Y Cwn Annwn Part 2

This is the second instalment of 'The Dogs of Annwn' from the tales of the Mabinogion. Please read the first part so as to understand why Pwyll finds himself in the 'Otherworld' of Annwn.

I have now dramatized the story that unfolds as Pwyll finds that Hagfan, the rival king he has promised to fight, in order to atone for his theft of the deer, is a more deadly opponent than he could have imagined.

Are you sitting comfortably?

The story continues.....

Pwyll woke up as sun filtered through the cracks in the shuttered window and onto the heavy brocade of the bed, but it was not the morning light that had disturbed him. He had heard something. It might have been the geese in the courtyard, released each midnight to parade the battlements as sentries. They made the occasional grunt outside and, like the prayer bell in the tower over the last year, Pwyll had grown accustomed to it all. This sound had been unusual, loud enough to have broken his sleep.

Alert now, he sat up but there was only the steady breathing of the woman sleeping alongside him. For a moment, he allowed himself to glance over at her. Lady Hafran’s red hair spilled out over the pillows and he paused to admire the curve of her bare back.

By the door, Culhuwch remained on guard, his black intense eyes focused on their bed. Perhaps his master, Arawn, the real husband of the voluptuous woman lying with him, spied on him through those eyes. Even sitting, the giant dog exceeded Pwyll’s height. Culhuwch did not look unduly troubled. Whatever the noise had been, Pwyll thought, there seemed no immediate threat. Last night, he had gradually drifted into a troubled sleep. It had been a frantic year and his mind had spent little time dwelling on his promise to Arawn. He remained ignorant of the nature or location of the contest with the rival king, Hagfan, even as the day of the challenge arrived. As Pwyll returned the dog’s hard stare, he felt a gentle hand settle on his shoulder.

‘Arawn, you are awake already. My love, are you troubled?’ Hafran’s hand moved slowly down his back.

‘I thought I heard something outside,’ he said, ‘An odd sort of noise in the courtyard.’

‘Did you sleep?’ She asked, her hand beginning to trace a pattern against his back.

‘Soundly,’ he lied, ‘but it would be better if I knew a lot more about today.’

‘You know enough.’ Her hand stopped abruptly. ‘You have killed him before and will kill him again.’

Pwyll remembered Arawn’s warning about this opponent, Hafgan; to deliver only one fatal blow and to restrain from striking again. Pwyll wondered how good a warrior Hafgan was, whether his own skill was enough to even make that first strike. These days, he considered himself a poet before a warrior and had long ago, apart from his hunting bow, neglected any practice of martial skills.

‘You will return victorious,’ Hafran’s hands began kneading his shoulders. ‘I am sure of it. No warrior has your prowess and strength. If there was some sort of noise outside, then look over there! Culhuwch is calm and has barely moved and so it cannot be anything. Lie back down as this morning, of all mornings, I don’t need to hear more of your poems of ancient heroism. Instead, hold me in your arms. You can always prepare for Hagfan later, and when you return in victory, covered in his blood, then I will listen to the bards in the great hall singing of your final battle with him!’

She pressed her lips to the nape of his neck, curling her arms around to pull him towards her, but Pwyll, breaking free, flung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

‘Forgive me, my Lady. Let me take a look out of the window first!’

Before Hafran could lock her arms around him again, the chamber door swung open and the courtier he knew as Rhys stepped through.

‘My Lord, something terrible has happened. The castle geese are all lying dead by the main gate. Their necks have been savagely broken.’

This was Arawn’s man, less of a servant and more a confidante to him, and someone Pwyll suspected had noticed the alteration in his king.

A year ago, he had reached Arawn’s kingdom, the disputed deer draped over his horse as if it weighed nothing and Arawn’s pack of great white dogs in close escort. He was applauded as the greatest of all hunters, before being carried shoulder high into the great hall where a feast was laid out. Mead had been poured into his cup and his plate filled with the cooked venison. Ever since, he had spent every evening listening to the kingdom’s bards singing of heroic warrior men and women before taking his turn to sing poems he composed.

Each morning, shrugging off the excesses of the night before, joined by the royal retinue, he had ridden throughout his new kingdom of Annwn, holding court and dispensing royal justice. Culhuwch, the largest dog and leader of Arawn’s pack had always accompanied him, even into the bedroom. As Arawn had boasted, Hafran was the most beautiful and desirable woman in the whole of Wales. Pwyll suspected the dog was his gaoler, only by his side to ensure he stayed that extra day to fight Hagfan but Pwyll has also been aware that this watchful dog had witnessed all that had transpired between the royal bedsheets. Pwyll learnt, during the nights, he spent with her that the queen loved and desired her husband beyond anything.

Pwyll knew the king of Annwn was tall, broad, and heavily muscled, whilst he was slender and considerably shorter, but Arawn had cast a magic spell so that his subjects did not recognise he was a changeling. Even when Pwyll struggled to throw Arawn’s spears, which were the size of small trees, or lift the two-handed heavy swords of wrought steel, there was no concern. His new found talent of poetry and his impressive singing voice only added to his subjects’ admiration of their king. All assumed he had learnt it on his last hunting trip.

Even Lady Hafran was taken in, but Pwyll from the start had seen suspicion in Rhys’ eyes. The courtier was a wiry man, whose aquiline face intently waited for Pwyll’s response.

‘My Lord, the gates have been checked and they are all secure, but someone or something must be in the castle,’ he announced.

