January 4th- Hero

Todays folktale is probably the oldest of the Arthurian legends, it dates to the 11th-12th century. 
In The Mab it's retold as the story of The Amazing Eight, placing the characters of our questing knights very much in the roles of comic book superheroes. Super Ted was one of my favourite cartoon shows as a child, and I never realised that the original version was actually Welsh Language and originally aired on Welsh Language channel S4C.


In Culhwch and Olwen our protagonists have to complete a series of tasks to free the daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden, Olwen. Unlike her father Olwen is beautiful, and Culhwch wants her to be his bride. In total there are forty tasks to be completed, though our tale only narrates the completion of some of them (this is a long, long story in it's original form)
This is a long story so this site breaks it up in to 4 sections. 
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

This video explains the story, and narrates the tale. Purely co-incidentally I've just found this live (but with a recording to watch later) lecture on this tale by Dr Mark Williams,  Fellow and Tutor in English at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, a specialist in the medieval languages and literatures of Wales and Ireland later this month. Tickets are available here.
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Sadly another day with very limited amounts of this colour, but what is available is now in the online shop, or if you need an alternate Soft Fruits if very similar in tone and colour.