7
In the never-ending battle between the principalities of Wales and their aggressive, acquisitive neighbours, the victorious king, Edward I of England, having subdued the native princes had banned the bards, recognising their power, their ability to remember, their position in society as the keepers of memories of freedom and power. To be a bard was to be the inspiration of a people; to be the instigator of longing for freedom; it was a position of enormous influence.
To be a bard was now punishable by death.
Bards had come back of course. Or never gone away.
For two hundred years the Welsh people lay under the English yoke, their impatience growing, their dissatisfaction ever increasing, their bards and poets studying the dream of independence. They were waiting for Y Mab Darogan, the Son of Destiny, who would come to liberate them and make them a great nation once more.
In the middle of the fourteenth century such a man was born, his arrival heralded by a comet in the sky. By the year 1400 he was ready for his destiny.
In their dream they smelt smoke. Far below the hillside where they stood the castle nestled within the angle of the great river, a black silhouette against the green of flood-meadow grass. The keep stood four-square, the stone walls massive cliffs pierced by slit windows, lit from without by the dying sun and from within by fire. The moan of the wind and the yelp of circling kites were broken by the occasional thunder of cannon fire and they thought they could hear the screams of injured men. Creeping closer to the edge of the wood, heart in mouth, they watched the topmost battlement crumble and heard the crash of falling stone. The cannon fell silent and there was a roar of cheering, though from here they could see no men, no banners,
