Ajax the Great is the son of Telamon, who was the son of Aeacus and grandson of Zeus, and his first wife Periboea. He is the cousin of Achilles, and is the elder half-brother of Teucer. His given name is derived from the root of "to lament", translating to "one who laments; mourner". Many illustrious Athenians, including Cimon, Miltiades, Alcibiades and the historian Thucydides, traced their descent from Ajax. On an Etruscan tomb dedicated to Racvi Satlnei in Bologna (5th century BC) there is an inscription that says, "aivastelmunsl" which means "[family] of Telamonian Ajax". In Homer's "Iliad" he is described as of
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle day. He is given a token blow and proclaimed the most courageous of all the warriors. A possibly 7th-century Old Welsh poem named "Preideu Annwfyn", the spoils of the Otherworld, contains stanzas alluding to adventures involving Arthur, who is not a king in this poem but a mythological hero. The oblique nature of these allusions are such that the stories must have been well known when "Preideu Annwfyn" was composed. The first such stanza describes the rescue of Gwier from an Otherworld castle. Gwier is equated with another character of Welsh legend, Gwri Wallt Euryn, and the name Gwri may