The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The denouement of the hero’s journey sees him bringing back his divine and hard-won boon to his home. However, not all heroes accept this task; some choose to remain in the magical world. Campbell retells the Hindu myth of King Muchukunda, who is granted eternal slumber as a gift from the gods; anyone who wakes him will perish. The one who wakes him after many, many years is the enemy of the god incarnate, Krishna. Muchukunda’s awakened gaze kills the enemy king. He gives an impassioned speech before Krishna about the suffering of humanity at the hands of the gods. He retreats to the mountains and lives as an ascetic, rejecting the human world.

This section concerns a circumstance in which the hero must abscond from the land of enlightenment back to his home. This might occur because the supernatural guardian advised against the attainment of a certain boon, or perhaps due to the gods’ displeasure at the hero’s decision to return.

The Welsh story of Gwion Bach features this hero stirring a magical cauldron at the behest of Tegid the Bald and his wife Caridwen at the bottom of a lake.