Mythology Monday is back, baby, and today we’re going to go over the first part of the first branch of the Mabinogi, which is about a dude named Pwyll.

Note: Pwyll is not pronounced the way you think it is because, as is the case in most Celtic languages, nothing in Cymraeg is pronounced the way you think it is.

Anyway, we start with the aforementioned Pwyll, who is the prince of a kingdom called Dyfed. Pwyll is really enjoys hunting, and takes it into his head one day to take his hounds and entourage out into the woods for a bit.

Eventually he gets separated from his entourage, and comes across some weird looking dogs with white bodies and red ears eating a deer carcass. Given that the dogs are clearly supernatural, he probably should just leave him alone, but he decides to chase them away so his own dogs can eat.

This turns out to be a mistake, because the dogs’ owner comes by and is like, “Hey, man, that was kind of a dick move.”

Pwyll is like, “Yeah, well I’m a prince.”

The other guy is like, “Yeah, well I’m Arawn, King of Annfwn, so I outrank you.”

Just to drive home how badly Pwyll has fucked up here: Annfwn is the Welsh word for the Celtc Otherworld, aka where fairies live. So Pwyll basically just pissed of a fae king. And if there’s anything we’ve learned from other tales, it’s that you don’t fuck with the fae.

Pwyll realizes this, and asks if there’s anyway that he can make this right. Arawn thinks for a moment and says, “Actually, there is something you can do for me.”

See, there’s this other guy named Hafgan who rules the territory next to Arawn’s who has an eye on Arawn’s turf. This won’t do, so the plan is this: Arawn and Pwyll will trade places for a year. There’s a meeting between the two kings scheduled then, so Pwyll, disguised as Arawn, will head to the meeting and kill Hafgan for him.

Pwyll agrees to the plan, and Arawn glamours them up so they look like each other. Before leaving, though, Arawn does give Pwyll a bit of advice: he is only to hit Hafgan once. This would be enough to kill him, but hitting him again will heal him. Because supernatural being.

So Pwyll heads to Annfwn, and Arawn’s court is actually pretty sweet. There’s an abundance of booze, great food, singing, and, of course, hunting. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Arawn’s wife is a smoking hottie.

Unfortunately, the queen leads to a bit of a quandary for Pwyll: she doesn’t know that he’s not Arawn, so is expecting him to take her down to bone town. But Pwyll knows that sleeping with another dude’s wife is a serious breach of bro code. He decides not to risk it, and turns away from her each night when they go to bed without speaking to her. She’s confused, but doesn’t really say anything about it.

So Pwyll has a pretty good time in Annfwn up until the meeting is supposed to take place. He heads out to face Hafgan, and strikes him with a single mighty blow. Hafgan, afterwards, is like, “Oh, I’m dying, you need to hit me again to put me out of my misery.”

Pwyll, who remembers Arawn’s warning, is like, “Uh, no.” So Hafgan dies, and Pwyll heads out to meet back up with Arawn.

Arawn asks how it went, and Pwyll tells him that he’s sure to be happy with the job he did. He asks Arawn how Dyfed is, and Arawn basically tells him the same thing before taking off the magic. The two then head back to their respective kingdoms.

In Annfwn, Arawn returns to a court that didn’t even realize he was gone. He parties for a bit, then goes to sleep with his wife for the first time in a year. After they’re done, she asks him why he stopped sleeping with her, and why he had a sudden change of heart. Touched, Arawn explains the whole thing to her before declaring Pwyll the greatest of bros.

Meanwhile, in Dyfed, Pwyll asks his noblemen how he did the past year. They tell him that he did an excellent job ruling his kingdom. Pleased, he explains the situation to them and the whole thing inspires him to become a better ruler.

So that was the tale of Pwyll and Arawn. Next week we’re going to look at how Pwyll met his wife, who has a Fleetwood Mac song named for her.

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