Pwyll

Pwyll [W, wisdom; discretion, prudence]. Prince of Dyfed, Welsh hero of the first branch of the Mabinogi, which usually bears his name. To pay for a discourtesy to Arawn, ruler of Annwfn, Pwyll agrees to take his form for a year and to meet Arawn's enemy Hafgan. In that year he may share the bed of Arawn's wife but not make love to her. Pwyll keeps his agreement, killing Hafgan, chastely avoiding the wife, and winning the title Pen Annwfn [head of Annwfn]. Pwyll is dazzled by the beauty of Rhiannon when she rides by on a white horse, but he is thwarted for one year by the trick of a rival suitor, Gwawl. In the third year of their marriage, Rhiannon bears a son that is stolen and she is falsely accused of infanticide. For punishment, Rhiannon is obliged to sit by a horse-block for seven years, offering to give rides on her back to visitors. The child is later returned and named Pryderi. Pwyll continues to rule from his palace Arberth, and in due time is succeeded by his son, Pryderi.

Modern commentators are often unkind to Pwyll as a literary character, calling him ‘foolish’, ‘spineless’, and ‘a bungling incompetent’, especially for his treatment of Rhiannon when she is falsely accused. Like many Celtic heroes, however, he may have origins in the supernatural, as his title Pen Annwfn implies. The more likely root meaning of his name, ‘wisdom’, suggests links with the Irish figures Midir of Brí Léith and Conn [Ir., sense, wisdom, reason]. Roger Sherman Loomis (1927) thought that Pwyll's resistance to Arawn's wife may have contributed to the episode of the temptress wife in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14th cent.).

Bibliography

See W. J. Gruffydd , Rhiannon (Cardiff, 1953);
Kenneth H. Jackson , ‘Some Popular Motifs in Early Welsh Tradition’, Études Celtiques, 11 (1961–7), 83–9;
Catherine A. McKenna , ‘The Theme of Sovereignty in Pwyll’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 29 (1980), 35–52.