The Book of Three

THE BOOK OF THREE

The Book Of Three is an interesting read, as it tells the tale of the epitome of the hero's humble beginnings. Taran is a pig farmer, who lives with Coll and Dallben in Caer Dallban. When one of the more special pigs(it turns out this pig can predict the future) escapes and runs into the forrest, Taran encounters the Horned King, who is a minion of Arawn the Lord of Death and the Kingdom of Annuvin. Also in the forrest Taran meets Prince Gwydion, who is riding his horse Melyngar also, apparently, in search of Taran's pig.

As I've said before, Taran is the epitome of the Humble Beginnings of the hero, but thats not the only very interesting character that Lloyd Alexander creates. Prince Gwydion is a disheveled, almost homeless looking prince in search of Taran's lost pig. But before meeting him, Taran(and the reader) had grandiose visions of what Gwydion must look like. Tarans influence comes from ignorance, but our idealized version of Gwydion comes from years of Disney films and other media depicting Princes in an overly perfect manor. This reminds me of the Television mini-series the Color of Magic, as when the main characters Rincewind and Twoflower meet the famous Cohen the Barbarian, who is an old man with a long white beard and wearing an eye-patch. They don't even believe this could be Cohen at first, which just show's how we as humans tend to idealize our idols, and that we should never meet them lest we be disappointed.