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Ongoing cleanup. Cutting, as there's no mention of an explicit oath.
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* IntrepidMerchant: Phanes of Syracuse is a man of parts: BloodBrothers with King Mynyddog, his interpreter with the Saxons, he survives a SecretStabWound to bring news of Aelle’s death, and carried the archangel dagger that alters the course of Prosper, Conn, and Cynan’s lives from Constantinople to darkest Wales.
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* IntrepidMerchant: Phanes of Syracuse is a man of parts: BloodBrothers companions with King Mynyddog, his interpreter with the Saxons, he survives a SecretStabWound to bring news of Aelle’s death, and carried the archangel dagger that alters the course of Prosper, Conn, and Cynan’s lives from Constantinople to darkest Wales.
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wick cleanup
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* RuleOfThree: The Companions are the third of three celebrated fighting forces of three hundred soldiers, after the Spartans at Thermopylae and the Brotherhood of Artos; they fight in three-man units (making their actual numbers three times three hundred); Prosper grows up with ThreeAmigos, and Cynan is one of three brothers.
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* RuleOfThree: The Companions are the third of three celebrated fighting forces of three hundred soldiers, after the Spartans at Thermopylae and the Brotherhood of Artos; they fight in three-man units (making their actual numbers three times three hundred); Prosper grows up with ThreeAmigos, a trio of friends, and Cynan is one of three brothers.
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rename
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A hundred years after [[Myth/KingArthur Artos]] and his Company of three hundred cavalry united Britain’s forces against the invading [[UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons Saxons]], the Britons have fractured once more into the petty kingdoms of the Old North. Under the growing threat of the Saxon kings of [[OopNorth Deira and Bernicia]], King Mynyddog of [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} the Gododdin]] summons the [[CannonFodder second sons]] of the North and [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} West]] to form a new Three Hundred.
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A hundred years after [[Myth/KingArthur Artos]] and his Company of three hundred cavalry united Britain’s Britain's forces against the invading [[UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons Saxons]], the Britons have fractured once more into the petty kingdoms of the Old North. Under the growing threat of the Saxon kings of [[OopNorth Deira and Bernicia]], King Mynyddog of [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} the Gododdin]] summons the [[CannonFodder second sons]] of the North and [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} West]] to form a new Three Hundred.
* BirthdayBeginning: The novel opens on the day Prosper is given Conn as a birthday present. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance He's disappointed, as he actually wanted a dog.]]
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* TheHerosBirthday: The novel opens on the day Prosper is given Conn as a birthday present. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance He's disappointed, as he actually wanted a dog.]]
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King Arthur is a disambig, not a trope
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A hundred years after [[KingArthur Artos]] and his Company of three hundred cavalry united Britain’s forces against the invading [[UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons Saxons]], the Britons have fractured once more into the petty kingdoms of the Old North. Under the growing threat of the Saxon kings of [[OopNorth Deira and Bernicia]], King Mynyddog of [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} the Gododdin]] summons the [[CannonFodder second sons]] of the North and [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} West]] to form a new Three Hundred.
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A hundred years after [[KingArthur [[Myth/KingArthur Artos]] and his Company of three hundred cavalry united Britain’s forces against the invading [[UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons Saxons]], the Britons have fractured once more into the petty kingdoms of the Old North. Under the growing threat of the Saxon kings of [[OopNorth Deira and Bernicia]], King Mynyddog of [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} the Gododdin]] summons the [[CannonFodder second sons]] of the North and [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} West]] to form a new Three Hundred.
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* ContinuityNod: Prosper and Co. spend their wakefulness test in the wolf-haunted ruins of Castellum in a Shout Out to ''Literature/FrontierWolf''. The various references to KingArthur are also specifically to ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''.
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* ContinuityNod: Prosper and Co. spend their wakefulness test in the wolf-haunted ruins of Castellum in a Shout Out to ''Literature/FrontierWolf''. The various references to KingArthur Myth/KingArthur are also specifically to ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''.
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* KingArthur: ''Y Gododdin'' contains possibly the oldest ShoutOut to Arthur. Artos – as depicted in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'' – is the optimistic precedent for the effectiveness of a Company of three hundred. The other precedent is the Spartans at Thermopylae.
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Author Existence Failure (now renamed to Died During Production) is a trope for dying before finishing a work, not anytime a creator died.
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''The Shining Company'' is a YoungAdult HistoricalFiction novel by Creator/RosemarySutcliff published in 1990. It was her last [[AuthorExistenceFailure completed]] novel and later won the 2010 Phoenix Award.
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''The Shining Company'' is a YoungAdult HistoricalFiction novel by Creator/RosemarySutcliff published in 1990. It was her last [[AuthorExistenceFailure completed]] completed novel before her death and later won the 2010 Phoenix Award.
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-->"Despite the half-healed wound that marred his cheek and forehead, he looked almost to be himself again, but still he seemed shut off from all that went on around him, and he never spoke. He was like one of those terrible slain warriors who, [[Literature/TheMabinogion so the ancient stories tell]], were put into the great cauldron of Annwn, and came out seemingly restored to life but without the power of speaking."
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-->"Despite the half-healed wound that marred his cheek and forehead, he looked almost to be himself again, but still he seemed shut off from all that went on around him, and he never spoke. He was like one of those terrible slain warriors who, [[Literature/TheMabinogion [[Literature/{{Mabinogion}} so the ancient stories tell]], were put into the great cauldron of Annwn, and came out seemingly restored to life but without the power of speaking."
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*** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''
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*** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''''Literature/{{Mabinogion}}''
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-->'''Aneirin:''' If you take honour from my hands here and now, you also will each become such a one as the harpers sing of, but it may be that [[Literature/TainBoCuailnge you also will not count your first white hairs]]. It is only right that you should know this, before you make your choice. This evening you have feasted all together, and with the feasting done, any who wish it, shall ride away.
