I've spent the last few weeks revisiting Prydain, a land I loved very much when I was a kid but haven't really been to in a very long time.
I read Lloyd Alexander's fantasy cycle--The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King--when I was, I'd say, about 9 or 10. I had seen the Disney version of The Black Cauldron for my birthday in 1985, and I was very curious about the book. I was a voracious reader as a kid, and I saw my library had all of the books, so I just started at the beginning and read all the way through. (This was, incidentally, the same time I was reading L. Frank Baum's Oz novels.)
They made a huge impression on me as a kid, and I've never forgotten the characters or the places and their strange (to me as a child) Welsh names. I could always see the settings in very vivid imagery; when I was a kid, I imagined that places in Prydain were places in the woods where my friends and I played. One of the many, many pleasures of revisiting the books has been finding out that, in my mind, Prydain is still the woods of my childhood. Places I'd thought I'd forgotten jumped right back into my head.
The Book of Three introduces us to Taran, an assistant pig-keeper and orphan who has been raised by Dallben, the greatest enchanter in Prydain. What I like about Dallben is that he seems so much like a normal old man who is just exceptionally wise; we don't get a sense until later of how much power he truly wields. He has a sense of humility and doesn't need to go about making it rain in order to prove his power. He's the caretaker of Hen Wen, a pig with oracular powers. And there's another man on the farm, Coll, a former soldier who is tough with Taran, and fills in as not necessarily a father figure, but a stern uncle. I like Coll a great deal.
Lloyd Alexander fills out this fantasy world with a believable level of politics and legend, which I appreciate much more now as an adult. Prydain isn't a fairy tale kingdom; like Middle-earth, it's been thought out and, over the five books, the reader gets the breadth of just how expansive the kingdoms and people of Prydain are. The main thrust of what's going on in the background is that High King Math and Prince Gwydion, ruler of the House of Don and Taran's idol, are amassing for a possible war with Arawn Death-Lord, the ruler of a hell-like kingdom called Annuvin. Arawn's champion, the Horned King, has been sent to capture Hen Wen, and Taran sets off the rescue the pig and meets the companions we will become very close to along the way.
The companions are an interesting collection, but the one I have the hardest time with is Gurgi. I like that Lloyd Alexander is often deliberately vague: to describe Arawn clearly is to make him less fearsome, for example. With Gurgi, the vagueness is frustrating. Gurgi is often described as a creature, very hairy and animal-like, but also with human qualities. Is he the middle stage between man and beast, or is he an intelligent woodland creature? I love Gurgi and his rhyming; and I like his story arc--his search for wisdom, which overcomes his initial childlike need for immediate gratification--but I wish I could get a better picture of him in my head. Because I saw the Disney movie first, Disney's version is what gets stuck in my mind. I find I can't picture Gurgi any other way, although Alexander's Gurgi is less cute and more noble.
The other companions are Princess Eilonwy, a tomboy who seeks adventure and thinks being forced into ladyship is a fate worse than death, and Fflewdurr Fflamm, a king who would rather be a minstrel, and whose harp strings break whenever he tells a lie. I like Fflewdurr especially; he's so goodhearted and brave, but he's also a braggart and quite cowardly. I found it funny but frustrating that his strings would break even when he would lie to spare someone's feelings. And there's also Doli, a dwarf of the Fair Folk who grumbles his way through everything, although deep inside we can see he's not so gruff.
The Book of Three is appropriately exciting; and the villains were especially scary to me as a kid--the evil Queen Achren, an enchantress who holds Eilonwy prisoner; the gwythaints, which I had always pictured as giant falcons; the Huntsmen of Annuvin, who give each other more strength every time one is killed; and the Cauldron-Born, dead warriors raised to fight in the service of Arawn after being resurrected in the Black Cauldron. And of course the Horned King, riding through the brush with a horned skull over his face, which really took my imagination as a kid.
The Black Cauldron is another exciting adventure, although a little more complex. Through each of the novels, Taran learns to curb his impulses and grows as a character, learning to rely on companions and when he must make sacrifices. Gwydion calls on Taran and the companions to join in the search for Arawn's cauldron, which has been lost. The supporting cast grows in this novel, but never into unmanageable proportions. I liked the addition of Kaw, a crow that Taran uses to search and send messages. We also get to see more of the other kings of Prydain, including the jovial, boisterous King Smoit, who makes me laugh. He seems to prefigure a dozen characters Brian Blessed has played. And Taran, who wishes to be a prince and a warrior, gets to compare himself firsthand to Prince Ellidyr, who is supposed to be both of those things, but is also arrogant, driven, and angry.
