AI 005 - Stripped of Ornamentation

This is about Llewellyn, believe it or not. The previous post accidentally bat-logicked into Mirrah Tin Hat territory, and I'm sure we'll be revisiting this guy when I finally am definitely sure I really do have a firm enough grasp of the story to for real move on to the third game.

So buckle your legendary-but-not-actually-that-remarkable swordbelts, young hollows, and get ready for another round of What In The Balls Did Vendrick Think He Was Doing.

Lugh Belenus

I know like next to nothing about Celtic mythology. I'm sure I'm about to butcher my attempt at synthesizing some of it. If anything is egregiously wrong take it up with Google.

The name Llewellyn seems to be a cognate of the Celtic gods Lugus/Lugh and Bel/Belenus. The etymology of Lugh is contested, with one of the most common candidates being something like 'oath, oathmaster, God of Oaths, God under Oath' and so on; but Belenus is more straightforward and means something like 'The Shining [High] God'.

Lugh is associated with triplism for reasons I don't fully understand, but depictions of him resemble (holy shit) the Looking-Glass Knight. Lugh's holy day, Lughnasa/Lunasa is associated with an end-of-summer/first harvest festival on August 1, similar in nature to the ancient Olympics, including all of the politics and partying and feats of prowess. For this reason he's associated with grains and breads.

From the Wikipedia page.

Lugh is portrayed as a heroic king, a master (and possible creator) of all skills, such as 'smith, wright, craftsman, swordsman, harpist, poet, historian, sorcerer, physician, and champion,' as well as the 'secrets of the land, including when to plough, sow, and reap.'

Lugh  is associated with the light, thunderstorms, the raven, and the hound.

Lugh possessed, among other things, his sea god step-father's sentient and bloodthirsty and flaming spear called Slaughterer (holy shit). He also had a 'holy shit' sword because why not. The sword, when held to a person's throat, renders them unable to tell a lie or to move while under the wielder's interrogation. The sword is called the Answerer, and any wound dealt by it is fatal.

Lugh also killed his grandfather, Balor of the Evil Eye; a cyclopian tyrant whose seven-lidded eye burned all it beheld. Balor is associated with drought, blight, and the scorching sun, while his grandson Lugh - son of a sun princess (Balor's daughter Ethniu,) and raised by a sea god (Manannan, who rescued Lugh after Balor attempted to drown or cast the child adrift) - represents humanity taming the blight of summer with craft, skill, resourcefulness, and, of course, by smashing your grandfather's eyeball out of the back of his skull with a rock.

How did these people lose to Christians?

It seems like Lugh might get commonly mistaken for a sun god, but he's technically more of a god of light, but I don't know how or if that figures into anything.

One common depiction of Belenus, who probably was a sun god,  is a kind of 'sunlight medal' featuring a crazy old bearded guy with, from what I can tell, twin serpents whispering in his ears. His symbol was the wheel, he's a healer associated with with holy springs and the sun. . His holy day, May 1 is Beltane (Bright Fire), an end-of-Spring festival involving ceremonial bonfires and herb gathering and so on. Probably boning.

Note Serpents

Belenus' symbol is the wheel, and yes it's the same wheel as the Wheel Hunter Badge in Bloodborne. The horse and wheel both symbolize Belenus' chariot, which drags the sun across the sky each day.

Belenus is sometimes depicted as battling 'the chthonic forces of a snake-limbed giant' by hurling lightning bolts and using his wheel as a shield.

A more iffy translation of Llewellyn could view it as llew-ellen. The proto-Brythonic Lew seems to derive from Leo, while the etymology of 'ellen' is an Old English word that has the meanings of 'zeal, strength, courage; comfort, grace'. Courageous Lion or By the Grace of the Lion could be possible translations, with the understanding that 'ellen' has religious overtones. Just as a weird aside, leo is synonymous with 'courage,' so the name could even mean Courage the Courageous.

Now that I think about it, if you read it as "Lion of the Sun God," then Llewellyn would be a great alternate name for Ornstein.

