Celtic Myth 13, The Hunting of Twrch Trwyth (pronunciation twerch twythe)

Celtic Myth 13, The Hunting of Twrch Trwyth (pronunciation twerch twythe)

An archetypal Celtic hero, Culhwch was the central figure of Culhwch and Olwen, one of the stories collected in the Mabinogion of Charlotte Guest. This Welsh story is thought to be one of the first examples of the Arthurian Legends. The tale told of the many trials Culhwch had to overcome in order to win the hand of Olwen, beautiful daughter of the chief of the giants.

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In his quest for Olwen, Culhwch obtained the help of Arthur, an early Celtic version of the royal hero of later times. It took a year for Arthur’s knights to track down Olwen, but when they finally did, she fell in love with Culhwch at first sight. Her father, however, opposed the match, eventually agreeing to allow it only if Culhwch succeeded in accomplishing a number of seemingly impossible tasks.

Of these, the hardest involved finding a razor, comb and scissors with which the giant could groom himself for the wedding feast. The difficulty being that they adorned the head of a monstrous boar named Twrch Trwyth, actually a prince magically cursed to take animal shape.

So began an epic chase that took the hunting party across much of Celtic Britain. En route they had to contend not just with the boar itself but also with its seven fierce piglets, who razed large areas of Ireland before taking to the sea and swimming over to Wales.

Day after day the pursuit continued and many warriors died in its course. At last, all the piglets were killed, but by that time Twrch Trwyth himself was heading for Cornwall. There he was driven into a river, where a hunter called Maphon finally snatched the razor and scissors. But the Boar regained his footing and rampaged further before the comb could also be retrieved. When that feat too was accomplished, the beast fled into the sea and was never seen again.

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