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‘She comes every Saturday to wash her hair, and in the vessel where she washes she leaves all her rings, and never does she so much as send a messenger to fetch them.’

‘Will she come if she is bidden?’ asked Kai, pondering.

‘She will come; but unless you pledge me your faith that you will not harm her I will not fetch her.’

‘We pledge it,’ said they, and the maiden came.

A fair sight was she in a robe of flame-coloured silk, with a collar of ruddy gold about her neck, bright with emeralds and rubies. More yellow was her head than the flower of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands than the blossoms of the wood anemone. Four white trefoils sprang up where she trod, and therefore was she called Olwen.

She entered, and sat down on a bench beside Kilweh, and he spake to her:

‘Ah, maiden, since first I heard thy name I have loved thee–wilt thou not come away with me from this evil place?’

‘That I cannot do,’ answered she, ‘for I have given my word to my father not to go without his knowledge, for his life will only last till I am betrothed. Whatever is, must be, but this counsel I will give you. Go, and ask me of my father, and whatsoever he shall required of thee grant it, and thou shalt win me; but if thou deny him anything thou wilt not obtain me, and it will be well for thee if thou escape with thy life.’

‘All this I promise,’ said he.

So she returned to the castle, and all Arthur’s men went after her, and entered the hall.

‘Greeting to thee, Yspaddaden Penkawr,’ said they. ‘We come to ask thy daughter Olwen for Kilweh, son of Kilydd.’

‘Come hither to-morrow and I will answer you,’ replied Yspaddaden Penkawr, and as they rose to leave the hall he caught up one of the three poisoned darts that lay beside him and flung it in their midst. But Bedwyr saw and caught it, and flung it back so hard that it pierced the knee of Yspaddaden.

‘A gentle son-in-law, truly!’ he cried, writhing with pain. ‘I shall ever walk the worse for this rudeness. Cursed be the smith who forged it, and the anvil on which it was wrought!’

That night the men slept in the house of Custennin the herdsman, and the next day they proceeded to the castle, and entered the hall, and said:

‘Yspaddaden Penkawr, give us thy daughter and thou shalt keep her dower. And unless thou wilt do this we will slay thee.’

‘Her four great grandmothers and her four great grandfathers yet live,’ answered Yspaddaden Penkawr; ‘it is needful that I take counsel with them.’

‘Be it so; we will go to meat,’ but as they turned he took up the second dart that lay by his side and cast it after them. And Menw caught it, and flung it at him, and wounded him in the chest, so that it came out at his back.

‘A gentle son-in-law, truly!’ cried Yspaddaden, ‘the iron pains me like the bite of a horse-leech. Cursed be the hearth whereon it was heated, and the smith who formed it!’ The third day Arthur’s men returned to the palace into the presence of Yspaddaden.

‘Shoot not at me again,’ said he, ‘unless you desire death. But lift up my eyebrows, which have fallen over my eyes, that I may see my son-in-law.’ Then they arose, and as they did so Yspaddaden Penkawr took the third poisoned dart and cast it at them. And Kilweh caught it, and flung it back, and it passed through his eyeball, and came out on the other side of his head.

‘A gentle son-in-law, truly! Cursed be the fire in which it was forged and the man who fashioned it!’

The next day Arthur’s men came again to the palace and said: