"It was the morning of Beltain, in the year 7640, five years ago this spring just past, when the King and his men purged the land of the blood drinkers, thus lifting a great plague upon the people," Grandmother began.
"Blood drinkers," prompted Goewen.
"Yes. Their proper name was Coraneid, but blood drinkers we called them, for that is what they did."
"Did they drink blood with their meals, like milk or wine?"
"No child. Blood was their meal. No morsel of human food, nor drop of human drink ever passed their lips; not once they became blooddrinkers, at any rate."
The children goggled, eyes wide, spoons hanging forgotten halfway to their lips.
"What's more, it was the sweet blood of youth they preffered. Burried in the dirt, beneath the floor of the cellar, in the grand house of the blood drinker Rwn, were unearthed no less than 112 corpses of children; some no more than infants, all horribly mangled, and drained of blood."
With grave import she gazed around at her rapt audience, then continued.
"Rwn was the most cellebrated courtezan in all of Caer Ludd in her day. She was kept by none other than Caswallen himself, and King Llyr was one of her many admirers. None guessed, until that fateful day, the true nature of Rwn and her kind. To look at, she seemed simply a beautiful woman, remarkable in her beauty, but not inhumanly so, certainly not monstrous in any way the eye could detect. She wore fine mist linen, after the fashion of Egyptian women, and her jewelry was of Athenian silver. Her hair hung straight and black as a raven's wing, trailing the ground behind her like a cape. I remember the pink blush of her cheeks. Little did we guess it was the blood of her tiny victims that placed that rosey glow there."
"Some say it was for the love of Rwn that Caswallen turned traitor. Others say she enthralled him with the magic of her kind, so that he had no will of his own left. And even now, though she is over five years dead, many believe her will still drives him in his madness."
"I and my friends, several other ladies of Llyr's court, followed the warriors as they went house to house that day, searching, and turning people out of their houses, for we were mystified, and curious, as to what they were about. Soon enough they came to Rwn's house and commanded her to emerge, but there was no responce. She might have been at the house of an admirer, we all suposed as much, but the men had their orders and they broke down her door to search the house, to be certain no fugitive escaped their net.'
"Five men entered. We who waited heard nothing that might have warned us something was amiss. And soon enough they emerged again, this one with his throat torn out, that one headless, another in pieces, discarded by the monster within, having taken her pleasure of them. She knew the deception was at an end and the truth out, you see. Like a beast when it is cornered, she became rabid, vicious."
"The comrades of the slain were anxious to storm the house, but the druids would not allow it."
" ''The blood of your womenfolk scarce touched my thirst,' she taunted,'when will you send me real men that I may feast?' And she laughed her beautiful gay laughter, her voice rich as though thick with blood."
"We wondered how such a fine and delicate creature could have so ruined those five good men, hardened warriors all, and armed. I have wondered on it much these past few years and I have come to think she must have possessed the strength of ten men at least, and the speed of a serpent. It was odd and difficult not to think of her as human, but I think now that she was no more human than yonder kine; yet perhaps once she was. Many of her kind who died that day claimed to have been."
