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Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed

5

heard the cry of another pack. And it was not the same cry, and it was coming to meet his own pack.

And he beheld a dark clearing^[1] of level fields in the wood, and as his own pack was reaching the side of the clearing, he saw a stag in front of the other pack; and towards the middle of the clearing, behold! the pack that was after it overtook it, and brought it to ground. And then he looked at the colour of the pack,^[2] without pausing to look at the stag, and of all the hounds he had seen in the world, he had seen no dogs of the same colour as these. This was the colour of them, glittering brilliantR.B. 2
W.B. 2 white, and their ears red; and like as the whiteness of the dogs glittered, so glittered the redness of their ears.

And then he came to the dogs, and drove away the pack that had slain the stag, and set his own pack upon the stag. And as he was setting on his own dogs, he saw a man on horseback^[3] coming after the pack upon a

↑ ‘llanerch’. Lady Guest translates ‘glade’. The word, a compound of ‘llan’, enclosed plot, and ‘erch’, dark, implies an open space, free of trees and like growth, within a wood, and shaded darkly by the surrounding trees.
↑ This pack, the Cwn Annwn, is the pack of hell-hounds of Welsh legend, transformed here into a more normal hunting pack of the King of the Abode of Death (Annwn).
↑ ‘marchauc’, ‘marchog’. The word means, literally, a horseman. It is sometimes used in the simple sense of a ‘rider’. In Welsh medieval parlance it signified one who rode into battle on horseback. This privilege was enjoyed by men of local position, the heads of clans and the like. The ordinary clansmen, operating as mobile light infantry, went into battle on foot. Later, in chivalric romances, the word was used as the equivalent of the English ‘knight’, French ‘chevalier’, just as ‘marchogaeth’, the art of riding, was used to designate ‘chivalry ’.

[1] ‘llanerch’. Lady Guest translates ‘glade’. The word, a compound of ‘llan’, enclosed plot, and ‘erch’, dark, implies an open space, free of trees and like growth, within a wood, and shaded darkly by the surrounding trees.

[2] This pack, the Cwn Annwn, is the pack of hell-hounds of Welsh legend, transformed here into a more normal hunting pack of the King of the Abode of Death (Annwn).

[3] ‘marchauc’, ‘marchog’. The word means, literally, a horseman. It is sometimes used in the simple sense of a ‘rider’. In Welsh medieval parlance it signified one who rode into battle on horseback. This privilege was enjoyed by men of local position, the heads of clans and the like. The ordinary clansmen, operating as mobile light infantry, went into battle on foot. Later, in chivalric romances, the word was used as the equivalent of the English ‘knight’, French ‘chevalier’, just as ‘marchogaeth’, the art of riding, was used to designate ‘chivalry ’.

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