The tale is set in the Third and Fourth Ages of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe, Middle-earth, and was published in 1955 in "The Return of the King" as the fifth part of the first section of Appendix A of "The Lord of the Rings". In the book itself, Aragorn is presented almost without detail of his relationships, other than a brief interaction with Éowyn, the lady of Rohan, while Arwen barely speaks and hardly features until her marriage at the end of the book. In a letter dated 6 April 1956 to his publisher Rayner Unwin, Tolkien stated that the tale was the only part of the Appendices that was "really essential to the story." The publishers wanted to omit the Appendices entirely for the first Swedish edition, the 1959-1961 "Sagan om ringen"; Tolkien insisted on keeping the tale, stating that it was "essential to the understanding of the main text in many places", and it and Appendix D formed the only appendices to that edition.
Context
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Context
The tale is set in the Third and Fourth Ages of fictional universe. It is a story within the Appendices of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". A frame story It is a story within the Appendices of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings".
arwen's dad in lord of the rings
user
Her father was Elrond half-elven, a descendant of the Man Tuor.
assistant
what is an elven?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
assistant
who created the aforementioned character?
user
J. R. R. Tolkien
assistant
are there any other names of the character?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
assistant
is the character referred in any literature?
user
Yes, in "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen".
assistant
what kind of literary work is it?
user
"The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" is a story within the Appendices of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". It narrates the love of the mortal Man Aragorn and the immortal Elf-maiden Arwen, telling the story of their first meeting, their eventual betrothal and marriage, and the circumstances of their deaths. Tolkien called the tale "really essential to the story". In contrast to the non-narrative appendices it extends the main story of the book to cover events both before and after it, one reason it would not fit in the main text. Tolkien gave another reason for its exclusion, namely that the main text is told from the hobbits' point of view.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Introduction
Aragorn is the opposite of hobbitish: tall, not provincial, untroubled by the discomforts of the wild. At the start, in Bree, he appears as a Ranger of the North, a weatherbeaten man named Strider. Gradually the reader discovers he is heir to the throne of Gondor, engaged to be married to Arwen, an Elf-woman. He emerges as an unqualified hero, in Frye's "High Mimetic" or "Romantic" literary mode, making the whole novel indeed a heroic romance: he regains his throne, marries Arwen, and has a long, peaceful, and happy reign.
Man (Middle-earth) | From "clod" to hero
It has been noted also that the tale's relegation deprives the main story of much of its love-interest, shifting the book's emphasis towards action.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Introduction
West speculates that Aragorn may be thinking here of the consequences of what will happen should Arwen marry him, and later states that he finds "the lonely death of Arwen the most moving tragedy within ["The Lord of the Rings"]". A similar conclusion regarding Aragorn's feelings at Weathertop is drawn by scholar of medieval English literature John M. Bowers in his work on the influence of Geoffrey Chaucer on Tolkien. Bowers, looking at both the Weathertop scene and 'The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen', states that like certain pilgrims in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", Aragorn's stories of his ancestors "open a window into his private desires and fears".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Love and death
The scholar of English literature Chris Walsh describes "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" as an alternative ending to "The Lord of the Rings", with Aragorn's sombre last words to Arwen in place of the hobbit Sam Gamgee's cheery "Well, I'm back". Walsh notes that in a letter, Tolkien wrote "The passage over Sea [to Elvenhome in the West] is not Death ... I am only concerned with Death as part of the nature, physical and spiritual, of Man, and with Hope without guarantees. That is why I regard the tale of Arwen and Aragorn as the most important of the appendices; it is part of the essential story [...]".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Relegated ending
The original manuscript pages of the deathbed exchange between Aragorn and Arwen show that this key scene was almost unchanged from the published version, and had been written at great speed.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Context
In Tolkien's fictional universe, the frame story is that the tale was written by Faramir and Éowyn's grandson Barahir after Aragorn's death, and that an abbreviated version of the tale was included in the copy of the Thain's Book made by Findegil. The Tolkien scholar Giuseppe Pezzini writes that the "meta-textual frame ... is duly harmonised in the text through the use of formal features; the appendixes are indeed full of scribal glosses, later notes, and editorial references that are meant to match the elaborate textual history detailed in the Note on the Shire Records." The narrative voice and the point of view from which the story is told is examined by the scholar of English, literature, and film Christine Barkley, who considers the main part of the tale to have been narrated by Aragorn.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Frame story
The medievalist and scholar of Old English literature and its use in fantasy, Tom Shippey, analyses the tale for what it says about Tolkien's delicate balance between open Christianity and his treatment of his characters as heathens, a word that Shippey observes Tolkien uses very sparingly. Shippey notes that both Aragorn and Arwen are pagan, though Aragorn is "remarkably virtuous .. without even the faults of Theoden, and he foreknows his death like a [Christian] saint". Shippey notes that Arwen is inconsolable, seeing nothing after death, rejecting Aragorn's "we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Missing religion
The tale to some extent mirrors the "Tale of Beren and Lúthien", set in an earlier age of Middle-earth. This creates a feeling of historical depth, in what scholars note is an approach similar to that of Dante in his "Inferno". Aspects of the tale discussed by scholars include the nature of love and death; the question of why the tale, if so important, was relegated to an appendix; Tolkien's blurring of the line between story and history; the balance Tolkien strikes between open Christianity and his treatment of his characters as pagan; and the resulting paradox that although Tolkien was a Roman Catholic and considered the book fundamentally Catholic, Middle-earth societies lack religions of their own.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Introduction
Bowman notes that when Aragorn first sees Arwen, he both sings about Lúthien Tinúviel and calls Arwen by that name "as if the story [of Lúthien and Beren] had come to life before his eyes" and later he compares his life with Beren's, saying "I have turned my eyes to a treasure no less dear than the treasure of Thingol that Beren once desired". To Bowman, this blurs the line between story and history, something that as she notes Tolkien much preferred, whether "true or feigned", in the same way that Dante in his "Inferno" (5.121-138) narrates that Paolo and Francesca were trying to imitate Lancelot and Guinevere of Arthurian legend.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | "History, true or feigned"
