[Ballantine Adult Fantasy 67] • Prince of Annwyn

Prince of Annwn is the first book of a great tetralogy in which the seeds of future tragedy are planted. By comparison with the later volumes, it is light, an adventure story of a time when the world was young and values, though grand, were simple and coped with by sturdy physical courage. This was the happy time, the time of victories won against gigantic monsters, the time of love for Rhiannon of the Birds, the time of triumph against the evilly beautiful God of Light.

 

Only the macabre substitution of Prince Pwyll for the Grey Man—the Prince of Annwn, God of Death—hints at the necromantic powers that will hold sway in the future; only at the end does the venom of dark Druidic hatred touch the lives of the heroic Pwyll and his beloved Rhiannon.

Though the shadow of high tragedy is only hinted at, the figures are epic—gods and goddesses, and humans to match their beauty and strength. This was a time when men and gods mingled—‘and the gods had met their match…