Rhiannon: The Horse Goddess of Welsh Mythology and Her Trials
She enters the oldest prose literature of Britain at a walking pace, and no one can catch her. In the First Branch of the Mabinogi —the four linked Welsh tales written down in the Middle Ages from matter incalculably older—Pwyll, prince of Dyfed, sits upon the mound of Arberth, a hill with a property: whoever sits on it will receive either blows or a wonder. He receives the wonder. Along the road below comes a lady on a shining white horse , dressed in gold brocade, riding at an unhurried amble; Pwyll sends his best rider after her, then his fastest horse, then gallops himself until his mount founders—and the amble stays ahead of the gallop, serene, unforced, always exactly out of reach. The pursuit is repeated on three days, futile as a dream, until at last Pwyll thinks of the one measure no man in the tale has yet attempted: he asks . Maiden, for the sake of the man you love most, wait for me. And the lady reins in at once and delivers one of the finest replies in medieval literatu...