“Iain Dyfed’s bent back came into view on the other side of the hedgerow, yellow polo shirt covered in mud-stains from his fingers. He whistled an old hymn through his teeth that Warren had forgotten the name of.
“Dad!” he yelped. “Hi!”
Iain straightened and glanced over his shoulder. “Afternoon. Hello, who’s this?”
Mr. Rye’s breath landed on the back of Warren’s neck, cold and sweet like meat rotting in an abattoir. “One word wrong, and you won’t breathe another.”
He swallowed and tried not to shake. “Dad, this is Mr. Rye. The school guidance counsellor.”
“Oh ah?” Now Iain stuck his hoe into the mud and threw a handful of nettles into a waiting wheelbarrow. Evidently, the tractor was still not fixed. “What’s my son been doing now?”
Mr. Rye hesitated before answering, an unpleasant smile of amusement on his face as he watched Warren watching him, knowing he could tell his father about the late-night break-in. In the end, all he said was:
“Nothing at all, Mr. Dyfed. I’m new to the area, and your boy kindly offered to take me on a walking tour. So, this is your farm, is it? Very nice.”
“It was larger in my father’s time.” Iain rubbed more dirt onto his forehead and regarded Mr. Rye with a slight squint in his left eye. Warren noticed that subtle sign of affection and groaned inwardly. The Dark Rider was trying to make friends with his dad. And it was working. “Now we have a few horses and a couple of empty fields, a tractor that won’t start and crops rotting in the ground unless I pull them up with my own two hands. We did used to have sheep, so we did, and a sheepdog too but we had to sell the crowd of the former and something has befallen the latter. I’d sell the horses but they were a soft spot of my wife’s… she always said she’d start up a riding school for the village children. Never happened.”
Mr. Rye had frozen, trying not to look bored. “Oh, yes?”
“Yes. I tell you what now, why don’t you take young Mr. Rye inside and give him a glass of juice or something, Warren? It’s a heatwave and us adults are sweating half to death.”
“I won’t be staying long.” The Dark Rider spoke like oil through Mr. Rye’s mouth. Warren placed a hand on the front door as if in a slow, horrible dream.”
WHO IS GWYN AP NUDD?
Sometimes spelled Gwynn ap Nudd, this mythic being was originally lord of Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld / world of the Dead. He was also associated with the Wild Hunt. Later on he was known as King of the Fair Folk (or the Tylwyth Teg in Welsh stories).
Gwyn means “fair, bright, white”, similar to the Irish word or name Fionn. Perhaps he has a connection to the Irish hero, Fionn mac Cumhail, whose great-grandfather (on his mother’s side) was Nuada. The name of Gwyn’s father (Nudd), like Nuada, may be related to Nodens, a Brythonic god.
IN ARTHURIAN MYTH:
One of Gwyn’s brothers was Owain ap Nudd, a character in Arthurian stories briefly mentioned in “Geraint and Enid.”
Gwyn ap Nudd played a significant role in another Arthurian legend, “Culhwch and Olwen.” In it, he kidnapped his sister Creiddylad from her husband-to-be, Gwythr ap Greidawl.
Gwythyr sent a vast army against Gwyn, which led to a savage battle that Gwyn won. Gwyn captured some of Gwythyr’s noblemen, including Nwython and his son Cyledr. Gwyn later killed Nwython and made Cyledr consume his father’s heart. As a result, Cyledr went mad, earning himself the epithet Wyllt.
After King Arthur intervened, Gwyn and Gwythr agreed to duel for Creiddylad every May-Day until Judgement Day. Whichever warrior won the fight on the final day would take Creiddylad as his wife.
According to Culhwch and Olwen, Gwyn was “placed over the brood of devils in Annwn, lest they should destroy the present race”.
In the story Culhwch and Olwen, Culhwch ap Cilydd had to complete a list of impossible tasks, Hercules-style, before he was allowed to marry Olwen. The tasks were demanded of him by Olwen’s father, a giant named Ysbaddaden. One of these tasks was to fetch a comb and some scissors from the head of a nefarious and deadly boar, Twrch Trwyth. As it was impossible to hunt the boar without Gwyn’s help, they called upon Gwyn to join King Arthur and his retinue against Twrch Trwyth. During the hunt, Gwyn rode Du y Moroedd, the only horse that could carry him. Gwyn and Gwythyr also set out with King Arthur to find the blood of Orddu, a witch of Hell’s uplands.
GWYN THE PSYCHOPOMP:
Gwyn appears a lot in a medieval poem called The Dialogue of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir, included in the Black Book of Carmarthen. Gwyn, returning from battle, stumbles upon Gwyddno Garanhir, the king of Cantre’r Gwaelod, and gives him his protection. After that, Gwyn tells Gwyddno about his achievements on the battlefield and his role as a psychopomp — an entity that gathers the souls of dying British warriors, such as Bran the Blessed, Meurig ap Carreian, Gwendoleu ap Ceidaw, and Llacheu ab Arthur. His talents in combat are extolled in the poem, which claims he is “the hope of armies” and a “hero of hosts.” When asked which region he comes from, Gwyn answers “I come from battle and conflict.” The poem ends with Gwyn announcing:
I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain.
From the east to the north
I am the escort of the grave.
I have been where the soldiers of Britain were slain.
From the east to the south
I am alive, they in death!
Gwyn is a psychopomp in later myth, as the leader of the “Wild Hunt”, where he leads a pack of ghostly hounds, the Cŵn Annwn, to harvest human souls. (This role is similar to that of Woden or Herne the Hunter.) Some tales say the name of Gwyn’s chief huntsman is Iolo ap Huw, who might be found cheering Cŵn Annwn over Cader Idris on Halloween. Hearing the baying of Gwyn’s hounds was an omen of impending death in the family, according to Welsh folklore. In the poem, The Dialogue, Gwyn is accompanied by his favourite hound, “Dormarth” of the ruddy nose.
Gwyn also witnessed a conflict in front of Caer Vandwy, an otherworldly fortress.
AS A FAIRY:
In Buchedd Collen (The Life of Saint Collen), Gwyn and his cohort are banished from Glastonbury Tor with holy water. According to the Speculum Christiani (a manuscript arguing against divination from the 1300s), Welsh prophets would call upon Gwyn before entering the woods, saying, “To the King of Spirits, and to his Queen — Gwyn ap Nudd, you who are yonder in the forest, for love of your mate, permit us to enter your dwelling.”
The fourteenth-century bard, Dafydd ap Gwilym, mentioned Gwyn in a few texts, which may mean that Gwyn was well-known in Wales in medieval times. In Y Dylluan, Dafydd describes the owl as a “fowl of Gwyn ap Nudd”. Y Pwll Mawn, where the poet tells an autobiographical account in which he and his horse almost drowned in a lake, described the body of water as the “fish lake of Gwyn ap Nudd” and “the palace of the elves and their children.”
Gwyn ap Nudd makes an appearance or two in “The Dark Rider” where he has been attempting to avoid the Battle of Beddegran by disguising himself as a donkey in an enchanted glade with an attractive tree-nymph. After centuries of slaughter and carting around deceased souls, who could blame him?
Nightwalks 