To move on to the actual smith himself, I've repeatedly outlined his role in the story, but to try to fill in the timeline we can look at the armaments he produced. His designs focus on speed, efficiency, and functionality, of a style seemingly lost in Drang from the period of High Olaphis (Alva's Set,) until...well, until he returned. "Trimmed to reduce weight" seems to be the idea behind his armor designs, although it's possible that the smith also make complex, ornamental stuff like the Looking Glass Knight's get up.

Llewellyn brought his namesake shield with him to present as a gift upon arival in Drangleic. We get the shield as a drop from the stone knights, who were Velstadt's men. This could be important, as the shield ends up in the hands of Horace, and...well, Horace later. "The Stone Knight" is one of those ideas that I've been thiiiiiiissss close to having a breakthrough on for years now. Him and Nadalia. Always Nadalia.

The most obvious set of gear associated with Llew belongs to Wellager, and was presented to 'a select few.' The armor - like all of the smith's armors - seems to attempt to take a unique set of heavy armor, Vendrick's in this case, and render it down into a medium set for mass production. Wellager's arms include the Espada Ropera and the Royal Dirk. The name is Spanish and means 'dress sword,' and funnily enough irl espada roperas were the original incarnation of the rapier-style sword, with 'rapier' being the more accurate but less literal translation of 'espada ropera'. The dagger mentions that Vendrick offered Llewellyn the contract in order to introduce geisteel into the country.

Geis/Geas is an Irish/Scottish word that something like an enchantment or spell of binding (in the sense of being bound to a course of action). Attempting to renounce, betray, ignore, or otherwise attempt to buck the injunction of the geis generally results in misfortune equivalent to the transgression. 'Enchanted steel' may be the meaning. Similarly, it might read as geist-steel, or ghost steel.

Geisteel is one of several (presumably titanite) alloys mentioned in-game. Geisteel is mentioned as being particularly durable. Bradden, another common alloy, is mentioned as having been developed in Drangleic in an attempt to recreate the lightning-infused mystery alloy of Heide. This doesn't make sense to me since this information is related via armor from Astora that appears in Eleum Loyce. Provided you have the Eye of the Priestess.

On the other hand, I may have also raised another question: The Heide Greatlance (found in the Gutter in Scholar,) implies the Heide Knights may have once been dragonriders themselves.

So, mysteries unsolved or design/translation oversight I'm wasting my time on?

Come to think of it, Syan's set looks like a variant of these as well.

Anyway, back to Lleyellyn.

Other potential Llewellyn designs include the Royal Soldiers set (based on Raime's armor,) and the Royal Swordsmens' set. The Soldier set suggestsLlew arrived before Raime's betrayal. Raime's betrayal seems to have happened during the war with the giants, and probably involved the appearance of Ironclad, Armorer Dennis, and salamanders in the fort. The Syan set states that copies of his gear were made, which happened at - or just before - the beginning of the war.

Right, so, big question: why would Llewellyn the Great Smith of Mirrah want to serve a kingdom mired, or about to be mired, in an apparently unwinnable and unending war?

Let's say Llew arrived before the War, maybe before Nashandra, but also after the fall of the Three Kingdoms. Vengarl makes it seem like a large part of Vendrick's early forces were made up of former Forossans, and this may be where Wellager originally came from (assuming he isn't a native). So, Vendrick hears tales of Mirrah, with her holy water and official knights and magic knights and shadow knights and anti-magic knights and traitor knights and errant knights and imposer knights and The Unstoppable Juggernaut knights and a great smith who knew the secret of geisteel which is like way better than bradden for some reason.

Here's what I think is happening.

Forossa is associated with followers of the Nameless King of Anor Londo.

Jugo is associated with a divergent school of pyromancy.

Mirrah is associated with the Occult Rebellion.

Let's talk about Mirrah.

Hawkshaw's latest video detailing the Occult Rebellion, Havel, and Giant Smith seems like it might help form a starting point from which to work towards Llewellyn, as both Havel and Smith seem to be associated with Mirrah in the second game.