The scholar of English literature Anna Vaninskaya studies "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" to see how Tolkien uses fantasy to examine the issues of love and death, time and immortality. Given that Tolkien's Elves are immortal, they face the question of death from a unique vantage-point. Sarah Workman writes that in the tale, Arwen's mourning of Aragorn serves to overcome what Peter Brooks called (she writes) the "meaningless", interminable nature of immortality. Workman quotes Brooks's statement that "all narration is obituary" and states that it is in that conception that Tolkien valued Arwen's fate: it is Arwen's "mourning gaze that allows for the transmission of Aragorn's memory", or in Tolkien's words which she quotes, "And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Love and death
The Third Age ends as Elrond departs Middle-earth never to return, and he and Arwen are "sundered by the Sea and by a doom beyond the end of the world".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Plot
The literary historian and folklorist William Gray adds that the reason for the tale's relegation may be that it does not contribute to the interlacing of the narrative. Interlacing is the literary device where the narrative jumps between parallel threads. Gray notes that one effect of the relegation is an emphasis on dramatic action, at the price of "love-interest". All the same, Gray writes, the tale "is one of Tolkien's most moving pieces. It is a tale about enduring love, triumphing over seemingly impossible odds, and sealed with Arwen's sacrifice of her Elven immortality in order to live with her human husband for 'six score years of great glory and bliss'." Tolkien himself gave another explanation, which was that "This story is placed in an appendix, because I have told the whole tale [of "The Lord of the Rings"] more or less through 'hobbits'; and that is because another main point in the story for me is the remark of Elrond in Vol.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Relegated ending
Aragorn, visiting Rivendell, sings the "Lay of Lúthien", an immortal Elf-maiden in the First Age who marries a man, Beren, thereby choosing a mortal life. As he does so, "Lúthien walked before his eyes": he sees Arwen in the woods, and calls out to her "Tinúviel! Tinúviel!" as Beren had done; she reveals that although she seems no older than he, she is of great age, having "the [immortal] life of the Eldar". He falls in love with her. Arwen's father, Elrond the Half-elven, sees without being told what has happened, and tells Aragorn that a "great doom awaits" him, either to be the greatest of his line since Elendil, or to fall into darkness; and that he "shall neither have wife, nor bind any woman to you in troth" until he is found worthy.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Plot
The tale is set in the Third and Fourth Ages of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe, Middle-earth, and was published in 1955 in "The Return of the King" as the fifth part of the first section of Appendix A of "The Lord of the Rings". In the book itself, Aragorn is presented almost without detail of his relationships, other than a brief interaction with Éowyn, the lady of Rohan, while Arwen barely speaks and hardly features until her marriage at the end of the book. In a letter dated 6 April 1956 to his publisher Rayner Unwin, Tolkien stated that the tale was the only part of the Appendices that was "really essential to the story." The publishers wanted to omit the Appendices entirely for the first Swedish edition, the 1959-1961 "Sagan om ringen"; Tolkien insisted on keeping the tale, stating that it was "essential to the understanding of the main text in many places", and it and Appendix D formed the only appendices to that edition.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Context
Yet it is not yours to give me, even if you would; and only through darkness shall I come to it", and in response is presented by Galadriel with a green elfstone (earning him the name "Elessar") set in a silver brooch from Arwen. West draws a further connection between the tale in the Appendices and the main text in his analysis of the scene at the camp on Weathertop where Aragorn (Strider) recounts to the hobbits in poetry and prose the "Tale of Beren and Lúthien", with West highlighting Aragorn's words and "pensive mood" as he tells them that Lúthien "chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow [Beren]" and that "together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines of this world" and that she "alone of the Elf-kindred has died indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most loved".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Love and death
Only in his work on the appendices for "The Lord of the Rings" did Tolkien record the full Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.
Aragorn | Development
Men cannot climb the hierarchy, as Eru, Valar, and Elves are permanently above them. But the Elves voluntarily leave at the end of the Third Age, so men can take their place. Further, Burns writes, the marriage with Arwen infuses Aragorn's line with fresh Elven blood, bringing some of the Elves' actual power and nobility to Gondor.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | "History, true or feigned"
The Tolkien scholar Richard C. West notes the resemblance between Arwen and Lúthien, and analyses Arwen's understanding of her fateful choice, between love for Aragorn and mortality on the one hand, and her father's wishes and immortality on the other. Others such as Bill Davis analyse Tolkien's exploration of mortality through an elf's choosing to die. West further shows how Tolkien subtly weaves the tale into the main story of "The Lord of the Rings". West gives examples of direct and indirect references to Arwen that only make sense or become clearer once the tale in the Appendices has been read, such as the gift-giving scene in Lothlorien where Aragorn refers to Arwen with his words to Galadriel "Lady, you know all my desire, and long held in keeping the only treasure that I seek.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Love and death
Sarah Workman writes that the relegation of the tale to an appendix "does not subordinate its importance", citing the same letter. Walsh states that he is interested to find that while Tolkien had "reluctantly relegated" the tale to an appendix, it is part of the main story in Peter Jackson's film trilogy, "strategically placed almost exactly half-way through". The film's depiction of the tale differs from the book's, combining Arwen's arrival, the presentation of the banner, the coronation, and the wedding; in the tale, Aragorn "unfurled the standard of Arwen in the battle of the Fields of Pelennor". Walsh notes that Jackson includes a flash forward to Elrond's vision of Arwen as the King's widow, with the phrase "There is nothing for you here: only death" used both in the film of "The Two Towers" and again in "The Return of the King": in Walsh's view, death is the story's focus.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Relegated ending
West speculates that Aragorn may be thinking here of the consequences of what will happen should Arwen marry him, and later states that he finds "the lonely death of Arwen the most moving tragedy within ["The Lord of the Rings"]". A similar conclusion regarding Aragorn's feelings at Weathertop is drawn by the scholar of medieval English literature John M. Bowers in his work on the influence of Geoffrey Chaucer on Tolkien. Bowers, looking at both the Weathertop scene and 'The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen', states that like certain pilgrims in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", Aragorn's stories of his ancestors "open a window into his private desires and fears".
