The sight of these treasures, paraded before Hawthorn, chief of giants, was, of course, his death-warrant. All who wished him ill came to gloat over his downfall. But they should have been put to shame by the giant, whose end had, at least, a certain dignity. “My daughter”, he said to Kulhwch, “is yours, but you need not thank me for it, but Arthur, who has accomplished all this. By my free will you should never have had her, for with her I lose my life.” Thereupon they cut off his head, and put it upon a pole; and that night the undutiful Olwen became Kulhwch’s bride. ----- Footnote 437: “History of the Britons”, § 50. Footnote 438: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Books IX and X, and chaps. I and II of XI. Footnote 439: Translated by Lady Guest in her _Mabinogion_. Footnote 440: See chap. XIV—“Finn and the Fenians”. Footnote 441: Chap. VIII—“The Gaelic Argonauts”. Footnote 442: The list will be found, translated from an old Welsh MS., in the notes to _Kulhwch and Olwen_, in Lady Guest’s _Mabinogion_. Footnote 443: Chap. VIII—“The Gaelic Argonauts”. Footnote 444: Pronounced _Keelhookh_. Footnote 445: The following pages sketch out the main incidents of the story as translated by Lady Guest in her _Mabinogion_. Footnote 446: In Welsh, _Yspaddaden Penkawr_. Footnote 447: _I.e._ She of the White Track. The beauty of Olwen was proverbial in mediæval Welsh poetry. Footnote 448: In his notes to his edition of Lady Guest’s _Mabinogion_. Published 1902. Footnote 449: So says the text. But a triad quoted by Lady Guest in her notes gives the “Three Paramount Prisoners of Britain” differently. “The three supreme prisoners of the Island of Britain, Llyr Llediath in the prison of Euroswydd Wledig, and Madoc, or Mabon, and Gweir, son of Gweiryoth; and one more exalted than the three, and that was Arthur, who was for three nights in the Castle of Oeth and Anoeth, and three nights in the prison of Wen Pendragon, and three nights in the dark prison under the stone. And one youth released him from these three prisons; that youth was Goreu the son of Custennin, his cousin.” Footnote 450: See Rhys: _Celtic Folklore_, chap. X—“Place-name Stories”. Footnote 451: The “big knife” was, we are told in the story, “a short broad dagger. When Arthur and his hosts came before a torrent, they would seek for a narrow place where they might pass the water, and would lay the sheathed dagger across the torrent, and it would form a bridge sufficient for the armies of the three islands of Britain, and of the three islands adjacent, with their spoil.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXIII THE GODS AS KING ARTHUR’S KNIGHTS