Arthur’s army was encamped for a mile around the ford of Rhyd y Groes, upon both sides of the road; and on a small flat island in the middle of the river was the Emperor himself, in converse with Bedwini the Bishop and Gwarthegyd, the son of Kaw. Like Ossian, when he came back to Ireland after his three hundred years’ sojourn in the “Land of Promise”,[440] Arthur marvelled at the puny size of the people whom Iddawc had brought for him to look at. “And where, Iddawc, didst thou find these little men?” “I found them, Lord, up yonder on the road.” Then the Emperor smiled. “Lord,” said Iddawc, “wherefore dost thou laugh?” “Iddawc,” replied Arthur, “I laugh not; but it pitieth me that men of such stature as these should have this island in their keeping, after the men that guarded it of yore.” Then he turned away, and Iddawc told Rhonabwy and his companions to keep silent, and they would see what they would see. The scope of such a book as this allows no space to describe the persons and equipments of the warriors who came riding down with their companies to join Arthur, as he made his great march to fight the Battle of Badon, thought by some to be historical, and located at Bath. The reader who turns to the tale itself will see what Rhonabwy saw. Many of Arthur’s warriors he will know by name: Caradawc the Strong-armed, who is here called a son, not of Brân, but of Llyr; March son of Meirchion, the underworld king; Kai, described as “the fairest horseman in all Arthur’s court”; Gwalchmei, the son of Gwyar and of Arthur himself; Mabon, the son of Modron; Trystan son of Tallwch, the lover of “The Fair Isoult”; Goreu, Arthur’s cousin and his rescuer from Manawyddan’s bone-prison; these, and many more, will pass before him, as they passed before Rhonabwy during the three days and three nights that he slept and dreamed upon the calf-skin. This story of the “Dream of Rhonabwy”, elaborate as it is in all its details, is yet, in substance, little more than a catalogue. The intention of its unknown author seems to have been to draw a series of pictures of what he considered to be the principal among Arthur’s followers. The other story—that of “Kulhwch and Olwen”—also takes this catalogue form, but the matters enumerated are of a different kind. It is not so much a record of men as of things. Not the heroes of Britain, but the treasures of Britain are its subject. One might compare it with the Gaelic story of the adventures of the three sons of Tuirenn.[441]