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The Horned King's Castle, also once known as the Ancient Castle, is a tall, decrepit and wicked palace home to the Horned King himself. It is a well-known location in Disney's The Black Cauldron loosely based on the children's high fantasy pentalogy book series by author Lloyd Alexander.
History
The Horned King
The history of this ancient castle found in the swamps of a mountainous region within the land of Prydain is shrouded in mystery, but according to Princess Eilonwy, this was a great bastion once home to a great king who built it before the Horned King easily took it over as his own lair many years ago.
The Horned King ruled from his castle with an iron first as he commands a army of human brutes and a legion of Gwythaints to obey him and execute his enemies.
Taran traveled to and sneak in to this eerie castle in a mountainous region to rescue the clairvoient pig Hen Wen who later flees from the Horned King's court and escaped but Taran is captured himself and thrown into the dungeon, soon to be released by Princess Eilonwy, a girl his age who is also trying to escape. In the catacombs beneath the castle, Taran and Eilonwy discover the ancient burial chamber of a king, where he arms himself with the king's sword. It contains magic that allows him effectively to fight the Horned King's minions and so to fulfill his dream of heroism. Along with a third captive, the comical, middle-aged bard Fflewddur Fflam, they escape the castle and are soon reunited with Gurgi.
Creeper, the Horned King's royal goblin henchman, cowardly to reports the recent escape of the prisoners to the King in his throne room. The King than ordered him to send out the Gwythaints and followed them so they can lead him to acquire the Black Cauldron he desires.
Later, the Horned King's mortal minions succeeded in capturing Taran and his friends except Gurgi and recovered the Black Cauldron as the 3 heroes were chained in a sacrificial chamber within his castle. The evil king then begins a dark ceremony and summons the Cauldron Born. The undead soldiers came to life and gruesomely attacked the useless human henchmen that the Horned King no longer needed that he has the invincible army at his command. Soon after that before the Horned King's plans of total dominion over Prydain can be complete, Gurgi entered the castle and rescued his friends. But as a result, he sacrificed himself by jumping into the Cauldron, causing the artifact's power to reverse and even drain the life force of the Cauldron Born. After the death of the Horned King, who tried to kill Taran by was destroyed by the spirit of another tyrannical king encased in the Black Caudron, the Cauldron itself sink into the earth while its magical powers caused the entire castle to crumble and erupt in flames. Taran and his friends escaped the castle with their lives.
In Other Media
The Cloud Castle
The Horned King's Castle appears as the final level of the 1992 videogame Land of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse under the names "Cloud Castle" and "The Phantom's Castle", along with Horned King himself (under the name "The Phantom") as the game's final boss. The Cloud Castle is a a seemingly beautiful blue castle-like bastion situated on a floating grassy platform in the sky, hence the name "Cloud Castle".
Gallery
Trivia
- The Horned King's Castle resembles the evil fairy Maleficent's Castle within the Forbidden Mountain from Disney's Sleeping Beauty.