as on the right side bounded across to the left side, and
the one that was on the left to the right, and like two sea-swallows
sported they around him. And his courser cast up four sods with
his four hoofs like four swallows in the air, now above his head
and now below. About him was a four-cornered cloth of purple,
having an apple of gold at each corner; and every one of the
apples was of the value of a hundred kine. And there was
precious gold of the value of three hundred kine upon his shoes
and upon his stirrups, from his knee to the tip of his toe. And
the blade of reed-grass bent not beneath him, as he journeyed
towards the gates of Arthur's palace."

So far we have the glittering imagination of the twelfth-century
bard; you might think working in a medium not wholly Celtic, but
Norman-influenced as well; imagining his Arthurian Culhwch in
terms of the knights he had seen at the courts of the Lords
Marchers,--were it not that just such descriptions are the
commonplaces of Irish Celticism, where they come from a time and
people that had never seen Norman knights at all. But now you
begin to leave regions where Normans can be remembered or
imagined at all:

"Spake the youth, 'Is there a porter?'--'There is; and unless
thou holdest thy peace, small will be thy welcome. I am the
porter of Arthur's hall on the first day of January in every
year; and on every other day than this the post is filled by
Huandaw, and Gogigwc, and Llaescenym, and Penpingion who goeth
upon his head to save his feet, neither towards the heavens nor
towards the earth, but like a rolling stone upon the floor of
the court.'--'Open thou the portal.'--'I will not open it.'--
'Wherefore not?'--'The knife is in the meat and the drink is in
the horn, and there is revelry in Arthur's court; and no man may
enter but a craftsman bearing his craft, or the son of the king
of a privileged country. But there will be refreshment for thy
dogs and for thy horse, and for thee there will be collops cooked
and peppered, and luscious wine and mirthful song,--and food for
fifty men shall be set before thee in the guest chamber, where
the stranger and the sons of other countries eat, who come not
into the precincts of the palace of Arthur. Said the youth,
'That will I not do. If thou openest the portal, it is well. If
thou dost not open it, I will bring disgrace upon thy lord and an
evil report upon thee. And I will set up three shouts at this
very ga