Taran Wanderer

When I was a kid, say 9-14 years old, I was very into high fantasy. It started with Tolkien of course, but I also loved the Lloyd Alexander Tales of Prydain stories. This was a five-book "trilogy", loosely based on the Welsh legends collected as the Mabinogion (which is quite fun to say, by the way). Like The Once and Future King, they are both great examples of, and subversions of high fantasy. Although I knew Disney had made an animated movie based on the books, it was only recently that I thought to watch The Black Cauldron (1985).

The "hero" is named Taran, assistant pig-keeper to a wizard (voiced by Freddie Jones). He wants to be a warrior, but feels he is stuck looking after a pig, Henwen (a very cute little porker). But Henwen is no ordinary pig - she is an oracle, and the wizard uses her to make sure that the Black Cauldron is safe. The Horned King (John Hurt) wants to find it, because it can turn a corpse into an undying warrior. When the pig foretells danger, he sends Taran off to guard the pig at a cottage by the forest. And of course, he loses the pig right away, when gryphons swoop down and carry her off. 

Following her, he runs into Gurgi. a creature who talks a lot like Gollum (voiced by John Byner). Gurgi wants to be friendly, but isn't very trustworthy, so Taran gives him the slip.

He makes it to the cavernous halls of the Horned King, and is immediately captured and thrown into the dungeon. But a lovely (if somewhat ditsy) princess names Eilonwy shows up. She is also imprisoned, but has found the many underground passageways, letting her wander at will. They also release a bard named Fflewddur Fflamm, who has a harp whose strings break when he lies - and they break a lot.

Somewhere in the catacombs, Taran finds the tomb of an ancient king and takes his magic sword. So now they have that working for them. So this crew must get back Henwen and protect the cauldron. It turns out that the cauldron is in the keeping of three witches, who will only trade it - for the sword.

And so on. This is pretty action-packed, and even a little scary (if you are a young child). The Horned King has a skull for a face, which seems to use actual film of a skull superimposed on the animation. Overall, the look is very Disney - see Sword in the Stone - and so are the characters. Fflewddur Fflamm is pretty much your average Disney comedy blowhard, for instance. At least Eilonwy isn't much of a damsel in distress - she can usually hold her own.

The main thing I missed was the oddness of Welsh legend. As we know from, for ex, Robert Graves' White Goddess, pigs were considered to be creatures of great magical power in those days, and we don't really get that here. The Bard doesn't seem to have any bardic wisdom or powers, and so forth.

But I remember just enough of the books so that I felt these resonances. Also, it's basically a pretty good Disney. Ms. Spenser, who hasn't read the stories it's based on, liked it too. And that's good enough for me.