Pennod 4 – Chwedl Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed

In this episode we discuss the first of ‘The Four Branches of the Mabinogi’, the Tale of Pwyll, Lord of Dyfed. 

Although Pwyll is ‘lord of the seven cantrefs (‘hundreds’ or ‘provinces’) of Dyfed, as the tale’s first sentence says, he doesn’t possess much wisdom. Indeed, while Pwyll is this character’s name, pwyll is also a common noun in Welsh, meaning ‘sense’, ‘intelligence’ or ‘wisdom’. It’s possible to read this tale as a story about how Pwyll comes to embody his name, how he learns to become a wise and good ruler. We see him acting in some very unwise ways, and other characters – Arawn, king of Annwfn and Rhiannon, Pwyll’s wife – need to help him. Rhiannon is among the most memorable characters of the Welsh literary tradition, a wise woman who speaks wittily and puts her unwise husband in his place when need be. Remembering this literary work’s direct historical context, Wales of the ‘Age of the Princes’, it is possible to read this tale as ‘a mirror for princes’, a text which offers lessons to future leaders.