The next year, the feast was made, and Rhiannon sat by the side of her unwelcome bridegroom. But Pwyll was waiting outside the palace, with a hundred men in ambush. When the banquet was at its height, he came into the hall, dressed in coarse, ragged garments, shod with clumsy old shoes, and carrying a leather bag. But the bag was a magic one, which Rhiannon had given to her lover, with directions as to its use. Its quality was that, however much was put into it, it could never be filled. “I crave a boon,” he said to Gwawl. “What is it?” Gwawl replied. “I am a poor man, and all I ask is to have this bag filled with meat.” Gwawl granted what he said was “a request within reason”, and ordered his followers to fill the bag. But the more they put into it, the more room in it there seemed to be. Gwawl was astonished, and asked why this was. Pwyll replied that it was a bag that could never be filled until someone possessed of lands and riches should tread the food down with both his feet. “Do this for the man,” said Rhiannon to Gwawl. “Gladly I will,” replied he, and put both his feet into the bag. But no sooner had he done so than Pwyll slipped the bag over Gwawl’s head, and tied it up at the mouth. He blew his horn, and all his followers came in. “What have you got in the bag?” asked each one in turn. “A badger,” replied Pwyll. Then each, as he received Pwyll’s answer, kicked the bag, or hit it with a stick. “Then,” says the story, “was the game of ‘Badger in the Bag’ first played.” Gwawl, however, fared better than we suspect that the badger usually did; for Heveydd the Ancient interceded for him. Pwyll willingly released him, on condition that he promised to give up all claim to Rhiannon, and renounced all projects of revenge. Gwawl consented, and gave sureties, and went away to his own country to have his bruises healed. This country of Gwawl’s was, no doubt, the sky; for he was evidently a sun-god. His name bewrays him; for the meaning of “Gwawl” is “light”.[334] It was one of the hours of victory for the dark powers, such as were celebrated in the Celtic calendar by the Feast of Samhain, or Summer End. There was no hindrance now to the marriage of Pwyll and Rhiannon. She became his bride, and returned with him to Dyfed.