[103]. Chalmers; Villemarque; Mabinogion; O'Donovan; Pugh; Pitre; Chevalier; Sir W. Scott, Ed. of Sir Trestram.
Section VI.—Hoel and Ryence.
The romances of Arthur give him, among his many nephews, one named Hoel, Duke of Brittany, whose niece Helena was seized upon by the horrible giant Ritho, and devoured upon the top of Tombelaine.
This Hoel does not seem to have been a real character. His name Higuel, the lordly or conspicuous, was a common one in Wales and Brittany; and a prince so called seems really to have fled to Arthur for aid against the Franks, and to have returned with a fresh colony of Britons, by whose aid he became king of Armorica.
He reigned for thirty years, and died in 545, Other Hoels reigned after him, the third of whom is said to have been killed at Roncevalles.
In Wales, Hywel continued in favour, and Hywel-Dha, or the Good, who reigned in the tenth century, is famous for having gone to Rome to study law, by which he so profited as afterwards to draw up the famous code that has thrown so much light on the manners of the Cambrian mountaineers, the order of precedence in the king’s household, and even the price of animals. He signs King Athelstan’s charter as Hoel-Subregulus, or under king.
Hywel was a name in frequent use among the Welsh princes, and ‘highborn Hoel’s harp’ was frequently sounded, for various bards were so called.
Another Hoel was that unfortunate relative of Owen Glendower whom he was said to have killed and hidden in the blasted tree.
The giant Ritho is evidently a relation of Rhitta Gawr, who, in the Welsh stories, interfered to put a stop to a furious battle between two kings named Nynniaw and Peibiaw, who had quarrelled[quarrelled] about the moon and stars. Rhitta Gawr defeated them both, and cut off their beards, and afterwards the beards of seventy-eight more kings who collected to avenge them. Of these eighty beards he made a mantle that reached from his head to his heels, for he was the largest man in Britain, and wore it as a warning to all to maintain law and order.
The romances of Arthur turned Rhitta Gawr into a fierce monarch called Rhyence, king of North Wales, an aggressor instead of a defender of justice, who, however, had his scarlet mantle purfled with the moderate number of eleven royal beards, and politely demanded that of King Arthur to complete the trimming, with what consequences no one acquainted with King Arthur can doubt.