Half-elf | Interpretations
In reply, with "the foresight of his kindred", Aragorn prophesies that Elrond's time in Middle-earth is coming to an end, and that Arwen will have to choose between her father and staying in Middle-earth. Aragorn and Arwen meet again in Lothlórien, nearly thirty years later. Galadriel dresses Aragorn in "silver and white, with a cloak of elven-grey and a bright gem on his brow", so that he seems to be an elf-lord. Arwen sees him and makes her choice. They climb the hill of Cerin Amroth, from where they can see the Shadow (Mordor) in the East, and the Twilight (the fading of the Elves) in the West, and they "plighted their troth".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Plot
Rateliff praises and quotes the scholar of English literature Paul H. Kocher on this: "At the end of his epic Tolkien inserts ... some forebodings of [Middle-earth's] future which will make Earth what it is today ... he shows the initial steps in a long process of retreat or disappearance [of] all other intelligent species, which will leave man effectually alone on earth... Ents may still be there in our forests, but what forests have we left? The process of extermination is already well under way in the Third Age, and ... Tolkien bitterly deplores its climax today." In this tale of decline and fall, notes Marjorie Burns, Tolkien "clever[ly]" manages to include an element of rising to nobility.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | "History, true or feigned"
Whatever the case, Shippey considers the tale to give "the deepest sense of religious belief mentioned explicitly in Middle-earth", but that the result is an "only-slightly-qualified absence of religion", creating a "paradox of a 'fundamentally Catholic' work which never once mentions God." In her study of death and dying in "The Lord of the Rings", Amy Amendt-Raduege states that Aragorn's death "follows the step-by-step process outlined by the "Ars moriendi"", the Christian precepts on how to die well, namely "the acceptance of death, the refusal of temptation, the dispensation of worldly goods and the last farewell to the family, and the final affirmation of faith".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Missing religion
Culhwch's horse-ride passage is reused in the 16th-century prose "parody" "Araith Wgon", as well as in 17th-century poetic adaptations of that work. Writers and Tolkien scholars, Tom Shippey and David Day have pointed out the similarities between "The Tale of Beren and Lúthien", one of the main cycles of J. R. R. Tolkien's "legendarium", and "Culhwch and Olwen".
Culhwch and Olwen | Cultural influence
This must have been "a glorious piece of courtly panegyrics".
Þjóðólfr Arnórsson | Works
The Tolkien scholar John D. Rateliff writes that "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" forms one of the "very final passages" of the internal chronology of "Lord of the Rings", and that it ends not just with Arwen's death, but the statement that her grave is on Cerin Amroth "until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after ... and with the passing of [Arwen] Evenstar no more is said in this book of the days of old." Rateliff observes that this points up a "highly unusual" aspect of the book among modern fantasy: it is set "in the real world but in an imagined prehistory." As a result, Rateliff explains, Tolkien can build what he likes in that distant past, elves and wizards and hobbits and all the rest, provided that he tears it all down again, so that the modern world can emerge from the wreckage, with nothing but "a word or two, a few vague legends and confused traditions..." to show for it.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | "History, true or feigned"
I: 'Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world [...]'". The Tolkien scholar Christina Scull notes that as a result of this hobbit-centred viewpoint, first-time readers can be "as surprised as the hobbits when Arwen and her escort arrive at Minas Tirith".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Relegated ending
In the film adaptation of "", the injured Aragorn is revived by a dream or vision of Arwen, who kisses him and asks the Valar to protect him.
Arwen | Adaptations
Amendt-Raduege describes the death of Aragorn as "one of the most deeply moving scenes in the story".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Missing religion
Culhwch and Olwen () is a Welsh tale that survives in only two manuscripts about a hero connected with Arthur and his warriors: a complete version in the Red Book of Hergest, c. 1400, and a fragmented version in the White Book of Rhydderch, c. 1325. It is the longest of the surviving Welsh prose tales.
Culhwch and Olwen | Introduction
This puts him in Frye's "Romantic" mode. Tolkien does come close to myth, Shippey suggests, as when Gandalf confronts the leader of the Nazgûl at the gate of Minas Tirith, and a cock crows, "as if" signalling the arrival of the Rohan cavalry, just as, he writes, a crowing cock signalled the Resurrection to Simon Peter in the Bible.
Aragorn | Romantic hero
"Pa gur" has often been compared to the tale of "Culhwch and Olwen". One general similarity lies in the use both works make of allusion to a string of stories featuring Arthur and his men, but there is also a more specific one. In "Pa gur" the gatekeeper Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr questions Arthur's right to be admitted; in "Culhwch and Olwen", where he is Arthur's gatekeeper, he similarly demands to know Culhwch's qualifications to be let in, and later in the tale the giant Wrnach Gawr's gatekeeper admits Cai after questioning him. There is no agreement as to the relationship between these three episodes, but it is possible that the author of "Culhwch" was burlesquing "Pa gur".
Pa gur | Sources and analogues
Literary works in English that derive from this medieval Arthurian world include plays, poems and novels, mostly from the 19th century onwards, and modern fantasy novels. Sir Gawain is under-represented in these stories, and although some modern works have found inspiration in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", no modern published adaptations of "Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle" exist. There is, however, an English fairytale, the story of "Jack the Giant-killer". As related by Flora Annie Steel, in her "English Fairy-tales" published in 1918, it tells the tale of a boy, a farmer's son named Jack who, by using the same ingenuity that Sigurd used to slay the dragon Fafnir, kills a giant that had been plaguing Cornwall and takes all his gold.
