Olwen is the heroine of the poem Culhwch and Olwen. It’s a mediaeval Welsh story included in the Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest in the 19th century.
It is a story of a quest carried out by Arthur and his knights to help Culhwch, a young cousin of Arthur, win the beautiful Olwen, daughter of a giant, Ysbaddaden. Culhwch hasn’t actually met her when he falls in love with her; it’s a spell put on him by his stepmother, by which he will never marry unless it is her. The stepmother doesn’t think he will ever be able to marry her, because it’s going to take a quest that he can’t carry out by himself.
That, of course, is not a problem, because he is the cousin of King Arthur, who is only too happy to help, along with his top knights.
Really, it’s just an excuse to show what Arthur and his knights can do; they are very much pre Malory. No Lancelot, for a start. And they have magical powers as folk tale characters. They use them.
Ysbaddaden quite understandably isn’t keen to agree to his daughter’s marriage, because he knows that when she marries, that will be the end of him. So he gives a long list of things the heroes must do before Culhwch can claim her.
The name Olwen means “white tracks” because everywhere she walks, white flowers spring up. It sounds rather goddess-like to me. In fact, there is a story(non Arthurian), Einion And Olwen, in which a shepherd goes to the Underworld to marry her. That Olwen is the mother of the bard Taliesin. There are scholars who do think she is a solar goddess.
Who knows? It makes a great story, anyway.
As we might have guessed, Culhwch, Arthur and his knights do complete the quest. Ysbaddaden gets a haircut and, as prophesied, dies, so the young couple are allowed to marry.
If you’d like to read it, you can get it in the Mabinogion, which has some other wonderful stories in it. I have the original translation by Charlotte Guest, in ebook, but there are others, including one I read years ago for English Literature when I was at university.
For some of the other stories in the Mabinogion, there are four novels by Evangeline Walton. I haven’t come across a novel based on this story, though.
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