Eilonwy

Princess Eilonwy is a fictional character in Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain. She appears in four of the five novels in the series, as well as Disney's 1985 animated film adaptation The Black Cauldron. Eilonwy is a member of the Royal House of Llyr, and the women in her line are formidable enchantresses, including her mother, Angharad, and grandmother Regat. She has inherited this characteristic, most readily visible in her manipulation of a magical item she calls her "bauble", a small golden sphere that glows with magical light when activated by her willpower. Eilonwy's father, Geraint, was a commoner with whom her mother fell in love. Name origin Eilonwy is not a historical Welsh name (unlike many others used in the stories), but it turns up in a tale by Glasynys – published in Cymru Fu, or The Wales that Was (1862-4), and translated from the Welsh by Sir John Rhys in his Celtic Folklore (1901) – belonging to the daughter of a mermaid named Nefyn ferch Nefydd and her human lover Ifan Morgan. A poem by Talhaiarn also bears the name "Eilonwy". It may be based on the literary Welsh (i.e. obsolete) word eilon, meaning "deer, stag", with the fanciful suffix -wy (used in the 1800s to adorn river names) added for euphony (or perhaps in reference to the river Elan in central Wales). Description Eilonwy is described having long red-gold hair, bright blue eyes, and a melodic, youthful voice. As a member of the Royal House of Llyr, she wears a pendant depicting a silver crescent moon, the family emblem. Far from being just another stereotypical damsel-in-distress princess who needs the hero to save her, Eilonwy is hot-tempered, stubborn, and resolute. Although having been trained as a sorceress and not a warrior, she is quite capable of using various kinds of weapons, particularly the sword, bow, and spear. Even when unarmed, she will fight until incapacitated. Eilonwy commonly uses unusual similes and metaphors, such as "If you don't listen to what somebody tells you, it's like putting your fingers in your ears and jumping down a well." She is also sharp, snippy, strong-willed, and sarcastic, but at the same time talkative and often scatterbrained. Eilonwy frequently gets angry with Taran, usually for reasons he does not understand, though in secret she does care for him. While she is more sure about her growing feelings towards him than he is about his for her, she is content to wait until he confesses to her, which he does in the end.