The Castle of Llyr is a novel that hit me a little more as an adult than it did as a child. In this novel, Taran is more obviously in love with Eilonwy, and chafes as he escorts her to the Isle of Mona, where she is meant to learn the ways of a lady of the court. Taran is contrasted here with Prince Rhun, who is possibly meant to be betrothed to Eilonwy. Rhun means well, but is clumsy and a terrible leader; Taran hates having to defer to him, but he does so--not out of a sense of duty, I felt, so much as a sense of politeness. Even when he can easily take charge, Taran doesn't want to embarrass Rhun in front of his men. And Rhun, in the end, does turn out to be more self-aware than he seems. This is also the novel that introduces Llyan, a mountain cat that a would-be sorcerer called Glew has turned giant. I've seen a lot of art where Llyan looks like a house cat grown up to horse size. I pictured Llyan more as a bear-sized cougar. Again, Alexander is vague, but doesn't that just mean you're free to see Llyan however you see him?
If I have one complaint about The Castle of Llyr, it's that Eilonwy gets kidnapped early on and isn't seen again until almost the very end. And although we do discover the truth of her parentage, I think we miss out on the friction between her and Taran, who are always bickering. Each is more aware of their affection for the other, and each is becoming aware of the other's affection for them, which could have made for something. But that's really a superficial complaint in the face of a well-told story, and wanting to have read one thing shouldn't detract from reading something else.
The fourth novel, Taran Wanderer, was my least favorite as a child. Gwydion isn't involved, Eilonwy doesn't appear at all, and there's not much of the powers of Arawn or Achren. This is sort of an interim novel--apparently, this was written last (but published fourth) to bridge the gap between The Castle of Llyr and The High King. This novel is primarily concerned with Taran's development from wannabe hero to responsible, heroic young man. So the novel has an episodic feel as Taran wanders from kingdom to kingdom, from village to village, attempting to seek the truth of his origins. As a kid, I didn't have the patience for some of the episodes where Taran is simply learning to weave or shape clay or farm or make swords.
As an adult, I see the novel differently now, and appreciate the richness of Taran's experiences. He learns a lot about life in the span of a year or so; more than that, he opens himself up to the idea that everything he does has something useful to teach him and that there are different valid viewpoints about how one can approach life. True, most of the companions and other supporting characters don't appear, or appear briefly, but Taran's journey is so powerful that it doesn't really matter.
The final novel, The High King, is where Alexander brings back nearly every single character and ties up nearly every thread while telling an amazing story of growing up, sacrificing, living through hardship, the true value of heroism and warriors, and responsibility. Alexander could have fallen into the trap many authors fall into at the end of a series and just written the outcomes; instead, he lets the story unfold and the reader have the pleasure of making connections and discovering the lessons. It's a beautiful work. The whole series is a beautiful work.
I also read The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain, which I had never read before. Although I didn't consider the origin of Dallben's knowledge so much a loose end as a pleasant mystery, it was interesting to read about how he was raised and how be came into possession of the Book of Three. I also didn't feel I needed to read about the reason Spiral Castle was built, how the sword Dyrnwyn got to be there, or any of the rest of it, but I was glad to. I hope that sounds complimentary... It's meant to be. The novels don't leave anything dangling, but it was nice to have a little more Prydain to go back to.
I'm glad I got to visit again; I've had the Dell Yearling editions on my bookshelf for a long, long time. I don't know what struck me to read them again, either, but I'm so glad I did.
You know, for all of the fantasy series being made into film series, I'm kind of surprised no one went for Prydain. It seems to me they'd make excellent movies with the right amount of gravity. But it's not like I'm itching to see it as a film; I have more fun going back on my own, revisiting a place that remains as vivid and alive and rich for the adult version of me as much as it did for the child.
Satellite Down
Jeez, try a little harder, Not-Scarlett. Didn't anyone give this chick attention growing up?
Meanwhile, Cobra Commander is having a hissy fit over not getting the satellite yet. Destro just sits there silently and watches, figuring the little guy will tire himself out and then take a nap.
Storm Shadow attacks with some Crimson Guards, and he and Spirit get some more time to roll around together. But then those Primorts show up, straight out of a Tarzan novel, and capture everyone. Freedom tries to get away, but a Primort knocks him out with a bola.
In typical pulp fashion, the prisoners are tied to posts. (I thought someone might enjoy the Lady Jaye bondage.) Storm Shadow is grumbling about not getting an honorable death when everyone notices that the Primorts are worshiping the downed spy satellite like a god. And the first person they're going to sacrifice to it is Lady Jaye. Man, I hope they do.
I guess all's right with the world.
