Mythology, Celtic -- Wales; Tales -- Wales; Welsh literature -- 1100-1400 -- Translations into English
A second time did Llew Llaw Gyffes take possession of the land, and
prosperously did he govern it. And, as the story relates, he was lord
after this over Gwynedd. And thus ends this portion of the Mabinogi.
THE DREAM OF MAXEN WLEDIG
Maxen Wledig was emperor of Rome, and he was a comelier man, and a better
and a wiser than any emperor that had been before him. And one day he
held a council of kings, and he said to his friends, “I desire to go
to-morrow to hunt.” And the next day in the morning he set forth with
his retinue, and came to the valley of the river that flowed towards
Rome. And he hunted through the valley until mid-day. And with him also
were two-and-thirty crowned kings, that were his vassals; not for the
delight of hunting went the emperor with them, but to put himself on
equal terms with those kings.
And the sun was high in the sky over their heads and the heat was great.
And sleep came upon Maxen Wledig. And his attendants stood and set up
their shields around him upon the shafts of their spears to protect him
from the sun, and they placed a gold enamelled shield under his head; and
so Maxen slept.
And he saw a dream. And this is the dream that he saw. He was
journeying along the valley of the river towards its source; and he came
to the highest mountain in the world. And he thought that the mountain
was as high as the sky; and when he came over the mountain, it seemed to
him that he went through the fairest and most level regions that man ever
yet beheld, on the other side of the mountain. And he saw large and
mighty rivers descending from the mountain to the sea, and towards the
mouths of the rivers he proceeded. And as he journeyed thus, he came to
the mouth of the largest river ever seen. And he beheld a great city at
the entrance of the river, and a vast castle in the city, and he saw many
high towers of various colours in the castle. And he saw a fleet at the
mouth of the river, the largest ever seen. And he saw one ship among the
fleet; larger was it by far, and fairer than all the others. Of such
part of the ship as he could see above the water, one plank was gilded
and the other silvered over. He saw a bridge of the bone of a whale from
the ship to the land, and he thought that he went along the bridge, and
came into the ship. And a sail was hoisted on the ship, and along the
sea and the ocean was it borne. Then it seemed that he came to the
fairest island in the whole world, and he traversed the island from sea
to sea, even to the furthest shore of the island. Valleys he saw, and
steeps, and rocks of wondrous height, and rugged precipices. Never yet
saw he the like. And thence he beheld an island in the sea, facing this
rugged land. And between him and this island was a country of which the
plain was as large as the sea, the mountain as vast as the wood. And
from the mountain he saw a river that flowed through the land and fell
into the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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