ABSTRACT
Throughout the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, the mystical Otherworld encroaches upon the realm of mortal kind, and one of the more powerful appearances of it takes the form of animals that participate in metamorphoses with human figures. Metamorphoses of mortals into animals are far more numerous in the Fourth Branch than in the earlier three. In the First Branch, Pwyll Pendeuic Dyuet, Rhiannon and Pryderi are clearly to be identified with horses if we seek the mythical origins of the tale,7 but they do not appear in the narrative as horses. Branwen, the Second Branch, deals less with animal metamorphoses than with animals linked associatively through a beast-symbol that formed part of the base-myth. In Manawydan, the Third Branch, the “shining white” boar that lures Pryderi to the Otherworld fortress is more a harbinger of Llwyd’s ominous approach than an animal to be identified with any principal figure in the tale.
