The Mabinogion · 110 of 192 · tr. Lady Charlotte Guest
Tale KILHWCH AND OLWEN{
And he slew Huandaw, and Gogigwr, and Penpingon, three attendants upon Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr, so that Heaven knows he had not an attendant remaining, excepting only Llaesgevyn, a man from whom no one ever derived any good.
And together with these he slew many of the men of that country, and Gwlydyn Saer, Arthur’s chief Architect.
Then Arthur overtook him at Pelumyawc, and there he slew Madawc the son of Teithyon, and Gwyn the son of Tringad, the son of Neved, and Eiryawn Penllorau.
Thence he went to Aberteivi, where he made another stand, and where he slew Kyflas the son of Kynan, and Gwilenhin king of France.
Then he went as far as Glyn Ystu, and there the men and the dogs lost him.
Then Arthur summoned unto him Gwyn ab Nudd, and he asked him if he knew aught of Twrch Trwyth.
And he said that he did not.
And all the huntsmen went to hunt the swine as far as Dyffryn Llychwr.
And Grugyn Gwallt Ereint and Llwydawg Govynnyad closed with them and killed all the huntsmen, so that there escaped but one man only.
And Arthur and his hosts came to the place where Grugyn and Llwydawg were.
And there he let loose the whole of the dogs upon them, and with the shout and barking that was set up, Twrch Trwyth came to their assistance.
And from the time that they came across the Irish sea, Arthur had never got sight of him until then.
So he set men and dogs upon him, and thereupon he started off and went to Mynydd Amanw.
And there one of his young pigs was killed.
Then they set upon him life for life, and Twrch Llawin was slain, and then there was slain another of the swine, Gwys was his name.
After that he went on to Dyffryn Amanw, and there Banw and Bennwig were killed.
Of all his pigs there went with him alive from that place none save Grugyn Gwallt Ereint and Llwydawg Govynnyad.
Thence he went on to Llwch Ewin, and Arthur overtook him there, and he made a stand.
And there he slew Echel Forddwytwll, and Garwyli the son of Gwyddawg Gwyr, and many men and dogs likewise.
And thence they went to Llwch Tawy.
Grugyn Gwrych Ereint parted from them there, and went to Din Tywi.
And thence he proceeded to Ceredigiawn, and Eli and Trachmyr with him, and a multitude likewise.
Then he came to Garth Gregyn, and there Llwydawg Govynnyad fought in the midst of them, and slew Rhudvyw Rhys and many others with him.
Then Llwydawg went thence to Ystrad Yw, and there the men of Armorica met him, and there he slew Hirpeissawg the king of Armorica, and Llygatrudd Emys, and Gwrbothu, Arthur’s uncles, his mother’s brothers, and there was he himself slain.
Themes
◆Animismcosmology
The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.
The narrative depicts a landscape populated by named supernatural agents (Twrch Trwyth, Grugyn, Llwydawg) inhabiting specific localities, reflecting a worldview where the cosmos is filled with embodied divine or preternatural beings.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
The passage features Twrch Trwyth, a central figure in the Mabinogion corpus explicitly cited in the definition as an example of shapeshifting, acting with human agency while in boar form.