The tale of Ysbaddaden is linked to the Arthurian legends that most people might be familiar with, but as a sort-of off-shoot of the main tale which is usually not covered in the classics.
Ysbaddaden is a chief of giants. He is destined to die when his daughter, the beautiful Olwen, marries. As you can imagine, he's therefore less than keen for her to marry.
Ysbaddaden has been a bit of a scourge of the surrounding area. He's tormented and killed his way throughout Wales, and caused any amount of mayhem. He's not very popular, but he's pretty tough.
Specifically: In the medieval Welsh tale Culhwch ac Olwen that we're talking about here, he is the cruel and vicious king of the giants, who defeated the former ruler and killed his 23 children.
Culhwch - the 'hero' of our tale - is the son of King Cilydd son of Celyddon. When the King's wife dies, and he re-marries, the somewhat evil stepmother tries to get him to marry his stepsister.
This sort of carry-on might be a popular search on Pornhub, but Culhwch wasn't having a bar of it, and rebuffed his stepmother's 'suggestion'. As a result, she reveals her true nature and in a fit of pique curses Culhwch to only have eyes for Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden.
Culhwch is therefore smitten with Olwen, even though he's never met her. He goes to his cousin Arthur (the Arthur) for help. Arthur provides him with some knights and some weapons, and a bit of advice, so Culhwch nips off to find the elusive Olwen.
The meaning of the name Olwen is "white footprint". According to legend, she was so gentle and fragile that white trefoils would grow in her footprints.
Olwen ultimately treats him favourably, and decides she would like to marry him. Which is nice, isn't it? Certainly, the whole tale would have been a bit dead-ended if she'd just crossed her arms, sniffed imperiously, and said "Ew! No thanks. My mother told me never to trust a ginger."
Unfortunately, she can't marry him unless Ysbaddaden agrees, and since the giant's life is tied to her unmarried status, he's not keen... but it's a bit political, so rather than have the whole thing turn into a scuffle - as it would have - Ysbaddaden tells Culhwch that he will agree to the marriage...
IF (That's right, there's always an 'if'...)
IF Culhwch completes a series of forty tasks, each more fiendish and devious than the last.
As an aside: Actually, before announcing the tasks, there was an unfortunate incident with a poison dart, but it came to nothing, so it really was in Ysbaddaden's best interests - given the presence of Arthur's knights at this point - to try to contain the situation, and hope that Culhwch's over-eagerness would be his undoing.
As the tale is fragmentary, it's not known what all of the tasks were, but to give you a bit of a taste of the sort of thing... two of them were:
Obtain the basket/hamper of Gwyddneu Garanhir (The elfin ruler of a sunken land off the coast of Wales)
Hunt Ysgithyrwyn, the chief boar.
It goes without saying that Culhwch completes the tasks - though the fragmentary nature of the tale doesn't give all the details.
Presumably he approached Gwyddneu Garanhir and said "I'll give you a tenner for the basket", and approached Ysgithyrwyn and said "Eat spiky spear-laden death, giant pig-monster!".
With the help of Arthur's knights, Culhwch returns, victorious to Olwen, and things go a bit bad for Ysbaddaden.
Because he's annoyed so many people, and because Arthur's knights are still floating about, the people who have been affronted by the giant all turn up to take their revenge. The giant is ritually humiliated, flayed alive, and beheaded by his own nephew.
Culhwch and Olwen happily marry at this point. She and her father were not close, I guess. Still, I can't help but think that having a wedding while there was a giant's head on a spike in the dining-room would have put a bit of a damper on the evening - even if he was a villain.
The tale bears a few similarities to Tolkien's Tale of Beren and Lúthien, though the Bride-Quest theme is strong in quite a lot of Western folklore. Either way, a fairly niche but quite interesting mythological villain.
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