The deity named Gwyn ap Nudd is said, like Finn in Gaelic legend,(221) to have impressed himself more deeply and lastingly on the Welsh popular imagination than any of the other divinities. A mighty warrior and huntsman, he glories in the crash of breaking spears, and, like Odin, assembles the souls of dead heroes in his shadowy kingdom, for although he belongs to the kindred of the Light-gods, Hades is his special domain. The combat between him and Gwythur ap Greidawl (Victor, son of Scorcher) for Creudylad, daughter of Lludd, which is to be renewed every May-day till time shall end, represents evidently the contest between winter and summer for the flowery and fertile earth. “Later,” writes Mr. Charles Squire, “he came to be considered as King of the _Tylwyth Teg_, the Welsh fairies, and his name as such has hardly yet died out of his last haunt, the romantic vale of Neath.... He is the Wild Huntsman of Wales and the West of England, and it is his pack which is sometimes heard at chase in waste places by night.”(222) He figures as a god of war and death in a wonderful poem from the “Black Book of Caermarthen,” where he is represented as discoursing with a prince named Gwyddneu Garanhir, who had come to ask his protection. I quote a few stanzas: the poem will be found in full in Mr. Squire’s excellent volume: “I come from battle and conflict With a shield in my hand; Broken is my helmet by the thrusting of spears. “Round-hoofed is my horse, the torment of battle, Fairy am I called,(223) Gwyn the son of Nudd, The lover of Crewrdilad, the daughter of Lludd “I have been in the place where Gwendolen was slain, The son of Ceidaw, the pillar of song, Where the ravens screamed over blood. “I have been in the place where Bran was killed, The son of Iweridd, of far-extending fame, Where the ravens of the battlefield screamed. “I have been where Llacheu was slain, The son of Arthur, extolled in songs, When the ravens screamed over blood. “I have been where Mewrig was killed, The son of Carreian, of honourable fame, When the ravens screamed over flesh. “I have been where Gwallawg was killed, The son of Goholeth, the accomplished, The resister of Lloegyr,(224) the son of Lleynawg. “I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain, From the east to the north: I am the escort of the grave. “I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain, From the east to the south: I am alive, they in death.” *Myrddin, or Merlin*