The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

There’s also the similarity between the speech. We have Arawn, the Big Bad, who rules from a distant part of the world and plans to erase those who oppose him (Sauron, obviously). We have Gwydion, the noble hero who travels the world as a “ranger” type who is strikingly similar to Aragon, right down to the special sword. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring was published about 10 years before this book, and the similarities between these two books are striking. Tolkien likely had on Alexander, and I do think there was an influence because this book is very Lord of the Rings-esque, and that can’t be chalked up just to the time period. He does have a strange way of speaking, but I’m chalking that up to the time period (1960s) and to the influence that J.

He’s arrogant and foolish and rash and highly unbearable and it makes his change at the end more noticeable (although he’s not all together cured, as can be seen at the end of the book and in The Black Cauldron). (Random side note: why is it called The Book of Three anyway? The book only appears at the beginning and the end.) I like how Taran is a pretty unlikeable protagonist, especially in the beginning. I don’t remember liking them terribly well, but I did read the first three several times, so the events of The Book of Three are pretty firmly established in my mind.

The Chronicles of Prydain is a book series I read when I was younger because my brothers read them, and I wanted to read what my brothers were reading. With the dreaded Horned King on the loose and King Arawn gathering the forces of evil, Taran must look past his own dreams to warn the population of Prydain-before it’s too late. Soon he begins to realize that heroism is no easy task. When Hen Wen escapes and Taran goes after her, he finds himself farther from home than he’s ever been. He’d rather be doing something more heroic, like making swords and learning to use them. Taran is bored with his Assistant Pig-Keeper duties, even though his charge is none other than Hen Wen, Prydain’s only oracular pig. The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander, was published in 1964 by Henry Holt.

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander