Cylchgronau Cymru

The wedding at the Lion RHYS DAVIES MAIR, THE DAUGHTER at the Lion, set out one afternoon on the mis- sion that is so important to her sex. Her birthday had arrived that month, and although in due course she would inherit the prosperous Lion inn from her father and therefore had nothing to fear in the way of a well-tiled roof for her head, ample meals for her stomach, and a luxurious bed for her back, she had set her mind on obtaining that fur- ther comfort without which these securities lose worth for a woman. In addition, she had honestly fallen in love, and it was really this that gave her well-shod feet their springing trot that afternoon. On her shoulders lay the fur of an heiress and on her wrist gleamed the birth- day watch her father had given her. She looked after his inn with talent and, now that he was free of his grievous wife, who had worried her- self into the grave, he had practically retired and was forever off on jaunts to cattle-fairs, auctions, races and sprees in market towns. Except to buy clothes, for which she had an undisciplined passion, Mair herself seldom left the Lion now, and people out in the village that afternoon wondered where she was making for so briskly, swing- ing a fine glossy handbag. Perhaps she was going to the auction over at Morlais, where three farm-labourers' cottages were to be sold. A good deal of the Lion wealth had been acquired from investments in house property and land. But Mair crossed the bridge in another direction. Passing the castle ruins, she skirted the long field where a famous eleventh century battle had been fought between the invading Normans and the truculent but vanquished natives. The lovely vale began to open there. This was one of those coigns of old Wales where life and habits seemed to have re- mained unchanged since the days of the Black Book of Carmarthen, cat-witches, and the native king who decreed that a woman should be tested for marriage by her ability in holding on to the greased tail of a galloping heifer. Although in another connection, it was a cow that had helped Mair