Story of Myth and Legend - Twrch Trwyth

One of the many highlights of a tour with Welsh Overland Safari is Richards knowledge of countless stories of local myth and legends. Below is the story of Twrch Trwyth, which can also be found in the Around and About Builth Wells publication.

“This is the story of the Twrch Trwyth a wild boar that terrorises an area of the Black mountain many years ago, it is taken from the Mabinogion a 13th century book of short Welsh stories.

There was once a giant called Ysbaddaden who had a beautiful daughter called Olwen every one wanted to take her out with every intention of marrying her this aggravated Ysbaddaden he either delt with them himself or set his soldiers to kill them.

Now Culhwch had a step mother who dreamt that Culhwch would be the one to marry Olwen she told this to her step son who was a very brave young warrior and he set his sights on looking for the beautiful Olwen, Ysbaddaden tried to kill Culhwch but he failed. Culhwch sent a message to Ysbaddaden telling him I will marry Olwen who on receiving this message got very upset he realized this was a serious challenge to him loosing his daughter.

Ysbaddaden wasn’t stupid he sent a message to Culhwch it read I will give you 40 challenges if you complete all of these you can have my daughters hand in marriage  knowing full well he would never complete the list of difficult challenges.

Now Culhwch enlisted the help of his uncle none other than King Arthur as Culhwch was going through the list of challenges Ysbadadden changed the  last challenge to an impossible task and that was to go find the Twrch Trwyth and his piglets kill them and bring back the scissors, comb and razor that was fixed securely between the ears of the Twrch Trwyth these would be used to cut Ysbadaddens hair this would weaken him so much according to local folk law that he would die.

Off Culwch went undeterred with his band of heroes they set sail for Ireland where they found the Twrch Trwyth with its seven young boars, they unleashed the dogs one fifth of Ireland was devastated in the chase.

They drove the boars across the Irish sea to Porth Clais in Pembrokeshire from there they hunted them across South Wales many lives were lost as each of the young boars was killed until the Twrch Trwyth  ran alone.

Finally they reached Mynydd Du where Arthur picked up a large stone and hurled it at the boar killing it near Craig-y-Fran Gorge the boars body rolled down the valley and into the river, Culwch was able to climb down and take the scissors, comb and razor he took them to Ysbaddaden who was duty bound to attend the wedding of Culhwch and Olwen.

It was then that Ysbaddaden met his maker leaving the couple to live a life of happiness together.

To this day the great rock known as Craig-y-Fran Gorge  lies above the Afon Twrch, some say that the ghost of the fearsome beast still roams the hiiside.

So watch out if you go there.”