“I will not,” said Manawyddan, “until I see Rhiannon and Pryderi.”
Then he saw them coming towards him; and they greeted one another.
“Now set my wife free,” said the bishop.
“I will, gladly,” replied Manawyddan. So he released the mouse, and Llwyd struck her with a wand, and turned her into “a young woman, the fairest ever seen”.
And when Manawyddan looked round him, he saw Dyfed tilled and cultivated again, as it had formerly been.
The powers of light had, this time, the victory. Little by little, they increased their mastery over the dominion of darkness, until we find the survivors of the families of Llyr and Pwyll mere vassals of Arthur.
CHAPTER XX
THE VICTORIES OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS
The powers of light were, however, by no means invariably successful in their struggles with the powers of darkness. Even Gwydion son of Dôn had to serve his apprenticeship to misfortune. Assailing Caer Sidi—Hades[[347]] under one of its many titles,—he was caught by Pwyll and Pryderi, and endured a long imprisonment.[[348]] The sufferings he underwent made him a bard—an ancient Celtic idea which one can still see surviving in the popular tradition that whoever dares to spend a night alone either upon the chair of the Giant Idris (the summit of Cader Idris, in Merionethshire), or under the haunted Black Stone of Arddu, upon the Llanberis side of Snowdon, will be found in the morning either inspired or mad.[[349]] How he escaped we are not told; but the episode does not seem to have quenched his ardour against the natural enemies of his kind.
Helped by his brother, Amaethon, god of agriculture, and his son, Lleu, he fought the Battle of Godeu, or “the Trees”, an exploit which is not the least curious of Celtic myths. It is known also as the Battle of Achren, or Ochren, a name for Hades of unknown meaning, but appearing again in the remarkable Welsh poem which describes the “Spoiling of Annwn” by Arthur. The King of Achren was Arawn; and he was helped by Brân, who apparently had not then made his fatal journey to Ireland. The war was made to secure three boons for man—the dog, the deer, and the lapwing, all of them creatures for some reason sacred to the gods of the nether world.