Note 3 — Chapter X · Difficulties of the Folklorist

Another story brings Arthur and the giant Rhita into collision, the latter of whom has already been mentioned as having, according to local tradition, his grave on the top of Snowdon: see pp. 474–9. The story is a very wild one. Two kings who were brothers, Nyniaw or Nynio and Peibiaw or Peibio, quarrelled thus: one moonlight night, as they were together in the open air, Nynio said to Peibio, ‘See, what a fine extensive field I possess.’ ‘Where is it?’ asked Peibio. ‘There it is,’ said Nynio, ‘the whole firmament.’ ‘See,’ said Peibio, ‘what innumerable herds of cattle and sheep I have grazing in thy field.’ ‘Where are they?’ asked Nynio. ‘There they are,’ said Peibio, ‘the whole host of stars that thou seest, each of golden brightness, with the moon shepherding them.’ ‘They shall not graze in my field,’ said Nynio. ‘But they shall,’ said Peibio; and the two kings got so enraged with one another, that they began a war in which their warriors and subjects were nearly exterminated. Then comes Rhita Gawr, king of Wales, and attacks them on the dangerous ground of their being mad. He conquered them and shaved off their beards3; but when the other kings of Prydain, twenty-eight in number, heard of it, they collected all their armies together to avenge themselves on Rhita for the disgrace to which he had subjected the other two. But after a great struggle Rhita conquers again, and has the beards of the other kings shaved. Then the kings of neighbouring kingdoms in all directions combined to make war on Rhita to avenge the disgrace to their order; but they were also vanquished forthwith, and treated in the same ignominious fashion as the thirty kings of Prydain. With the beards he had a mantle made to cover him from head to foot, and that was a good deal, we are told, since he was as big as two ordinary men. Then Rhita turned his attention to the establishment of just and equitable laws as between king and king and one realm with another4. But the sequel to the shaving is related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, x. 3, where Arthur is made to tell how the giant, after destroying the other kings and using their beards in the way mentioned, asked him for his beard to fix above the other beards, as he stood above them in rank, or else to come and fight a duel with him. Arthur, as might be expected, chose the latter course, with the result that he slew Rhita, there called Ritho, at a place said to be in Aravio Monte, by which the Welsh translator understood the chief mountain of Eryri5 or Snowdon. So it is but natural that his grave should also be there, as already mentioned. I may here add that it is the name Snowdon itself, probably, that underlies the Senaudon or Sinadoun of such Arthurian romances as the English version of Libeaus Desconus, though the place meant has been variously supposed to be situated elsewhere than in the Snowdon district: witness Sinodun Hill in Berkshire6.