Talk:The Black Cauldron (novel)

Poor Plot Section
The plot section needs some serious redoing. It is not complete and seems poorly written for an encyclopedia. I'll try on work on it when I get some spare time. Till then, have at it! Best wishes! Sylverdin 20:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Major revision. Previously I have avoided the daunting long plot summaries in many wikipedia articles on fiction books. This was the shortest of the five in Prydain and the only one not flagged plot or all plot so it was a good place to try and begin. I anticipated easily shortening while improving ... it's much better but no shorter (longer with the notes and refs). —one-quarter so long as The Marriage of Figaro, but it dominates this short article as that does not.
 * Hopefully I anticipate that the other, longer Prydain plot summaries will be easy to shorten, but not to shorten enough ... (to be continued) --P64 (talk) 21:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The Black Crochan

 * (two weeks later) Evidently this the former content of "The Black Crochan", which was made a redirect to "The Chronicles of Prydain" when this content was dumped there, but now redirects to "Black Crochan". (continued below)
 * This is imported verbatim from The Chronicles of Prydain. Any section on the Crochan, the cauldron per se, should be in this article.
 * --P64 (talk) 21:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The Black Crochan is the formal name of the Black Cauldron, an iron kettle which is a significant plot device in Lloyd Alexander's fantasy novel series The Chronicles of Prydain.

The original purpose of the Cauldron is never made entirely clear, but it is known that once it was the property of the three enchantresses, Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch. As they explain to Taran, the protagonist of the series, they were the ones who gave it to Arawn Death-Lord, when he was a young man. At what price he purchased the kettle from them, the reader never learns.

Once he has the kettle in his possession, Arawn uses it to make an army of deathless warriors known as the Cauldron-Born. He takes the bodies of dead warriors from their graves and throws them into the cauldron, which reanimates them. Not being truly alive, they cannot be killed by ordinary means, and they are forced to blindly obey their master.

In the novel named for the Cauldron, Taran and his companions form a great alliance to find and destroy the Cauldron once and for all. They discover that the enchantresses have taken it back from Arawn, and after some negotiations, the friends are able to purchase it in exchange for a brooch which had belonged to their fallen comrade, Adaon. As part of the bargain, the enchantresses explain how to destroy the Cauldron—a living man must sacrifice his own life and throw himself into the Cauldron.

Ellidyr, Prince of Pen-Llarcau and one of the allies in the quest, takes a mortal wound during the final battle. Realizing this is his only chance to redeem himself for all the wrongs he has done the companions, and knowing that his life is already forfeit, he flings himself inside the kettle and causes it to shatter. This selfless act does not destroy the Cauldron-Born who already exist, but at least Arawn is unable to add to their number.

In the fifth book in the series, The High King, Taran inadvertently discovers that there is one thing which can destroy the Cauldron-Born forever—the magical sword Dyrnwyn. He plunges it into the heart of the warrior bearing down upon him and, in so doing, kills not only his own adversary but all of the other Cauldron-Born in one fell swoop.

Like many other elements of the Prydain Chronicles, the Black Crochan is based on elements of Welsh mythology, specifically events recounted in The Mabinogion.

end quotation
 * There is a stub Black Crochan.
 * On the cauldron's origin, see Pair Dadeni for a start.
 * For now I have linked "magical kettle" in the lead to the latter article on Welsh mythology, without explanation, and I am agnostic whether there should be any article on the B.C. --P64 (talk) 21:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Evidently that quotation is the former article "The Black Crochan".
 * Some consolidation may be appropriate. Beside this article (the novel) and this Talk section (formerly "The Black Crochan"), see:
 * Black Crochan and Talk:Black Crochan—recommended place for discussion
 * Cauldron-Born and Talk:Cauldron-Born
 * --P64 (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 18:38, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

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