Pryderi and Gwydion’s enmity

Pryderi and Gwydion’s enmity grows from a calculated theft into a war that devastates the South and ends with Gwydion killing Pryderi in single combat. Their conflict is not a simple contest over livestock: Gwydion uses Pryderi’s trust in a negotiated exchange to take the pigs, and Pryderi insists that the wrong be answered by the man responsible rather than by armies alone. The episode turns deceit into public violence, then narrows that violence to a fatal personal reckoning.

The Pigs and the Deception

The immediate object of the quarrel is a herd of unusual pigs sent to Pryderi from Annwn by Arawn. Gwydion presents them to Math son of Mathonwy as an unfamiliar marvel and offers to go to Pryderi’s court with eleven companions, disguised as bards, to obtain them. He knows Pryderi may refuse, but pledges not to return without the animals. At the court in Rhuddlan Teivi, Gwydion earns a welcome through his skill as a storyteller; Pryderi enjoys his company before learning the real purpose of the visit.

Pryderi explains that he cannot simply give away the pigs: he has covenanted with his land that they must remain until they have doubled in number. Gwydion appears to respect the difficulty. He proposes neither an immediate gift nor a refusal, but asks Pryderi to wait until the next day, when he will show him an exchange that can release him from his promise. This is the hinge of the deception: Pryderi’s obligation is acknowledged, then exploited through the appearance of a fair bargain.

Gwydion conjures twelve horses, twelve black greyhounds with white breasts, gold-looking collars and leashes, and saddles and bridles ornamented as if made of gold. He also offers twelve gilded shields. Pryderi and his advisers accept the exchange and hand over the pigs, not knowing that the shields are formed from fungus and that the rest of the display is an illusion. Once Gwydion and his companions have the herd, he warns them that the appearance will last only until the same hour the following day. They hurry away with the animals, making the fraud unmistakable: Pryderi has not freely abandoned his covenant but has been induced to surrender the pigs by counterfeit wealth.

From Theft to War

The theft draws Pryderi and the men of the South into armed pursuit against Math’s people in Gwynedd. At Penardd in Arvon, the forces meet in a battle fought from the strongholds of Maenor Penardd and Maenor Coed Alun. The fighting brings heavy losses on both sides, but the men of the South are driven back, first to Nantcall and then to Dol Pen Maen, where they stop and seek peace. The sequence gives the grievance a widening scale: Gwydion’s act has made Pryderi’s personal loss the cause of a campaign, with whole forces paying for the deception.

Pryderi gives hostages to secure peace, including Gwrgi Gwastra and twenty-three other sons of nobles. The armies then travel together toward Traeth Mawr. On the way to Melenryd, however, the foot soldiers cannot be restrained from shooting, and the truce remains precarious. Pryderi sends envoys to Math, asking him to restrain his people and leave the dispute to Pryderi and Gwydion, since Gwydion caused the wrong. Math agrees that he will not compel his men to fight if Gwydion is willing to meet Pryderi himself. The exchange establishes a distinction between the original offender and the larger body of combatants: Pryderi seeks to settle the claim with its cause, not continue a general war.

The Personal Challenge

Pryderi’s envoys report that he considers it fairer for the man who wronged him to oppose him directly, allowing their followers to remain unharmed. Math will not demand that the men of Gwynedd fight on his behalf; he offers to face Pryderi himself if Gwydion is not permitted to do so. When this answer reaches Pryderi, he declares that he will require no one else to demand his rights for him. Both leaders thus accept the principle of a personal contest, although the conflict has already cost many lives and continues to endanger the peace.

Gwydion and Pryderi arm themselves and fight. The account attributes Gwydion’s victory to strength, fierceness, and magic and charms, not to a cleanly separated contest of physical prowess. Pryderi is slain, and his grave is placed at Maen Tyriawc above Melenryd. The killing closes the immediate contest by removing the wronged party, but it does not undo the consequences of the theft or restore what the South has lost.

Loss, Release, and the Shape of the Enmity

The men of the South return home in sorrow because they have lost their lord, many of their best warriors, and most of their horses and arms. The men of Gwynedd, by contrast, go back in triumph. Yet the settlement does not end with victory alone. Gwydion asks Math to release the hostages taken for the peace, arguing that they should not be imprisoned, and Math agrees. The young hostage and the others are freed to rejoin the men of the South. The gesture limits the punishment of Pryderi’s people after his death, though it cannot reverse the military losses or restore their ruler.

The relation between Pryderi and Gwydion is therefore defined by a chain of cause and consequence: Gwydion secures the pigs through a fabricated exchange; Pryderi pursues redress; the dispute becomes a battle and a fragile truce; and the final settlement comes through Gwydion’s lethal victory. Pryderi’s insistence on confronting the responsible man gives the conflict a direct personal form, while the slaughter surrounding that duel shows how little of its cost can be contained. Their enmity ends not in reconciliation but in Pryderi’s death, followed by the release of the hostages and the return of the defeated South to its own land.