Life's a forge, a loom, and a lump of clay

 In the fourth book of the Chronicles of Prydain, Taran Wanderer, the Assistant Pig-Keeper sets off on a quest to find his parentage, because he wants to ask Princess Eilonwy to marry him, which is something we could see coming from a lot earlier in the series. This is by design the kind of quest that sets a hero off on a series of tasks exploring all the surrounding lands to see where he fits in, which is always a fun sort of quest to read along with. Taran's first few stops have him revisiting folks he's met in prior books, such as the boisterous King Smoit, in whose cantrev Taran smooths out a fight between two warring lords who keep stealing each other's cows. Then Taran winds up back in the Marshes of Morva, where he had gone in The Black Cauldron, to seek out the three hilarious witches who keep wanting to turn him into a toad, to see if they can help. They suggest he go find a magic mirror up in the mountains somewhere, which will show him the truth of himself. Taran for a while abandons this quest and just sort of wanders around instead, where he spends some time thinking he's the son of a herdsman on a very bleak moor (there is much character growth occurring during this arc, since thinking he's the son of a herdsman puts a dent in his hope that he was really a nobleman and would be a socially appropriate match for Eilonwy), then goes and spends some time living off the land with a very lucky and resourceful scavenger guy and his family; then he goes and spends some time among the craftsmen of the Free Commots, which is basically a set of democratically-run towns famous for having really skilled craftspeople. In true fairy tale fashion, in Taran's time in the Free Commots he learns three trades--smithing, weaving, and pottery--and while none of them turn out to be his calling, he crafts three items for himself in his time there (a sword, a cloak, and a  bowl) that turn out to be very useful and important later on. 

 

Since Arawn is very much a background menace in this book and Achren has been reduced to living harmlessly with Dallben, our main external antagonists in this book are a mercenary, who steals Taran's sword and gets away to continue to be an ass in the next book, and an evil wizard who actually *does* turn Taran's companions into animals (temporarily; obviously Taran defeats the wizard at the very last possible second). In his journey, though, Taran hears a lot about how the life of the common people of Prydain is partly as hard as it is because Arawn has stolen many of their long-kept, hard-earned secrets about crafting and farming and all that stuff, and his general evil deathiness has made the land less fruitful. So it's fairly clear where we're leading up to in the final book. 

 

I'm not going to spoil what we do or don't learn about Taran's parentage in the end, but there's a very clear moral message about it. Out of all the Prydain books, this is structured the most like an archetypal fairy tale, with lots of episodic adventures in which people learn very important things about the world and themselves and how to treat other people and what's really important in life. 

 

Pretty much the only bad thing in this book is that Eilonwy's off princessing for the whole thing, a state of affairs that I dislike almost as much as Taran and Eilonwy do. 

All my friends are dead, and we're lost in a dark and very expensive forest

I remember little about the last Prydain book, The High King, only liking it very much. Rereading it, I can see how little me must have thought it the most wondrous and exciting thing, although I'm sure that a lot of it went right over my little head, especially all the stuff at the end, which is a bit heavier than I remembered, although it all turns out well enough.

 

In this book, the magical sword Dyrnwyn has been stolen from Prince Gwydion by Arawn Death-Lord, who probably can't weild its power anyway, but now nobody else can either. This obviously necessitates the entire cast of characters from the first four books all getting together to defeat Arawn once and for all and stealing the sword back. Taran has to rally all his friends, including the folk of the Free Commots who only ever go and fight if they feel like it since they have no lords, and then has to balance being a rookie battle commander responsible for the lives of hundreds of other people with his own longstanding desires to be a Big Damn Hero, plus his intention to ask Eilonwy to marry him, which he basically never has a good moment to get around to doing until all the way at the end even though it's been his intention since the beginning of Book Four. There are a lot of plot elements here that are STRONGLY reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, even more than usual, like when they try to go through a difficult mountain pass in a bitter snowstorm, right down to being led by a dwarf to take an underground path instead that all then goes horrendously wrong (there are no Balrogs in this book, though). All the threads of various characters' stories are tied up very neatly, which is very satisfying in a children's book, and Hen Wen makes a prophecy in the beginning, which is finally all sorted out right at the end. Arawn's death seems a bit fast, but that's how things happen at this reading level, I suppose, and anyway we've never spent as much time in this series face-to-face with Arawn himself as we have with other lesser villains and henchmen and regular terrible people. If you're older than about twelve, you get no points for guessing who the High King in the title winds up being. 

 

All in all, the whole series is just the quintessential kind of really charming, whimsical, mythologically-based adventure fantasy that makes you want to wear a bedsheet as a cloak and go chase your siblings with sticks until you're old enough to start going to Renaissance Faires and that kind of goofy stuff. I am partly blaming rereading these for my purchase of a pewter cloakpin at a touristy little gift shop on the Halifax waterfront, but it's possible the blame should be more properly placed on having read them the first time, which is the sort of thing that helped me grow up into the type of person that thinks Celtic knotwork-patterned pewter cloakpins are a reasonable and useful purchase that I will obviously get lots of wear out of in everyday life (which I will, because it is small and therefore perfect for scarves; I am wearing it *right now*). Anyway, highly recommended if you have a little geek in your life; these are classics for a reason.