Manawyddan, its rightful heir now that Brân was dead.

However, the destiny was upon the seven that they should go on with their leader's head. They went to Harlech and feasted for seven years, the three birds of Rhiannon singing them songs compared with which all other songs seemed unmelodious. Then they spent fourscore years in the Isle of Gwales, eating and drinking, and listening to the pleasant conversation of Brân's head. The "Entertaining of the Noble Head" this eighty years' feast was called. Brân's head, indeed, is almost more notable in British mythology than Brân before he was decapitated. Taliesin and the other bards invoke it repeatedly as Urddawl Ben (the 'Venerable Head") and Uther Ben (the "Wonderful Head").

But all pleasure came to an end when Heilyn, the son of Gwynn, opened the forbidden door, like Bluebeard's wife, "to know if that was true which was said concerning it". As soon as they looked towards Cornwall, the glamour that had kept them merry for eighty-seven years failed, and left them as grieved about the death of their lord as though it had happened that very day. They could not rest for sorrow, but went at once to London, and laid the now dumb and corrupting head in its grave on Tower Hill, with its face turned towards France, to watch that no foe came from foreign lands to Britain. There it reposed until, ages afterwards, Arthur, in his pride of heart, dug it up, "as he thought it beneath his dignity to hold the island

otherwise than by valour".

of

Disaster, in the shape

"the godless hosts

Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern sea",1

came of this disinterment; and therefore it is called, in a triad, one of the "Three Wicked Uncoverings of Britain".

1 Tennyson: Idylls of the King-"Guinevere".

CHAPTER XIX

THE WAR OF ENCHANTMENTS1

Manawyddan was now the sole survivor of the family of Llyr. He was homeless and landless. But Pryderi offered to give him a realm in Dyfed, and his mother, Rhiannon, for a wife. The lady, her son explained, was still not uncomely, and her conversation was pleasing. Manawyddan seems to have found her attractive, while Rhiannon was not less taken with the son of Llyr. They were wedded, and so great became the friendship of Pryderi and Kicva, Manawyddan and Rhiannon, that the four were seldom apart.

One day, after holding a feast at Narberth, they went up to the same magic mound where Rhiannon had first met Pwyll. As they sat there, thunder pealed, and immediately a thick mist sprang up, so that not one of them could see the other. When it cleared, they found themselves alone in an uninhabited country. Except for their own castle, the land was desert and untilled, without sign of dwelling, man, or beast. One touch of some unknown. magic had utterly changed the face of Dyfed from a rich realm to a wilderness.

Manawyddan and Pryderi, Rhiannon and Kicva

1 Retold from Lady Guest's translation of the Mabinogi of Manawyddan, the Son of Llyr.

traversed the country on all sides, but found nothing except desolation and wild beasts. For two years they lived in the open upon game and honey.

During the third year, they grew weary of this wild life, and decided to go into Lloegyr1, and support themselves by some handicraft. Manawyddan could make saddles, and he made them so well that soon no one in Hereford, where they had settled, would buy from any saddler but himself. This aroused the enmity of all the other saddlers, and they conspired to kill the strangers. So the four went to another city.

Here they made shields, and soon no one would purchase a shield unless it had been made by Manawyddan and Pryderi. The shield-makers became jealous, and again a move had to be made. But they fared no better at the next town, where they practised the craft of cordwainers, Manawyddan shaping the shoes and Pryderi stitching them. they went back to Dyfed again, and occupied themselves in hunting.

So

One day, the hounds of Manawyddan and Pryderi roused a white wild boar. They chased it till they came to a castle at a place where both the huntsmen were certain that no castle had been before. Into this castle went the boar, and the hounds after it. For some time, Manawyddan and Pryderi waited in vain for their return. Pryderi then proposed that he should go into the castle, and see what had become of them. Manawyddan tried to dissuade him, declaring that whoever their enemy was

1 Saxon Britain-England.

who had laid Dyfed waste had also caused the appearance of this castle. But Pryderi insisted upon entering.

In the castle, he found neither the boar nor his hounds, nor any trace of man or beast. There was nothing but a fountain in the centre of the castle floor, and, on the brink of the fountain, a beautiful golden bowl fastened to a marble slab by chains.

Pryderi was so pleased with the beauty of the bowl that he put out his hands and took hold of it. Whereupon his hands stuck to the bowl, so that he could not move from where he stood.

Manawyddan waited for him till the evening, and then returned to the palace, and told Rhiannon. She, more daring than her husband, rebuked him for cowardice, and went straight to the magic castle. In the court she found Pryderi, his hands still glued to the bowl and his feet to the slab. She tried to free him, but became fixed, herself, and, with a clap of thunder and a fall of mist, the castle vanished with its two prisoners.

Manawyddan was now left alone with Kicva, Pryderi's wife. He calmed her fears, and assured her of his protection. But they had lost their dogs, and could not hunt any more, so they set out together to Lloegyr, to practise again Manawyddan's old trade of cordwainer. A second time, the envious cordwainers conspired to kill them, so they were obliged to return to Dyfed.

But Manawyddan took back a burden of wheat with him to Narberth, and sowed three crofts, all of which sprang up abundantly.