This is the third and final part of the First Branch of the Mabinogi, retold fairly conventionally in line with the myth as it was originally written down.
When Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, returned to his lands with Rhiannon as his wife, the people of the court and the seven cantrefs were glad that, at last, their beautiful prince had chosen a bride. As the years had passed, they had wondered when he might settle down, knowing well that marriage was most often a blessing from the gods, providing the realm with the stability and security of natural heirs.
So was Rhiannon welcomed. Though few knew of her father’s realm, she never seemed to be a stranger unused to local ways. When they were not at Narberth, she eagerly travelled with Pwyll as he affirmed allegiances and patrolled his lands, staying at the courts of Dyfed’s noble families. She appeared at ease with the womenfolk, talking of cloth for gowns within the wealthier houses, of illness, children and harvests where these were the conversations spilling from the women’s hearts.
Where she could, wherever they journeyed, with one or two of her attendants she rode out into the villages, there talking with the smiths and farmers, spinning wool with the old women, playing with the children, tasting the ale, commenting on the richness of dyes, as if this were the most natural way for her to spend her time.
This unnerved Pwyll, who wondered why she sometimes sought the company of peasants, and watched the nobles and knights about him as they began to shake their heads and murmur of her behaviour. But when his work was done, or he retuned from a hunt, or through the night, whenever they were alone, the love they shared dissolved his worries. They played like children, chasing each other, laughing, lying in the buttercups, gazing at the stars. They made love with such exhilarating passion, there seemed no room for doubts in his soul. And then, as she slept, he would sometimes watch her, and wonder how a woman could be so incredibly beautiful. His amazement left him bewildered.
Some spoke of the way that Pwyll had first seen her, uneasy about this woman who so simply and guilelessly enchanted every soul she encountered. There was magic in her, some declared, and that was not trusted.
At first, others dismissed these concerns as jealousy and nonsense, but when three years had passed and still Rhiannon had not fallen pregnant, the uncertainty started to hum throughout the court and beyond. The royal couple were so obviously in love that, if she were not conceiving, it could be possible that a curse had been placed on their union. Or perhaps, this exquisite lady was indeed not quite human.
Many agreed that during those years that the rains somehow tasted sweeter. The earth was easier to plough; the cows gave birth without complications and the barley grew tall and golden without the blight of mildew. Indeed, though not one of Pwyll’s plans to clear wildwood had been enacted, no new land had been sown, and the weather seemed not much different, the harvests had grown. Most agreed that the most glorious sunsets were seen in those years, and a white stag, his antlers bearing seven even tines, had been spotted by traders within Dyfed’s bounds. The land had, there was little doubt, been blessed by their prince’s marriage.
Without an heir, however, the realm’s nobles called a gathering at Presceli, and there they presented the prince with their concerns. “Lord,” said one, “it is not natural that your wife has not yet given you a child. If she is barren, Dyfed will suffer. Our noble ancestors will not be pleased, and they in turn will provoke the gods. It will not be good for us.”
Another stepped forward. “Lord, we ask that you let her go and take another wife. We have given her three years, which is plenty to have proven her not able to bear a child. Think of your people, we beseech you.”
Pwyll listened, uncomfortable with how the talk stirred his own deep concerns, but his love for Rhiannon didn’t permit him to agree. Instead, having heard each man’s plea, including that of the Druids, he nodded. “My people will not suffer,” he said. “I ask that you give us one more year. If no child is born within that cycle, I will do as you ask of me. I will send her back to her father and take another wife.”
The gathering were satisfied, and left with a new confidence in their prince and the future. So it was that when Rhiannon began to show the curves revealing she was carrying a child, the news travelled fast, and ale cups and mead horns were raised in honour of the Prince of Dyfed, his beautiful wife and the sacred land.
Within a year from the gathering at Presceli, Rhiannon was lying in the birthing chamber, her newborn son sleeping peacefully in her arms. Exhausted from the bloody strains of labour, her face was pale, but still to Pwyll she looked no less perfect. Lost for words, he tenderly adjusted the soft cloths in which his son was wrapped, and he leaned over to kiss the little face. This bundle she so gentle embraced seemed to him like a gift from the gods. He felt his father, his grandfathers, and their fathers before them, standing by his side, proud and sure of his path.
As the sun sunk towards the western seas, he knew there would be feasting and carousing in the great hall, and all the men who themselves knew what it was to be a father would laugh at the wide-eyed wonder in his eyes. As more attendants entered with warm water and herbal brews, he got up, smiling at his wife, and drifted from the room as if in a dream.
Six servant women were directed to stay with Rhiannon that first night, attending to her with herbs and fresh cloths to make her comfortable, keeping the fire ablaze as she regained her strength. By midnight, however, each one had fallen asleep; indeed, all within the chamber were fast asleep.
It was a little time before dawn when one of them woke. Seeing the first whisper of light on the far horizon she realised how late it was and, confused as to how they all slept so long, wondered why the infant had not cried and woken them. As she laid wood on the fire, a few others stirred, and in the flame’s light they each saw that the infant was gone.
