including the counties of Pembroke and parts of those of Cardigan and Carmarthen, used to be called Dyved, from its ancient inhabitants the Demetæ. Now it had come to Gwydion's knowledge that the king of Dyved, who was called Pryderi, son of Pwyll Head of Hades, had been presented from Hades with a species of animals never before met with in this country, namely, hobeu, that is to say, swine; and Gwydion resolved to bring some of them into Gwyneᵭ or his own Venedotian country, in North Wales. He set out, accordingly, to ask for some of the swine; but he did not expect his errand to be an easy one. He had, however, full confidence in his own powers; for when Mâth hinted that he might be refused the swine, his answer was, 'I am not a bad hand at a bargain: I shall not come without the swine.' So he and eleven followers, all disguised as bards from North Wales, presented themselves in due time at the court of Pryderi, on the banks of the river Teivi. They met with an excellent reception; and on the evening of the first day, Pryderi suggested that one of the young men in Gwydion's suite should tell a tale or relate a history—I use both words, because the Mabinogi, touched by no nice discrimination born of the bolder wisdom of a later age, makes no distinction between story and history, between story-tellers and historians.[1] Gwydion replied in the following words: 'It is a custom of ours that the chief professional of the company should recite the first night we come to a
- ↑ This will, however, scarcely be treated as irrefragable evidence of antiquity by any one who has thought of the number of the stories which historians still allow to count as history. More than one instance has been noticed in these lectures.
