History Literature / Mabinogion

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* FateWorseThanDeath: Blodeuwedd is forced to live for all eternity as an owl, shunned by the light and hated by all other words, which Gwydion considers to be a worse punishment than simply killing her.

* AmbiguousSyntax: Lleu Llaw Gyffes is occasionally referred to as "[Gwydion's] boy", although the word boy can also mean "son". This is either a subtle hint that Lleu was born from a BrotherSisterIncest between Gwydion and Arianrhod, or simply a reference to his role as his ParentalSubstitute.

* NighInvulnerability: Lleu can be killed, but only under extremely specific circumstances. He has to be struck while he has one foot on the back of a billy-goat and one on the edge of a roofed bath that sits on a riverbank. In his own words: "I cannot be killed indoors, nor out of doors; I cannot be killed on horseback, nor on foot." The spear it would take to kill him needs to be forged over a year of Sundays. Even when his rival actually got him to , he doesn't die but was simply injured.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Blodeuwedd is forced to live for all eternity as an owl.

%%* KarmaHoudini: Gwydion in the long run.

* NighInvulnerability: Lleu can be killed, but only under extremely specific circumstances. He has to be struck while he has one foot on the back of a billy-goat and one on the edge of a roofed bath that sits on a riverbank. In his own words: "I cannot be killed indoors, nor out of doors; I cannot be killed on horseback, nor on foot." The spear it would take to kill him needs to be forged over a year of Sundays.

# ''Lludd and Llefelys'' describes two royal brothers who team up to tackle various plagues inflicting the island of Britain. Notably contains an episode in which there are two dragons fighting (one white and one red), which later turns up in a slightly different form in Arthurian legends concerning Vortigern and Merlin.
# ''Culhwch and Olwen'', perhaps the oldest Arthurian tale surviving. The young warrior Culhwch wants to marry the maiden Olwen, whose father is a formiddable giant and sets Culhwch a series of seemingly impossible tasks (probably intended to kill Culhwch, or at least get him to stop pursuing Olwen). Culhwch enlists Arthur and his knights to help.

[[folder:"Math, Son of Mathonwy"]]

* KarmicTransformation: As [[ForcedTransformation punishment]] for the rape of Goewin, King Math transforms the brothers Gilfaethwy and Gwydion in different animals each year, one a male and one a female, until they have borne three offspring together. Later on, Blodeuwedd is transformed into an owl as punishment for plotting with her lover, Gronw Pebr to kill her husband.

The Welsh collection of stories called the ''Mabinogion'' is one of the major surviving bodies of [[Myth/CelticMythology Welsh myths]]. The stories in their modern forms are derived from two medieval Welsh manuscripts, the [[http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=whitebookofrhydderchpeniart White Book of Rhydderch]] and the [[http://image.ox.ac.uk/show-all-openings?collection=jesus&manuscript=ms111 Red Book of Hergest,]] along with a collection of smaller texts, but those are simply the oldest written versions of stories that are based on older oral legends; some motifs and plots can be traced back to the early Iron Age (1st millennium BCE). They are the product of a highly developed narrative tradition, both written and oral.

** Gwydion first engineers a war -- the war in which Pryderi is [[HeroKiller slain by Gwydion]] -- to lure Math away from his castle so that Gilfaethwy, Gwydion's brother, can sneak into Math's stronghold and rape his foot-holder maiden, Goewin. In punishment, Math [[BalefulPolymorph transforms]] the brothers into a different animal every year, [[KarmicTransformation one male and one female]], until they bear three offspring together.

* KarmicTransformation: As [[BalefulPolymorph punishment]] for the rape of Goewin, King Math transforms the brothers Gilfaethwy and Gwydion in different animals each year, one a male and one a female, until they have borne three offspring together. Later on, Blodeuwedd is transformed into an owl as punishment for plotting with her lover, Gronw Pebr to kill her husband.

* MisterSeahorse: Gwydion and Gilfaethwy, two men, are successively turned into a stag and a hind, a boar and a sow, and a pair of wolves. They are in these forms long enough to bear a son from each transformation. After the brothers are turned back into redeemed humans, their animal offspring are then turned into humans and baptized.

* NighInvulnerability: Lleu can be killed, but only under extremely specific circumstances. He has to be struck while he has one foot on the back of a billy-goat and one on the edge of a roofed bath that sits on a riverbank. In his own words: "I cannot be killed indoors, nor our of doors; I cannot be killed on horseback, nor on foot." The spear it would take to kill him needs to be forged over a year of Sundays.

* GodOfDarkness: In some interpretations, Dylan ail Don is viewed as a god of darkness.

The work is divided into four branches, five native tales, and three [[ChivalricRomance romances]].

# ''The Dream of Macsen Wledig''
# ''Lludd and Llefelys''
# ''Culhwch and Olwen'', perhaps the oldest Arthurian tale surviving.
# ''The Dream of Rhonabwy'', a late work in which the main character dreams of King Arthur's time. It may have been written as deliberate fiction.
# ''The Tale of Taliesin''

Taliesin figures in some Arthurian stories as King Arthur's bard, but his tale is thought not to be part of the original ''Mabinogion''.

%%* SmartGuy: Manawydan.

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->''And thus ends here this Branch of the Mabinogion.''[[note]]''Which will in subsequent branches be called the Mabinogi''[[/note]]

* YourCheatingHeart: Blodeuwedd had an affair with Gronw Pebr and the two of them plotted to kill Lleu Llaw Gyffes.

* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: Ysbaddaden speaks pretty calmly (if resentfully) to Olwen after a minor character [[spoiler:cuts the flesh off the giant's face down to the bone]].

%%* HandicappedBadass: Bedwyr, the one-armed knight.

* KarmicTransformation: As [[BalefulPolymorph punishment]] for the rape of Goewin, King Math transforms the brothers Gilfaethwy and Gwydion in different animals each year, one a male and one a female, until they have borne three offspring together.
** Later on, Blodeuwedd is transformed into an owl as punishment for plotting with her lover, Gronw Pebr to kill her husband.