theology of the age, Gryffyth himself, the son of a wise and famous
father [172], had received an education beyond the average of Saxon
kings. But, intensely national, his mind had turned from all other
literature, to the legends, and songs, and chronicles of his land; and
if he is the best scholar who best understands his own tongue and its
treasures, Gryffyth was the most erudite prince of his age.

His natural talents, for war especially, were considerable; and judged
fairly--not as mated with an empty treasury, without other army than
the capricious will of his subjects afforded, and amidst his bitterest
foes in the jealous chiefs of his own country, against the disciplined
force and comparative civilisation of the Saxon--but as compared with
all the other princes of Wales, in warfare, to which he was
habituated, and in which chances were even, the fallen son of
Llewellyn had been the most renowned leader that Cymry had known since
the death of the great Roderic.

So there he stood; his attendants ghastly with famine, drawn up on the
unequal ground; above, on the heights, and rising from the stone
crags, long lines of spears artfully placed; and, watching him with
deathful eyes, somewhat in his rear, the Traitor Three.

"Speak, father, or chief," said the Welch King in his native tongue;
"what would Harold the Earl of Gryffyth the King?"

Then the monk took up the word and spoke.

"Health to Gryffyth-ap-Llewellyn, his chiefs and his people! Thus
saith Harold, King Edward's thegn: By land all the passes are
watched; by sea all the waves are our own. Our swords rest in our