The tale can be regarded as a combination of two pan-European folk tale types. In the Aarne-Thompson tale classification [in brackets below] these are the "Jealous Stepmother"* and "Six go through the World"* [513A] (and possibly the "Magic Flight" [313]* and the "Giant's Daughter"*). It includes the pan-European motifs: Quests assigned to get rid of a hero [H1211]; Tasks assigned to suitors [H335]; Vain attempts to kill a hero [H1510?]; The quest for a beard [H105.4.1?/G303.4.1.8.2?]; Extraordinary companions [F601]; Skillful marksman shoots a fly's eye [F661.5.3]; Skillful hearer can hear ant leaving nest 50 miles away [F641.2]; Mighty drinker [F633]; Mighty eater [F632]; Extraordinary companions help in suitor's tasks[F601.2]; Helpful salmon [B474].

Edel* has speculated, convincingly, that the important part of the tale is actually the Arthurian element, and that these folk tales, particularly the list of tasks, have been used to hang together previously separate Arthurian tales. She has also suggested that the absence of 'real' invasions or problems in the text allowed its adoption as a hidden political commentary. While this is somewhat speculative, it is interesting to note that if, as seems likely, Culhwch ac Olwen is a combination of older tales, this makes the version we have left the last reminants of the "Great British Folk Epic" (as has also be argued for the Llywarch Hen poems and parts of the Mabinogi*). Deeply wishful thinking and comparison with the apparent folk-epics of the continent, such as parts of the Eddas and the Nibelungenlied, might lead the more speculative to suggest the author of Culhwch ac Olwen was merely fixing the previously whole, but of more interest is its comparison with other explicitly constructed European folk-epics. Its formation matches closely with attempts like Elias Lonnrot's construction of the combined folk-tale epic "the Kalevala" (1835 & 1849 CE: text & information) for Finland, both in the literary attempt to synthesize (or re-form) a continuous narrative from disparate folk tales, and in its political situation, as a patriotic centre-piece at a time when, in different millennia, both Finland and the indigenous British were asserting their nationality under a past, and possibly current, threat of duress. It is, of course, exactly this kind of "Great British Folk Epic" Tolken, for example, could have followed Lonnrot to produced but tragically mucked up. We are probably blessed to have it, in whatever form.