Giant Smith (not to be confused with Help Anytime, smith who is a giant,) was the blacksmith deity of Anor Londo. Probably s/he pre-dated Anor Londo. Maybe s/he - as a kind of Giant King - pre-dated Fire and, instead of embracing it internally, chose to use wield it as a tool for making tools.

Time passes, things are good, Smith takes apprentices. These apprentices would come to be known as holy smiths. These include people like Vamos and Help Anytime in Lordran, and McDuff and Llewellyn in Drangleic (and environs). The Blacksmith Deity probably trained one smith at a time from each 'kingdom' Anor Londo had alliances with. These holy smiths are contrasted with "common" smiths, like Rickert or Lenigrast. 

I say all that because, and I feel like I say this a lot but it bears repeating: Smiths represent a kingdom's technological ceiling. When the Chosen Undead finds lost Anor Londo it's an echo of it's former glory, but their holy smith is able to craft Boss Soul weapons from common weapons, while Lothric and Drangleic both have to resort to transmutation. Great Smith the Blacksmith God, therefore, would have been one of the most important people in Gwyn (and later the Firstborn's) kingdom. Havel's cool and all but he's just a bishop: Smith is the hammer than forged the sword that won an entire world.

The Rebellion goes down, as outlined by Hawkshaw; Havel, Smith and other survivors make their way to Mirrah, or maybe to where they establish Mirrah, and Mirrah's border is marked by the High Wall we see just past Aldia's Keep.

It's possible that Gwynevere relocated to Mirrah when the Curse emerged in Olaphis, although I don't know when this happens in relation to the occult rebellion. If the uprising happened because of something like Oolacile digging up and reanimating the corpse of a pygmy lord, then the timeline would look something like

1. "Manus" is disinterred.
2. Havel and Smith move against the other Gods.
3. Havel and Smith (or Llewellyn) relocate to Mirrah.
4. The Chasm and Kalameet appear. Gwynevere and most of the remaining gods quietly quit Anor Londo, leaving Gwyndolin, Seathe, and the four knight captains in charge.
5. Olaphis begins to rise. Mirrah, Forossa, and Jugo begin to war with each other.
6. "Artorias" slays Manus and Kalameet. Olaphis attempts a firelinking ritual.
7. Oolacile falls into the Chasm, which begins to dissipate and drift towards Drang, which has some kind of antipodal relationship to Lordran. The Curse appears in Olaphis.
8. "Gwynevere" relocates to Mirrah, "Havel" relocates to Olaphis.
9. Elana, a troubadour and witchtree, emerges from the Abyss. Main-story stuff happens, time passes. Forossa falls or enters serious decline, and Vendrick & Aldia hire an army of  Foross mercenaries to take and unify Drangleic.
10. Vendrick buys out Llewellyn.
11. Mirrah falls or enters serious decline. Vendrick shores up his strength with Mir mercenaries.
12. Main-story stuff happens, time passes, Llewellyn's arms and armor and the legacy of the three kingdoms re-emerge in Lothric.

Down for Mirrah.

Llewellyn, then, could have been trained as a holy smith by Smith -- may even be Smith or an heir to Smith himself. His dual-sungod name may represent some kind of political union between the Occultists and the Princess Guard when Gwynevere retired as Queen Olaphis I.

From there Mirrah collapses from war, Llew eventually accepts Vendrick's contract, dot dot dot Llewellyn is viewed as a/the Great Smith in the third game.

It could well be that the name Llewellyn is meant to indicate that the smith represents some kind of union, covenant, or alliance between two different characters or factions roughly aligning with descriptions of Lugh and Belenus. Further, this union would be important to both Mirrah's history and third game events. Lu/Lugh/Lugus, as master of all crafts, seems like a match for Giant Smith, while Bel/Belen/Belenus seems to represent someone of Gwyn's lineage. Given what we know of Mirrah, it's possible that this was Gwynevere, but I feel like I've been saying that way to often lately.

I think that's as far as we can dig for now.

Next time: Dragons, maybe.