Ysbaddaden- Celtic GiantGiant"Chief Giant"

The Giant Whose Death Was Foretold

Ysbaddaden Bencawr (Chief Giant) dwells in an immense fortress in the tale of Culhwch ac Olwen, one of the earliest Arthurian prose narratives in Welsh. His defining curse is that he will die on the day his daughter Olwen marries. Every aspect of his character flows from this doom: his resistance, his impossible demands, and his ultimate helplessness against fate.

When Culhwch arrives seeking Olwen's hand, Ysbaddaden's servants try to delay. Three times Culhwch and his companions approach the hall, and three times Ysbaddaden hurls a poisoned stone spear at them as they leave. Each time, one of Culhwch's companions catches the spear and hurls it back, wounding the giant: once in the knee, once through the chest, and once through the eye. Despite these injuries, the giant survives, sustained by whatever force keeps him alive until the appointed day.

His most striking physical feature is the weight of his eyelids, so massive that his attendants must prop them open with iron forks so he can see his visitors. This grotesque detail emphasizes both his enormity and his decrepitude: Ysbaddaden is not a vigorous antagonist but a creature bound by prophecy, propping open his own eyes to watch his doom approach.

The Forty Tasks

Ysbaddaden sets approximately forty conditions that must be met before he will grant Olwen to Culhwch. Each task is designed to be impossible, and many are interconnected: to accomplish one, another must first be completed, and that one requires yet another. Among the demands are: to clear a vast hill and sow it in a single day, to obtain the comb and shears from between the ears of the great boar Twrch Trwyth, to secure specific vessels and tools that only particular heroes or supernatural beings possess, and to hunt creatures that no mortal hunt has ever caught.

Each time Ysbaddaden names a task, Culhwch answers with the same formula: "It is easy for me to get that, though you may think it is not easy." The hero does not flinch, and with the help of Arthur and his warband, he accomplishes every demand. The hunt of the Twrch Trwyth, the monstrous boar pursued across Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, forms the tale's great adventure sequence, requiring the combined strength of Arthur's warriors.

When every task is fulfilled, Ysbaddaden has no defense remaining. Goreu fab Custennin, his own nephew whose brothers the giant had killed, seizes him and drags him to the chopping block. The giant's head is struck off, and the prophecy is complete. Ysbaddaden accepts his death with a resigned acknowledgment that his time has come, a giant who knew from the beginning that he could not win.