Panic spread amongst the women; they knew that they would be severely punished for allowing such an valuable child to disappear. With Rhiannon sleeping deeply, they whispered urgently beneath their breath, frightening each other terribly, until each one fully believed it would be foolish to admit their negligence.
“One of the staghound bitches has a litter,” one hissed. “We could kill a few of the pups, smear the blood on the lady’s face and hands, leave the bones on her bed, and say that some night-borne madness filled her and she devoured the child!” Trembling with fear of reprisals, their panic guided them to carry out the plan, and when the youngest of them was curled up by the fire whimpering with shame, the older women agreed her behaviour could be justified by the story they would tell.
When at daybreak Rhiannon woke, still weary after the previous day’s labour, what drew her from the depths of sleep was a longing to see her little son. When he was not in the crib beside her, she looked up, asking softly, “Where is my child?”
One of the women responded, with none of the customary deference of manners appropriate to their difference in rank; with an attempt at indignant horror in her voice, she said, “You ask us where your son is?!” Given courage by the first’s pretence, another, then another, joined in the mockery, Rhiannon’s eyes growing wider, her mouth falling open, as she discovered the blood on her hands and clothes.
And she screamed, “Where is my son?”
So the tale was told to her by these women, the most audacious presenting bruises apparently gained in their attempt to stop her dreadful deeds. Rhiannon could see they were lying, and she shook her head, confused as to why they should do such a thing, but when they persisted she pleaded with them, assuring them they would not be punished if only they were to tell the truth.
With the light of the new day, the story travelled fast. When it reached the prince, it was not told with any compassion for him or his wife, but instead with a seething and sour rage, as if all suspicions of this too beautiful woman had suddenly been proven. Though a part of him longed to run to her, he found himself afraid, perhaps more so than ever he had felt in his life.
Nobles gathered in the great hall of Narberth demanding he divorce her without delay, sending her from Dyfed. Stunned, he managed to remind them that their request that he let her go had been based upon her childlessness. She had a child. Their insults flared, and through the mist in his soul he murmured, “Yes, yes, of couse, she will be punished for her wrongdoing”.
As Druids conferred, agreeing upon the appropriate punishment, Rhiannon spoke with elders too, who advised her that it was in her best interest to stop proclaiming her innocence and accept the punishment. And so did that beautiful woman breathe the bitter winds of terrible injustice. The sentence past upon her was this: for seven years, she was to stand at the mounting block outside the court of Narberth, and to all those who did not know it she was to tell her tale, offering to carry each visitor through the gates upon her back.
To the east of Pwyll’s realm, where the cantrefs of Gwent are bordered by the sea’s broad channel, and on to where that tidal water meets the mouth of the River Sabrina, lived in those days a nobleman of that land known as Teyrnon of the Great Wave. His land was fruitful, his harvests rich, and his blessings were added to by a mare in his stables, a horse that was widely known as the most handsome creature that had every trodden those hills. Her coat shone like molten bronze and her mane was as soft was a summer’s breeze in the barley.
At the festival of summer’s welcoming, each and every year, this mare would give birth to a foal, but each year, to Teyrnon’s grief and frustration, the foal had been stolen. Though he had left guards at the stables, no one had seen the thief, and rumours were spreading of a curse upon the mare.
On the night of the festival in the year of this tale, Teyrnon himself declared that he would wait with his favourite mare, staying with her through the birthing, in order to protect her foal. He was not surprised when her labour came to an end, and a beautiful sturdy young foal lay in the straw, his gentle mother tenderly licking him clean. Yet no sooner had the creature risen on his uncertain legs, finding his hooves, but a vast black claw reached in, picking up the foal between its demonic fingers. With the speed of all his wits, Teyrnon lifted the blade of his sword and brought it crashing down, cleaving that dreadful claw from its arm. The thing screamed like a wild pig, withdrawing the mutilated arm, the lifeless claw and the foal both falling to the stable floor.
Enraged, the Lord of Gwent ran from the stable in pursuit, crashing through the darkness after the source of those desolating screams, but in the night it was very soon lost, and Teyrnon hurried back to the stables, remembering he had not thought to close the stable door. A handful of his court had been roused from sleep, hearing the bloodcurdling screams, and as he walked through the yard he had already begun to the tale, thanking the gods, when someone cried out from the stable itself. Teyrnon ran the last few yards.
“Look!” the stable boy was calling, and in the straw, licked too by that most noble chestnut mare, was an infant child, wrapped in swaddling clothes of silken brocade.
Leaving the horses well protected by those who had gathered, Teyrnon carried the little bundle into the stone buildings of his court, and up to the bedchamber he shared with his wife. “Are you awake?” he whispered, excitedly, and his wife murmured in reply, “Lord, only because you have woken me.” The next noise, however, was the softest gurgle, and opening her eyes she looked up from her pillow.
Teyrnon related the tale of the night, and knowing his wife so longed for a child, he asked, “Would you be willing to foster him?” The bundle already in her arms, her heart lost in his beautiful face, the woman looked up at her husband.
“Would you agree if I were to ask you to pretend he was my own?”
And in that moment so full of relief and amazement, Teyrnon said, “Yes, my love.”