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-->'''Aneirin:''' If you take honour from my hands here and now, you also will each become such a one as the harpers sing of, but it may be that [[Literature/TainBoCuailnge [[Literature/TheCattleRaidOfCooley you also will not count your first white hairs]]. It is only right that you should know this, before you make your choice. This evening you have feasted all together, and with the feasting done, any who wish it, shall ride away.
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*** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''
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*** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''''Literature/TheCattleRaidOfCooley''
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* ShoutOut: Aneirin recites a Welsh lullaby, "Dinogad's Smock", recorded in the same manuscript as ''Y Gododdin''.
** To CelticMythology: References abound, since almost everyone in the novel is a 6th century Celt.
** To CelticMythology: References abound, since almost everyone in the novel is a 6th century Celt.
to:
* ShoutOut: ShoutOut:
** Aneirin recites a Welsh lullaby, "Dinogad's Smock", recorded in the same manuscript as ''Y Gododdin''.
** ToCelticMythology: Myth/CelticMythology: References abound, since almost everyone in the novel is a 6th century Celt.
** Aneirin recites a Welsh lullaby, "Dinogad's Smock", recorded in the same manuscript as ''Y Gododdin''.
** To
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** To CelticMythology: References abound, since almost everyone in the novel is a 6th century Celt.
*** Gwyn ap Nudd and TheWildHunt
*** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''
*** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''
*** Languareth, Queen of Strathclyde: recipient of a ClingyMacguffin miracle performed by St. Mungo
*** the Water Horse of Pwl Ddu: a drowning hazard
*** the Rock of Black Annis: a folkloric witch of uncertain origin
*** Gwyn ap Nudd and TheWildHunt
*** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''
*** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''
*** Languareth, Queen of Strathclyde: recipient of a ClingyMacguffin miracle performed by St. Mungo
*** the Water Horse of Pwl Ddu: a drowning hazard
*** the Rock of Black Annis: a folkloric witch of uncertain origin
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Myths are works; works are not tropes
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* CelticMythology: References abound, since almost everyone in the novel is a 6th century Celt.
** Gwyn ap Nudd and TheWildHunt
** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''
** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''
** Languareth, Queen of Strathclyde: recipient of a ClingyMacguffin miracle performed by St. Mungo
** the Water Horse of Pwl Ddu: a drowning hazard
** the Rock of Black Annis: a folkloric witch of uncertain origin
** Gwyn ap Nudd and TheWildHunt
** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''
** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''
** Languareth, Queen of Strathclyde: recipient of a ClingyMacguffin miracle performed by St. Mungo
** the Water Horse of Pwl Ddu: a drowning hazard
** the Rock of Black Annis: a folkloric witch of uncertain origin
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None
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[[quoteright:315:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shining_company.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:315:"Is that a giant angel-sword behind us?"]]
[[caption-width-right:315:"Is that a giant angel-sword behind us?"]]
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* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists: TagalongChronicler Aneirin will compose the Great Song that celebrates the Company's triumph (or tragic demise.) If they’d wanted a novel, apparently Prosper could have done just as well.
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* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists: TagalongChronicler Aneirin will compose the Great Song that celebrates the Company's triumph (or tragic demise.) If they’d wanted a novel, apparently Prosper the shieldbearer could have done just as well.
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* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Averted! The only result of Old Nurse's illness is that Prosper has to spend a few days looking after Conn's knee injury and bond with him in the process.
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None
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''The Shining Company'' is a YoungAdult HistoricalFiction novel by Creator/RosemarySutcliff published in 1990. It was her last [[AuthorExistenceFailure completed]] novel and later won the 2010 Phoenix Award.
A hundred years after [[KingArthur Artos]] and his Company of three hundred cavalry united Britain’s forces against the invading [[UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons Saxons]], the Britons have fractured once more into the petty kingdoms of the Old North. Under the growing threat of the Saxon kings of [[OopNorth Deira and Bernicia]], King Mynyddog of [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} the Gododdin]] summons the [[CannonFodder second sons]] of the North and [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} West]] to form a new Three Hundred.
''The Shining Company'' is based on the Welsh elegiac poem ''Y Gododdin'', commemorating the fallen of the Battle of Catraeth circa 600 CE. It was traditionally attributed to the bard Aneirin, a supposed eyewitness.
----
!!''The Shining Company'' contains examples of:
* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists: TagalongChronicler Aneirin will compose the Great Song that celebrates the Company's triumph (or tragic demise.) If they’d wanted a novel, apparently Prosper could have done just as well.
* AlliterativeFamily: The brothers Cynan, Cynri, and Cynran Mac Clydno, who are theoretically Scottish, enjoy a matching set of Welsh names.
* AnAssKickingChristmas: On the third day of Mynyddog's Midwinter feast, the Company and the Teulu fall to squabbling about [[SeriousBusiness the Champion's portion of the roast]], end up in a mead-fuelled brawl, and nearly burn down Dyn Eidin.
* AssInAmbassador: On being invited to review the Company, the envoy from the kingdom of Dalriada pooh-poohs mere combat readiness and wants a demonstration of discipline like, say, jumping off a cliff on command.
* BandOfBrothers: The Companions; their forebears in Artos's Company; and also the Teulu, the king's bodyguard.
* BecauseDestinySaysSo:
-->'''Conn:''' Maybe the Fates have marked their pattern on your forehead and on Cynan's as a while back you told me that they had marked it on mine. But among mortal men there can be no knowing why.
* BigEater:
-->"People often thought that it was for his fighting powers that Gwenabwy had come to be likened to [[FullBoarAction the wild pig.]] It was. But we who came to know him, knew also that there was [[GluttonousPig another reason]]."
* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: Phanes acquired the archangel dagger from a broke friend in the Emperor of Constantinople's Varangian Guard, to whom he means to return it someday. [[spoiler:After his CareerEndingInjury, Prosper and Cynan ride off into the sunrise on the pretext of [[MacguffinEscortMission doing it for him]], and end up joining the Guard themselves.]]
* CallingTheOldManOut: [[spoiler:Aneirin and Prosper's account of the battle in the Hall in Dyn Eidin turns into calling Mynyddog to account for his BetrayalByInaction.]]
* TheCavalry: ThePlan is for the Company to [[DoUntoOthersBeforeTheyDoUntoUs strike the Deiran capital Catraeth, ideally kill King Aethelfrith]], then dig in [[MyDefenseNeedNotProtectMeForever to await reinforcements]] from Gododdin and the nearby allied kingdoms. [[spoiler:The reinforcements don't come.]]
* CelticMythology: References abound, since almost everyone in the novel is a 6th century Celt.
** Gwyn ap Nudd and TheWildHunt
** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''
** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''
** Languareth, Queen of Strathclyde: recipient of a ClingyMacguffin miracle performed by St. Mungo
** the Water Horse of Pwl Ddu: a drowning hazard
** the Rock of Black Annis: a folkloric witch of uncertain origin
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Prosper's best friends, his cousin Luned and his [[UnableToSupportAWife slave]] Conn. [[spoiler:Prosper eventually notices that SheIsAllGrownUp and wonders if his father plans to [[KissingCousins marry them to each other]], but in the end he sends Conn home [[SuddenlySuitableSuitor as a free man]] to marry her if he can.]]
-->'''Prosper:''' Luned is nobody's until she chooses. There is love between Luned and me – once I thought... But it is more LikeBrotherAndSister. There is love between Luned and you, and that, I am thinking, is of another kind.
* ContinuityNod: Prosper and Co. spend their wakefulness test in the wolf-haunted ruins of Castellum in a Shout Out to ''Literature/FrontierWolf''. The various references to KingArthur are also specifically to ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''.
* DeadGuyOnDisplay: [[spoiler:Ceredig the Fosterling has an unpleasant post-mortem.]]
-->[[spoiler:"The mist had got into my head, and when, some way ahead, I saw a battered and half-naked body wearing the great wolf helmet hoisted aloft on spear-shafts, it was a moment before I knew whether it was Aethelfrith or the Fosterling."]]
* DefeatMeansFriendship: Zig-zagged. Prosper accidentally humiliates a fellow shieldbearer named Faelinn during a TrustBuildingBlunder, and Faelinn [[TheResenter resents it]] until another test exposes similar weakness in Prosper to him. [[spoiler:They fall together during the siege of Catraeth and become Cynan's replacement shieldbearers, and though still not exactly friends, they'd rather go into the LastStand together than not.]]
* DividedWeFall: Mynyddog of the Gododdin is trying to unite a warhost of the kingdoms of the northwest, in the tradition of Artos, to check the expanding Saxon kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The last guy who tried to do that, Urien of Rheged, was murdered by his own men. [[spoiler:His fellow rulers decline to send troops to his support, and the Shining Company is sacrificed in the hope of killing the dynamic Saxon king.]]
-->'''Gwyn:''' I am thinking that on the day that the tribes learn to stand together instead of slitting each other's throats, the stars will fall out of the sky.
* DueToTheDead: The casualties of TheSiege are buried in mass graves, stripped of their precious equipment but left their personal ornaments. [[spoiler:There's no one left to bury the last of the Company, but their memorial will be the song of Aneirin.]]
* DwindlingParty: [[spoiler:Dara, Cynri Mac Clydno, Gorthyn, Cynran Mac Clydno, Lleyn, and Peredur]] and six hundred others are killed in the course of TheSiege.
* EverybodysDeadDave: [[spoiler:Prosper and Cynan find themselves alone (and to really make the point, in a graveyard) at the end of the broken charge.]]
* FieryRedhead: King Aethelfrith of Bernicia [[spoiler:and Deira]], nicknamed "the Flame-bringer."
* FogOfWar: The ability to conjure a concealing fog is said to be an ability of druids, of which Aneirin is one. He actually manages to do it on the night of the LastStand.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: If you don’t know going in that [[spoiler:everybody in ''Y Gododdin'' died]], references to the [[UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars 300 Spartans at Thermopylae]] might give you a clue.
* FreudianTrio: The three Welsh princes, with their leader Tydfwlch the Tall as the Ego, Gwenabwy as Id, and thoughtful Gorthyn as Superego.
* TheHerosBirthday: The novel opens on the day Prosper is given Conn as a birthday present. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance He's disappointed, as he actually wanted a dog.]]
* HeroicBastard: Ceredig the "Fosterling," captain of the Teulu and the Company.
-->"I looked at the Captain of the Teulu standing by, and saw an odd look on his face – [[WellDoneSonGuy surprise, and a kind of bitter inward-turning laughter]] – and guessed that although the thing was indeed common knowledge, it was maybe the first time that the king had formally acknowledged his briar-bush son before all men."
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Prosper and Conn.
-->'''Prosper:''' It is but five springs since my father gave us to each other, yet it seems as though we came into life together.
-->'''Conn:''' And the grief is on me that we may not go out of it together also.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Aneirin, the kings Mynyddog, Aelle and Aethelfrith, and all the Companions named in ''Y Gododdin'' (including Gorthyn, Cynran and his brothers, Ceredig, Gwenabwy and Tydfwlch, Llif, Peredur, Madog, Morien, etc.) were all, supposedly, real people.