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle | Later derivatives
The Tolkien critic Tom Shippey evaluates the literary status of Aragorn and "The Lord of the Rings" using Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism". He writes that figures like Éomer of Rohan and Faramir of Gondor are in Frye's terms "superior in degree to other men but not to their natural environment", which places them in Frye's "High Mimetic" literary mode. The hobbits are often in "Low mimetic" mode, even, like Bilbo, "Ironic". But Aragorn, he states, while not being a "Mythic" figure, is superior to his environment, pointing out that he can run 135 miles in three days, and lives "in full vigour" for over 200 years.
Aragorn | Romantic hero
Farewell!"; as Shippey says, "Arwen is not comforted" by this; none of the traditional consolations of religion are present. He observes that Tolkien stated in a letter to a Jesuit priest that he had cut religion out of "The Lord of the Rings" because it "is absorbed into the story and the symbolism". Shippey explains that Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, "thought, or hoped, that God had a plan for [good pagan] pre-Catholics too", so that heroes like Aragorn would go to Limbo rather than to Hell. He notes that the tale contains another death-scene, that of Gilraen, Aragorn's mother; she too is not comforted by Aragorn's mention of "a light beyond the darkness", a phrase that Shippey writes could be a hope of salvation, or simply a hope of winning the War of the Ring.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Missing religion
Aragorn has an Ideal Partner in Arwen, but also a Negative Animus in Eowyn, at least until she meets Faramir and chooses a happy union with him instead.
Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien | Jungian archetypes
The story of Beren and Lúthien, immortal elf-maiden marrying a mortal man, and choosing mortality for herself, is mirrored in Tolkien's "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". Their names appear on the grave of Tolkien and his wife Edith.
Lúthien and Beren | Introduction
He tricks Iscovan the smith to trade his hammer and Follin the weaver to trade his shuttle but Menwy the bard perceives the truth and declines to trade his harp. Arawn strikes and shatters it, but Menwy laughs in defiance, saying the music of life is all around them, in the forest and its animals, and Arawn flees in terror. The warrior Coll has retired to farming. Horsemen steal his white pig Hen Wen and he follows on foot until he must rest under a hazelnut tree, whose fruit he eats. He rescues a baby owl and learns from its father that every nut he has eaten is "a day given you to understand the speech of birds and animals".
The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain | Stories
Uther Pendragon remains a widely used character in modern Arthurian literature and other fiction.
Uther Pendragon | Modern works
He then married Arwen and ruled for 122 years. Tolkien developed the character over a long period, beginning with a hobbit nicknamed Trotter, and trying out many names before arriving at a Man named Aragorn.
Aragorn | Introduction
It is not necessary therefore always to find literary sources for such tales in their Middle Welsh form: in any case, most written sources will have perished, and there is no way that we can tell if the surviving sources are in any way representative of the whole of what might have been extant.
Peredur son of Efrawg | Sources and analogues
The first one-volume edition of "The Lord of the Rings" that appeared in 1968 omitted all the Appendices "except for "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen"". The process of the composition of the tale was explored by Tolkien's son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien in the 12th and final volume of "The History of Middle-earth". Working from his father's unpublished manuscripts and drafts, he traces the evolution of the tale through several versions and framing devices, including an "abandoned experiment at inserting it into [a] history of the North Kingdom", concluding that "the original design of the tale of Aragorn and Arwen had been lost".
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Context
Various forms of these ballads show great similarity to the fairy tales "Fitcher's Bird" and "Bluebeard".
Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight | Literature
"The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", which is told in the appendices of "The Lord of the Rings", served as a sequel to this story. Indeed, both Aragorn and Arwen were descendants of Beren and Lúthien.
Beren and Lúthien | Development and versions
Thomas Love Peacock's novel of 1829 The Misfortunes of Elphin relates much of Elfin's story. The novel is in part a satire of contemporary British life and in part a playful and ironic version of Welsh legend. The novel includes the discovery of Taleisin as a baby and the attempted raper of Elfin's wife by Rhun - which is considerably toned down for a comic novel.
Elffin ap Gwyddno | Later literary references
The youth Taran lives at Caer Dallben with his guardians, the ancient enchanter Dallben and the farmer and retired soldier Coll. He is dissatisfied with his life, and longs to become a great hero like the High Prince Gwydion. Due to the threat posed by a warlord known as the Horned King, Taran is forbidden from leaving the farm and charged with the care of Hen Wen, the oracular white pig. When the pig escapes, Taran follows her into the forbidden forest. After a long, fruitless chase he is attacked by a host of horsemen galloping toward his home, led by the Horned King himself.
The Book of Three | Plot summary
The scholar of English literature Anna Vaninskaya studies how Tolkien uses fantasy to examine the issues of love and death, time and immortality. Given that Tolkien's Elves are immortal, they face the question of death from a unique vantage-point. Sarah Workman writes that in the "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", Arwen's mourning of Aragorn serves to overcome what Peter Brooks called (she writes) the "meaningless", interminable nature of immortality. Workman quotes Brooks's statement that "all narration is obituary" and states that it is in that conception that Tolkien valued Arwen's fate: it is Arwen's "mourning gaze that allows for the transmission of Aragorn's memory", or in Tolkien's words which she quotes, "And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed".
Half-elf | Interpretations
Ar n-a dtionntódh ón bhFraingcis, 1934; An Phíb fé sna bántaibh, 1933 ("The Pipe in the fields le T.C. Murray"); Oilibhéar Dubh, 1935 (the drama Black Oliver by John Guinan); An Bheidhlín Buadha, 1935 (François Coppée); An Sárúchán, 1935 ("The Lifting le John Brandane"); Eoinín Bocht, 1942 (El Pobrecito Juan le Gregorio Martinez Sierra). Tiarnaí deireanacha Urmhún (1956), translation of "The Last Lords of Ormond" by Dermot F. Gleason.
Risteard Ó Foghludha | Literary works
He can not let go of his past. Ultimately, Aragorn accepts and uses all of his names becoming more or less an anti-Túrin as Croft puts it.
