wedding, bringing as
many of their distinguished followers with them as they deemed necessary
to safe travelling in an unsettled country. Some even came from the
great western island called Erin, and others from the remote isle of the
north which lay beyond Gadarn's country, and was at a later period named
Ultima Thule.

"I wonder when they're going to stop coming," remarked Gadarn to King
Hudibras, as the self-invited guests came pouring in.

"Let them come," replied the jovial king, with the air of a man of
unlimited means. "The more the merrier. There's room for all, and the
forests are big."

"Some of them, I see," rejoined Gadarn, "are my mortal foes. We shall
now have a chance of becoming mortal friends."

It might be supposed that the assemblage of such a host from all points
of the compass would, as it is sometimes expressed, eat King Hudibras
out of house and home; but this was not so, for it was the custom at
that time for visitors at royal courts to hunt for their victuals--to go
in, as it were, for a grand picnic on a continuous basis, so that the
palace of our king, instead of being depleted, became surfeited with
food. As his preserves were extensive, and game of all kinds abundant,
the expense attendant on this kind of hospitality was _nil_.

It would have been very much the reverse had it been necessary to supply
drink, but the art of producing liquids which fuddle, stupefy, and
madden, had not yet been learnt in this country. Consequently there was
no fighting or bloodshed at those jovial festivities, though there was a
certain amount of quarrelling--as might be expected amongst independent
men who held different opinions on many subjects, although politics and
theology had not yet been invented.

Great were the rejoicings when it was discovered, by each band as it
arrived, that there was to be a double wedding; that the Princess
Hafrydda was to be one of the brides, and that the fortunate man who had
won her was a famous warrior of the mysterious East, and one of the
victors at the great games of that part of the world.

How the ceremony of marriage was performed we have not, after the most
painstaking research, been able to ascertain; but that it was performed
somehow, and to the satisfaction of all concerned, we are absolutely
certain, from the fact that Bladud and Branwen, Dromas and Hafrydda,
lived happily together as man and wife for many years afterwards, and
brought up large famili