* IntrepidMerchant: Phanes of Syracuse is a man of parts: BloodBrothers with King Mynyddog, his interpreter with the Saxons, he survives a SecretStabWound to bring news of Aelle’s death, and carried the archangel dagger that alters the course of Prosper, Conn, and Cynan’s lives from Constantinople to darkest Wales.
* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Part of Ceredig's RousingSpeech, an unwitting paraphrase of Bedwyr in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''.
-->'''The Fosterling:''' I am a man who likes to choose with care the company he dies in, and I should be full fain to die in yours.
* KillTheOnesYouLove: Prosper resolves to shoot the white hart, rather than let it be pulled down by Gorthyn's hounds. [[spoiler:Cynan cuts the throat of Cynran, his wounded youngest brother.]]
-->"It was time that those who were too sorely hurt to ride were [[MercyKill sent on their way]]; for they could not be left to fall into the hands of the Sea-wolves. The last mercy, among fighting men, performed by brother for brother, friend for friend."
* KingArthur: ''Y Gododdin'' contains possibly the oldest ShoutOut to Arthur. Artos – as depicted in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'' – is the optimistic precedent for the effectiveness of a Company of three hundred. The other precedent is the Spartans at Thermopylae.
* LastStand: [[spoiler:When two-thirds of the Company are dead and their reinforcements fail to materialise, the Fosterling decides on a SelfDestructiveCharge in the hopes of TakingYouWithMe, since they have no chance of escaping the encircling Saxons.]]
-->[[spoiler:"So – I turned in the saddle and looked back. And I saw the Companions on their last ride. I have never forgotten that sight, nor, I am thinking, will any of the Saxon kind who saw them coming and lived beyond that night. I saw the Wild Hunt. I saw riders with black eyesockets in glimmering mail where their faces should have been, grey wolfskins catching a bloom of light from the mist and the moon; a shining company indeed, not quite mortal-seeming, but made of another kind that might dissolve at any moment into the mist that smoked about them. Only for that bright breath of time I saw them by the white levin-light of the moon, as something in which I had no part at all. Then I faced forward and settled down to ride; a part of them once more, in a oneness that was more potent than the oneness we had come to know on the Dyn Eidin training grounds. The bloom of light was on my own wolfskin, and my own mailed face, faceless with the rest."]]
* LeaveNoWitnesses: On the march south Prosper and Cynan capture a highly dangerous Saxon shepherd. The Fosterling apologetically executes him.
* LineInTheSand: When the recruits have assembled and Mynyddog finally explains what they're assembled ''for'', he gives them the chance to say "so long and thanks for all the fish" before his first great equipment-giving feast. [[spoiler:Before the LastStand, the Fosterling offers everyone still alive the chance to OptOut of the SelfDestructiveCharge, judgement-free. No one does, of course.]]
-->'''Aneirin:''' If you take honour from my hands here and now, you also will each become such a one as the harpers sing of, but it may be that [[Literature/TainBoCuailnge you also will not count your first white hairs]]. It is only right that you should know this, before you make your choice. This evening you have feasted all together, and with the feasting done, any who wish it, shall ride away.
* MadeASlave: Conn was sold to slave-traders in Ireland. Aneirin was held prisoner by King Aelle.
-->"I learned what lay behind the white mark of the thrall-ring on the neck of Aneirin the Poet; how he had been taken captive by the Saxons when on an [[SacredHospitality embassage to their King]], taken under the Green Branch of peacetalk."
* ManlyTears:
-->[[spoiler:"I cried as I had never cried before, and as I do not think that I have ever cried since; for the last ride of the Shining Company, for the death of my friends, for strength and beauty and brightness gone out of the world, though we had not killed the white hart; I cried I think for my own boyhood that I had thought myself grown out of years ago, but that in truth I had only lost at Catraeth two nights since."]]
* TheMarvelousDeer: Prosper, Conn, and Luned are the first to sight the white hart that they decide to protect from the prince Gorthyn's hunting. [[spoiler:Gorthyn calls off the hunt himself on seeing the deer and thereby wins Prosper's loyalty and his services as shield bearer.]]
-->"For a moment the thought came upon me that he was some creature out of ancient legend, such as the harpers sang of beside the fire on winter nights. He stood with his head back, poised and proud under the arching crown of antlers, seeming not so much to shine in the moonlight as to be fashioned of the same stuff as the moonlight itself. For a long breath-held moment we looked at each other. I'll swear we looked at each other, eyes into eyes as men look, and for that moment it was as though some enchantment held us all, humans and beast alike, within a perfect circle that had neither beginning nor end."
* TheMedic: Old Nurse and Brother Pebwyr at Nant Ffrancon, the Queen and Princess Niamh at Dyn Eidin, and Aneirin at Catraeth.
* AMinorKidroduction: The first chapters deal with Prosper's childhood with Luned, Conn, and [[CanineCompanion Gelert]] in the SmallSecludedWorld of his father's domain in North Wales, and how he came to meet Prince Gorthyn and was drawn into the Shining Company.
* TheOutsideWorld: The archangel dagger "pricked a hole in my familiar world and let in the world outside..."
-->"For the first time I knew, really knew, not just with my head but in my heart's core, that there was another world beyond the mountains; not the world of legend and faery of which the harpers sang, but a real world of living people, in which one of the Emperor's bodyguard was at that moment lacking his best dagger because he had wagered more than he could afford on a horse race."
* RuleOfThree: The Companions are the third of three celebrated fighting forces of three hundred soldiers, after the Spartans at Thermopylae and the Brotherhood of Artos; they fight in three-man units (making their actual numbers three times three hundred); Prosper grows up with ThreeAmigos, and Cynan is one of three brothers.
