Dillus Varvawc

Dillus Varvawc is an outlaw hunted by Arthur’s company whose beard becomes essential equipment in a difficult quest. The requirement that it be taken while he is alive turns him from a fugitive into the unwilling source of a needed object; Kai and Bedwyr’s success secures the leash, but their treatment of Dillus also has lasting consequences for Arthur’s fellowship.

Identity and Role

Dillus appears in the hunting episode as a man who has escaped Arthur before. From a high place on Plinlimmon, Kai and Bedwyr see smoke that remains upright despite the wind and approach to investigate. They find Dillus roasting a wild boar. Bedwyr identifies him as the greatest robber ever to flee from Arthur, while Kai recognizes him and connects him to the task before them. The episode gives little further account of Dillus’s life or history; his importance here comes from the unusual practical value assigned to his beard.

That value is established as a strict condition, not merely a preference. The required leash must be made from Dillus’s beard, plucked while he is alive with wooden tweezers. If he dies first, the beard will be brittle and the leash useless; while he lives, he will not willingly permit it to be taken. The requirement makes the capture’s timing and method central to the quest: simply defeating Dillus would not suffice.

The Capture and the Leash

Kai proposes waiting until Dillus has eaten and fallen asleep. While he eats, Kai and Bedwyr make the wooden tweezers. Once Kai is sure Dillus is asleep, he digs a large pit beneath him and forces him into it. The two then pull out his beard with the prepared tool. Only after securing it do they kill him. The sequence fulfills the condition in its narrowest sense: the beard is taken while Dillus is alive, and his death follows only when it can no longer make the leash unusable.

The contrast between the weapon-like ingenuity of the capture and its mundane tool is distinctive. A pit and wooden tweezers, rather than a straightforward contest, solve the problem imposed by the quest. Dillus’s resistance is anticipated in the condition itself, and the companions rely on his sleep to overcome it. The episode thus treats the leash as an object whose usefulness depends on a particular procedure, while making Dillus’s living body the means by which that procedure must be completed.

Kai and Bedwyr carry the beard-made leash to Gelli Wic in Cornwall and place it in Arthur’s hand. Arthur then composes an englyn that names Kai’s achievement and Dillus’s identity: “Kai made a leash / Of Dillus son of Eurei's beard. / Were he alive, thy death he'd be.” The short verse commemorates the object through its maker and its source, turning the capture into a formally marked accomplishment. Its final line also recalls the danger associated with Dillus, even though he is now dead.

Consequences for Kai and Arthur

The delivery does not end in uncomplicated celebration. Kai becomes angry, and the warriors of the Island can scarcely make peace between him and Arthur. The account connects the quarrel to the leash episode and the poem that follows it, but does not specify the precise cause of Kai’s anger. That limit matters: the lasting breach is explicit, while its exact grievance is not explained.

The consequence is nevertheless decisive. From then on, Kai no longer comes forward to help Arthur, either when Arthur is in trouble or when his men are slain. A task completed for Arthur’s cause therefore marks a turning point in Kai’s service to him. Dillus’s capture supplies the required leash, but it is also followed by a rupture within Arthur’s company that outlasts the immediate hunt.

Narrative Significance

Dillus’s part in the episode is brief, yet the account makes the conditions surrounding him unusually precise: where Kai and Bedwyr see him, what he is doing, why ordinary force would not secure the required leash, how the companions prepare, and what happens after they bring the object back. The precise sequence gives the quest a procedural character. Success depends not only on locating Dillus, but on preserving the beard’s usefulness through the moment of taking it.

The episode also places two outcomes side by side. The leash reaches Arthur, and Kai’s deed is commemorated in verse; at the same time, Kai’s anger leads to a permanent withdrawal from Arthur’s aid. Dillus is not given a voice or a later role in the account, but his capture is more than an isolated acquisition: it provides the occasion for a consequential fracture among the heroes.