Blodeuwedd and Gronw’s love affair and conspiracy

Blodeuwedd and Gronw Pebyr’s relationship turns an unexpected meeting into a secret alliance against Llew Llaw Gyffes. Their affection arises at once, but the relationship’s decisive form is conspiratorial: to stay together, they make Blodeuwedd’s access to Llew the means by which Gronw can attack him. The episode links private desire to the transfer of public power, ending with Llew’s disappearance and Gronw’s rule over Ardudwy and Penllyn.

Meeting and Mutual Attachment

While Llew is away visiting Math son of Mathonwy, Blodeuwedd hears a hunting horn and learns that Gronw Pebyr, lord of Penllyn, is passing through the district. He has pursued a stag to the Cynvael River, where he kills it and remains occupied until nightfall. When he reaches the court gate, Blodeuwedd reasons that it would be improper to let a chieftain continue into another land without an invitation. Messengers summon him, and she goes out to greet him and welcome him in.

After they have settled in the court, Blodeuwedd looks at Gronw and falls in love with him; the feeling is returned. Their attraction is presented as immediate and mutual, arising within a single evening rather than through a gradual courtship. They spend that night together in conversation about their affection. The narrative makes the speed of the bond consequential: before Llew returns, the two visitors have already formed an attachment that changes the meaning of the hospitality Blodeuwedd extended to Gronw.

From Hospitality to Conspiracy

The next day Gronw prepares to leave, but Blodeuwedd asks him to stay. He remains for another night, during which they consider how they might always be together. Gronw proposes a plan that makes intimacy serve as cover: Blodeuwedd should learn from Llew how he could be killed, presenting her questions as concern for her husband. The following day, when Gronw again seeks to depart, she lets him go only after he reminds her to question Llew fully under the guise of loving solicitude.

When Llew returns, Blodeuwedd does not immediately ask what Gronw has requested. The day passes in conversation, music, and feasting; at night, she says nothing when Llew speaks to her, then explains her silence as anxiety about his death. Llew reassures her that he cannot easily be slain. She presses him to explain the precise conditions, claiming that she remembers such matters better than he does. The contrast is central to their scheme: the language of care supplies the pretext for obtaining knowledge that will be used against him.

Llew describes a set of protections and an exceptional circumstance in which he could be killed. A spear must take a year to make, with work on it limited to Sundays; he cannot be killed inside or outside a house, on horseback or on foot. The one position in which he could be struck is at a bath beside a river, under a tightly thatched roof, with one foot on a buck and the other on the cauldron’s edge. Blodeuwedd sends word to Gronw as soon as she has learned these details. He works on the spear, and it is ready a year later; he informs her that it is complete on that very day.

The Prepared Ambush

Blodeuwedd turns Llew’s disclosure into a practical arrangement. She sends word to Gronw to lie in ambush on Bryn Kyvergyr, beside the Cynvael River, and gathers the goats in the district on the opposite bank. She then tells Llew that the bath and its roof are ready and invites him to see them. At the river, she points out the animals and asks him to demonstrate the unusual position he had described. Llew agrees, enters the bath, and places one foot on its edge and the other on a buck’s back.

Gronw rises from his hiding place and throws the poisoned dart, striking Llew. The attack is the result of their coordinated actions: Gronw has prepared the weapon and taken up his position, while Blodeuwedd has arranged the setting and persuaded Llew to reproduce the very circumstance he had explained as dangerous. Llew flies away in the form of an eagle and is no longer seen. The account does not establish his death at this point; it records his transformation and disappearance.

Power and Narrative Significance

That night Gronw and Blodeuwedd go together to the palace. On the following day Gronw takes possession of Ardudwy, and after overcoming the land he rules over both Ardudwy and Penllyn. The narrative therefore gives their affair a public consequence without describing Blodeuwedd as sharing Gronw’s rule: it is Gronw who is explicitly said to seize and govern the territories. His personal alliance with her coincides with his political advance, while Llew’s removal makes that advance possible in the immediate aftermath.

The relationship changes the meaning of several acts that initially appear hospitable or affectionate. Blodeuwedd’s welcome to a passing lord becomes the beginning of a secret partnership; her request that Gronw stay becomes the first step in their plan; and her stated worry for Llew becomes the means of discovering his vulnerability. The story gives the conspiracy a clear sequence—mutual attachment, shared intention, concealed inquiry, preparation, and ambush—rather than presenting the attack as an isolated act by Gronw. Its ending, however, leaves the relationship’s later course unstated: it records Llew’s disappearance and Gronw’s seizure of the lands, but gives no further account here of Blodeuwedd and Gronw together.