* SelfDestructiveCharge: [[spoiler:When TheSiege has reduced the Company to a third of its strength, the food and water are running out, no escape is possible, and no rescue is coming, the Fosterling resolves on a final attempt to kill King Aethelfrith and as much of the Saxon fighting force as they can manage.]]
-->'''Ceredig''': Let us make an end of our own choosing. Let us make one last charge against the Saxons, where their spear-wall is the thickest... We shall not break through; it is not for that we make our charge. We shall go down. But we shall take down with us such a harvest of the Saxon kind that it shall be long and long before their war hordes can gather full strength again.
* ShellShockedVeteran: [[spoiler:The loss of his brothers, the shock of betrayal, and a spiked club to the face render Cynan catatonic for a few days.]]
-->"Despite the half-healed wound that marred his cheek and forehead, he looked almost to be himself again, but still he seemed shut off from all that went on around him, and he never spoke. He was like one of those terrible slain warriors who, [[Literature/TheMabinogion so the ancient stories tell]], were put into the great cauldron of Annwn, and came out seemingly restored to life but without the power of speaking."
* ShoutOut: Aneirin recites a Welsh lullaby, "Dinogad's Smock", recorded in the same manuscript as ''Y Gododdin''.
* TheSiege: The Company takes Catraeth to hold it in advance of the British war hosts' arrival. They occupy the Roman ruins which the Saxons believe to be haunted, sending out killing sorties as they wait for TheCavalry, while the Saxon forces gather around them. They lose two thirds of their number, are forced back from their water supplies and run out of food. [[spoiler:By the time it is clear no help is coming, it is no longer possible to escape.]]
* SingleGirlSeeksMostPopularGuy: Ladies' man Cynan and his very devoted old friend, the Princess Niamh. [[spoiler:He’s too damaged to requite her, but he rides away wearing TheLadysFavour.]]
* SlaveLiberation: Conn wins his freedom with the help of a little LoopholeAbuse.
-->'''Prosper:''' Conn, I cannot give you your freedom – I would if I could, but you are my father's, not mine. But if you want to learn to be a swordsmith, then here is your chance to learn the skill, and when you have learned it – you're free.
* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler:The Three Hundred are reduced to a single Cynan Mac Clydno. There's also Prosper, Aneirin, a scout and three or four smiths, but they apparently don't count.]]
* TheSquire: Each Companion is backed by two shieldbearers in a unit called the Arrowhead, who serve him, and in battle replace his weapon, horse and even him, if necessary. The Three Hundred are in fact nine hundred.
-->"He sang deep into the night, of the three hundred men wearing golden torques and bearing swords that were the King's gift. Not of us, the shieldbearers, of course; we did not expect it. I do not suppose the men of other states who stood with the Spartans at Thermopylae expected it, either."
* TheStoryteller: Aneirin the TagalongChronicler, whose job it is to immortalise the Company in song, and various others: Old Nurse and Gwyn the harper, Phanes of Syracuse, and Huil and Dara, Prosper's companions in the ordeal of wakefulness.
* SuicideMission: [[spoiler:Mynyddog knows almost as soon as the Company has left that no help is coming from his neighbours and he can't afford to waste the rest of his war host rescuing them. [[SadisticChoice He doesn't recall them]], on the off chance that they might manage to kill the expansionist Saxon king. They have no idea.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Mynyddog''': No man should ride on such a trail altogether without hope. I was not quite without hope myself, at the outset.]]
* TrainingMontage: Averted. The middle section of the novel expands on their equipping and training.
* TwoGuysAndAGirl: Prosper, Luned with whom he's LikeBrotherAndSister, and his HeterosexualLifePartner Conn.
* UndyingLoyalty: Prosper and Prince Gorthyn, after they bond over beauty of the white hart. [[spoiler:After Gorthyn's painful and lingering death Prosper rededicates his existence to looking out for the shell-shocked Cynan.]]
-->"Something, a kind of fealty, went out from me to him that I knew would not return to me again so long as life lasted, his or mine."
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The novel is based on ''Y Gododdin'', an elegiac poem allegedly written by an eyewitness of the Battle of Catraeth, but since the major drama of the poem is that [[spoiler:all the heroes die]], the novel focuses on their unnamed supporters, the shieldbearers like Prosper.
* WeHaveReserves: Subverted. [[spoiler:Mynyddog is forced to [[KnowWhenToFoldEm cut his losses]] with the Shining Company precisely because, lacking reinforcements from his neighbours, he can't afford to commit the Gododdin host to bail them out and leave his territory defenseless.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Mynyddog:''' Their chance would have been small indeed, against the joined hosts of Deira and Bernicia. I judged that my shining and beloved Three Hundred were enough to lose.]]
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A hundred years after [[KingArthur Artos]] and his Company of three hundred cavalry united Britain’s forces against the invading [[UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons Saxons]], the Britons have fractured once more into the petty kingdoms of the Old North. Under the growing threat of the Saxon kings of [[OopNorth Deira and Bernicia]], King Mynyddog of [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} the Gododdin]] summons the [[CannonFodder second sons]] of the North and [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} West]] to form a new Three Hundred.
''The Shining Company'' is based on the Welsh elegiac poem ''Y Gododdin'', commemorating the fallen of the Battle of Catraeth circa 600 CE. It was traditionally attributed to the bard Aneirin, a supposed eyewitness.
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!!''The Shining Company'' contains examples of:
* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists: TagalongChronicler Aneirin will compose the Great Song that celebrates the Company's triumph (or tragic demise.) If they’d wanted a novel, apparently Prosper could have done just as well.
* AlliterativeFamily: The brothers Cynan, Cynri, and Cynran Mac Clydno, who are theoretically Scottish, enjoy a matching set of Welsh names.
