The Castle of Llyr, Chapter 11 – King of the Stones

The giant, Glew, rises to his feet. He’s three times Taran’s height, and commands them again to “Tremble!” Fflewddur is like, “I don’t need to be told!” and Gurgi covers his face and wails. The giant is impressed that they are in fact shaking in fear — not just humoring him — and excited that they’ve heard of him. Rhun mentions Llyan, and Glew sniffles that he wishes she were here to keep him company. I assume Rhun pronounces her name the same way Glew does, otherwise they would have a whole “Lion? You mean Lee-AHN?” thing happening. Glew complains about how scary and icky the cavern is, populated by worms, bats, and “things that are just — just things! They’re the worst.” So I Google-image-searched “gross things in caves” to try to come up with an illustration, but all I found were spiders, and sorry, Glew — I’m a fan of those.

Taran asks Glew to show them the way out. Glew says he doesn’t know of one. He swallowed the potion on his way into the cave, with Llyan tailing him. Then he kept growing and growing while running deeper into the cavern, looking for bigger chambers, until at last he reached a dead end. Taran whispers to Fflewddur that there must still be a passage big enough for them to escape, if they can get Glew to stop talking and show them. Glew catches on that they’re not listening to him and begins crying again. He never wanted to be a giant, he says. At first he wanted to be a great warrior, then a bard, then a hero, then a king. But all these things turned out to be uncomfortable and inconvenient, from “the harp rubbing blisters on your shoulder” to caged dragons that bite you when you try to slay them. The only thing left for him to try was enchantments, so he got hold of a book of spells that once belonged to the House of Llyr. Taran perks up at the mention of Eilonwy’s lineage and demands details. Glew says that the book came from Caer Colur, the “ancient seat of the House of Llyr” and a “treasurehouse of charms and enchantments.” It used to be part of Mona, but it broke off during a flood and became an island. Taran guesses that Magg must have taken Eilonwy there.

The wizard who gave Glew the book was “eager to be rid of it,” Glew exposits, and when he left Glew found out why – the book was completely blank. “Amazing!” Rhun exclaims; that must be the book they found in Glew’s cottage. Glew says they can keep it to remember him by, and begs them to help him get out of the cavern. Taran says that he’ll ask Dallben to help, if Glew will show them the way out. Glew agrees, if the others will call him “King Glew.” Fflewddur, who actually is a king, hilariously says he’ll call him king, prince or whatever, if he’ll show them “a way out of here – Sire!”

Glew leads them past his makeshift potion-brewing workshop to a tunnel and tells them to go straight on through it. They push through, only to collide with a stone wall. Taran spins around, dropping Eilonwy’s bauble, to see that Glew has rolled a massive stone over the opening, trapping them!