Excerpt: The Matter of Wales

The summer sun rose early in Dyfed. It slipped past the stifling pea-soup-esque fog that held fast to the moist earth. A young man, a prince and lord over the seven cantrefs of Dyfed, stood. His blue eyes scanned the horizon as he trudged up a low rising mound of dirt. The trees seemed to whisper to him and he was cognizant of these trace words. Glyn Cuch would be the place to hunt. The conditions were right. The dark trunked birches sang to the willows.

Pwyll sniffed the air. It was heady with the stench of wild beasts. He reached for the horn slung across his chest and blew into it, releasing the low bellowing call of the hunt. His men mustered the dogs and off they ran.

He could not quite put his finger on the reason why Glyn Cuch was the right place for a hunt, but it came to him as if in a dreamscape. Whilst sitting to supper with his men in Arberth, his principal court, Pwyll's mind had slipped out of the conversation. A vision of a leafy green clearing came to him and he saw a mound. An enormous white stag came into view and then perched atop the earthen rise. It's eyes were black as night and they peered at him, majestic as any king.

Glyn Nyfer, a tall red haired fellow, shook him from this trifling fantasy by reiterating his question. "Chieftain, what say you?"

"A hunt." Pwyll replied.