Myths & Legends of the Celtic RaceRolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race
Rolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Celts -- Religion; Mythology, Celtic
Now Pwyll was still without an heir to the throne, and his nobles urged
him to take another wife. “Grant us a year longer,” said he, “and if there
be no heir after that it shall be as you wish.” Before the year’s end a
son was born to them in Narberth. But although six women sat up to watch
the mother and the infant, it happened towards the morning that they all
fell asleep, and Rhiannon also slept, and when the women awoke, behold,
the boy was gone! “We shall be burnt for this,” said the women, and in
their terror they concocted a horrible plot: they killed a cub of a
staghound that had just been littered, and laid the bones by Rhiannon, and
smeared her face and hands with blood as she slept, and when she woke and
asked for her child they said she had devoured it in the night, and had
overcome them with furious strength when they would have prevented her—and
for all she could say or do the six women persisted in this story.
When the story was told to Pwyll he would not put away Rhiannon, as his
nobles now again begged him to do, but a penance was imposed on
her—namely, that she was to sit every day by the horse-block at the gate
of the castle and tell the tale to every stranger who came, and offer to
carry them on her back into the castle. And this she did for part of a
year.
*The Finding of Pryderi*(231)
Now at this time there lived a man named Teirnyon of Gwent Is Coed, who
had the most beautiful mare in the world, but there was this misfortune
attending her, that although she foaled on the night of every first of
May, none ever knew what became of the colts. At last Teirnyon resolved to
get at the truth of the matter, and the next night on which the mare
should foal he armed himself and watched in the stable. So the mare
foaled, and the colt stood up, and Teirnyon was admiring its size and
beauty when a great noise was heard outside, and a long, clawed arm came
through the window of the stable and laid hold of the colt. Teirnyon
immediately smote at the arm with his sword, and severed it at the elbow,
so that it fell inside with the colt, and a great wailing and tumult was
heard outside. He rushed out, leaving the door open behind him, but could
see nothing because of the darkness of the night, and he followed the
noise a little way. Then he came back, and behold, at the door he found an
infant in swaddling-clothes and wrapped in a mantle of satin. He took up
the child and brought it to where his wife lay sleeping. She had no
children, and she loved the child when she saw it, and next day pretended
to her women that she had borne it as her own. And they called its name
Gwri of the Golden Hair, for its hair was yellow as gold; and it grew so
mightily that in two years it was as big and strong as a child of six; and
ere long the colt that had been foaled on the same night was broken in and
given him to ride.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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