* AnAssKickingChristmas: On the third day of Mynyddog's Midwinter feast, the Company and the Teulu fall to squabbling about [[SeriousBusiness the Champion's portion of the roast]], end up in a mead-fuelled brawl, and nearly burn down Dyn Eidin.
* AssInAmbassador: On being invited to review the Company, the envoy from the kingdom of Dalriada pooh-poohs mere combat readiness and wants a demonstration of discipline like, say, jumping off a cliff on command.
* BandOfBrothers: The Companions; their forebears in Artos's Company; and also the Teulu, the king's bodyguard.
* BecauseDestinySaysSo:
-->'''Conn:''' Maybe the Fates have marked their pattern on your forehead and on Cynan's as a while back you told me that they had marked it on mine. But among mortal men there can be no knowing why.
* BigEater:
-->"People often thought that it was for his fighting powers that Gwenabwy had come to be likened to [[FullBoarAction the wild pig.]] It was. But we who came to know him, knew also that there was [[GluttonousPig another reason]]."
* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: Phanes acquired the archangel dagger from a broke friend in the Emperor of Constantinople's Varangian Guard, to whom he means to return it someday. [[spoiler:After his CareerEndingInjury, Prosper and Cynan ride off into the sunrise on the pretext of [[MacguffinEscortMission doing it for him]], and end up joining the Guard themselves.]]
* CallingTheOldManOut: [[spoiler:Aneirin and Prosper's account of the battle in the Hall in Dyn Eidin turns into calling Mynyddog to account for his BetrayalByInaction.]]
* TheCavalry: ThePlan is for the Company to [[DoUntoOthersBeforeTheyDoUntoUs strike the Deiran capital Catraeth, ideally kill King Aethelfrith]], then dig in [[MyDefenseNeedNotProtectMeForever to await reinforcements]] from Gododdin and the nearby allied kingdoms. [[spoiler:The reinforcements don't come.]]
* CelticMythology: References abound, since almost everyone in the novel is a 6th century Celt.
** Gwyn ap Nudd and TheWildHunt
** Branwen, and the Cauldron of Annwn: the 2nd branch of ''Literature/TheMabinogion''
** Cuchulain: hero of the ''Literature/TainBoCuailnge''
** Languareth, Queen of Strathclyde: recipient of a ClingyMacguffin miracle performed by St. Mungo
** the Water Horse of Pwl Ddu: a drowning hazard
** the Rock of Black Annis: a folkloric witch of uncertain origin
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Prosper's best friends, his cousin Luned and his [[UnableToSupportAWife slave]] Conn. [[spoiler:Prosper eventually notices that SheIsAllGrownUp and wonders if his father plans to [[KissingCousins marry them to each other]], but in the end he sends Conn home [[SuddenlySuitableSuitor as a free man]] to marry her if he can.]]
-->'''Prosper:''' Luned is nobody's until she chooses. There is love between Luned and me – once I thought... But it is more LikeBrotherAndSister. There is love between Luned and you, and that, I am thinking, is of another kind.
* ContinuityNod: Prosper and Co. spend their wakefulness test in the wolf-haunted ruins of Castellum in a Shout Out to ''Literature/FrontierWolf''. The various references to KingArthur are also specifically to ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''.
* DeadGuyOnDisplay: [[spoiler:Ceredig the Fosterling has an unpleasant post-mortem.]]
-->[[spoiler:"The mist had got into my head, and when, some way ahead, I saw a battered and half-naked body wearing the great wolf helmet hoisted aloft on spear-shafts, it was a moment before I knew whether it was Aethelfrith or the Fosterling."]]
* DefeatMeansFriendship: Zig-zagged. Prosper accidentally humiliates a fellow shieldbearer named Faelinn during a TrustBuildingBlunder, and Faelinn [[TheResenter resents it]] until another test exposes similar weakness in Prosper to him. [[spoiler:They fall together during the siege of Catraeth and become Cynan's replacement shieldbearers, and though still not exactly friends, they'd rather go into the LastStand together than not.]]
* DividedWeFall: Mynyddog of the Gododdin is trying to unite a warhost of the kingdoms of the northwest, in the tradition of Artos, to check the expanding Saxon kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The last guy who tried to do that, Urien of Rheged, was murdered by his own men. [[spoiler:His fellow rulers decline to send troops to his support, and the Shining Company is sacrificed in the hope of killing the dynamic Saxon king.]]
-->'''Gwyn:''' I am thinking that on the day that the tribes learn to stand together instead of slitting each other's throats, the stars will fall out of the sky.
* DueToTheDead: The casualties of TheSiege are buried in mass graves, stripped of their precious equipment but left their personal ornaments. [[spoiler:There's no one left to bury the last of the Company, but their memorial will be the song of Aneirin.]]
* DwindlingParty: [[spoiler:Dara, Cynri Mac Clydno, Gorthyn, Cynran Mac Clydno, Lleyn, and Peredur]] and six hundred others are killed in the course of TheSiege.
* EverybodysDeadDave: [[spoiler:Prosper and Cynan find themselves alone (and to really make the point, in a graveyard) at the end of the broken charge.]]
* FieryRedhead: King Aethelfrith of Bernicia [[spoiler:and Deira]], nicknamed "the Flame-bringer."
* FogOfWar: The ability to conjure a concealing fog is said to be an ability of druids, of which Aneirin is one. He actually manages to do it on the night of the LastStand.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: If you don’t know going in that [[spoiler:everybody in ''Y Gododdin'' died]], references to the [[UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars 300 Spartans at Thermopylae]] might give you a clue.
* FreudianTrio: The three Welsh princes, with their leader Tydfwlch the Tall as the Ego, Gwenabwy as Id, and thoughtful Gorthyn as Superego.
