Ajax the Lesser Ajax the Lesser Ajax ( "Aias") was a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris. He was called the "lesser" or "Locrian" Ajax, to distinguish him from Ajax the Great, son of Telamon. He was the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War. He is a significant figure in Homer's "Iliad" and is also mentioned in the "Odyssey", in Virgil's "Aeneid" and in Euripides' "The Trojan Women". In Etruscan legend, he was known as "Aivas Vilates". Ajax's mother's name was Eriopis. According to Strabo, he was born in Naryx in Locris, where Ovid calls him
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