Yskithyrwyn Benbaedd

Yskithyrwyn Benbaedd is the boar hunted for a tusk needed to complete one of Yspaddaden Penkawr’s demands. Its importance lies in the extraordinary conditions attached to that tusk: it must be taken from the animal alive, and only Odgar son of Aedd, king of Ireland during Arthur’s campaigns, is said to be able to extract it. The hunt eventually produces the tusk through a different sequence, with Kaw striking the boar down and carrying it away.

The Tusk as a Required Task

Yspaddaden presents the tusk as necessary for a personal grooming task. He says he must wash his head and shave his beard, and that the tusk will serve as his shaving tool only if it is plucked from Yskithyrwyn Benbaedd’s head while the boar is alive. The requirement makes the animal more than a source of a prized object: its survival during the extraction is part of the task itself.

A further obstacle is attached to the tusk. Yspaddaden says that no one except Odgar son of Aedd can pull it from the boar’s head. The demand therefore combines a dangerous quarry with an apparently exclusive means of obtaining its tusk, framing the hunt as one element in a larger succession of difficult conditions.

The Hunt

After Arthur has reconciled the chieftains, he travels to Armorica with Mabon son of Mellt and Gware Gwallt Euryn to seek the two dogs of Glythmyr Ledewic. Once he has obtained them, Arthur goes to the west of Ireland during Arthur’s campaigns in search of Gwrgi Severi, accompanied by Odgar. He then turns north, captures Kyledyr Wyllt, and pursues Yskithyrwyn Benbaedd.

The party brings several dogs to the chase. Mabon arrives with the two dogs of Glythmyr Ledewic and Drudwyn, the cub of Greid son of Eri; Arthur himself leads Cavall. Kaw of North Britain rides Arthur’s mare Llamrei and is first into the attack. He wields a mighty axe, approaches the boar boldly, and cleaves its head in two.

Death and the Taking of the Tusk

Kaw takes the tusk after the attack. The account specifically distinguishes the animal’s killer from the pack: Yskithyrwyn Benbaedd is not slain by the dogs Yspaddaden had mentioned, but by Cavall, Arthur’s own dog. Kaw’s axe blow and Cavall’s role are thus both singled out in the outcome, while the other hounds do not receive credit for killing the boar.

The action does not match the conditions as Yspaddaden first states them: the boar is killed before Kaw takes its tusk, and the account does not describe Odgar extracting it. It records the tusk’s recovery, but leaves unreported how the living-extraction condition is reconciled with the hunt’s actual result. Arthur and his company depart afterward for Gelli Wic in Cornwall, carrying the episode forward as part of the larger series of tasks.