The Lay of the Children of Húrin | Aragorn's Name Story
Elrond tells Aragorn that they may marry only when he is King of both Gondor and Arnor, the ancient southern and northern Kingdoms of Middle-earth. Some years later, Aragorn helps the Fellowship and the forces of the West to victory in the War of the Ring against the forces of Mordor. At the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, he unfurls the standard made by Arwen and is hailed as King by the people of Gondor. The One Ring is destroyed, taking the power of the three Elven-rings, including Elrond's, with it. Aragorn becomes King of Gondor and Arnor, and at midsummer he and Arwen are married in Minas Tirith.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen | Plot
Despite its late origin, the tale is rife with motifs deriving from folklore. The rescue of the prisoners, his exile, and their assistance to him is clearly recognizable in such fairy tales as "Iron Hans", "The Gold-bearded Man", and "The Hairy Man", and this friendship is central to the plot. "The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward" contains both the treacherous steward and the marriage to the steward interrupted for that of the man he supplanted. Both it and "The Goose Girl" turn on the revelation that the true royal has been supplanted by a treacherous servant. Fighting in the three different suits of armor at the tourney resemble those of "Ipomedon" and "Sir Gowther"
Roswall and Lillian | Motifs
There are references to "March ap Meichion" ("Mark") and "Trystan" in the Welsh Triads, in some of the gnomic poetry, the "Mabinogion" stories, and in the 11th-century hagiography of Illtud. A character called Drystan appears as one of King Arthur's advisers at the end of "The Dream of Rhonabwy", an early 13th-century tale in the Welsh prose collection known as the "Mabinogion". Iseult is listed along with other great men and women of Arthur's court in another, much earlier "Mabinogion" tale, "Culhwch and Olwen".
Tristan and Iseult | British
Two works in particular, the tale of Bran the Blessed in the "Second Branch of the Mabinogi" and a tale included in "Culhwch and Olwen" in which Arthur's retinue sail to Ireland aboard "Prydwen" (the ship used in "Preiddeu") to obtain the Cauldron of Diwrnach, are frequently cited as narratives resembling that of the present poem.
Preiddeu Annwfn | Analogues and interpretations
The novel is a retelling of the story of the Third Branch of the Mabinogion, "Manawydan Fab Llŷr" ("Manawyddan, son of Llŷr").
The Song of Rhiannon | Introduction
In the Arthurian story "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", the interplay of Gawain, his host Bertilak (who is actually The Green Knight), and Bertilak's wife are very similar to the events of Pwyll and Arawn's encounter. In this case, Arawn seems to have been used as a basis for Bertilak/The Green Knight, while Gawain was very similar to Pwyll. The parallel between the Green Knight and Arawn extends to the treatment of the "newcomer." In both stories the Knight/Arawn's wife tries to sleep with the newcomer, but both remain loyal to the Knight/Arawn. In both stories as a result of their faithfulness, the newcomer is rewarded with the favor of the Knight/Arawn.
Arawn | Influences on other literary works
The book was copied around AD 975. In addition to the various poems and stories found in the book, there are also numerous riddles. The Anglo-Saxons did not reveal the answers to the riddles, but they have been answered by scholars over the years. Some riddles were double-entendres, such as Riddle 25 ("I am a wondrous creature: to women a thing of joyful expectation, to close-lying companions serviceable. I harm no city-dweller excepting my slayer alone. My stem is erect and tall––I stand up in bed––and whiskery somewhere down below. Sometimes a countryman's quite comely daughter will venture, bumptious girl, to get a grip on me.
Double entendre | Literature
The text is partly written in Middle Welsh orthography and partly in Old Welsh. The early date would place its oral composition to soon after the battle, presumably in the "Hen Ogledd" ("Old North") in what would have been the Cumbric variety of Brythonic. Others consider it the work of a poet in medieval Wales, composed in the 9th, 10th or 11th century. Even a 9th-century date would make it one of the oldest surviving Welsh works of poetry. The name Mabinogion is a convenient label for a collection eleven prose stories collated from two medieval Welsh manuscripts known as the White book of Rhydderch ("Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch") (c.
Celtic literature | Early Celtic literature
The "Tale of Taliesin" is a legendary story about Taliesin printed in the "Mabinogion", and based in part on the forgeries of the "Iolo Manuscripts" by Iolo Morganwg. The story tells of events where Taliesin is placed in difficult or impossible situations but invariably overcomes all obstacles, usually through feats of magic. In one passage, Maelgwn Gwynedd sends his son Rhun on a mission to seduce the wife of Elffin ap Gwyddno. However, Elffin's court bard Taliesin knew of Maelgwn's plan because he was a seer, and arranged for a servant to replace his patron's wife, to the ultimate embarrassment of his patron's opponent Maelgwn.
Rhun Hir ap Maelgwn | Literary missteps
The comment suggests the work was not popular with storytellers, though this was more likely due to its position as a literary tale rather than a traditional one.
The Dream of Rhonabwy | Interpretation
Adynata are sometimes used within works of fiction or drama: Impossible tasks appear often in legends and folklore, and can form elements of ballads, riddles and proverbs. Examples include: the tale of "The Spinning-Woman by the Spring",
Adynaton | Fiction, folklore and drama
The Ealdwood Stories, also known as the Arafel Stories, are a collection of fantasy works by American writer C. J. Cherryh. The books are works of high fantasy based in part on Celtic mythology. Arafel, a main character, is a Daoine Sidhe, the highest of the Sidhe faery-folk. She dwells in the magical small forest of Ealdwood, from which the tales take their name.
Ealdwood Stories | Introduction
As related in "The History of Middle-earth", Tolkien conceived the character of "Elrond's daughter" late in the writing. Prior to this, he considered having Aragorn marry Éowyn of the royal family of Rohan. Arwen is depicted as extremely beautiful; she is in Melissa Hatcher's view in "Mythlore" "a symbol of the unattainable, a perfect match for the unattainable Aragorn in Éowyn's eyes." Carol Leibiger wrote in the "J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia" that Arwen's lack of involvement follows the general Elvish pattern of retreating to safe havens already established in "The Silmarillion" and continued in "The Lord of the Rings". The scholar of English literature Nancy Enright wrote that Arwen, like Christ, is an immortal who voluntarily chooses mortality out of love, in her case for Aragorn.