* TheHerosBirthday: The novel opens on the day Prosper is given Conn as a birthday present. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance He's disappointed, as he actually wanted a dog.]]
* HeroicBastard: Ceredig the "Fosterling," captain of the Teulu and the Company.
-->"I looked at the Captain of the Teulu standing by, and saw an odd look on his face – [[WellDoneSonGuy surprise, and a kind of bitter inward-turning laughter]] – and guessed that although the thing was indeed common knowledge, it was maybe the first time that the king had formally acknowledged his briar-bush son before all men."
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Prosper and Conn.
-->'''Prosper:''' It is but five springs since my father gave us to each other, yet it seems as though we came into life together.
-->'''Conn:''' And the grief is on me that we may not go out of it together also.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Aneirin, the kings Mynyddog, Aelle and Aethelfrith, and all the Companions named in ''Y Gododdin'' (including Gorthyn, Cynran and his brothers, Ceredig, Gwenabwy and Tydfwlch, Llif, Peredur, Madog, Morien, etc.) were all, supposedly, real people.
* IntrepidMerchant: Phanes of Syracuse is a man of parts: BloodBrothers with King Mynyddog, his interpreter with the Saxons, he survives a SecretStabWound to bring news of Aelle’s death, and carried the archangel dagger that alters the course of Prosper, Conn, and Cynan’s lives from Constantinople to darkest Wales.
* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Part of Ceredig's RousingSpeech, an unwitting paraphrase of Bedwyr in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''.
-->'''The Fosterling:''' I am a man who likes to choose with care the company he dies in, and I should be full fain to die in yours.
* KillTheOnesYouLove: Prosper resolves to shoot the white hart, rather than let it be pulled down by Gorthyn's hounds. [[spoiler:Cynan cuts the throat of Cynran, his wounded youngest brother.]]
-->"It was time that those who were too sorely hurt to ride were [[MercyKill sent on their way]]; for they could not be left to fall into the hands of the Sea-wolves. The last mercy, among fighting men, performed by brother for brother, friend for friend."
* KingArthur: ''Y Gododdin'' contains possibly the oldest ShoutOut to Arthur. Artos – as depicted in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'' – is the optimistic precedent for the effectiveness of a Company of three hundred. The other precedent is the Spartans at Thermopylae.
* LastStand: [[spoiler:When two-thirds of the Company are dead and their reinforcements fail to materialise, the Fosterling decides on a SelfDestructiveCharge in the hopes of TakingYouWithMe, since they have no chance of escaping the encircling Saxons.]]
-->[[spoiler:"So – I turned in the saddle and looked back. And I saw the Companions on their last ride. I have never forgotten that sight, nor, I am thinking, will any of the Saxon kind who saw them coming and lived beyond that night. I saw the Wild Hunt. I saw riders with black eyesockets in glimmering mail where their faces should have been, grey wolfskins catching a bloom of light from the mist and the moon; a shining company indeed, not quite mortal-seeming, but made of another kind that might dissolve at any moment into the mist that smoked about them. Only for that bright breath of time I saw them by the white levin-light of the moon, as something in which I had no part at all. Then I faced forward and settled down to ride; a part of them once more, in a oneness that was more potent than the oneness we had come to know on the Dyn Eidin training grounds. The bloom of light was on my own wolfskin, and my own mailed face, faceless with the rest."]]
* LeaveNoWitnesses: On the march south Prosper and Cynan capture a highly dangerous Saxon shepherd. The Fosterling apologetically executes him.
* LineInTheSand: When the recruits have assembled and Mynyddog finally explains what they're assembled ''for'', he gives them the chance to say "so long and thanks for all the fish" before his first great equipment-giving feast. [[spoiler:Before the LastStand, the Fosterling offers everyone still alive the chance to OptOut of the SelfDestructiveCharge, judgement-free. No one does, of course.]]
-->'''Aneirin:''' If you take honour from my hands here and now, you also will each become such a one as the harpers sing of, but it may be that [[Literature/TainBoCuailnge you also will not count your first white hairs]]. It is only right that you should know this, before you make your choice. This evening you have feasted all together, and with the feasting done, any who wish it, shall ride away.
* MadeASlave: Conn was sold to slave-traders in Ireland. Aneirin was held prisoner by King Aelle.
-->"I learned what lay behind the white mark of the thrall-ring on the neck of Aneirin the Poet; how he had been taken captive by the Saxons when on an [[SacredHospitality embassage to their King]], taken under the Green Branch of peacetalk."
* ManlyTears:
-->[[spoiler:"I cried as I had never cried before, and as I do not think that I have ever cried since; for the last ride of the Shining Company, for the death of my friends, for strength and beauty and brightness gone out of the world, though we had not killed the white hart; I cried I think for my own boyhood that I had thought myself grown out of years ago, but that in truth I had only lost at Catraeth two nights since."]]
* TheMarvelousDeer: Prosper, Conn, and Luned are the first to sight the white hart that they decide to protect from the prince Gorthyn's hunting. [[spoiler:Gorthyn calls off the hunt himself on seeing the deer and thereby wins Prosper's loyalty and his services as shield bearer.]]
-->"For a moment the thought came upon me that he was some creature out of ancient legend, such as the harpers sang of beside the fire on winter nights. He stood with his head back, poised and proud under the arching crown of antlers, seeming not so much to shine in the moonlight as to be fashioned of the same stuff as the moonlight itself. For a long breath-held moment we looked at each other. I'll swear we looked at each other, eyes into eyes as men look, and for that moment it was as though some enchantment held us all, humans and beast alike, within a perfect circle that had neither beginning nor end."
* TheMedic: Old Nurse and Brother Pebwyr at Nant Ffrancon, the Queen and Princess Niamh at Dyn Eidin, and Aneirin at Catraeth.
