A Harp on the Water

Long long ago, when the tally of years was at its start in this Island, there was a most wicked king living in a stone palace where the lake of Bala is now. Of him is it said: 'Whom he would kill he killed; whom he would spare he spared', and of these latter it was added that they were extremely few.

One day, not long after he came to the throne, and was still a young man, he was walking in his garden meditating cruelty when a voice, between a silver bell and a bird cry, fell upon his ear, saying 'Vengeance will come. Vengeance will come.' Almost immediately he heard a second voice, farther off than the first, asking: 'When will it come? When will it come?' Then he heard the first voice reply: 'In the third generation. The third generation.' At this he laughed aloud and shouted through the garden: 'If it be not come before that who am I to care?' And he planned to be wickeder than ever.

Years later, when his three sons were born and showing signs of being crueller than he, he was once more walking in the garden when he heard the same voices crying the same words: 'Vengeance will come. When will it come? In the third generation, the third generation.' Once more he burst out laughing. 'I defy vengeance,' he shouted. 'And where is there a king mighty enough to wreak it?' And he hurried back indoors to instruct his sons in further wickedness.

Years passed, till the day when the stone walls of the palace rang with rejoicing over the birth of a son to the king's son and heir. A command went out, and armed men to bear it, far and wide through the countryside, ordering all who loved the king (and their own necks too) to proceed to the palace and rejoice with the loudest. In particular, a guard was sent after a white-headed harper who lived high in the hills, that he should provide music for feasting and dancing that night. He came unwillingly and was dumb-dazed to see the silver candlesticks and goblets of gold, the flow of white mead and the embroidered robes of the ladies. Nor had he much heart for playing as he watched the faces of the oppressors, with their hard, enamelled smiles and ice-filmed eyes. But 'Play!' ordered the king, and play he must, while the red mouths moved in the white faces and the bedecked hands stabbed like daggers.

Towards midnight there was an interval between feasting and dancing, and the harpist was left alone, without bite or swallow, in a quiet corner overlooking the garden. Suddenly he heard a voice, plangent as a harpstring, and then low thrilling words by his ear: 'Vengeance will come. Vengeance will come.' He turned and outside in the moonlit garden he could see a small brown bird which hovered and fluttered and seemed to invite him to follow. Stiff and tired as he was, he rose and left the palace, and still the bird withdrew before him, sometimes aloft in the air and sometimes trailing its wing along the path he should take. At the palace wall, heh stood hesitating, but, 'Vengeance, vengeance!' cried the brown bird, motioning with its head and wings, and it now seemed no easier to return than go forward. On they went, over field and furrow, till the hillside soared above them. Even in his anxiety the harpist could see that the bird always directed him by the smoothest way, and always when he paused its cry impelled him forwards again.

At last they reached the top of the hill, where his exhaustion was so great that he sank to the ground to rest: and now for the first time the bird was silent. The moon slid behind a black cloud that climbed out of the east; instead of a wide vision he could hardly see his hand before him; and the splashing of a brook somewhere below warned him that it might be dangerous to make any move. It came into his head and heart how foolish he had been to follow the voice of a bird, and he remembered that he had left his harp behind him in the palace. 'I must return,' he cried, 'before the dancing starts!' But the thought of those cruel faces struck him with such a horror that he could not move, and soon weariness and the dark overcame him and he slept heavily till break of day.

In the morning he arose and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Then he rubbed them again and again, for when he looked towards the palace there was no palace there: only a huge, calm lake where walls and towers had been, and his harp floating towards him on the face of the waters.

From 'Welsh Legends and Folktales, Gwyn Jones. OUP 1955