Arwen | Concept and creation
"My Cousin Dikran, the Orator," is the wonder of all the Fresno Armenian farmers, but Aram's grandfather dispenses a deeper wisdom. In "The Presbyterian Choir Singers" Aram and his friend Pandro are recruited by an older church-going woman to sing in the choir at her Presbyterian church. She also tries to convert them from the evils of cursing. In "The Circus," the circus comes to town and Aram and his friend help set up the circus tent.
My Name Is Aram | Plot summaries
Other scholars disagree with this idea, as many of these newer translations create more problems within the story and do not ground themselves in the Llyfr Gwyn, from which the Mabinogi was translated.
Arawn | The Four Branches
Tymn considered the work a "major contribution to the study of heroic fantasy" covering "its leading practitioners whose works were central to the growth of the genre."
Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers | Reception
Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, a scholar of Germanic studies, writes that the narrative of "The Lord of The Rings" is composed of both prose and poetry, "intended and constructed to flow complementarily as an integrated whole." The verse, therefore, is "an indispensable part of the narrative itself". It may, she states, provide backstory, as with Aragorn's "Lay of Lúthien" or Bilbo's song of Eärendil, or it may enrich or advance the plot, as with Sam Gamgee's unprompted prayer to the Lady of the Stars, Elbereth, at a dark moment in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, or Gilraen's farewell "linnod" to her son Aragorn.
Poetry in The Lord of the Rings | Integral to story
The work builds up Middle-earth as a place that readers come to love, shows that it is under dire threat, and – with the destruction of the Ring – provides the "eucatastrophe" for a happy ending. That makes the work "comedic" rather than tragic, in classical terms; but it also embodies the inevitability of loss, as the elves, hobbits and the rest decline and fade. Even the least novelistic parts of the work, the chronicles, narratives and essays of the appendices, help to built a consistent image of Middle-earth. The work is thus, Rosebury asserted, very tightly constructed, the expansiveness and plot fitting together exactly.
Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien | Literary re-evaluation
Although the extant versions of these epics are generally considered the works of individual (but anonymous) poets, there is no doubt that they are based on their peoples' older oral traditions. Celtic traditions have survived in the lais of Marie de France, the "Mabinogion" and the Arthurian cycles. Another host of vernacular literature has survived in the Old Norse literature and more specifically in the saga literature of Iceland.
Medieval literature | Languages
Scholars such as Thomas Stephens have concluded that this is a mistake, and that the intended person was someone else.
Rhun Hir ap Maelgwn | Literary missteps
Such works include Renaud de Beaujeu's "The Fair Unknown," the Second, Third and Fourth Continuations of "Perceval, the Story of the Grail", the Vulgate Cycle's sections "Merlin", "Lancelot" and "Grail Quest", the Prose "Tristan", and Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur". It is often featured in Gawain's origin stories since at least "The Rise of Gawain" from around 1200, often through the "Castle of Wonders" version in "Perceval", "Parzival", "The Crown" and elsewhere; the 13th-century romance "Palamedes" replaces Gawain with Palamedes in its version of that tale. Usually, Gawain has to lift the siege of otherwise help the women dwelling in the castle, who then tend to turn out as his mother and sisters (see also examples in Gawain's article).
Land of Maidens | Arthurian legend and medieval literature
Aragorn has been called a Christ-as-King character; Tolkien's use of prophecy has been compared to the Old Testament's foretelling of the coming of the Messiah. It has been suggested that some of the Christian themes extrapolated from Tolkien's work were not intentional, but result from the interplay between the background he grew up in and the myths that inspired him. However, aspects of Aragorn's character - his ability to heal, his sacrificial journey, his experiences with death and the dead - have long been seen as clues to overt Messianic overtones. Karen Nikakis writes that Aragorn fits a "sacrificial king" archetype, noting the multiple sacrifices that Aragorn makes for the benefit of those around him and for his future people, such as waiting to claim his throne and to marry Arwen until the One Ring had been destroyed.
Aragorn | Christ-figure
While allegoresis may make discovery of allegory in any work, not every resonant work of modern fiction is allegorical, and some are clearly not intended to be viewed this way. According to Henry Littlefield's 1964 article, L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", may be readily understood as a plot-driven fantasy narrative in an extended fable with talking animals and broadly sketched characters, intended to discuss the politics of the time. Yet, George MacDonald emphasised in 1893 that "A fairy tale is not an allegory." J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" is another example of a well-known work mistakenly perceived as allegorical, as the author himself once stated, "...I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.
Allegory | Poetry and fiction
R. R. Tolkien as perhaps the nearest to his idea of a fairy story, the rest being "beast-fables". Among Aesop's Fables are "The Cat and the Mice" and "The Frog and the Mouse". In James Herbert's first novel, "The Rats", (1974), a vagrant is attacked and eaten alive by a pack of giant rats; further attacks follow.
Muridae | In literature
According to the "Mabinogion", the most ancient of Celtic literature written in the 14th century in the Red Book of Hergest, but orally dating back much further, the area was inhabited by more wildlife than seems to be there today. In one of the oldest stories, namely Culhwch and Olwen, Culhwch is obliged to perform some difficult labours, as set by the giant Ysbaddaden in order to win the hand of his daughter Olwen in marriage. In a smart move, Culhwch recruits King Arthur, his first cousin. One of the tasks is to find the lost Mabon, son of Modron, and a number of mythical beasts are consulted, one of whom is the Owl of Cwm Cowlyd.
Llyn Cowlyd | Myths and fables
It has been observed that Henrik Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt" draws from Norwegian folklore, with some portions in particular owing to Askeladden tales. Albert Morey Sturtevant argued that Ibsen's almost proverbial phrase, which express the notion that one may never know the usefulness of seemingly trifling things until it is tested, derived from "Per, Pål og Espen Askeladd" (where Esben and Espen Askeladd are equivalent). But contested the choice of tale, and instead favored "Spurningen", for in that story Askeladden not merely finds trifling things, but his finds included a dead magpie, like Ibsen's verse (A variant of "Spurningen" was published later, entitled "Prinsessen som ingen kunne målbinde", and is also an alternative strong candidate).
