The Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Alexander's five-books series, "The Chronicles of Prydain" consists of The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King which follow the adventures of a young man named Taran, who is an Assistant Pig-Keeper at Caer Dallben, but dreams of one day being a great hero. His companions include Princess Eilonwy, Fflewddur Fflam the wandering bard and king, and the hairy creature called Gurgi.

The novels were inspired by Welsh mythology, in particular the stories of the Mabinogion. Prydain is in fact the Welsh for Britain. However, the stories are not merely retellings of those myths, a point Alexander himself makes clear in an author's note, as various characters have been changed, and some stories conflated, so a student of Welsh culture should be prepared for surprises; Arawn has been made into an enemy, and Gwydion has lost all of his negative characteristics. The Horned King has his roots in Herne the Hunter and Cernunnos, but in "The Chronicles of Prydain", the Horned King is thoroughly evil and Arawn's champion.

The series was published just a decade after Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. and the first four books are fairly free of Tolkienian references (although Gurgi struck me as a more civilised, less anguished and far hairier version of Gollum. The final book, however, is astonishingly full of Tolkienian references. Princess Eilonwy is a mixture of Eowyn and Arwen (she dresses in men's clothing so that she can fight in a battle, she has sewn a banner for Taran featuring the oracular white pig, Hen Wen (the same pig to which Taran is an assistant keeper) and at the end of the book she gives up something in order to stay with Taran and marry him (I won't be explicit about just what she gives up). Taran and Eilonwy both have the opportunity to sail with many others to the "Summer Country" (which seems to be the Prydain equivalent of sailing into the West, except that here there will be no return for anyone).

Other Tolkienian references in The High King include a trip through some dwarf mines (which is abandoned and a mountain is crossed instead, in a neat reversal of events in The Fellowship of the Ring; the gates of King Math's home Caer Dathyl being battered with a large ram (and Math himself seems to resemble King Theoden whilst he was still in the clutches of Wormtongue); just as Aragorn sails up the Anduin to Minas Tirith, so too Gwydion sails to Arawn's stronghold - and Arawn bears some resemblance to Sauron; then there is the battle at Arawn's stronghold which resembles the "last stand" made by Aragorn and the Captains of the West outside the Mornannon - and the response of the Cauldron-Born to Taran's use of Dyrnwyn resembles the response of Sauron's many servants when the Ring is destroyed; and the gwythaints are akin to the Nazgul.

For all that, I enjoyed the series and can understand why it continues to be popular with children 40 years later.

For those who are interested in the author's own thoughts, there is a piece by Lloyd Alexander on Fantasy at the Children's Book Council website.