Gwrtheyrn the Drunkard
"Vortigern of repulsive lips, who, drunken, gave up the Isle of Thanet to Hengist."
—Welsh Triads.
Mogneid son of Votecori tapped upon the lintel of the open doorway and called "Ho, there! Is there refreshment for wayfarers?" From within came a luxurious sound of snoring. Mogneid muttered a curse, and began to hammer impatiently with the butt of his riding-whip. The father of the household coughed, rolled heavily from his bed of rushes, and appeared at the door—an old man, blinking with sleep, but collected and courteous.
"What, lord?" said he. "There is tired you are now! How may I serve you? Please you share the shelter of my roof till evening!"
"Nay, not so," Mogneid replied, "I am in haste to reach my journey's end. Give us to drink, sir, I pray you—beer, milk, or water—what you will—anything! We are dried up with this dust! And tell me, if you can, how far hence dwells Gwrtheyrn the King?"
Without waiting to answer, the old man hobbled away, and returned a few minutes later with a big stone pitcher and two little cups of horn.
"Alack, my friend," he grumbled, "they have taken all the beer. They are all gone to mow the hay, look you, my son and the women! and I am left to milk the cows and tend the livestock. Sore thing it is that old age comes so soon! Well, lord, if ye will not stay to cleanse your feet and enter my dwelling, let us at least converse in the shade. Here is new milk, that quenches thirst." He led Mogneid and his four serving-men beneath the boughs of a great hawthorn-tree, the only ornament of his straw-littered, pig-frequented entrance-yard.
"Seek ye King Gwrtheyrn?"