Welsh-inspired childhood whimsy

[bloodygranuaile]

 Okay, so, sometime a year or two ago maybe, I reread Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three for a book club that I then ended up not attending. But to do so I had bought the entire box set of the Chronicles of Prydain on Kindle, so then I had them on Kindle to read on vacation. 

 

First thing: These books are squarely for small children and I am too old for them. They were charming and delightful but also I kept being surprised at how fast stuff happened, like, oh, they completed the quest and we're at the end of the book already? It's possible I also read too much grimdark stuff and these are not grimdark at all; they are fun and adventurous and whimsical and heroic and all that stuff.

 

So The Black Cauldron involves a quest to go destroy a magical cauldron that Arawn, the Dark Lord chappy in the series, keeps using to make zombie soldiers. So our hero, Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper to the enchanter Dallben (and his oracular pig), teams up with a whole bunch of other people, some of whom are known from the last book and some of whom are new, to go steal the cauldron. But when they get there, it is ALREADY STOLEN, and the group has been split up into at least three different groups, and Taran and his buddies (and a jerky dude who's with them) have to decide what to do next. What they decide is basically to go into the swamp and find three goofy-ass witches who are rumored to know somethin about the whereabouts of the cauldron, which of course they do because it's theirs and they're the ones who stole it. There's riddles and bargaining and feats of strategy and all that good fantasy-adventure stuff that has to happen for Taran and company to acquire and destroy the cauldron instead of being turned into toads. All in all, it's a good time. Taran is young and annoying but the annoying bit is OK because he's quite young indeed. Princess Eilionwy is the best because she always calls the dudes out on their shit (and they give her a lot of shit because she's the only girl in like the entire series) and is secretly a very powerful enchantress. Most of the adults are all tall and noble and generally Aragorn-like, which is fine but probably would be more interesting on-screen. Unfortunately there's never been movie adaptations of the whole thing (there was one bad one in 1985 I guess?), although Disney apparently has plans to take a stab at it and so we'll see if it turns out to do the series justice or not. 

 

The best bit of this book by miles is the three absurd witches who live in the swamp and want to turn everyone into toads; they're very obviously based on the Three Fates/the Norns/etc. but they remind me the most of the witches from Hocus Pocus.