The courtier’s eyes made a deliberate show of examining Pwyll’s sleeping attire of crumpled vest and underpants. Pwyll wondered whether Arawn’s habit was to sleep naked as Lady Hafran patently did each night. Perhaps even his choice of underwear betrayed his disguise to this astute man.

‘We are searching the entire grounds, there may be danger for you.’ Rhys continued, ‘you will not have forgotten, my Lord, that today, you will meet King Hagfan to fight for both kingdoms. He may have sent an assassin to avoid meeting you at the ford. He has been defeated by you once already and he could be planning treachery. What are your orders, my Lord?’

Pwyll hesitated, before replying. ‘It seems every precaution has already been taken, Rhys.’

Pwyll could think of nothing else to safeguard them from this invisible enemy, but at least he now knew where he was to meet Hagfan; at the river that flowed powerfully along all sides of the kingdom of Annwn. He had little idea of where the ford might be, as he had only once, a year ago, crossed its freezing waters. It was clear this watery boundary magically protected Annwn from the gaze of earthly kingdoms as he remembered it as wide as the Irish Sea with no sight of another land.

‘Your dogs, my Lord,’ said Rhys, ‘do you not want us to send them out to hunt? They will make short work of any intruder.’

‘Of course,’ muttered Pwyll but when he looked for Culhuwch, the dog had curled himself into a dozing ball alongside Rhys.

Just then, from beyond the window in the courtyard below, there came a loud repeated crashing of metal against metal with a booming voice, so loud, it filled the chamber as if with thunder.

‘Arawn! Why hide in your bed behind your queen? Have I come too early for you? It’s time to get up, you have goose for breakfast!’ The thunderous voice declared.

Pwyll rushed to the window and opened the shutters. The scene that met him made him take a startled step back.

The king’s guard of a hundred men were gathering below, their spears at the ready. A gigantic armed figure strode up and down in front of them. Pwyll could only assume this was Hagfan. The rival king stood nine feet tall, and his hands, which were as wide as a normal man’s chest, held a great battle-axe that emitted red flames of light as he swung it around. Hagfan’s face was so heavily bearded it was barely visible and his waist-length hair was knotted with human arm bones. Around his neck hung a necklace of men’s skulls, their still rotting faces expressing the agony of death.

‘It’s Hagfan, my Lord,’ explained Rhys, in a small whisper behind Pwyll.

‘Thank you, Rhys, I gathered.’ Pwyll could only stare at the creature that almost filled the courtyard.

As more soldiers collected down below, Pwyll was aware those eyes that were not glued in fascination on Hagfan’s swinging axe, were closely regarding their king. As the giant waited for an answer, the mass of black hair that was his face opened up into a wide grin that displayed a cavernous pink mouth with large brown teeth, each one filed to a point.

‘I thought our meeting was supposed to be at the ford.’ Pwyll managed to call back, although his voice sounded like a faint vibrating reed in the air. Delaying tactics were obviously called for as he needed a little time to work on how to handle the situation. Arawn had not promised disposing of this rival king was an easy task, but neither had he mentioned the sheer size of his opponent, nor the fact he was an insanely violent giant.

‘I’ve come to discuss the preliminary details for our meeting at the ford,’ Hagfan retorted, ‘and I needed to ask you whether you want all the pieces of your body buried in a cesspool or burnt in a firepit. You may want some of your bits, perhaps your testicles, fed to those mongrel dogs of yours? I will, of course, honour any of your last wishes once I have, as the new king of Annwn, paid my personal respects to its queen. Perhaps she can hear me from your bed and is already excited at the prospect.’

And with that, Hagfan, towering over Arawn’s soldiers, thrust his axe slowly up and down in the air and roared with raucous laughter, which was of such volume, Pwyll felt the surrounding stone walls of the castle vibrate.

‘That is very thoughtful of you, Hagfan. I see that you have retained your sense of humour.’ Pwyll, at least, knew how to put on a performance and so this time, he shouted back as loudly as he could. ‘I thought you might have lost it when you lost your big fat head the last time we met!’

Hagfan immediately stopped laughing and looked coldly upwards at Pwyll.

‘Arawn, you may bring your sword and a choice of one other weapon.’ Hagfan pointed directly at Pwyll with the head of his axe. ‘I will need only this, my Tuag, to deal with you once and for all. A fair fight is all I seek, so don’t bring your pack of devil dogs this time! As for any of your guards, they are to stay on the hill overlooking the ford, and only one man is allowed to accompany you down to the ford. When I have cleaved you in two and severed each of your limbs, he may gather the pieces of your body together and say a single prayer over them. Those are the arrangements. We will meet today before dusk, so that I can dispose of you before my supper tonight.’

‘Your terms sound reasonable,’ shouted Pwyll, in turn. ‘Only I advise against preparing what you intend to eat beforehand. You don’t want to waste food on an empty chair. I will meet with you later at the ford as agreed. In the meantime, I have more important matters to attend to in my bed chamber.’

Pwyll felt quite pleased with this answer and was already composing a heroic poem about it. He watched Hagfan stride out through the gate without another word, noticing that several dead geese hung on the giant’s belt. As Hagfan passed the gatemen, he reached out and grabbed the scalp of one of them who could not step away quickly enough from Haglan’s path. Lifting the old man easily by the hair, he slammed him so hard against the portcullis, his body was sliced through its iron bars into bloody strips. Hagfan disappeared before anyone could react to this murder but Pwyll, on turning back to the other stunned occupants of the chamber, realised that the dog, Culhuwch, had remained asleep throughout the whole encounter. Curled up by the door, his relaxed red ears lay flat against the large sphere of motionless white fur.