The Black Cauldron

The Black Cauldron is a fantasy novel for children by the American writer Lloyd Alexander, published in 1965 and the second of the five books of the Chronicles of Prydain.

The cauldron belongs to Arawn, lord of the land of death, and it is the device that turns dead men into the Cauldron-Born, soldiers who cannot be killed and cannot remember being alive. Prince Gwydion calls a council, and Taran, who has been an assistant pig-keeper and more recently something like a hero, joins the party sent to take the thing and put an end to it. The quest costs the companions a great deal, and the novel is less interested in the fighting than in what Taran has to give up, including the credit for what he does. Alexander built the series out of Welsh myth, and the cauldron, the enchantresses and the companions all have their roots there.

It followed The Book of Three in the series, and the story went on for three further volumes about Prydain and the people who guarded it.