Blodeuwedd and Gronw's plot to kill Llew

Blodeuwedd and Gronw's plot to kill Llew is a betrayal built from knowledge Llew entrusts to his wife. After Blodeuwedd and Gronw fall in love, they arrange for her to discover the precise conditions under which Llew can be killed. She draws those details from him under the appearance of concern, then helps Gronw turn them into an ambush. The attack leaves Llew vanished in eagle form and gives Gronw control of Ardudwy and Penllyn.

Setting and the meeting

Llew is away from home when Gronw Pebyr, lord of Penllyn, arrives in pursuit of a stag. His hunt brings him to the Cynvael River, where he kills the animal; after flaying it and attending to his dogs, he remains there until night approaches. Blodeuwedd hears a horn, sees the stag and its pursuing company pass, and sends a youth to find out who their leader is. Once she learns Gronw's identity, his late arrival at the court creates the immediate reason to invite him in: she considers it improper to let a chieftain depart for another land at that hour without offering hospitality.

Messengers invite Gronw, and Blodeuwedd welcomes him herself. The encounter changes the purpose of his visit. As soon as they look at one another, each falls in love with the other; Gronw openly declares his feelings, and their conversation that evening centers on the affection they share. The narrative makes the attachment swift, arising within a single evening, but it also shows how quickly it turns into a practical plan.

From attachment to conspiracy

When Gronw tries to leave the next day, Blodeuwedd asks him to stay. He remains another night, and they discuss how they might continue to be together. Gronw proposes that she learn from Llew how he might meet his death, presenting the inquiry as an expression of solicitude. On the following day, as Gronw prepares to depart, he repeats the instruction: she should question Llew fully while seeming to speak from loving concern. The staged appearance of care is central to the plan; what Llew will understand as tenderness becomes a way to obtain the information Gronw needs.

Llew returns that night. The next day is given to conversation, music, and feasting, but at bedtime Blodeuwedd says little when he addresses her. When he asks whether she is well, she explains that she is thinking about his death and fears losing him. Llew accepts her concern as sincere and answers her questions. He says he is not easily slain, then describes the unusual circumstances that would make his death possible. The scene turns a private confidence into the means of betrayal: his knowledge is exact, and his trust allows Blodeuwedd to obtain it.

The conditions Llew reveals

Llew explains that the spear used against him must take a year to make, and that work on it can be done only during Sunday sacrifices. He adds further restrictions: he cannot be killed inside a house or outside one, on horseback or on foot. His death would require a bath beside a river, a tightly thatched roof over the cauldron, and a buck positioned beside it. He would need to place one foot on the buck's back and the other on the edge of the cauldron; a blow delivered while he stood in that position could kill him. Blodeuwedd responds as if the conditions make him safe, but she has now received the full pattern Gronw needs to defeat those protections.

She sends word to Gronw, who works on the spear until it is ready a year later. The long interval makes the scheme depend on patience as well as deception: the weapon's preparation follows the timing Llew himself disclosed. Once it is finished, Gronw informs Blodeuwedd, and she resumes her role as the person asking Llew to demonstrate what he had described. She questions how he could stand with one foot on the cauldron and the other on a buck, then asks him to show her.

The ambush and change of rule

Blodeuwedd arranges the setting in advance. She tells Gronw to hide on Bryn Kyvergyr, above the Cynvael River, and has the goats in the cantrev gathered on the opposite bank. She then tells Llew that the bath and its roof are ready and invites him to inspect them. The preparations reproduce the circumstances he had explained, while Gronw waits at the position selected for the attack.

The following day, Llew enters the bath and anoints himself. At Blodeuwedd's prompting, he asks for one of the animals she identifies as a buck to be brought to him. He gets out, puts on his trousers, and places one foot on the bath's edge and the other on the buck's back. From his hiding place on the hill, Gronw rises, kneels, and throws the poisoned dart. It strikes Llew in the side. The narration reports that the shaft comes out while the dart's head remains in; Llew then flies away in the form of an eagle with a cry, and is not seen again at this point in the episode.

Seizure and immediate aftermath

That night, after Llew's disappearance, Blodeuwedd and Gronw go together to the palace. The next day Gronw takes possession of Ardudwy. Having overcome the land, he rules it, bringing both Ardudwy and Penllyn under his sway. The plot therefore accomplishes more than the removal of Llew from the court: the attack is followed immediately by a seizure of political authority, and Gronw moves from being a visiting lord to ruler over both territories.

The news reaches Math son of Mathonwy, who is overcome by grief; Gwydion is more deeply affected still and sets out to learn what happened to his nephew. The action thus ends with Llew's fate unresolved rather than with a confirmed death. Its decisive reversal rests on the contrast between protection and exposure: Llew's elaborate conditions seem to make him invulnerable, but his confidence in Blodeuwedd allows those conditions to be reconstructed as a trap. Her feigned concern supplies the knowledge, Gronw supplies the weapon and attack, and the resulting disappearance opens the way to his rule.