Game of Badger in the Bag

The Game of Badger in the Bag is a rough, improvised game played by Pwyll’s knights after Gwawl is trapped headfirst inside Rhiannon’s Enchanted Bag. Its name comes from the answer the players give when asked what they are doing: they call the captive a badger. The game converts Pwyll’s successful stratagem into a spectacle, but its violence is checked before it becomes a killing.

The Bag and the Trap

The game depends on the trick Rhiannon devised to recover her freedom from Gwawl without breaking Pwyll’s promise. She arranged for Pwyll to return a year later in coarse, ragged clothes, carrying a small bag and asking for food at Gwawl’s feast. The bag would remain unfilled however much food was put into it; it could be closed only when a man of noble birth and great wealth pressed the food down with both feet and declared that enough had been added.

At the feast, Pwyll’s request appeared modest, and Gwawl agreed to it. When the food failed to fill the bag, Pwyll explained the condition for making it full. Rhiannon urged Gwawl to rise, and he stepped into the bag. Pwyll turned its sides up over Gwawl’s head, tied the thongs, and blew his horn as the signal for his hundred knights to come down from the orchard. The apparent act of generosity had become the final move in a planned capture.

How the Game Is Played

Once Pwyll’s knights entered the palace, they seized Gwawl’s company and put them in Gwawl’s own prison. Pwyll then cast off his disguise. As each knight arrived, he struck the bag with his foot or a staff and asked what was inside; the answer was that it was a badger. The repeated blows and the repeated naming turn Gwawl’s predicament into a game that can be joined by each new arrival.

The scene’s comedy rests on the contrast between the bag’s ordinary appearance and the powerful nobleman hidden inside it. Gwawl had been drawn into the trap by the very condition that made the bag seem impossible to fill: his wealth and rank qualified him to press down its contents. Now those same qualities could not protect him from becoming the object of his captors’ sport. The narrative identifies this as the first playing of the Game of Badger in the Bag, making the episode both the game’s origin and its defining performance.

The Game’s Limit and Aftermath

Gwawl called from inside the bag and pleaded that he did not deserve to be killed there. Pwyll accepted the appeal for counsel, and Rhiannon proposed a settlement rather than further punishment: Gwawl would make gifts to suitors and minstrels in Pwyll’s stead and pledge not to seek revenge. Pwyll accepted her advice, and Gwawl agreed to the terms.

After sureties were named, Gwawl was let out and his liegemen were released. Bruised and in need of treatment, he was allowed to return to his own possessions, leaving nobles behind to answer for him as required. The episode thus places a clear boundary around the game: the captive is struck and humiliated, but the retaliation ends in a binding settlement, not his death. The name preserves the moment of mockery, while the resolution redirects the victory toward compensation and an end to the immediate conflict.