in love with Gronwy Pybyr, the Lord of Penllyn, at a time when Lleu was away. Upon his return, Blodeuwedd coaxed her husband into revealing how he could be killed. Lleu told her that he could not be killed nether inside a house nor outside, neither on foot nor upon a horse, and no weapon was capable of wounding him unless it was crafted, God forbid, on the Sabbath. If, Lleu added jokingly, he was to stand beneath a thatched roof, with one foot upon a bath and the other upon a goat, then, and only then, would he be undone! Blodeuwedd told this to her lover Gronwy, who, unperturbed, began to fashion the forbidden spear.

After a year had passed and the spear was complete, Blodeuwedd persuaded Lleu to re-enact the ridiculous death stance he had laughingly described, and he obliged. Everything was prepared, and as soon as Lleu had assumed his comical, yet terrible position, Gronwy appeared with the spear and pierced him. Lleu, cried out in agony, and ascended into the sky in the form of an eagle.

Gwydion searched long and hard for the missing Lleu, until finally he met a swineherd who was worried about his sow. every day he would release her, and she would mysteriously disappear until evening. Gwydion decided to follow the sow, and was led to an oak tree, with Lleu, still in the form of an eagle, perched upon its uppermost branches. Rotting flesh and maggots fell from the eagle’s body each time it ruffled its feathers, feeding the sow that waited hungrily below. Gwydion recognised his nephew immediately and sang a song (here translated by Lady Charlotte Guest), coaxing the eagle down from the oak, until it sat upon his knee:

Oak that grows between the two banks; darkened is the sky and hill!
Shall I not tell him by his wounds, that this is Lleu?
Oak that grows in upland ground, is it not wetted by the rain?
Has it not been drenched by nine score tempests?
It bears in its branches Lleu Llaw Gyffes!
Oak that grows beneath the steep; steady and majestic is its aspect!
Shall I not speak of it that Lleu will come to my lap?

Gwydion struck the eagle with his staff and Lleu was transformed back to his original form, though reduced to skin and bone.

Within a year Lleu was fully recovered, and he, along with Gwydion and King Math, was ready to take revenge. They caught Blodeuwedd, and Gwydion transformed her into an owl, dooming her to dwell alone in darkness, hated by all other birds. Gronway, accepting his fate, agreed to be struck down in the same manner that he had tried to destroy Lleu. Lleu regained possession of his estate and became Lord over Gwynedd.

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