Page:The Mabinogion Volume I.pdf/23

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed
7
hundred stags’.[1] ‘Oh, sir,’ said he, ‘if I have done ill,W.B. 3 I will redeem your friendship.’ ‘How’, said he, ‘will you redeem it?’ ‘According as your rank may be; but I know not who you are?’ ‘A crowned king am I in the land whence I come.’ ‘Lord,’ said he, ‘ good day to you, and from what land do you come?’ ‘From Annwn,’[2] said he; ‘Arawn, King of Annwn, am I.’ ‘Lord,’ said he, ‘by what means may I obtain your friendship?’ ‘Behold the way you may obtain it,’ said he. ‘The man whose dominions are opposite to mine is ever warring against me. This is he, Hafgan, King ofR.B. 3 Annwn; and by ridding me of that oppression, which you can easily[3] do, shall you obtain my friendship.’ ‘With pleasure will I do that,’ said he. ‘Show me how I may do so.’ ‘I will show you,’ said he. ‘Behold how you may. I will make a firm alliance with you. Thus will I do. I will put you in Annwn in my place, and I will give you the fairest lady you ever saw toW.B. 4 sleep with you each night,[4] and my form and sem-
  1. ↑ ‘Dishonour’, insult, or ‘sarhad’, in Welsh custom was a personal wrong, for which compensation, assessed in cattle, had to be paid. A stag was equal in value to an ox, or two cows, and the value of 100 stags was 1000 shillings. As the value of a clan chief’s honour was equivalent to 180 shillings, the measure of the threat can be ascertained. This explains also Pwyll’s offer to ‘redeem’ Arawn’s friendship, if he has dishonoured him, by paying him the compensation due to his rank.
  2. ↑ ‘Annwn’, ‘Annwfn’. The Welsh Hades, or abode of the dead.
  3. ↑ R.B. ‘hawd’, W.B. ‘haut’, M.W. ‘hawdd’. The fact that W.B. uses ’haut’, with the ‘t’ equivalent to M.W. ‘dd’, is proof of there having been an earlier manuscript than that which has survived.
  4. ↑ This, in ancient society, was a common form of extreme hospitality. There are a few other cases of the custom in these stories.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.