The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander

First published:The Book of Three, 1964; The Black Cauldron, 1965; The Castle of Llyr, 1966; Taran Wanderer, 1967; The High King, 1968

Type of work: Fantasy/moral tale

Themes: Coming-of-age

Time of work: The early Middle Ages

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: The fictional land of Prydain, similar to ancient Wales

Principal Characters:

• Taran, a young man initially dissatisfied with his position in the world who learns to love life
• Eilonwy, a beautiful and opinionated princess having magical powers that she attains naturally, without having been trained in their acquisition or use
• Dallben, an ancient wizard who has reared Taran and Eilonwy and who protects Prydain
• Doli, a grumpy, gnomelike person who has the power to disappear but would rather not use it
• Gurgi, the epitome of loyalty, rather like a matted dog in appearance, who speaks in rhymes
• Fflewddur Flam, a king who aspires to be a bard (a singer of ballads), who carries a magic harp that plays as melodies the emotions in his heart
• Annlaw Clay-Shaper, a potter and Taran’s spiritual teacher
• Gwydion, Prince of Don, the beneficent ruler of Prydain, the force of good
• Arawn, Lord of Annuvin, the evil ruler who has tried to conquer Prydain with sorcery

The Story

The enchanted land of Prydain is drawn loosely from Lloyd Alexander’s personal knowledge of Welsh legends and from the Mabinogion, a collection of eleven Welsh tales from the late Dark Ages that wended a tortuous and curious continuity through the time into the twentieth century. In the modern era, they were first published (in Welsh) in 1930; the first English translation was published in 1949. In some respects, the “Prydain Chronicles” are typical of the high-fantasy genre with which Alexander himself identifies them. They avoid, however, the predictable premises that readers assume for the genre. The struggle of good against evil is not set within the context of theism or any other supernaturally sanctioned code; rather, they are treated as opposite ends in a range of possible human conduct. Prydain demands choices and decisions that proceed, succeed, and fail because of their intrinsic moral worth.

As the first chronicle, The Book of Three, begins, a battle is raging in Prydain over the possession of an oracular pig named Hen-Wen, which has escaped. The forces of good are led by Prince Gwydion, Son of Don; the forces of evil by Arawn, the Lord of Annuvin, the Land of Death. The protagonist Taran is introduced as an assistant to Hen-Wen’s keeper and the one responsible for having let her escape. Although Taran is not happy with his lowly occupation, it serves both as a goad to his ambition and as a symbolic threshold between his childhood and the responsibilities and choices he will face as an adult. Arawn wants to capture Hen-Wen because she knows his secret name. “Once you have the courage to look upon evil,...naming it by its true name, it is powerless against you,” he says.

Arawn has made significant inroads throughout Prydain, eliminating any activities that would benefit its citizens. He has stolen the secrets of agriculture and crafts, and the people are suffering from failing crops, poverty, and joyless lives. Toward the end of the first book, a magical sword, called Dyrnwyn, is discovered, and its lineage is traced throughout the rest of the series.

In the second book, The Black Cauldron (1965), Taran faces a test of self-reliance and responsibility when, with the help of trusted friends, he undertakes to retrieve a magical Black Cauldron that allows the Arawn to create an army of the living dead that cannot be destroyed. Taran learns the value and pain of sacrifice when a former rival destroys the Black Cauldron in the required manner by throwing himself into it alive to save Taran and his friends. Taran recognizes that his first impressions about people can be wrong, and that honorable actions can sometimes redeem seemingly unworthy ones.

The quest continues in The Castle of Llyr (1966) when Eilonwy is sent, unwillingly, to the king and queen of the Isle of Mona to learn her royal duties. She has been reared by the wizard Dallben, but her approaching maturity requires that she change her behavior from that of a sword-wielding adventurer to that of a princess. She is to learn to manage her fledgling magical powers and grow into the role of ruler that she has inherited. Taran again faces feelings of inadequacy and jealousy as he realizes his growing affection for Eilonwy and perceives a rival in Prince Rhun, who, although he is clumsy, is seen by Taran as more deserving of her because he is of royal birth.

