The People of the Mabinogion v. Blodeuwedd & Gronw Pebr — Brief

May it please the Court (and yes, I realize this is mythic law, but bear with me) — this brief addresses whether the facts surrounding the wounding of Lleu Llaw Gyffes amount to criminal liability for attempted murder, conspiracy, and attendant offenses. I will be terse. And dramatic. Like every good fairy‑tale—and like Ally—I'll tell you what happened, then tell you why it matters.

Statement of Facts (quick, honest, slightly caffeinated)

Lleu, blessed and cursed by lineage and fate, enjoys an immunity defined by a string of impossible‑sounding conditions: he cannot be killed "indoors or outdoors, on horse or on foot, by day or by night, by any weapon that was lawfully made, nor by any man born of woman." (Yes — a lot to live up to.)

His wife, Blodeuwedd, created by Gwydion and Math from flowers as a spouse for Lleu, engages in an affair with Gronw Pebr. They conspire. Blodeuwedd coaxes Lleu into describing the exact circumstances in which he could be slain—circumstances he believes so improbable as to be effectively fatal‑proof. Blodeuwedd and Gronw then contrive a scene that fits an enumerated exception: an in‑between location (neither fully inside nor fully outside), a twilight moment (neither day nor night), an unusual stance (one foot on a cauldron, one on a goat — theatrical, yes, but material), and a weapon/means engineered to evade the textual protections. Gronw hurls a spear; Lleu is struck, transformed into an eagle, and flees. He survives, Gwydion heals him, and justice (of a sort) follows.

Issues Presented

• Did Blodeuwedd and Gronw commit the elements of conspiracy to commit murder?
• Is the actual wounding an attempt or completed murder under the prevailing standards of actus reus and mens rea?
• Do the odd, almost‑ritualistic conditions of Lleu's vulnerability negate criminal responsibility or afford a legal defense (e.g., consent, impossibility, or entrapment)?

Argument

I. Conspiracy — Two elements: agreement and an overt act in furtherance. We have both.

Agreement: Blodeuwedd and Gronw planned together to remove Lleu by lethal means. They discussed method, timing, and roles. The intimacy of their plan — marriage betrayal, secret meetings, the lure — is evidence of collaborative intent.

Overt act: the staging of the ambush; procurement or making of the weapon; the physical commission of the attack. The throwing of the spear is a manifest, proximate step toward the agreed‑upon crime.

Conclusion: Conspiracy is established. (Also, small, human aside: betrayal + planning = classic conspiracy. Sorry, but it is.)

II. Attempt and Assault with Intent to Murder

Attempt requires (1) specific intent to commit murder and (2) a substantial step toward its commission. The conspirators' targeted ambush, engineered to exploit Lleu's disclosed exception, demonstrates specific intent. The act of lodging or casting the spear — which did grievous bodily harm — constitutes a substantial step. But was the murder completed?

Lleu survived. Surviving does not mean an absence of criminality. Attempt liability attaches where the actor takes a direct, but unsuccessful, step to commit the completed offense. The spear strike (and the earlier staging) places the actors squarely within attempt liability. Additionally, the wounding itself supports assault and aggravated battery counts (an attack intending deadly harm; serious bodily injury resulted, even if death did not).

III. Device, Deceit, and Breach of Trust — Aggravating circumstances.

Blodeuwedd used intimacy to extract the victim’s vulnerabilities. That deployment of trust is not a mere fact; it elevates culpability. Courts (even mythic ones) weigh betrayal as an aggravator: planning that exploits a domestic or privileged relationship to facilitate lethal violence is disfavored — and it aggravates both moral and legal blame.

IV. The Strange Conditional Immunity: Legal Fiction v. Practical Avoidance

Does Lleu’s catalog of exceptions immunize him or invite clever circumvention? Two legal doctrines guide us:

1. Impossibility (factual or legal): A claimed impossibility defense fails when the defendant's conduct, if completed, would constitute a crime. The alleged impossibility here is mythical protections; the conspirators engineered facts that fell squarely within an exception they learned about by deception. They did not rely on a legal impossibility; they exploited a factual gap.
2. Entrapment and Consent: Entrapment is a defense only where the defendant was induced by state actors to commit a crime they were not predisposed to commit. This is private inducement by a conspirator; entrapment fails. Consent is inapplicable to being murdered (or attempted). Voluntary disclosure of vulnerability by Lleu does not equal consent to lethal assault.

Thus, the 'odd logic' of Lleu’s immunity does not exculpate the attackers. If anything, it supplied the recipe for premeditated murder.

Potential Defenses (and why they likely fail)

• Claim: No mens rea — it was a prank, a dare, or an experiment. Response: The procurement of a weapon, planning and secret rendezvous show deliberate intent to cause lethal harm.
• Claim: He told her the conditions; he volunteered the vulnerability; ergo, implied consent. Response: There is no legal route from revealing a vulnerability to consenting to homicidal violence.
• Claim: "It was impossible to kill him except in that exact way" — a metaphysical constraint, not a legal immunity. Response: The law punishes attempts and conspiracies to kill regardless of the victim's pedigree or protections; the unusual conditions only describe means, not a defense.

Remedies and Sentencing Considerations

Conviction on conspiracy and attempted murder (or on assault with intent to murder) is appropriate. Aggravating factors: premeditation, breach of domestic trust, use of deceit, and the creative circumvention of a known protective constraint. Mitigating factors might be passion or coerce—none obvious here.

Remedies: imprisonment, restitution (if applicable — e.g., exile, compensation to kin), and, for the transgressive mythic element, transformation or symbolic censure (Blodeuwedd’s metamorphosis into an owl, while poetic, functions as cultural sanction but is not a substitute for legal accountability).

Conclusion (and yes, this is the part where I get a little theatrical)

This is not a story about loopholes; it is a story about choice. Blodeuwedd and Gronw chose to conspire. They chose to act. The odd, theatrical conditions of Lleu’s vulnerability do not negate criminal intent; they sharpen it. The attack on Lleu fits the classic mold of conspiracy and attempted murder: agreement, overt act, specific intent, and a substantial step to kill. The betrayal by a spouse is an aggravator; the mythic costume only dresses the crime differently.

So: indict. Try. Convict. And maybe—just maybe—keep the court's thinking cap on when someone says, "I told you where I’d fall." Because telling is not consenting. Not in law. Not in love. (And not in musicals either.)

Respectfully submitted,
Counsel for Public Interest in Mythic Affairs (and very fond of odd legal hypotheticals)