Pwyll and Rhiannon

At a Glance

• Central figures: Pwyll, prince of Dyfed, and Rhiannon, a woman of the Otherworld who rides a white horse no rider can catch.
• Setting: The kingdom of Dyfed in Wales, centered on the court at Arberth and the ancient mound called the gorsedd that stands near it; from the First Branch of the Mabinogi.
• The turn: Rhiannon chooses Pwyll over Gwawl fab Clud, the suitor her family had promised her to, and Pwyll must outwit Gwawl at a feast to claim her.
• The outcome: Pwyll defeats Gwawl through trickery with a magic bag, marries Rhiannon, and she bears him a son - but the child vanishes on the night of his birth, and Rhiannon is falsely accused and punished for years before the boy is found.
• The legacy: Their son is named Pryderi, meaning “worry” or “care,” and he becomes the only figure who appears in all four branches of the Mabinogi.

Pwyll sat on the mound at Arberth. His men had warned him - anyone who sat on that mound would either receive a blow or see a wonder. Pwyll chose the wonder. The evening was still. The grass on the mound was short and dry and the sky had not yet turned.

A woman rode past on a great white horse. She was dressed in gold brocade, and the horse moved at a walk - a steady, unhurried walk, as if she had nowhere particular to go.

The Horse That Could Not Be Caught

Pwyll sent his fastest rider after her. The man spurred his horse to a gallop, and the distance between them did not close. The woman’s horse never changed its pace. It walked. The rider’s horse ran until it was lathered and heaving, and still the woman moved ahead of him at that same quiet walk, growing smaller down the road.

The next day Pwyll sat on the mound again. She appeared again, golden-clothed, white horse, the same pace. This time Pwyll had the swiftest horse in Dyfed saddled and waiting. He sent a second rider. The result was the same. The harder the horse ran, the further she drew away, all without seeming to try.

On the third day Pwyll mounted the horse himself. He rode after her and his horse could no more gain on her than the others had. The road stretched and she walked and he could not close the gap. Finally he called out.

Lady, for the sake of the man you love best, stop.

She stopped. She turned in the saddle and looked at him and said she was glad he had asked, for the horse’s sake if nothing else. She told him her name was Rhiannon, daughter of Hefeydd the Old. She told him she had been promised to a man she did not want - Gwawl fab Clud - and that she had come to the mound to find Pwyll, because Pwyll was the man she did want.

He had never seen her before that first evening.

The Feast and the Bag

Rhiannon told Pwyll to come to her father’s court in a year and a day. He came. There was a great feast laid for their wedding, and Pwyll sat beside Rhiannon at the head of the hall. During the feast a tall young man entered and asked Pwyll for a boon. Pwyll, full of mead and goodwill, said he would grant whatever was in his power.

Rhiannon closed her eyes.

The young man was Gwawl fab Clud. He asked for Rhiannon and the feast.

Rhiannon said, quietly, that Pwyll had been a fool - but a fool could still be saved. She gave Pwyll a small bag, a thing no bigger than a glove, and told him what to do with it. The wedding was postponed for a year. Gwawl took the feast and the promise of Rhiannon.

A year passed. On the night of Gwawl’s wedding feast, Pwyll came to the hall dressed as a beggar in rags, carrying the small bag. He approached Gwawl and asked only that his little bag be filled with food. Gwawl agreed - what harm could it do? But the bag could not be filled. Meat went in. Bread went in. The remains of whole courses went in. The bag swallowed everything and remained slack and empty.

Gwawl asked when it would be full.

Rhiannon answered for Pwyll. It would never be full, she said, unless a nobleman put both feet into the bag and pressed down and declared it was enough.

Gwawl stepped into the bag. Pwyll pulled the drawstring tight. Pwyll’s men, who had been hidden outside, rushed in. Each man struck the bag as he passed it. Gwawl inside the bag cried out and the men asked each other what game they were playing, and someone said Badger in the Bag - and that was the first time the game was played in Dyfed.

Gwawl was released alive, humiliated, stripped of his claim. Pwyll married Rhiannon that night.

The Vanishing

They ruled Dyfed well together for two years before Rhiannon bore a son. Six women were set to watch over the infant on the night of his birth. All six fell asleep. When they woke, the cradle was empty.

The women were terrified. They knew they would be punished - perhaps killed. So they killed a litter of pups and smeared the blood on Rhiannon’s face and hands while she slept, and scattered the bones around her bed. When she woke they told her she had devoured her own child in the night, and that they had tried to stop her but she had been too strong.

Rhiannon did not believe them. No one else believed her.

Pwyll’s lords demanded punishment. Rhiannon was made to sit at the mounting block beside the gate of Arberth. Every stranger who came to the court, she had to tell what she had done - the version the women had told - and then offer to carry the stranger on her back into the hall, like a horse. She did this for years.

Teyrnon’s Colt

Far from Arberth, a lord named Teyrnon Twrf Liant had a mare that foaled every May Eve. Every year the foal vanished before morning. One year Teyrnon stayed in the stable with a sword. At midnight something reached through the window - a great clawed arm. Teyrnon cut it off at the elbow. Whatever it was screamed and fled into the dark. Outside the stable door he found a newborn boy wrapped in silk.

Teyrnon and his wife raised the child. He grew fast - unnaturally fast. By the time he was four he looked seven. He was golden-haired. When Teyrnon heard the story of Rhiannon’s punishment, he looked at the boy and saw Pwyll’s face.

He brought the child to Arberth. Rhiannon lifted her head from the mounting block. She looked at the boy. She said the word pryderi - worry - because her worry was over, and that became his name.

Pryderi fab Pwyll. He would grow to rule Dyfed after his father. He would walk into Annwn and out again. He would be the thread that runs through all four branches of the story, the child who disappeared and came back, the prince whose mother carried strangers on her back for years rather than deny what she knew to be true.

She never confessed to what she had not done.