the chubby boy and had him christened; but no sooner was he christened, the story goes on to say, than he made for the sea; and no sooner was he in the sea than he acquired the nature thereof, for he swam as well as the best fish in its waters, wherefore he was called Dylan son of the Wave: no wave ever broke under him. The rest of his story is compressed into the single statement that his death was caused by a blow dealt by his uncle the smith, Govannon son of Dôn. To return to Gwydion: he heard one morning as he lay awake in his bed a low sound issuing from the chest at the foot of it; getting up quickly, he opened the chest, and, as he did so, he there beheld a little boy swaying his arms about from the folds of the satin sheet and scattering it. He took the child in his arms, and made for a town where he knew of a nurse and engaged her. The boy was in her charge for a year, in the course of which he attained to such a size as would have been surprising even if he had been two years old; and in the second year he was a big lad able to come to the court by himself. Gwydion took notice of him, and the boy became fonder of him than of anybody else. He was afterwards brought up at the court[1] until he was four; and at that age it would have been a wonder, the story tells us, to find a boy of eight as big as he was. One day, when he was out walking with his father, the latter took him to Arianrhod's castle. What then happened, owing to her disgust at
- ↑ At first sight this looks as if it meant Mâth's court in the neighbourhood of the Conwy, but the drift of the story is best understood by supposing the court meant to have been Gwydion'a own court, which was probably at Dinas Dinỻe or at Caer Seon (p. 271). It was doubtless some place nearer to Caer Arianrhod than Mâth's court.