Askeladden | Derivative literature
These are embedded in snippets of topographic folklore, which "[testify] to the close association between heroes and places in early Welsh literature". The work is famous for containing an early allusion to King Arthur, whose grave is said to be one of the mysteries of the world ("anoeth byd"). References or possible allusions to Bedwyr, Gwalchmai and the Battle of Camlann also testify to some absorption of Arthurian tradition in the text, though the work has little in common with the earliest Welsh Arthurian tale, "Culhwch ac Olwen".
Englynion y Beddau | Themes and contents
The story of The Dream of Rhonabwy in the 12th century Red Book of Hergest is a prose literary tale where the main character travels to the time of King Arthur in a dream. There he sees the famous men from many historical eras. In a passage where 24 knights arrive to seek a truce with the famous Arthur, Arthur considers the request by assembling his counselors where "a tall, auburn, curly-headed man" was standing. Rhonabwy asks who he is, and is told that he is Rhun ap Maelgwn Gwynedd, a man who may join in counsel with anyone, because there was none in Britain better skilled in counsel than he.
Rhun (Welsh given name) | Rhun in literature
The "heroic" trait of the character is probably most prominent in the stories told by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. The tales they collected present the "classical" Ash Lad. In other stories, collected by others, the character and his brothers are presented as mere scoundrels, even thieves. Those stories present the youngest brother as the one with the wits about him, and thus, he gets away with the loot. They always steal from the wealthy farmers or even the king, similar to the fabled Robin Hood. Those stories are documented from Vest-Agder, in their time the poorest parts of Norway, where suppression was common.
Askeladden | Survey of folktales
The archaeologist Max Adams suggests that Tolkien may have based Aragorn on Oswald, a prince of the Northumbrian royal house exiled to the Kingdom of Dál Riata after Cadwallon King of Gwynedd and Penda King of Mercia laid waste to his ancestral homelands, and who returned years later with a raised army of Anglian exiles and retook his kingdom slaying Cadwallon in the process. The French medievalist Alban Gautier, and separately the historian Christopher Snyder, suggest a connection with a different Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred of Wessex, described by Snyder as "an unexpected monarch (he had four elder brothers) and inspirational leader who united disparate peoples".
Aragorn | Conjectured historical basis
Brian Rosebury, a scholar of the humanities, considered why "The Lord of the Rings" has attracted so much literary hostility, and re-evaluated it as a literary work. He noted that many critics have stated that it is not a novel, and that some have proposed a medieval genre like "romance" or "epic". He cited Shippey's "more subtl[e]" suggestion that "Tolkien set himself to write a romance for an audience brought up on novels", noting that Tolkien did occasionally call the work a romance but usually called it a tale, a story, or a history. Shippey argued that the work aims at Northrop Frye's "heroic romance" mode, only one level below "myth", but descending to "low mimesis" with the much less serious hobbits, who serve to deflect the modern reader's scepticism of the higher reaches of medieval-style romance.
Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien | Literary re-evaluation
The story of "The Dream of Rhonabwy" in the 12th century Red Book of Hergest is a prose literary tale where the main character travels to the time of King Arthur in a dream. There he sees the famous men from many historical eras. In a passage where 24 knights arrive to seek a truce with the famous Arthur, Arthur considers the request by assembling his counselors where "a tall, auburn, curly-headed man" was standing. Rhonabwy asks who he is, and is told that he is Rhun ap Maelgwn Gwynedd, a man who may join in counsel with anyone, because there was none in Britain better skilled in counsel than he.
Rhun Hir ap Maelgwn | Rhun in literature
To solidify this connection between the two works, he attached the subtitle: “Stories which are a continuation of the "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka".”
Mirgorod (short story collection) | Introduction
Askeladden is the protagonist in numerous folk tales:
Askeladden | List of folktales
The prevailing view among scholars was that the present version of the text was composed by the 11th century, making it perhaps the earliest Arthurian tale and one of Wales' earliest extant prose texts, but a 2005 reassessment by linguist Simon Rodway dates it to the latter half of the 12th century. The title is a later invention and does not occur in early manuscripts.
Culhwch and Olwen | Dating
Richard Edwardes's 1566 play "Palamon and Arcite" is based on it, but the text of the play is lost. Another version of the story was performed in 1594, but this is only known from a reference in Philip Henslowe's diary. "The Two Noble Kinsmen", a 1613 play co-written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, is based on the tale. John Dryden translated this story into the language of his time. Dryden's book is entitled "Palamon and Arcite" and is longer than the original text due to the insertion of embellishments by the later poet. In Alan Plater's 1975 TV series "Trinity Tales" the story is transformed into a competition between two young men for the attentions of a barmaid.
The Knight's Tale | Adaptations and derivations
Further analysis of the tales shows that in "Cinderella", "The Wonderful Birch", "The Story of Tam and Cam", "Ye Xian", and "Aschenputtel", the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother and refused permission to go to the ball or other event, and in "Fair, Brown and Trembling" and "Finette Cendron" by her sisters and other female figures, and these are grouped as 510A; while in "Cap O' Rushes", "Catskin", and "Allerleirauh", the heroine is driven from home by her father's persecutions, and must take work in a kitchen elsewhere, and these are grouped as 510B. But in "Katie Woodencloak", she is driven from home by her stepmother's persecutions and must take service in a kitchen elsewhere, and in "Tattercoats", she is refused permission to go to the ball by her grandfather.
Fairy tale | Aarne-Thompson
"Thus spoke a forgotten poet long ago in Rohan, recalling how tall and fair was Eorl the Young, who rode down out of the North," Aragorn explains, after singing the "Lament".
