Jondalar of the Zelandonii is the male main character of Jean Auel's Earth's Children speculative historical fiction series set in the Late Stone Age of Europe.
He has long pale blond hair which he usually pulls back in a ponytail (called a "club" by his people), vivid blue eyes, is six feet six inches tall, and is described as extremely handsome and skillful in many ways.
Introduced early in the second novel of the series as a "co-star" of the book The Valley of Horses, he and his brother Thonolan are on a long Journey to see the end of the Great Mother River.
He also has a "hearth cousin," Joplaya, the daughter of Dalanar and his second mate Jerika, whom Dalanar met when her family came into Zelandonii territory (from the description of her facial features in "Plains of Passage," Jerika appears to be of Mongol or Asian descent; the territory of her people is never pinpointed in the books, making exact racial determinations impossible).
Because of the belief that the Great Earth Mother can choose any man's spirit to join with a woman's to make a child, Jondalar at first does not entirely believe that Jonayla is truly as much a daughter of his as she is to Ayla.
Though customs dictated that their relationship be solely physical, the two began to discuss the idea of mating; it speaks to Jondalar's inherent charisma and handsomeness that, despite having just entered adulthood, he was able to make a strong emotional connection with a woman who was not only considered the most beautiful of all the Zelandonii, but was some years older than he was.
After several years living with Dalanar and learning to knap flint, as well as honing some of the charm and charisma which his father had passed on to him (the two are physically almost identical), Jondalar returned to the Ninth Cave.
Zolena had begun training to become a member of the zelandonia; Ladroman and his family had moved to the Fifth Cave of the Zelandonii; and people had largely forgotten about his previous indiscretions.
Eventually, Jondalar began a relationship with Marona, a fellow member of the Ninth Cave who was considered the most beautiful woman among the Zelandonii.
After being transported back to the camp where they live to heal from his wounds, Thonolan falls in love with a woman named Jetamio, and soon found himself mated and cross-mated with his Shamudoi wife and a Ramudoi couple.
Believing that she was either an acolyte of some tribe's zelandonia or a full-fledged Zelandoni on some kind of sacred retreat, Jondalar was beguiled by her beauty and intrigued by the mystery she presented.
As Jondalar learns more about Ayla's background and history, he realizes her only experience with sex is rape and shares First Rites with her, teaching her the Mother's Gift of Pleasure.
Due to Ayla's upbringing among the Clan and the fact that she had given birth to a half-clan son, Jondalar initially believed that she would be vilified and shunned by the Zelandonii.
This inner struggle was a great personal crisis for him and Ayla as it affected their relations both in "Valley of Horses" and "The Mammoth Hunters", generally interfering strongly in their relationship as a couple until Jondalar could put his natal prejudices to rest.
However, it is not common knowledge that Ayla had a son of "mixed spirits" (a Neanderthal-Cro Magnon hybrid), and Zelandoni (Zolena) advised her not to mention him to anyone.
He supposedly gained some control during his years living with the Lanzadonii, but Ayla's brief relationship with Ranec caused an explosion of jealousy which belies this idea.
He has also been endowed with a "prodigious manhood," and, as no woman has had the ability to accept his full measure save Ayla, he has been unable to find total abandon and sexual fulfillment, despite some gratification.
Dalanar and Marthona had a complicated and deep love affair about which the singers and story tellers still speak of with reverence and perhaps a touch of envy.
He is still good friends with Marthona, and leads his people to camp near the Ninth Cave encampment at the Zelandonii summer meeting central to the fifth book.
The second book, The Valley of Horses — introduces Jondalar and Thonolan traveling from the lands of the Lanzadonii, in today's western Switzerland, across the great glaciers capping the Alps into the upper Danube valley (Germany or Austria, given fictional license and Ice Age glacier sizes) accompanying his younger impetuous and head-strong brother Thonolan on his journey, putatively to reach the mouth of the Great Mother River (Danube).
Thonolan is charismatic, good looking, engaging, likable, irreverent and hardly ever serious while being skilled at wood bending and spear straightening, his craft in the master-of-all-trades world imagined by Auel.
He has a tendency to devil may care heroics: a moment of carelessness gets him mauled by a woolly rhinoceros, and another episode gets him killed by a Cave Lion.
Originally his tutor in the art of sex, Zolena and Jondalar developed a strong emotional, but socially unacceptable, attachment as well as physical compatibility.
(As conjected by Ayla, Joplaya is most likely Jondalar's half-sister via Dalanar, but since it is understood that only women can make children there is no such connection aside from a cultural relationship of 'hearth' or 'close' cousins.)
Considered the most beautiful woman at recent Zelandonii Summer Meetings, Jondalar began a relationship with Marona at some point between his return from the Lanzadonii cave and leaving with Thonolan on their Journey.
Known for her spiteful behavior and her skill with the Mother's Gift of Pleasure, Marona was planning to tie the knot with Jondalar at the Summer Meeting before he left unexpectedly.
She was understandably vexed, but when Jondalar returned five years later he discovered that she still begrudged him their sundered engagement; she has also, by extension, shown vicious hostility towards Ayla.
During the final book, she re-kindled what she believed to be a relationship with Jondalar, but which was revealed as purely physical gratification on his part as Ayla was so often away, distracted or tired due to her spiritual training and duties.
The brief description of their liaison seems to be highly symbolic, used by Auel as a device to illustrate Jondalar's emotional state of mind before meeting Ayla.
Having saved his life and healed him so well that no one would expect that he had been mauled by a cave lion, Ayla won Jondalar's heart with a potent mix of experience and innocence, strength and vulnerability.