Culhwch ac Olwen, and Pa Gur yv y Porthaur After being cursed by his
stepmother such that he may marry no one but
Olwen, daughter of the giant
Ysbaddaden,
Culhwch ap Cilydd seeks assistance from his cousin Arthur to win her hand in marriage. He arrives at his court at
Celliwig but is denied by the Glewlwyd, the chief porter. Culhwch threatens to wreak havoc unless he is granted entry to the court and, eventually, Glewlwyd relents. In a bombastic speech given in this tale, Glewlwyd recounts his history to Arthur, in which he claims to have been in different exotic locations across the world and
Otherworld, often alongside Arthur: entering Arthur's Court in the Welsh tale
Culhwch and Olwen, 1881 This passage is closely related to the narrative of the tenth-century poem ; "What man is the porter," in which Glewlwyd is the titular gatekeeper of a fortress to which Arthur and his men are seeking admittance. To prove their right of entry Arthur relates the feats and achievements of his men; particularly those of
Cai and
Bedwyr. Later on in
Culhwch ac Olwen, Glewlwyd leads his servants during the
hunt for the man-turned-boar,
Twrch Trwyth, and three of them, Huandaw, Gogigwr and
Penpingion, are killed in the process, mortally wounded by the quarry. Glewlwyd is left with Llaesgymyn, "a man who was no use to anyone" as his sole remaining servant.
Other appearances Glewlwyd is named twice in the
Welsh Triads. He is listed as one of the twenty-four ordained knights of Arthur's court and is regarded as one of the "Three Offensive Knights of Arthur’s Court", alongside
Sanddef and
Morfran. They are known as the offensive knights because it is "repugnant to anyone to refuse them anything: Sanddef because of his beauty, Morfran because of his ugliness, and Glewlwyd because of his size and his strength and his ferocity." He is further named as the lover of Dyfyr Golden-Hair, one of the Three Famous Maidens of Arthur's Court. In
The Lady of the Fountain, the tale of the knight
Owain, Glewlwyd is present at Arthur's court at
Caerleon, once again in the role of gatekeeper, "greeting guests and foreigners, beginning to honour them, telling them the customs and habits of the court, and informing those who had the right to go to the hall or chamber or who merited lodging." In the romance of
Geraint fab Erbin, Glewlwyd is once again chief gatekeeper at Caerleon, although it is stated "he did not trouble himself over this service except on one of the three important festivals." During the rest of the year, his duties are shared by his seven assistants: Gryn,
Penpingion, Llaesgymyn, Gogyfwlch, Gwrddnei Cat-Eye, Drem ap Dremidydd and Clust fab Clusfeinydd. Glewlwyd is further mentioned in satirical fifteenth or sixteenth parody,
Araith Iolo Goch, in which a certain "amorous-mannered, grief-pallored, pale-cheeked youth" from
Gwynedd seeks the heart of a maiden from
Powys. In a conversation between the lady and her suitor, Glewlwyd's great strength is alluded to. Glewlwyd is described as "the man who lifted the cauldron down from the fire with one hand in the court of Toron of the three islands of Britain, with the sliced meat of seven oxen boiling in it". Whether or not this refers to a genuine tradition concerning Glewlwyd's exploits, or is merely an invention on the author's part, is unknown. ==References==