Saorla Fey
One day Pwyll, announced that he would sit on the mound. After a while he saw, traveling up the road at an easy trot, a lady dressed in white astride a sleek, white mare. With three beautiful golden wrens circling her head.
Pwyll hurried from one person to the next asking all who would listen, "Who knows that lady?" But none did.
"Well then," he barked, "find out!"
As his men approached the White Lady, she moved away. They chased her but no matter how quickly they went they could get no closer to her, although she kept the same quiet pace.
Each day, Pwyll sent a man to chase the woman. Perhaps it was the sweet song of her wrens that charmed and confused the men, no matter who was sent they always returned at dusk frustrated and empty-handed.
Pwyll could not think of anything else, at night he would toss and turn always dreaming of the White Night Mare. He dreamed of mounting the mare and making love to the Lady. He dreamed of bathing in a broth of her milk. He dreamed that he drank all her blood. He dreamed that he could not harness her, though in his dreams he tried again and again. He dreamed until at last, he realized that only he would be able to overtake and catch the lady who rode around the mound in the swirl of white mist around the mound.
Again he ascended the mound. As the sun emerged so did the White Lady.
He leapt onto his fasted stallion and rushed after her. She tossed her long, flowing, snowy white tresses which coiled into the mares white mane and tail, as if the two were really one. Pwyll chased her getting close enough to see the glint of the crescent moonstone she wore around her neck. He called, "Lady! Dear Lady, please stop!" she whispered to the mare and they were gone.
Each dawn for thirteen months Pwyll chased the White Lady, calling to her, but she never stopped or waited. Until one morning he called: " Lady, for the sake of the man you love best, stop for me."
And she did.
He galloped fast toward her, afraid to lose her again. As he pulled up beside her, realizing he didn't know what to say to her. He stammered, "Dear lady, whatever is your errand, that keeps you riding around the mound?" She replied with the golden birds chirping in rhythm to Pwyll's own heart, "You are my errand. I am Rhiannon and my father, Heveydd the Old, has told me I am to have a husband against my will. I will not sleep with any man that I have not chosen myself, and I have chosen you to share my wealth and my delights. Do you agree, will you love me?" she said.
Pwyll nodded, not knowing how to answer such a wonderous offer. Rhiannon asked "Where is your voice, brave chieftain?" Pwyll struggled to regain his thoughts and voice. "Love you? Does the spring rain bring flowers? Do salmon swim upstream? Do the leaves turn brown in fall?" he asked. "Not where I come from," she laughed. "Go on my dear lord, you may be nearing something akin to a poem." But Pwyll could not continue. "Yes! Yes, tell me what I may do." he answered. She said " You must wait another thirteen month. Then at midnight, that rock will open into the mound. Within the mound is an orchard, and deep in the orchard, under the lair of the White Night Mare, you will find my father, me and Gwawl ap Clud, the man I am to wed, feasting in our company. You will know Gwawl, for he has a clawed hand and many horses, which he has stolen from your world on each New Year. The horses glow, but beneath their bellies there is a shadow. They will be tethered throughout the orchard. Do not come as a chieftain, Pwyll, though you must bring a company of niety-nine men. Tell your men to hide under the horses. Then come as alone as a ragged beggar. Bring your hunting horn and bring this bag." Rhiannon pulled a rough little sack from her girle and handed it to Pwyll. " Ask Gwawl ap Clud to fill the bag with raw flesh. The bridegroom cannot refuse a supplicant, for the day's good fortune belongs to him. There is no amount of meat in your world and mine that will fill this bag. When Gwawl begins to grumble, you must say that in order for the hungry bag to be satisfied, a nobleman must jump in and tread on the contents. When Gwawl does so you must quickly turn the bag upside down and tie the strings into a knot, then blow the hunting horn so that your men will appear by your side." Rhiannon reached across the mare and kissed Pwyll, a kiss he returned with vigor to seal his pledge to her.
Thirteen months later, Pwyll layered rags over his battle garb and hung his hunting horn around his neck and hooked the little bag to his belt. The chieftain and his niety-nine men stood by the rock, which creaked open at midnight. Then, slowly, fearfully they entered the mound. Pwyll led the way along a dark path that seemed to descend for miles, until a kind of ocean dawn unfolded and they found themselves in an orchard, where ripened fruit hung heavy as jewels from every branch and a hundred horses were tied to the trees. The horses blazed like stars and torches in the sunlight, an illusived light-on-light, yet under every horse there was a patch of black shadow, where Pwyll's men hid.
Then Pwyll proceeded alone until he came to the banquet table. He begged Gwawl ap Clud for meat. He tricked Gwawl into the bag exactly as Rhiannon had instructed. He tied the strings of the bag into a tight knot. He blew his hunting horn and his men appeared at his side.
Rhiannon reared from her seat. Whinnying with anger and urgency, she told Pwyll's men that she had a game for them to entertain the assembled company. "Kick the bag back and forth between you like a ball," she said. And they divided into two teams, tossing, hurling, dribbling, booting, trampling and punting the bag, even knealing on the bag when it resisted. At last, a muffled voice cried out to Heveydd the Old: "Lord, please stop them! Death in a bag is no fitting end for me!" And Heveydd, who was very old indeed, for he was Lord of the Otherworld, where death never ventures, bid his daughter stop the game. "Have you not now had sufficient vengence for the bargain struck for you Rhiannon? Are you not content to have your choice of husbands?"
Rhiannon's lip curled. Her teeth glinted. She snorted and tossed her head and held up her hand to Pwyll and his men. "Father I am done. This man Pwyll, Chief of Dyfed, is my choice. Return the marriage goods, for I am no chattel, no brood mare to be traded and haggled over. But before we release him, we must demand sureties that Gwawl ap Clud will make no claims against us."
Gwawl promised meekly, a muffled, weak promise from within the bag. They let him go. He cursed Rhiannon, a malediction so sharp it seemed to cleave her from her white crown to her white slippers, and she trembled. Gwawl flinched at the cuts and purple bruises on his face. He rubbed his claw and winced. He turned his back on Rhiannon and Pwyll and offered farewell to Heveydd the Old. He herded his radiant horses towards his own lands.
So Rhiannon and Pwyll retired and spent the night at pleasure. In the morning, the wrens awoke them and they departed from the Otherworld to Dyfed. Many years passed before Rhiannon returned to any Otherworldly place, but never again did she set foot in the orchard within the mound.
