Ysbaddaden

[1] A vicious giant residing in a nigh unreachable castle, he is the father of Olwen and uncle of Goreu fab Custennin.

When Cilydd remarries after brutally murdering his new wife’s former husband, King Doged, the young Culhwch rejects his stepmother's attempt to pair him with his new stepsister.

They learn that the castle belongs to Ysbaddaden, that he stripped Custennin of his lands and murdered the shepherd's twenty-three children out of cruelty.

Eventually, Ysbaddaden relents, and agrees to give Culhwch his daughter on the condition that he complete a number of impossible tasks (anoethau), including hunting the Twrch Trwyth and recovering the exalted prisoner Mabon ap Modron.

Ysbaddaden's head is placed on the spike of the citadel, Goreu claims his uncle's lands as his own, and Olwen is free to marry her love.

So huge is his frame, Ysbaddaden requires great forks to prop up his eyelids. Illustration by John D. Batten (1892)