do injustice, for money or love or hate. He is then brought to the
king, and the officers tell the king that he has taken the solemn
oath. Then the king accepts him as a judge, and gives him his place.
When he leaves, the king gives him a golden chessboard, and the queen
gold rings, and these he is never to part with.

I will tell you about one other officer--the falconer. Falconry was
the favourite pastime of the kings and nobles of the time; indeed,
everybody found it very exciting to watch the long struggle in the
air between the trained falcon and its prey, as each bird tried every
skill of wing and talon that it knew. The falconer was to drink very
sparingly in the king's hall, for fear the falcons might suffer; and
his lodging was to be in the king's barn, not in the king's hall,
lest the smoke from the great fire-place should dim the falcon's
sight.



CHAPTER VII--THE NORMANS



On the death of Griffith ap Llywelyn, many princes tried to become
supreme. Bleddyn of Powys, a good and merciful prince, became the
most important.

In January 1070, when the snow lay thick on the mountains, William,
the Norman Conqueror, appeared at Chester with an army. He had
defeated and killed Harold, the conqueror of Griffith ap Llywelyn, in
1066; he had crushed the power of the Mercian allies of Bleddyn; he