A PRINCE WHO WOULD HANG A MOUSE
On the very border line of “The Little England Beyond Wales,” as South Pembrokeshire is known, a land of many splendid old castles into which the sea bites deep at Milford Haven, stands Narberth Castle, famous for many things, among them that its owner once tried to hang a mouse.
It is a queer old story of magic and sorcery, and as the tale goes, far, far back in history, Prince Manawyddan lived at Narberth Castle with his stepson Pryderi and Cigfa his wife. One day a great darkness fell upon the land, and when it had passed Pryderi and all the retainers had vanished. Narberth was left unpeopled save for the Prince and Cigfa.
So these two fell to work to cultivate the land themselves. They worked hard and when harvest time came they were rewarded by the sight of many fields of waving corn. But, when they began to reap, Manawyddan and his daughter-in-law found to their consternation that the grain had been eaten from every ear of corn and that all they reaped was straw. The Prince suspected sorcery, and resolved to watch that night in an adjoining field which had not yet been robbed.
Towards midnight he heard a weird rustling sound, and, gazing from his place of concealment, he saw a horde of field mice roaming over his crops, nibbling away at the ears of wheat. Manawyddan sprang forward and captured one of the marauders, and the others scampered away.
For safety he placed the captured mouse in a glove and then returned to Narberth Castle determined to hang the thief. He erected a little gallows, and was fashioning a noose of string in order to carry out the execution on the castle slopes, when there came along a scholar who enquired what the Prince was doing.
Manawyddan told him, and the scholar protested, saying that it was unseemly for a prince to act a hangman’s part. “Come, I will give you a pound to ransom the thief,” he added, but Manawyddan refused. So the scholar passed on and presently a priest approached. He too enquired as to the Prince’s task and also tried to dissuade him from it, offering five pounds as a ransom. But the Prince was adamant.
Then as he was about to release the mouse from his glove and string it up, a bishop came by. Like the other two strangers he began to argue with Manawyddan and offered ten, then twenty pounds to have the mouse set free. But the Prince’s suspicions were now aroused. “No,” said he, “the thief shall hang.” Then the bishop fell into a great rage and stamped his foot in anger, and as he did so his mitre fell off disclosing the fact that he was no bishop but a noted sorcerer of the neighbourhood.
“Name your price,” he said at last, “the mouse shall not hang, for she is my wife.”