Rohan (Middle-earth) | Language
of the Reeve’s Tale, were so plainly needed." Not having had the opportunity for either, Tolkien "therefore presented [the paper] with apologies, practically as it was read, with the addition of a 'critical text', and accompanying textual notes, as well as of various footnotes, appendices, and comments naturally omitted in reading." The work focuses on the Northern dialect humour Chaucer incorporates into the tale, which Tolkien characterizes as representing at the same time "a most unusual piece of dramatic realism," "the byproduct of a private philological curiosity, used with a secret smile to give some life and individuality to a fabliau of trite sort," and a "pander[ing] to popular linguistic prejudices—ranking with what passes for Scotch, Welsh, Yorkshire, or American in supposedly funny stories of to-day." He attributes Chaucer's use of dialect to "a private philological interest, and a knowledge, too, of 'dialect' spoken and written, greater than was usual in his day." Tolkien goes on to examine the dialect passages based on "the facsimile of the Ellesmere MS.; and on the Six-Text 11 and the Harleian MS.
Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale | Introduction
Aragorn is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He is one of the main protagonists of "The Lord of the Rings". Aragorn was a Ranger of the North, first introduced with the name Strider and later revealed to be the heir of Isildur, King of Gondor. He was a confidant of Gandalf and part of the quest to destroy the One Ring and defeat the Dark Lord Sauron. He fell in love with the immortal elf Arwen, as told in The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen; her father, Elrond, forbade them to marry unless Aragorn became King of both Arnor and Gondor.
Aragorn | Introduction
Taran is a fictional character from Lloyd Alexander's "The Chronicles of Prydain" series of novels. Serving as the series's central protagonist, he is first introduced as the assistant pig-keeper at Caer Dallben charged with the care of Hen Wen, the oracular white pig. With dreams of becoming a great hero, over the course of the series, his character matures as he is drawn into the war against Arawn Death-Lord and his champion, the Horned King. During his journey, he befriends Princess Eilonwy, a young girl his age, Fflewddur Fflam, a wandering bard and minor king, Gurgi, a wild creature between animal and man, and the dwarf Doli.
Taran (character) | Introduction
It is now widely rejected by scholars as an authentic Chaucerian tale, although some scholars think he may have intended to rewrite the story as a tale for the Yeoman.
The Tale of Gamelyn | Arguments
To the Earl is attached a Barbarossa legend (King asleep in mountain motif), which makes the figure conducive to be transformed into a "sleeping giant" of folktale.
Claíomh Solais | Connection to Arthuriana
C.W. Sullivan, a professor of Northern European mythology at East Carolina University, stated that Alexander took the structure of a fairy tale, or märchen, and added Welsh details. Brian Attebery wrote that "The Book of Three" was "no more than a clever imitation of Tolkien," but noted that Taran, written by an American, finds his identity in the future, not the past. Attebury described Alexander's mythopoeism as a "modest" success, bringing his own creativity to Welsh mythology. Mark Oziewicz, a professor specializing in young adult fantasy, wrote that the Pyridian chronicles show the importance of connecting the present to the past.
Lloyd Alexander | Themes and Style
Yes, he was happily married, and yes, he did have a daughter. But his wife, Edith Mary, and daughter, Priscilla, seemed to have practically no influence on his writing." They quoted the scholar of medieval and Old English literature, Linda Voigts, as defending Tolkien, pointing out that, brought up in a male world and living among male scholars at a time when "Oxford was a boys' club", he could not have been expected to be a modern feminist. Butler and Eberhard wrote that the woman in the novel see little action, giving the example of Arwen. In their opinion, a strong-willed woman, Éowyn, was created when the teenaged Priscilla asked her father for a female character.
Women in The Lord of the Rings | A story about men for boys
Subanen oral literature include the folktales, short, often humorous, stories recounted for their sheer entertainment value; and the epics, long tales which are of a serious character. One of the stock characters in the long tales is the widow's son, who possesses stupendous physical courage. The following is one of the numerous stories told about him. One day, the widow's son set out to hunt for wild pigs. He saw one which gave him a difficult time before allowing itself to be speared. The owner of the pig, a deity who lived inside a huge white stone, invited him to his abode, where the widow's son saw opulence and a richness of colors.
Subanon people | Literary Arts
There is no consensus about the ultimate meaning of "The Dream of Rhonabwy". On one hand it derides Madoc's time, which is critically compared to the illustrious Arthurian age. However, Arthur's time is portrayed as illogical and silly, leading to suggestions that this is a satire on both contemporary times and the myth of a heroic age. "Rhonabwy" is the most literary of the medieval Welsh prose tales; it may have also been the last written. A colophon at the end declares that no one is able to recite the work in full without a book, the level of detail being too much for the memory to handle.
The Dream of Rhonabwy | Interpretation
The story is on one level a folktale, belonging to the bridal quest "the giant's daughter" tale type (more formally categorized as Six Go through the Whole World type, AT 513A). The accompanying motifs (the strange birth, the jealous stepmother, the hero falling in love with a stranger after hearing only her name, helpful animals, impossible tasks) reinforce this typing. However, this bridal quest serves merely as a frame story for the rest of the events that form the in-story, where the title characters go largely unmentioned. The in-story is taken up by two long lists and the adventures of King Arthur and his men.
Culhwch and Olwen | Critical studies
A boulder at a crossroads in the hamlet of Bell Heath, near Belbroughton, Worcestershire, in England, has a brass plaque attached to it stating "Boulder from Arenig Mountain in N. Wales, Brought here by the Welsh Ice-sheet in the Glacial Period".
Arenig Fawr | Art and literature
In the early native British Arthurian tale from Wales, "Culhwch and Olwen", Culhwch ac Olwen, the hero Culhwch ap Cilydd seeks the beautiful Olwen, daughter of the giant chief, Ysbaddaden Bencawr as his bride. A prophecy has foretold that Ysbadadden will die on his daughter's wedding night. The giant therefore sets Culhwch and his companions a number of impossible tasks to complete before he will bestow his daughter. One of the tasks is to bring him the birds of Rhiannon, to entertain Ysbaddaden on the night before his death. The birds are retrieved, although the tale does not explain how.
Adar Rhiannon | The Two British Sources