In the fourth book, Taran Wanderer (1967), Taran continues his search through the land of Prydain for his real family. He fantasizes that he will find his parents to be a king and queen and that he will be worthy to ask for Eilonwy’s hand in marriage. Again, he is confronted with the choice between magic and self-reliance as he faces continuing battles from Arawn’s forces of evil. He meets many of the common people of Prydain, the farmers and craftsmen who suffer under Arawn’s rule, and he learns that there is much nobility among ordinary people and that everyday activities have a magic of their own.

In the last book of the series, The High King (1968), Taran reflects upon the lessons he has learned on his travels and emerges as a strong, self-sufficient man. He has tried his hand at numerous occupations and has succeeded in weaving his own cloak and forging his own sword. While working with Annlaw Clay-Shaper, however, he finds that he must accept a degree of failure in life. While he succeeds in making a functional wine bowl, he cannot shape the clay into another form he would like better. Annlaw teaches him that a person’s life is similar to working with clay: It can be shaped to some degree, but it also has properties of its own that must be accepted for what they are and that cannot be altered. Taran comes to accept that the world contains cruelty, sorrow, and treachery, but that all people must live in it, and that real heroism consists of taking risks based on one’s own perceptions.

Throughout the series, Alexander portrays the ambience of enchantment by skillful characterization, even of minor characters. He describes, for example, the truthful harp of Fflewddr Fflam, who rules a kingdom so small that “the fields and pastures grew so near his castle that the sheep and cows gazed into his bed-chamber.” King Fflam’s real aspiration is to be a bard, but when the Council of Bards questions him, he clutches and fails to receive the approval of the Chief Bard. Taking pity on Fflam, the Chief gives him a magical harp that plays the melody of whatever is in Fflam’s heart. This causes him both joy and a benign humiliation as the series unfolds. King Fflam, like Taran, is thus pulled in opposite directions by the forces of his nature. This view of nature and ambiguity is shown again in Taran’s finding of the Mirror of Llunt, which serves the same purpose of self-revelation for him that the harp serves for King Fflan. As the magic mirror reveals to Taran, he is a combination of many qualities, both good and bad: He has the capacity for contradiction, but the ability to learn from experience. Because of these qualities, Taran is a very accessible character.

The High King ends, as the title suggests, in Taran being named King of Prydain after a final battle in which all his magical tools and all the conflicting parts of his being come together to rout the forces of evil. The ambitious assistant pig-keeper is declared the hero of the day, although his real accomplishment is the fulfillment of his destiny. With that, Dallben the wizard brings Prydain’s age of enchantment to an end.

Context

Like the tales from the Welsh Mabinogion, the “Prydain Chronicles” are never simplistic or mawkish. For all the enchantment that acts behind the scenes, they are a fiercely realistic series of characterizations. Even after magic—both black and white—has been banished, the wizard Dallben warns that evil will persist: Because it often succeeds, no one is beyond evil’s grasp. Many critics have commented on the similarities between this series and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.

The “Prydain Chronicles” have won critical acclaim since the publication of The Book of Three and The Castle of Llyr, both of which were designated as Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association. Lloyd Alexander won the Newbery award in 1969 for The High King, the last book of the Prydain Chronicles. Lloyd Alexander, who is an American, has also written a number of children’s books about cats that have been published both before and since the appearance of the “Prydain Chronicles.” These include Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason and Gareth (1963), The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man (1973), and The Town Cat and Other Tales (1977).

Alexander’s originality rests in his ability to combine humor with philosophical questions. While he creates a land besieged by a battle between good and evil, he places within it a number of humorous characters that lighten the mood. The initial questions of self-doubt and dissatisfaction harbored by Taran are answered with a worldview that recognizes how painful life can be, but one that never lets him give up hope. Alexander weaves the web of enchantment slowly, the characters gaining strength through the context of their history rather than through the use of their magic powers and devices, which serve only to reveal the hidden motivations and true natures of those who possess them.

Taran the pig-keeper is explicitly identified in the first book (The Book of Three) with all people. Alexander’s purpose for this is didactic and psychologically supportive of the young reader. By portraying humanity in terms of individual decisions and consequences, he sets up a happy denouement in The High King by showing the reader the success that can be realized by accepting life on its own terms. Identification with Taran as both the ambitious pig-keeper in the beginning and the hero at the end reveals the natural fortunes of humanity if it embraces life’s demands. The best hope for happiness lies in the recognition that, like Taran, who strives to be himself, the acceptance of individual destiny—the truth about oneself—is more important than magic because it allows each to be the hero or heroine of his or her own life.