* AMinorKidroduction: The first chapters deal with Prosper's childhood with Luned, Conn, and [[CanineCompanion Gelert]] in the SmallSecludedWorld of his father's domain in North Wales, and how he came to meet Prince Gorthyn and was drawn into the Shining Company.
* TheOutsideWorld: The archangel dagger "pricked a hole in my familiar world and let in the world outside..."
-->"For the first time I knew, really knew, not just with my head but in my heart's core, that there was another world beyond the mountains; not the world of legend and faery of which the harpers sang, but a real world of living people, in which one of the Emperor's bodyguard was at that moment lacking his best dagger because he had wagered more than he could afford on a horse race."
* RuleOfThree: The Companions are the third of three celebrated fighting forces of three hundred soldiers, after the Spartans at Thermopylae and the Brotherhood of Artos; they fight in three-man units (making their actual numbers three times three hundred); Prosper grows up with ThreeAmigos, and Cynan is one of three brothers.
* SelfDestructiveCharge: [[spoiler:When TheSiege has reduced the Company to a third of its strength, the food and water are running out, no escape is possible, and no rescue is coming, the Fosterling resolves on a final attempt to kill King Aethelfrith and as much of the Saxon fighting force as they can manage.]]
-->'''Ceredig''': Let us make an end of our own choosing. Let us make one last charge against the Saxons, where their spear-wall is the thickest... We shall not break through; it is not for that we make our charge. We shall go down. But we shall take down with us such a harvest of the Saxon kind that it shall be long and long before their war hordes can gather full strength again.
* ShellShockedVeteran: [[spoiler:The loss of his brothers, the shock of betrayal, and a spiked club to the face render Cynan catatonic for a few days.]]
-->"Despite the half-healed wound that marred his cheek and forehead, he looked almost to be himself again, but still he seemed shut off from all that went on around him, and he never spoke. He was like one of those terrible slain warriors who, [[Literature/TheMabinogion so the ancient stories tell]], were put into the great cauldron of Annwn, and came out seemingly restored to life but without the power of speaking."
* ShoutOut: Aneirin recites a Welsh lullaby, "Dinogad's Smock", recorded in the same manuscript as ''Y Gododdin''.
* TheSiege: The Company takes Catraeth to hold it in advance of the British war hosts' arrival. They occupy the Roman ruins which the Saxons believe to be haunted, sending out killing sorties as they wait for TheCavalry, while the Saxon forces gather around them. They lose two thirds of their number, are forced back from their water supplies and run out of food. [[spoiler:By the time it is clear no help is coming, it is no longer possible to escape.]]
* SingleGirlSeeksMostPopularGuy: Ladies' man Cynan and his very devoted old friend, the Princess Niamh. [[spoiler:He’s too damaged to requite her, but he rides away wearing TheLadysFavour.]]
* SlaveLiberation: Conn wins his freedom with the help of a little LoopholeAbuse.
-->'''Prosper:''' Conn, I cannot give you your freedom – I would if I could, but you are my father's, not mine. But if you want to learn to be a swordsmith, then here is your chance to learn the skill, and when you have learned it – you're free.
* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler:The Three Hundred are reduced to a single Cynan Mac Clydno. There's also Prosper, Aneirin, a scout and three or four smiths, but they apparently don't count.]]
* TheSquire: Each Companion is backed by two shieldbearers in a unit called the Arrowhead, who serve him, and in battle replace his weapon, horse and even him, if necessary. The Three Hundred are in fact nine hundred.
-->"He sang deep into the night, of the three hundred men wearing golden torques and bearing swords that were the King's gift. Not of us, the shieldbearers, of course; we did not expect it. I do not suppose the men of other states who stood with the Spartans at Thermopylae expected it, either."
* TheStoryteller: Aneirin the TagalongChronicler, whose job it is to immortalise the Company in song, and various others: Old Nurse and Gwyn the harper, Phanes of Syracuse, and Huil and Dara, Prosper's companions in the ordeal of wakefulness.
* SuicideMission: [[spoiler:Mynyddog knows almost as soon as the Company has left that no help is coming from his neighbours and he can't afford to waste the rest of his war host rescuing them. [[SadisticChoice He doesn't recall them]], on the off chance that they might manage to kill the expansionist Saxon king. They have no idea.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Mynyddog''': No man should ride on such a trail altogether without hope. I was not quite without hope myself, at the outset.]]
* TrainingMontage: Averted. The middle section of the novel expands on their equipping and training.
* TwoGuysAndAGirl: Prosper, Luned with whom he's LikeBrotherAndSister, and his HeterosexualLifePartner Conn.
* UndyingLoyalty: Prosper and Prince Gorthyn, after they bond over beauty of the white hart. [[spoiler:After Gorthyn's painful and lingering death Prosper rededicates his existence to looking out for the shell-shocked Cynan.]]
-->"Something, a kind of fealty, went out from me to him that I knew would not return to me again so long as life lasted, his or mine."
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The novel is based on ''Y Gododdin'', an elegiac poem allegedly written by an eyewitness of the Battle of Catraeth, but since the major drama of the poem is that [[spoiler:all the heroes die]], the novel focuses on their unnamed supporters, the shieldbearers like Prosper.
* WeHaveReserves: Subverted. [[spoiler:Mynyddog is forced to [[KnowWhenToFoldEm cut his losses]] with the Shining Company precisely because, lacking reinforcements from his neighbours, he can't afford to commit the Gododdin host to bail them out and leave his territory defenseless.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Mynyddog:''' Their chance would have been small indeed, against the joined hosts of Deira and Bernicia. I judged that my shining and beloved Three Hundred were enough to lose.]]
----
