Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/115



, younger son of Meredith, refused to live at ease in the palace of his brother, King Madoc. He rode therefore into Logres to steal a kingdom. He and his men plundered, and none could withstand them. But one day he vanished. Madoc sent men on all sides to seek him. But in vain they sought, and the searchers were foiled again and again, and found themselves often in strange countries.

Now Rhonabwy and two others made one search-party and they could come upon no traces and hear no news of Iorwerth. One night of rain they arrived at an old dark house. Heavy smoke billowed out of the hall over the mire and the dead thistle as they entered. The floor was all mounds and puddles, foul and slippery as a cattlefold, but carpeted in places with boughs of holly. At one side was a range of dark chambers full of dust; at the other a hag, too old to be quite human, bent shivering to feed a bad fire with lapfuls of damp chaff. Rhonabwy and his companions could hardly endure the cold smoke that poured from the chaff. Nevertheless, they did not go out again into the tempest of rain and wind, but lay down to rest on a couch that had given its choicest portions to the cattle for provender. The other two fell asleep in spite of the knotty bed and the vermin, but only when he had lain down on a yellow calfskin before the fire could Rhonabwy sleep.

While Rhonabwy slept on this calfskin he dreamed. With his two companions he was traversing a plain in