Tryffin and Fflergant

Heroic brothers in The Green Lion trilogy

Fflergant fab Maelgwyn

Fflergant has been blessed at birth with a geas never to insult or disparage any woman—which convenient prohibition he had learned to take full advantage of, excusing many a romantic escapade: "But she'd have been insulted if I hadn't!"

 

Tryffin fab Maelgwyn

Tryffin had been less fortunate in his geasa. The bane of his existance (and the salvation of all his acquaintances) was a geas that forbade him to ever knowingly speak an untruth—this to a prince raised among the greatest liars in Celydonn! He could (and frequently did) rearrange, obscure, or avoid the truth, usually with no better reason than a perverse desire to test the credulity of others, but he never told an outright lie, no matter what the provocation. To compensate, he became a master of implication and misdirection, and cultivated an air of stolid innocence which was (at least to casual acquaintances) utterly convincing.

"And when one sees how well he manages without telling a lie," Fflergant had once said, "It's rather daunting to imagine what he might be capable of it he could! And it inspires one with great respect," he added, "for which ever one of his god-parents had the foresight to lay that particular geas on him!"

But Tryffin had his own codes of honesty: he seldom deceived for the sake of advantage, and he never misled those he loved.

 

Drawings by Teresa

Tryffin's coat of arms

 

Ceilyn mac Cuel battles Fflergant fab Maelgwyn