Culhwch and Olwen is the oldest Arthurian story in Welsh, and its climax is a hunt. To win Olwen, daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden, Culhwch must fetch the comb, razor and shears that lie between the ears of Twrch Trwyth, a king turned into a monstrous boar. Arthur and his warband take up the chase, and a large part of it runs across Pembrokeshire.
As John Rhys set out in 1901, the boar and his seven young swine crossed from Ireland and came ashore at Porth Clais, the little harbour just south of St Davids, while Arthur spent the night at Mynyw, St Davids itself. Next morning the boars had moved on, destroying all they could find in Daugleddau, man or beast. The hunt caught up with them in Preseli, where Arthur's men were ranged on both sides of the river Nyfer. The Twrch left the Nevern valley for Cwm Cerwyn, below the hill now called Foel Cwmcerwyn, and there he turned and killed four of Arthur's champions and many people of the country. The chase then went on east through Peuliniog, towards Whitland and Laugharne, across the Tywi and on to the Amman and beyond.
The National Park's own retelling makes Preseli the scene of the final struggle, when the hills of Foel Drygarn and Foel Cwmcerwyn shook as Culhwch fought the boar. That is a local simplification, but the underlying point is sound: the medieval storyteller knew this landscape well enough to lay a mythical hunt across it place by place.
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