These things and others, according to the singer and the hearer, the song readily suggested. But they are mistaken who are contented by these suggestions, sufficient as they are for a warm summer’s morning in a green lane. They are deceived by the qualities which “Caradoc’s Hunt” has in common with other hunting songs, especially by the galloping rhythm and the notes like a challenge of horns. Even when that boastful riding harper played it the tune was old. He was a bard, and though he played it for the young hunters for the flashes of gaiety and mettle upon its surface, it intrigued his own heart with a rich mystery of antiquity. Already legend as well as the bards and harpers had begun to play with the melody. It was said, for example, to have been the favourite hunting song of the “Lady of the Night” in her earthly days, and even that she sang it, or had it sung and harped to her, now that she was an inhabitant of night and the underworld. Solitary, benighted peasants or travellers saw her black hair streaming over her green vest and crimson mantle as she galloped fiercely over the mountains or in the heavens. Her horse was white. She hallooed as she rode in a wild voice, at times harsh and abrupt like a heron’s, at others clear and laughing like a wood-owl’s. The hounds streamed after her, howling in tumultuous chorus, and the sound grew louder as the pack raced farther and farther away. They were the hounds of the underworld. They followed her in a stream or fan as closely as if the foremost held the tip of her mantle. In some packs the hounds were small, and were white all over except the shells of their ears, which were rose-coloured; and they had eyes like lighted pearls. Some were black with red spots, others red with black spots. There were also hounds all blood-red, with eyes of flame. They hunted the spirits of men destined to die soon, or of the dead who were unfit either for heaven or for hell. They prophesied deaths and calamity. However fierce, they were always even frantically joyous, but some thought the hallooing of the lady was often close to lamentation. Only when the sound of “Caradoc’s Hunt” was heard was she as joyous as her hounds. Her sadness made it believed in places that she was no huntress at all, but the quarry, or at least that she hunted for a punishment, that she was doomed by god or devil thus to flee all night through cloudland or the most desert regions of earth. Hunting or hunted, it was certain that she was powerless to change her fate. Hunting was what she most loved on earth. Perhaps she still loved it, or she was being punished for the crime of pride or immoderate love of the chase. One story was that she had been very beautiful and vain of her beauty, and on her death-bed had exacted a promise to bury her in her most radiant apparel. Another story, more venerable, was that she had so loved hunting as to cry out once in a strong passion: “I care nothing for