So was the child named Gwri Wallt Euryn, and in the loving care of these parents in the lands of Gwent, he grew quickly and surely, full of laughter and sunshine. And as the years passed, soon he was taller and brighter than others his own age.
In his fourth year, he spent a good deal of time at the stables, where one of the stable boys was teaching him to ride. No one was surprised that the horse he favoured most was the foal who had been born the night he was found.
Yet it was that same year that Teyrnon heard the story that was told of Pwyll and Rhiannon, and how Rhiannon’s child had been lost, her birthing attendants blaming the noblewoman for his death. Now, Teyrnon was no stranger in the lands of Dyfed; though it had been some years since he had last been to the court at Narberth to pledge his allegiance, he was familiar with the deep blue eyes and dark hair of the Prince of Dyfed. When he heard the tale, upon the lips of a couple of knights, he hurried back to his court.
Gwri ran to meet him, his little face shining with his broad sweet smile, and running his fingers through his son’s mop of dark hair, he greeted him with love and pride, knowing with a deep sadness what he must do.
In their chamber, he told his wife what he had heard, and though she sobbed, she could see in her husband’s face that there was no doubt as to the honourable path they must choose. She sighed and murmured, “My lord, it is because you are such a good man that I accept what must be done.”
“And the prince will favour us for rearing his son so well. We will be supported by him, have his protection should we ever need it. We will be well thought of for having returned such a beautiful boy.”
Both knew that they were reaching for consolation, and that in truth their hearts were truly breaking.
The journey to Narberth was undertaken at the very next opportunity. They stayed with noble families along the way, albeit unwilling to reveal the nature of their journey in case news should reach the great court before they themselves were able to arrive. Nonetheless, though no word of it was spoken, their small party increased in numbers, as leaving Gwent they began to travel the roads of Dyfed. Seeing the child Gwri, noting how well he was cared for, and knowing their intended destination, curiosity was grew like a swarm of summer honey bees.
Despite the gathering crowd, when the Lord of Gwent and his wife neared the court of Narberth and saw Rhiannon at the mounting block, their souls were filled with dreadful remorse. Her chestnut hair unkempt, yet still sparkling with sunlight, the softness of her skin now tanned by the wind, she looked up into the faces of the strangers, like a wild horse broken by the whip. And she had to so many, she began to tell her tale.
Tears fell from the eyes of Teyrnon’s wife, for the grief she felt in this woman before her, and the grief she knew was soon to be hers. When Rhiannon offered to carry to the gates, Teyrnon was shaking his head.
Word had already reached the great hall, and people were coming out of the gates to see for themselves what and who had in fact arrived. Amongst the party of the curious was Pwyll himself, unable to dismiss such news so urgently given as idle chat. He strode quietly down the dusty path towards the party before him.
Teyrnon stepped forward to greet him, using the customary reverence in his manner, and from behind, as yet half hidden, came the young blue eyed boy. Rhiannon sank to her knees and cried out, nothing in her soul could have prevented it. And as she did so, Pwyll ran to the child, crouching before him, holding his arms and looking deeply into his face.
“My lord,” Teyrnon spoke with determined clarity. “We have a tale to tell.”
In the great hall of Narberth, before the dust and sweat of the road had been washed from the travellers, and with Rhiannon in the rags borne of those three years of her wearying punishment, the knights and nobles of the court hurriedly gathered. And when a stillness fell, Teyrnon lifted his arms, speaking to everyone present, and in that way was the tale told.
As he came to its end, he looked around, and said, “I ask you here, all of you, nobles, warriors and labourers, do you agree that this child is such a likeness of the Prince of Dyfed, that it be beyond doubt he is the son that was lost?”
When every voice in the hall, including that of Pwyll, rose in agreement, Rhiannon’s soul cried out with a gasp of relief. “My son,” she said softly through her weeping, her dirty face wet with tears, “you who have been nothing to me but anxiety. I open my soul in love to you now.”
Looking up into the face of her husband, Pwyll met her eyes, and there was sorrow beyond any that a mere tale can convey.
One of the knights of the court, Pendaran Dyfed, stepped forward and bowed, being the first to speak with reverence once more to the prince’s wife. “My lady, you have named your son well with these first words. Pryderi son of Pwyll: the name suits him well.”
At the feasting that followed, Pwyll was no less gracious than Teyrnon and his wife had imagined, assuring them of his support, and offering them a wealth of gifts to express his boundless gratitude. But in the tales left us by our ancestors, no more is said of Rhiannon life with Pwyll. We would hope that they once more found a beauty between them, made tender by their story, but not without love and that shimmer of wonder. As the prince’s firstborn and according to tradition, Pryderi was sent to be fostered by Pendaran, but it is possible that Rhiannon bore other children, and their light shone through the court of Narberth, healing the wound between the prince and his wife.
As for Pryderi, at Pwyll’s departure for the lands of the dead, this fine young man became Prince of Dyfed. He was loved and respected by his people, ruling over the seven cantrefs and in time taking into his realm seven cantrefs beyond the bounds. Life was rich and fruitful, and all was well, until the time came for him to find a wife. But that is another tale.
Emma Restall Orr
May 2008